Cowboys Don't Quit

by Anne McAllister

  He jerked his gaze away, angry with himself. "Take it any way you like," he growled, kneading tight muscles in the back of his neck. "I can't do this," he said abruptly.

  "Can't do what?"

  "This. Talk. Soul search." He twisted the words as he said them.

  "You brought it up."

  "I shouldn't have."

  "If it needed to be said—"

  "It didn't."

  "Fine, let's talk about Keith."

  "No. I told you, I can't. If you really need me to, give me some tapes and your tape recorder. I'll tell what I know into the tapes."

  "I have to ask—"

  "Tapes," he insisted. "Tapes or nothing. Look," he argued when she didn't reply, "it'll be better for you. If I do tapes, you don't have to hang around here waiting. Leave your address with Annette. I'll bring 'em down when I'm done and she can mail them to you."

  "How do I know you won't just head back up into the hills and forget you ever saw me?"

  "I wish to God I could."

  "Luke..."

  "I'll do it," he promised her. "I owe it to Keith."

  "I didn't mean—"

  "No. You were right. And I'll pay what I owe. But, for God's sake, let me pay it my way."

  She opened her mouth to speak again, but he forestalled her. "Please."

  His fingers curled into fists. He stared resolutely on across the now-dark valley. He couldn't look at her. He knew what he'd see—that look of wide-eyed confusion mingling with anticipation that he remembered all to well. The look she'd had when he'd kissed her.

  "I'll do tapes," he said again. It was his last offer.

  Jill sighed. "All right."

  Inarticulate didn't begin to describe him.

  Tongue-tied would have been a compliment.

  Why he had ever thought talking on tape would be easy, Luke didn't know. It wasn't.

  He started, stopped, mumbled, erased, cursed, mu-tered, started—and stopped—again. And again.

  He'd practically flunked speech in high school. What had he been thinking of, for Pete's sake?

  He'd been thinking of avoiding Jill.

  It was as simple as that. But in fact, he didn't seen to be able to avoid her at all.

  Oh, personally she might be back in New York, but in his mind—his damned, irritating, contrary mind;—she was alive and well in those half-dozen little plastic cas-settes that sat on his shelf and mocked him day after day, night after night.

  When he couldn't just sit down and mindlessly rattle things off the way he'd hoped to, he thought if he pre-pared, then just spouted the words into the recorder, he could get enough distance from the topic—and from the woman—to do it.

  So he spent his days when he was out checking the cattle and riding fence thinking about what he wanted to say, then scribbling notes in a pocket-size notebook.

  But it didn't take him long to realize that writing down notes just meant he spent all day, every day, thinking about not thinking about her. And thinking about Keith.

  For almost two years he'd done his best not to think about either of them. With Keith it had simply been too painful at first. And with Jill...it had seemed far smarter not to.

  He'd survived by focusing on the present, on this cow and that calf, on this fence and that piece of wire. He had managed to hang onto his sanity—just—by deliberately not thinking about the last seven years of his life. But once he started to do what he'd told Jillian he would do, the memories just kept welling up, even though he couldn't seem to talk about them.

  And with them came a whole roller coaster's worth of emotions. Ever since Keith's death Luke had been plagued by one in particular—guilt. But now, as he let his mind play back over the time he'd been Keith's friend, he found that there was a lot more to it. He was, by turns, sad and happy, angry and amused, delighted and distraught as he remembered the years he'd spent in the charmed world of Keith Mallory, God's gift to film, fans and friends.

  And he found, oddly, that though he couldn't talk to the tape without feeling like a gold-plated fool, he had plenty to say to Keith.

  "This is all your fault," Luke told his friend. He shoved himself further up against the tree trunk he was sitting in front of and rubbed Hank's back. Then he tossed a stone into the swift current of the river. "If you hadn't come up here making your damned movies, none of this would have happened."

  It was midafternoon. The day was warm, working its way toward downright hot, and he'd spent the morning moving a couple bunches of cattle to new pastures. He had some more to move later, but cattle weren't fooled. They moved easier when it was cooler, and Luke didn't mind waiting and shading up a bit while he ate a sand-wich and drank some juice.

  As he sat there with the dogs at his feet, he remem-bered the last time he'd sat under this tree. That after-noon almost two years ago, right before they'd started shooting up on the Salmon.

  He and Keith had decided to take the long way around. It was the first time in over a year that they'd gone off, just the two of them, to raise a little hell and have a good time.

  It had been Keith's idea; he'd suggested it right after the weekend Luke and Jill had spent at Big bear. Jill had left to do a series of interviews in the East, and Keith had found himself with time on his hands.

  "Let's do it," he'd said. "I won't be able to once I'm an old married man." He'd given Luke a lascivious wink. "Not that I'll be complaining."

  And Luke, who was doing his best to forget kissing Jill, hadn't quite been able to look Keith in the eye. But the notion of just the two of them roughnecking around sounded good. "Whatever you want," he'd said gruffly.

  They'd set off without any particular aim other than to go somewhere they could hang out where no one would recognize Keith or, if they did, wouldn't bother him.

  The only place Luke could think of was his old stomping grounds.

  "They'll let you alone," he'd promised. And he'd seen to it that they had. The cattle had already been brought down by the time he and Keith arrived, so the cabin wasn't being used and old Mick Cardenal, who owned the place then, had been happy to let Luke and Keith use it.

  It was too early for hunting season, but they rode and loafed and fished. Luke taught Keith how to tie flies. Neither of them shaved. Both of them drank a lot of beer.

  "When I die," Keith had said sleepily one afternoon, lying under this very tree, "I hope heaven turns out to be southwestern Colorado."

  "What makes you think you're going to heaven?" Luke had said.

  Keith had opened one eye halfway. "Because I have always led a pure, unblemished, undented existence. Why else?"

  Luke had tossed a rock at him. And they'd both burst out laughing....

  Now, two years later, Luke lay staring up through those same branches at another cloud-dotted Colorado sky.

  "So, is it?" he asked Keith softly. "Is heaven like southwestern Colorado?"

  "Who you talkin' to?" asked a childish voice behind him. Luke jerked up to see Paco standing there, holding the reins of Jimmy Kline's smallest horse. "You talkin' to God?"

  Luke sat up straight, flushing. "What're you doing up here?" he demanded.

  The boy shrugged narrow shoulders. "Running away from home."

  "How come?"

  "Too many girls." Paco wrinkled his nose. "Mama yells and Nelida bosses and Elena tags along all the time." Nelida was his older sister and Elena the younger. Luke didn't know them well, only enough to be glad he'd had brothers. "Can I live with you?"

  "No."

  "Why not? You got room. I could help you with the cattle. I'm a good rider. An' I can cook. Scrambled eggs. Toast. Bacon. I help Mama in the mornings in the cafe. Or I did," he added with a frown, "until Nelida bossed me out."

  "Why'd she boss you out?" Luke asked, trying not to smile.

  Paco took his question as an invitation to stay. He tied the horse and began balancing on a fallen log. '"Cause she's dumb. She says I broke the toaster, but I didn't. 1 fixed it."

  "Does it wor
k?"

  "It would if she'd let me finish." Paco reached the end of the log and turned around and walked carefully back again. Hank followed him. Paco jumped off, picked up a rock and hurled it into the river. "I hate her. How come you were talkin' to God?"

  Luke had hoped Paco'd forgotten that. Fat chance. He shrugged his back against the tree. "I was just muttering."

  Paco threw another rock, then walked to the edge of the bluff overlooking the river so he could see where it hit.

  "Get away from there," Luke said. "You could damned well fall in."

  "You'd save me," Paco said.

  Luke snorted. "I'd wave adios, chico. Get back now."

  Paco made a face, but he went back to the log and started balancing again. "So how come?" he persisted. Luke sighed. '"Cause I got a woman bossin' me around, too."

  "Jill."

  Luke blinked. "How do you know?"

  "She told you to make tapes about Keith."

  "How do you know?" Luke demanded again.

  "She told me."

  Had she told the whole damned world before she left?

  "How many you done?"

  "None. Zero. Zip. Nada."

  Paco's eyes widened. "She's gonna be mad."

  "I'll do 'em," Luke said gruffly. "It isn't exactly a piece of cake, talking into a machine."

  "Talk to me."

  Luke grunted. But it wasn't a totally stupid idea. In fact, it was a whole lot better than doing it by himself. He could answer Paco's questions. And Paco wasn't likely to ask anything he wouldn't be willing to answer. "Okay," he said.

  "So, I can live with you." Paco beamed.

  "I didn't say that!"

  "But if we're gonna talk—"

  "It doesn't take all day. Your mother needs you. You help her with breakfast."

  "I'll help you. Please." Paco's dark eyes were beseeching.

  Luke looked away. He picked up a rock and flung it savagely into the river. He ground his teeth.

  "Remember in The Thunder Rolls," Paco said, citing one of Keith's best known movies, "where that kid, Jeremy, wants to stay with Keith on the boat—"

  "It's not the same. It was a movie, for cripe's sake."

  Paco cocked his head. "So it can't be true?"

  "It can be," Luke admitted after a long moment. But he didn't want it to be. He threw another rock. And another. "Your mother won't let you," he said finally, hopefully, after a long moment.

  "I'll ask her." Paco grinned.

  She said yes.

  "For three days," Paco told him the next afternoon He looked disappointed as he reported the time limit then his mother had put on his stay with Luke. But then he brightened. "Maybe I can talk her into longer. I could break another toaster."

  "Not in this life," Luke warned.

  He was sitting on the steps of the cabin in the cool shadow of the evening, whittling a piece of soft pine. He tried not to show the dismay he felt. It had nothing to do with the kid personally, but Paco'd never believe that. Luke gouged his knife into the soft wood.

  The boy scowled as he clumped up the steps carrying his sleeping bag. "You could at least say, 'We'll see,'" he grumbled.

  "We'll see," Luke said dutifully.

  Paco looked back at him over his shoulder. "You're just sayin' that."

  Luke winked. "We'll see."

  Paco grinned. "I'll get a tape and we can start."

  It had sounded like a good idea yesterday. But now, faced with the prospect, he didn't want to do it anymore than he ever had.

  "C'mon. It'll be fun," Paco said. "I wanna know everything."

  It wasn't fun. And Paco did damn near want to know everything. But having the kid ask him questions was easier than doing it on his own.

  He reiterated for the tape the stuff he'd told Jill about how he and Keith had met. Then he told Paco about the first movie in which he'd actually doubled for Keith, about some of the stunts he'd done, which Keith had argued he ought to be doing himself. Luke talked his way through the movies they'd made in Portugal and India, in L.A. and New York, in Alaska and Tanzania. He talked about the good times. And talking about them to someone who was all eager ears and eyes was bittersweet.

  It was so easy to remember how much fun it had been, how charmed Keith's life had seemed.

  And, of course, how tragically it had ended. He talked until long after the sun had set. He sat there on the porch as the temperature dipped, and Paco sat huddled and wrapped in a sleeping bag, asking questions. Overhead a three-quarter moon slowly rose to hang like a single silvery beam in a star-studded, navy-velvet sky. And still he talked.

  He didn't see any of it. Not the child, not the sky, not the moon nor the stars.

  He was seeing Keith—Keith laughing when the horse had bucked him off in Portugal, Keith waving his arms as the elephant's trunk curled around him and lifted him off the ground in India. He was remembering the way Keith had given him a thumb's-up sign after a rough-and-tumble bar fight in L.A., and the way he'd ridden a borrowed skateboard, standing on his hands, as they'd swooped through New York's Central Park. He was envisioning Keith, grinning like a fool through an icecrusted mustache as he'd ridden behind a dogsled in Alaska, and a few months later, staring dreamily off into the sunrise on the Indian Ocean, his hand on the tiller of a traditional Arab dhow.

  He remembered the utter stillness of the man and the moment.

  And then Keith had looked over at Luke and smiled a crooked smile. "Who'd've thought a kid from Oxnard would ever come this far?" he'd said softly.

  Or a boy from Bluff Springs, Colorado.

  And who'd have thought that eight months later Keith would be dead, and that Luke would be back in Bluff Springs now?

  He cleared his throat and jerked himself out of his reverie. "Do you know what a dhow is?" he asked Paco.

  The boy didn't reply.

  Luke looked around. Paco had been wrapped in his sleeping bag and was sitting behind him on the narrow porch, leaning against the wall of the house as he listened. He was still wrapped in the sleeping bag, still leaning against the wall, but he wasn't sitting any longer. He'd tipped sideways. His head was cradled in the crook of his arm, his lips were slightly parted, his eyes shut.

  Luke studied him silently for a moment, then reached out and shut off the recorder. "That boring, was it?" he asked quietly.

  Paco made a soft, whuffling sound. Luke set down his knife and the wood he'd been whittling. He got to his feet and brushed the wood shavings off his jeans. Bending down, he slipped his hands beneath the sleeping child and lifted him easily in his arms. Then he nudged open the door with his toe and carried Paco into the cabin.

  He couldn't remember ever holding or carrying a child before. His own younger brother, Noah, was so close to his age that Luke had never carried him and, as an adult, he'd only been friends with guys like Keith, as childless as himself, and Carl, a widower whose children were grown.

  It was a strange feeling.

  The boy's warm, trusting weight felt oddly comforting as he crossed the room and settled Paco on one of the narrow bunks. He tucked the sleeping bag around him, then stepped back and stared down at the slumbering child, feeling an unwelcome, unaccustomed envy of those men to whom the weight of a child was commonplace.

  He'd never felt such an envy before. Had never wanted to feel it.

  Still didn't, he reminded himself sharply. He didn't want to be responsible for other people. He wasn't good at it. Fatherhood, like marriage, wasn't for the likes of him.

  He did his penance. He made the tapes. It was easier—as he'd suspected—to do them with Paco's help. He liked talking to the boy, liked answering the boy's questions, telling him stories, making him smile.

  But it was harder than he'd dreamed for exactly the same reason.

  Because of Paco, Luke spent every day, all day in the presence of childish innocence and trusting naivete that enchanted and pained him at the same time. With unfailing good cheer and eager curiosity, Paco, astride Jimmy Kline's ge
ntle mare, followed him like a shadow everywhere he went. He held the wire while Luke stapled it. He chivied cattle out of the willows while Luke did the same. He even wanted Luke to teach him how to give an ornery old bull an antibiotic injection.

  "You don't have to learn that," Luke said.

  "I want to do what you do."

  And so he did. And in doing so, Paco treated Luke to three days' worth of a view of the world unhampered by cynicism, by the constant plague of "what ifs" and "might have beens." There was none of that as far as Paco was concerned. He saw the world—the mountains, the trees, the cattle, the people—and it was good.

  Luke didn't understand it. The kid had lost his father, for heaven's sake. He had a mother who was coping with three small children, struggling and just barely succeeding to make ends meet. His biggest hero was a man who'd died in his prime. He had to know that the world wasn't a carefree place!

  But if he did, the knowledge didn't seem to dull Paco's enthusiasm.

  He met every morning with a smile and Luke's cynicism with a shrug. And without seeming to try, he was worming his way under the cowboy's thick hide.

  Pretty soon, Luke thought grimly the last afternoon of Paco's visit, the kid would have him whistling while they worked. He was already making Luke think about what it would be like to have children of his own.

  It was a relief when Thursday night came and he could send Paco home.

  "You sure there's nothin' you forgot to say?" Paco asked hopefully while Luke saddled the sorrel for him.

  "I'm sure."

  Paco came to stand beside him. "What about when you guys climbed that monument in New York? You didn't tell me much about that."

  When he and Keith had scaled the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on Riverside Drive, Paco meant. Something Luke was relatively certain Paco's mother wouldn't want her law-abiding son hearing more about. "I told you enough," he said gruffly.

  "How 'bout when you climbed those cliffs in Aca..." Paco's brow wrinkled as he tried to remember "...Aca-fulco?"

  "Acapulco. And you heard enough about that, too." Luke tightened the cinch and tucked the sack of tapes in the saddlebag.

  "What about the catacombs, then?"