Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  “Much obliged,” he said. “Only she wasn’t really the one I meant. I don’t guess you know who that would be?”

  “I don’t guess. Not unless it’s Annie Eldenfelder.”

  We carried on and kidded one another a lot. I was glad to see Johnny get back, really. Things were a good bit snappier with him around.

  HE HADN’T been working for us a week when me and him got into a real scrape with Molly’s dad. We never meant to, either, because we both knew how she felt about him, and getting into a scrape with him was the best way in the world to get crosswise with her. But sometimes you don’t have much control over what happens to you.

  A couple of our yearling steers had crawled through a busted water gap into Old Man Taylor’s pasture. Dad seen their tracks going through when he was out on his early morning lookaround, and when he got back to the house he sent me and Johnny over there to get them out. Which wasn’t no trouble to do. We found them with the old man’s milk cows and drove the whole bunch down to our gate and roped a yearling apiece and drug them through the gate where they belonged. It was still early then, and chilly, with mist hanging over the ground nearly high as a horse’s belly. We was glad for a little action to warm us up.

  It was when we were going to fix the water gap that we got in trouble. The first thing we done wrong was to ride down toward the creek on the Taylor side of the fence. We knew the old man would raise hell about that if he caught us, but we did it anyway, just to spite him. Then Johnny spotted a coyote. He loped through the fence about a hundred yards ahead of us, and Johnny said he saw him squat down in the grass and stop.

  “Hell, let’s rope that sonofabitch,” he said. “I ain’t never roped a coyote, have you?”

  “Naw,” I said. “Reckon we can catch him?” But I was already making me a loop. I had always wanted to rope one, and I figured this was my chance. Johnny, he couldn’t throw his rope in the creek, so I never worried about him catching it. He made a loop big enough for a dinosaur to go through.

  “I tell you now,” he said. “I can’t see him, but he’s right over there between them two big bunches of chaparral. Let’s sneak up on this side of him, so he can’t dodge back through the fence. That way we can chase him clear to the north side if we need to. He ain’t gonna sit forever, so when we get past that third post let’s charge hell out of him. You ready?”

  “He’s practically roped,” I said. “If you miss your first loop, haze him over my way so I can get a good throw.”

  We held our ponies down to a slow walk till we got past the post: then we jobbed the spurs to them and away we went, holding up our ropes and yelling like mad. I lost my hat before we even seen the coyote, and Johnny lost his a minute later. In about two seconds we was to the chaparral and up Mr. Coyote come; he jumped plumb over the bushes and it looked for a while like he was running along on top of the mist, two feet off the ground. Me and Johnny was right on his ass, and Johnny was done swinging. I swung to the side to give him room. Johnny had a damn good roping horse, he run right up by the coyote and leaned over, so all Johnny had to do was drop on the loop, but Johnny threw too late and missed about twenty feet, only this throw turned the coyote and it cut right under my horse while I was running full speed. I yanked to the right and went to spurring for all I was worth. Old Denver turned on about fifteen cents and was after the coyote agin before Johnny even got pulled up. By then we hit a strip of mesquite brush and I thought we had lost him, but then I decided to ride like hell and try to chase him through the brush and out into the clearing by the Taylor horse tank, so I could get my throw. Into the brush we went, with me about twenty yards behind the coyote and Johnny somewhere back of me. I ducked and spurred and the mesquite limbs flew. Only if Johnny couldn’t rope, boy he could ride. By the time we were past the middle of the brush he went by me on the left just a-flying, waving his rope and his horse jumping trees and bushes and limbs busting like crazy. The coyote was still ahead though, sailing along on top of the mist. I spurred a little harder and we all three hit the clearing about the same time. In a second we were at the tank. I beat the coyote to the water about two steps and turned him over the dam, and Johnny was right there to keep him from ducking back so he went over the dam and down on the other side and I went right over with him and threw while we were still half in the air: caught him clean as a whistle. Old Denver fell then and nobody could blame him; I went rolling off to one side and the coyote to the other. But when we all got up we had a big dog coyote on the end of the rope.

  “Good throw, by god,” Johnny said. “I thought you was gonna turn a flip off that dam.”

  “It’s a wonder I didn’t,” I said. I was too out of breath to say much. Johnny got his rope on the coyote too, and we had him where he couldn’t do any harm.

  “I wish Dad was here,” I said. “I bet he never roped one.” One thing I could do, and that was rope.

  We were about to knock the coyote in the head and get the ears so we could collect our bounty when Old Man Taylor walked up on the tank dam from the other side. He had his .10-gauge shotgun in one hand and a couple of dead squirrels in the other—probably they were going to be Molly’s breakfast. When he got up closer I seen his beard was wet, so I guess he had him a whiskey jug hid off in a stump somewhere.

  “Goddam you boys,” he said, “Goddam trespassers. What are you little sonsofbitches doing on my place?”

  We never said a word, but we didn’t like it. People can’t just come up and cuss you without you getting mad.

  “Well, the cat got your tongues?” he said. “Answer me when I ask you something. Didn’t your folks teach you no manners?”

  “We had to come over and get a couple of our yearlings and fix the water gap on the river,” I said. “Then we accidentally run on to this coyote and roped him. That’s all, Mr. Taylor.”

  “Oh you did, did you?” he said. Boy he looked mad. “Young farts ought to have your asses kicked.”

  We were getting about all we could stand of it, but we didn’t know quite what to do. For one thing, we still had the coyote on the ropes, and the old man noticed it.

  “Turn that coyote loose,” he said. “That there’s my own coyote anyway. I don’t ever want to catch you roping my coyotes agin. Turn the sonofabitch loose.”

  That was the silliest thing I ever heard of, claiming that coyote.

  “No sir,” I said. “We caught him coming out of our pasture, and we’ll just have to take him back.” I thought I could be just as silly as he was.

  “Oh you are, are you?” he said, stuffing his squirrels in his hip pocket. “Now what about you, little McCloud? You get down and turn that coyote loose.”

  Johnny was half-tickled by it all.

  “No sir,” he said. “I would, only I’m scared to. I’m kind of a coward when it comes to getting one of my hands bit off.”

  The old man got madder and madder, but he shut up and just stared at us. That’s when I really got uneasy, and I don’t know where it would have gone if Dad hadn’t rode up about that time. For once in my life I was glad to see Dad. Old Man Taylor was just crazy enough to have shot us.

  I guess Dad had missed me and Johnny and come to see what kind of mischief we was in. When Dad was impatient to work it never took him long to miss a person. He rode up like there wasn’t nothing unusual about the gathering at all.

  “I see you boys been fiddling around,” he said. “I thought I told you to come on home when you got them yearlings out. How are you today, Cletus?”

  “No damn good,” the old man said. “Looky what them boys done. I wisht you’d make them turn that coyote loose. I don’t like boys roping coyotes of mine.”

  Crazy old fart.

  “Aw, you didn’t look close enough, Cletus,” Dad said. “That’s my coyote. See that earmark I put on him. Hell, I never even knowed he was out. It’s lucky these boys found him. Once your coyotes get off in the brush they’re hard to find.”

  I was flabbergasted and so was Old Man Taylor. John
ny was just tickled. We all looked, and sure enough the coyote did have a piece of his ear missing. And I don’t know yet whether Dad was really responsible for it being gone or not. I imagine it was just chewed off in a fight, but you can’t tell about Dad. Old Man Taylor like to swallowed his Adam’s apple.

  “How do you mark your coyotes, Cletus?” Dad asked, solemn as a judge. “I never noticed. If you’ll show me, I’ll have these boys run what they find of yours back in your pasture.”

  But Old Man Taylor was a pretty sly old bastard himself—you couldn’t hem him up for long. He walked over and grabbed the coyote by the snout and looked at his ear.

  “By god, it is yours,” he said. “I come off without my spectacles this morning.

  “Say,” he said. “I like the looks of this coyote, Adam. How much will you take for him?”

  That even surprised Dad, only he never much let on. He got out his plug and cut himself off some tobacco; then he offered the plug to Old Man Taylor and he cut off a bigger chew than Dad’s. All the time Dad was thinking it over. I bet he thought it was funny as hell.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Cletus,” he said. “I ain’t been watching the market too close. I’d have to get about three dollars for him, I guess.”

  “By god, that’s fair,” the old man said, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t take out his pocketbook and pull three one-dollar bills out of it and hand them to Dad. Dad folded them together and stuck them in his shirt pocket. That was a dollar more than the ears would bring in bounty money.

  “Good trade,” the old man said. “Wonder if them boys would help me a minute, Adam. I might as well earmark him while I got him caught.”

  “Sure,” Dad said. “You boys get down and help Mr. Taylor mark that coyote.”

  The old man stood back and opened his pocketknife, and there wasn’t nothing for it but for us to do the dangerous work. I went up one rope and Johnny up the other, and we managed to get his snout without being bit too bad. I muzzled him with my piggin string and we threw him down and hogtied him with Johnny’s. Then the old man cropped his ear and the job was done.

  “Much obliged, boys,” he said. “Now I’ll know the bastard next time I see him.

  “Can I borrow your piggin strings and just leave him tied awhile?” he asked, real friendly. “Tame him up a little. After a while I’ll send that girl of mine and get her to lead him up to the house. She ain’t got a damn thing else to do.”

  The thought of Molly having to drag that coyote to the house made me fighting mad. But Dad was ready to go.

  “Let’s get home, boys,” he said. “We got all them calves to brand. Much obliged, Cletus. Take care of yourself. Hope he makes you a good coyote.”

  “Oh yeah,” the old man said. “He’ll do.”

  “WELL, THAT was a damn good trade,” Dad said. “Three dollars always comes in handy.”

  “Hell, we caught him,” I said. “We ought to get a little of it.”

  We come to the gate and Dad stopped and waited for one of us to get down and open it. Johnny did.

  “Oh you think so, do you?” Dad said. “Well, I don’t. He was my coyote to begin with. All you done was rope him. If you was to rope one of my calves, that wouldn’t make it yours, would it?”

  “What made him yours?” I said. “You wasn’t serious about that earmark business, was you?”

  He just kept riding and never answered.

  “Shit-fire,” Johnny said. “I believe I’ll quit, Mr. Fry. I better go back and untie that coyote before Molly has to come drag him to the house. I don’t want her fiddling with that big bastard. He might bite her hand off.”

  “I’m with you,” I said. “Let’s turn him loose. We can get back in plenty of time to do the branding.”

  “The hell you will,” Dad said. “I just got you boys out of one scrape and I ain’t got time to get you out of another. Cletus is just waiting for one of you to come back so he can get that extra dollar out of your hide. He’d get it too, don’t think he wouldn’t.”

  “Dollar,” I said. “You made three.”

  “Yeah, but Cletus will get two back when he sells them ears to the county. Why, he ain’t gonna keep no coyotes. He just spent that money to keep from backing down.”

  Me and Johnny couldn’t hardly believe it.

  “You mean a poor man like him would spend three dollars just for that?” I said.

  “Who’s a poor man?” Dad said. “Cletus Taylor ain’t poor. He’s just tight. Just because he don’t spend money don’t mean he ain’t got any. I don’t spend much myself, and that’s one reason I got so much more than most people.”

  “Well,” Johnny said, “if I was a man and I had money, I believe I’d at least buy myself and my daughter some decent clothes to wear. I wouldn’t go around dressed disgraceful. I believe I’d spend a little of it enjoying life.”

  “Most young fools would,” Dad said. “That’s why most young fools are broke.”

  Me and Johnny shut up. There was no use arguing with Dad. And he was right about one thing. Just as we crossed the Ridge we heard the .10-gauge go KLABOOM, like a damn cannon.

  “One less coyote,” Dad said. “And that many more frying chickens I’ll get to eat next spring. I’m glad you boys have finally learned to rope.”

  Six

  OLD MAN TAYLOR GOT HIS DAMN REVENGE ANYHOW, only he took it out on Molly instead of us. I could have killed him for it.

  Two nights after the coyote roping they were having a big harvest-time square dance over in Thalia. It was about the biggest dance or get-together they had between the Fourth of July and Christmas, and I had an agreement with Molly that me and her would go. I asked her the day we went fishing, while Johnny was still up in the Panhandle. He was mad enough to bite himself when he found out I had done asked her. He ended up having to take Mabel Peters, and it served him right.

  Anyway, I got all spruced up and was going to use Dad’s buggy. I drove over to Molly’s just about dark, and I was sure excited. I didn’t care too much about the dance, but the thought of getting to ride all that way with Molly sitting by me was something to be excited about.

  But when I got to Molly’s the house was completely dark. It surprised the devil out of me. There wasn’t no light on of no kind. For a minute I thought Johnny must have pulled some kind of a sneak and taken her off already. I didn’t know what to think. It was a still, pretty night, and not a sound to be heard. Finally I hitched the horses and walked across the yard and up on the porch. Still not a sound. I hesitated a minute before I knocked on the door—I decided her old devil of a daddy was hiding in there someplace, waiting to jump out and give me hell about the coyote. I walked around on the porch for a few minutes, hoping somebody inside the house would finally hear me and say something. Molly could have lain down to take a little nap and rest up for the dance.

  But nobody said nothing.

  “Hell-fire,” I said, finally, and went up and knocked on the door good and loud.

  “I can’t go tonight, Gid,” Molly said, and it like to scared me to death. She had been standing just inside the door all the time, but off to one side of the screen, so I couldn’t see her.

  “You’ll have to go on without me,” she said. “I ain’t feeling good.”

  “My goodness, Molly, you scared the daylights out of me. Why don’t you turn on some kind of light.”

  “I don’t want to,” she said, and her voice was trembling. “I just want to be in the dark, Gid.” And then it was real quiet, and I knew she was standing there crying, even if I couldn’t see her. Molly cried the quietest, she never made a sound at all. Then I heard her move off in the dark and bump into a table or something and run down the hall, and things were quiet agin. The only sound I could hear was the windmill creaking.

  I didn’t know what to make of it. Something was bothering her pretty bad for her not even to ask me in. One thing I knew, I wasn’t going to no dance without her. She could forget about that.

  But that didn’t sol
ve the problem of what to do. I had to get to talk to her, and the only way to do that was to go in the damn dark house and find her. I wished I had had enough sense to ask her if her dad was there. If she was the only one home, I was all right. But I could just imagine that old man, standing in the living room with a club, waiting for me. The more I thought about it, the madder it made me. I remembered how he had cussed me and Johnny when he found us with that coyote. Finally I opened the screen door and doubled up my fists and clobbered on in. About three steps inside I stopped and crouched over, watching for him.

  But he didn’t come. If somebody had come in with a light, I would have looked silly as hell. Pretty soon I knew damn well he wasn’t there. Molly wouldn’t have let me walk into no bad situation without warning me. And the old man wouldn’t have waited for me to come in: he would have come out. Besides, if he had been there I would have smelled him, he was such a fragrant old bastard.

  So I went on down the hall to Molly’s room and didn’t give the old man another thought. Sure enough she was in on her bed, crying. The moonlight was coming through the window. I went over and sat down on the edge of the old creaky bed and put my hand on her arm.

  “Now, honey,” I said, “don’t lay there taking on. Turn over and tell me where you hurt and I’ll see if I can find some medicine.” It was strange, because Molly wasn’t the kind that went around being sick.

  She wouldn’t answer me, though, and for a few minutes I just had to sit there, holding her the best she would let me. She moved over under my arm and acted like she was glad to have me there, but she wouldn’t look up. She wasn’t crying loud, but she sure wasn’t happy.

  In a little while I fumbled around and found some matches and lit the lamp. The minute I had the light on I seen what it was all about. Her face and throat and the front of her dress was all wet from tears, but the trouble was, she had a black eye. It wasn’t a bad one. In fact it kind of made her look prettier or older, in a way, but you could tell she had one. I knew who done it, too.