Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  “Don’t you say a word against my daddy,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking. He wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been so mean.”

  That was a lie, but I never said a word.

  “I sure am sorry about it,” I said in a minute. “But it ain’t bad, Molly. It ain’t no reason to stay in the dark all the time. By tomorrow you won’t even be able to tell it.”

  I wanted to cuss the worthless old bastard good, but that would have just messed things up.

  “I know it, Gid,” and the tears were pouring out of her eyes. I sat down and hugged her again. “But the dance is just tonight,” she said. “And you’re all dressed up and look so nice, you ought to go on. I had my dress all fixed, too. I’d been looking forward to it for I don’t know how long. Why does it have to happen at such a bad time?”

  I could see how it was a pretty big disappointment. To a girl, especially. Molly never got to go places very often. In fact, it was just very very seldom that she went any place. When you come right down to it, she didn’t like much being as cooped up as Mabel Peters, only there was so much more of Molly to coop up.

  “Now hush, sugar,” I said. “It ain’t such a great calamity. This ain’t the only dance there’ll ever be. We’ll get to go to plenty more.”

  “No we won’t,” she said. “I don’t care.” She pulled up the counterpane and wiped her face, but there was still a little puddle of tears in the hollow of her neck. She looked at me kinda mad and I got out my handkerchief and wiped her throat. She was so pretty, black eye or not.

  “I wish there never would be another one,” she said. “Then I wouldn’t have to be so disappointed. I know I won’t get to go, even if there’s a hundred dances. I guess I’m just too mean.”

  “Oh hush that up,” I said. “You ain’t mean, and you ain’t hurt, either. We can have just as much fun right here as we could have at the dance.”

  “But I don’t want to stay here. I stay here all the time, Gid. I wanted to go where there were a lot of people having fun.”

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s go. It ain’t late. That little old shadow on your eye ain’t no reason to stay home.”

  But that just made her cry more. I never knew girls had so much crying in them. Missing that dance didn’t amount to a hill-of-beans in the long run, but Molly acted like her heart was broken.

  “Now you hush,” I said. “This is a silly damn way for you to act. If you want to go, why get up and dry your face and let’s go. Hell, by the time we get there everybody will be so drunk they wouldn’t notice if you had three black eyes. And if you don’t want to go, why hush anyway, and let’s go in the living room and pop some popcorn or something. Crying all night won’t do any good.”

  Finally she did hush and just lay back against me. I held her until I was sure she had calmed down.

  “That’s better,” I said. “Have you decided yet?”

  “We’ll just have to stay here,” she said. “I don’t want to go to the dance unless I can go looking nice, and I can’t do that with this eye. Besides, my dress is all wet. But you ought to go. Just think of all the girls you could dance with.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Me and you may dance a little ourselves, before the night is over. Johnny can take care of all them other girls.”

  “He said he wouldn’t. When I told him I had already promised you, he said he intended to go to the dance drunk and not dance a single time, just to spite me.”

  “Sounds like him,” I said. “But what he says and what he does are two different things. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Not when it comes to me, they ain’t,” she said.

  “Where’s your dad tonight, anyway?”

  “He was out of whiskey and had to go to Henrietta. He may not be back for two or three days.”

  “Let’s go in the living room then,” I said.

  WE DID, but we never popped no popcorn. I had had a big supper anyway. We built a big fire in the fireplace; it was the only light we had. Molly started to the kitchen to get something and I caught her in my arms and swung her around a time or two and kissed her.

  “Now ain’t this dancing?” I said. “Ain’t this better’n dancing in a big crowd, anyway? If you ask me, that black eye is the nicest thing about you tonight.”

  “I wish you’d take off that stratchy necktie,” she said. “It’s about to rub a raw place on me.”

  “Boy, I will,” I said. “It was choking me anyway.” I took it off, and my wool coat too. But I never let Molly get to the kitchen.

  “Now let’s dance,” I said. “Just us two. Let’s round dance. You hum the music.”

  She put her head on my chest and hummed a little bit of some song. I hugged her against me real tight and we moved around the living room floor, in the shadows of the fire. “Let’s just imagine the music, Gid,” she said. “I can’t remember what I’m humming half the time.”

  “I ain’t got that much imagination,” I said, but we kept dancing anyway; we danced real slow. Molly’s hair had a good smell. I got to wanting to kiss more than I wanted to dance, so I stopped and made her tilt her face up and let me. We stood there so long I expected the sun would be coming up. But it was still dark and shadowy.

  “I want to make up to you for the other day,” I said. “I sure do love you.”

  She kept standing there against me with her eyes shut, and didn’t say anything, but when I kissed her agin she seemed real glad.

  “It’s okay then? If I make it up to you tonight? I’ve been worrying about it a lot.”

  “Yes, I want you to,” she said, “but let’s stand here a little while longer. Let’s not think about anything.”

  So we stood there and kissed some more and got closer and closer together and finally moved on down the hall to Molly’s room, where we had been at first. When we got there I remembered something and left her for a minute and went and latched the screen doors. I went back and she was crying.

  She grabbed me and I held her tight. “Where did you go?” she said. “You never needed to leave me and go nowhere.”

  “Just to latch the doors,” I said.

  She got fighting mad all of a sudden. I had to hold her to keep her from hitting me. “Don’t ever leave me like that agin,” she said. “I don’t care if the doors are latched or not. Next time you leave me, just keep going.” And she actually bit me, she was so mad or hurt or something. I almost shoved her down I was so surprised. But I held her in the middle of the floor till she got real quiet and we were close together and kissed a long time agin. I never wanted to leave her, that’s for sure. What I couldn’t figure was, how I was going to get my boots off without stopping the kissing for a minute.

  “Let’s sit down, Molly. These new boots are killing me.”

  “Poor Gid,” she said. “Here, sit on the bed. I’ll help you take them off.”

  And in a minute she had, and I was holding her agin. Then I accidentally tore her pretty dress. I thought that would cook my goose, but it never. She put her hand on my neck and kissed me. I started to tell her I was sorry but her mouth kept stopping me. “Don’t talk no more,” she said, “don’t you say another word tonight.”

  I WAS the first one awake. I guess I expected Dad to be shaking my foot. But there was just Molly; she was lovely. In a minute she woke up too and yawned and saw me and giggled and snuggled over and kissed me. It was purely delicious. Only I had begun to realize that Dad’s buggy and horses were still hitched outside, and that it was past daylight and he was wondering where I was.

  “Good god, I said. “Dad’ll skin me alive. I ought to woken up and gone home.”

  “Scardy-cat,” she said. “Let’s stay here all day. That will show them they ain’t the boss of us. I’d like to stay right here, where it’s nice and warm and just us, wouldn’t you? Can we?

  “Oh lord, I’d like to too,” I said. “But Dad is the boss of me, I guess. I better skedaddle.”

  “Well, I wish we could stay,” she said.
Then she sat up and grinned, without no covers or nothing. “But I’ll cook you some hot biscuits, anyway.” And in a minute she had kissed me and crawled over and got out of bed. She was poking around in a drawer looking for some Levi’s, with just her behind pointed at me.

  If it didn’t bother her, I didn’t see why it ought to bother me. I loved her and I didn’t figure I’d have too much trouble persuading her to marry me, after we’d spent the night. Only when I looked down at the bedsheets I couldn’t figure it out.

  “Hey, sweetie,” I said. “Ain’t you normal? I thought you was supposed to bleed all over the place.”

  “Why, didn’t you know no better than that?” she said, turning around and grinning at me. She had a pair of Levi’s in her hand, but she hadn’t put them on. “You’re the funniest boy, Gid.” The morning light was coming in on her through the windows; she pulled on a shirt and never buttoned it, and her hair was down over her shoulders. I thought she was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.

  “You didn’t have to worry,” she said, innocent as daylight. “You only bleed like that the first time.”

  I was absolutely flabbergasted.

  Seven

  IT MADE ME PRETTY DOWN IN THE MOUTH, FINDING OUT that I wasn’t the first feller ever to spend a night with Molly. I couldn’t think straight for a while, I was so upset. But there wasn’t much I could say about it, because she got up just happy as a lark, and not the least bit down in the dumps about anything. She fed me some awful good biscuits for breakfast, too. But I never enjoyed my food. All I could think about was wanting to get married to her as soon as I could.

  Of course Dad raked me over the coals when I finally got home. He seen me unhitching the buggy, and here he came.

  “Well, at least you ain’t eloped with her,” he said, looking at the buggy to see how stratched up it was. “But I bet it wasn’t because you didn’t try. Your good buddy Johnny’s been down there digging postholes for three hours. Get on down there and help him.”

  “He ain’t my good buddy,” I said. “I guess I can change clothes before I go, can’t I?”

  “I’d just as soon you worked in them you got on,” Dad said. “If you dirty them up, you won’t be running around so much at night.” And I had been out two nights in a month, and one of them he never knew about.

  Johnny, he was sweating his whiskey out. But I wasn’t in no mood to sympathize with him.

  “Where you been?” he said. “Why wasn’t you’all at the dance? Hell, I waited for you till one o’clock.”

  “We got lost and never made it. How’d you and your sweetheart Mabel get along?”

  He leaned on his diggers a minute. “Why, she’d be a darling if she wasn’t such a bitch,” he said. “I had to run backward all night to keep her from proposing to me.”

  He would have chattered all day if I had let him, but I grabbed my diggers and walked off a hundred yards or so and went to digging. I wasn’t in a talking mood.

  WELL, I THOUGHT about it and thought about it, and I couldn’t come to no decision. It had to be Johnny that done it, but he never acted the least bit guilty about it, and Molly never either, so I had no way of knowing. The only thing that made me doubt it was Johnny was him not bragging about it. He just naturally bragged a little if he had done anything to brag about. Anyhow, I didn’t think it was right for two fellers to have spent the night with a sweet girl like Molly and not either one of them have married her. The more I thought about it, the surer I was about that, and something had to be done about it. If Johnny had been there first, then he ought to have the first chance at marrying her, and if he didn’t want to, why I damn sure did. And the way I seen it, Molly could have her choice of me and him, but that was all the choice there was to it. She couldn’t go running around single much longer, that was for sure.

  All the same, I couldn’t help being mad at myself, because I kept wanting to go right back over and spend another night. And I would have, too, if her damned old man had ever left agin; I snuck over several times to check, but he was always there. I hadn’t forgot about him giving her that black eye, either.

  Finally me and Johnny had it out about her, when we were going to Fort Worth, of all places. About the middle of November, Dad decided to ship the rest of his calves, but he didn’t want to go along and fool with them, so he sent me and Johnny.

  “I guess I’m a damn fool for sending two idiots when I could just send one,” he said. “But maybe if I send two, one will be sober enough to look after the cattle part of the time. I want you boys back here on Sunday, and I don’t want you to give them cattle away. If you see any yearling steers worth the money, you might buy me about a hundred of them and bring ’em home with you.”

  Of course it was the biggest lark in the world to me and Johnny. We struck out early one morning, with a norther blowing cold as hell, and drove the cattle to Henrietta and put them on the railroad cars for Fort Worth about night that same day.

  “Them cattle are safe,” Johnny said. “Let’s go wet our whistles. My damn throat’s full of dust.”

  Mine was too, and we bought some whiskey and went to washing out the dust. About that time we went into a little honkytonk there by the railroad yards and run into the deputy sheriff that had arrested Johnny the last time he was in Henrietta. Only he wasn’t a deputy no more and was a good bit drunker than we was, and had two of his drinking buddies with him. Johnny asked me if I’d back him up, and I said sure, so he went over and called the feller a sonofabitch and the other feller called him one back and they went outside and had a fist fight in the street. Me and the other fellers went too, but we didn’t fight. The ex-deputy bloodied Johnny’s nose, but I think Johnny had a little the best of the fight.

  “That’ll show you, you bastard,” Johnny said. “Next time just try and arrest me.”

  “Sonofabitch,” the man said. “Want me to whip you good?”

  That was funny, because they had already fought for fifteen minutes. Me and Johnny walked over to the pens and climbed around on the cars awhile, and the cattle looked all right to us, so we went to the caboose and went to sleep. Sometime during the night the train come and hooked onto the cars and off we went, I don’t know just when. The caboose was awful bouncy, and it woke me up about Decatur. Johnny was sitting up holding his jaw; I guess it had bounced against the floor. There wasn’t but one other passenger, a damn greasy oil-field hand, who looked like he’d got on the train about Burkburnett. He was asleep on the bench.

  “Hell, let’s go outside,” Johnny said. “I can’t sleep in this rickety bastard. Let’s go out and look at the country awhile.”

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  We put on our jackets and walked out on the little porch of a thing at the tail-end of the caboose. It was a clear, starry night, but cold as hell. The norther was still blowing, and we was getting it right in our faces. We set down with our backs to the door of the caboose and watched the country go by in the dark.

  “I sure like riding trains,” Johnny said. “Lots faster than going some place ahorseback.”

  I watched the rails come out from under the car, and they didn’t seem to be coming so fast. But they came awful steady; I kept halfway looking for them to end, and they never did. We went through some little old town, I never have known the name of it, and all it had in it was grain elevators. It was the most grain elevators I knew of this side of Kansas. We could see the shapes of them in the moonlight. It was real exciting to be going someplace.

  “This here’s where they make all the oatmeal,” Johnny said. “Boy, I’m glad I ain’t no farmer. There ain’t nothing that can compare with a cowboy’s life, if you ask me. You don’t have to worry about a damn thing.”

  “It just depends,” I said. “What if you own the ranch you’re working on? Then you got to worry about making money and taking care of the cattle and all that kind of thing.”

  “Then you ain’t a cowboy, you’re a rancher,” he said. “I never said I wanted to be a rancher
. Damn, I wish I’d brought my sheepskin coat. I didn’t figure it would get this cold in November.”

  “It’s because we’re moving so fast.” My ears were getting numb, but it was a lot nicer ride out on the end than in that bouncy caboose.

  “What you ought to do,” he said, “is to forget all that ranching. And forget about marrying, too. Then one of these days we could go up on the plains and really have us a time. When the ranch gets to be yours, you can sell it and not have it worrying you all your life.”

  “That’s just like you,” I said. “You ain’t got no more responsibility than a monkey. That ain’t no way to amount to nothing.”

  “Responsibility ain’t no valuable thing to have, necessarily,” he said. “Listen at you. It depends on what you want to amount to. I want to amount to a good cowboy.”

  “Talking about marrying,” I said, “that reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. Something pretty serious. I guess I got to admit you got first claims on Molly, but what I want to know is, do you really intend to marry her or not? One of us has got to, that’s for sure, and if you ain’t going to, I am.”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. Finally he laughed, but he was kind of uncertain about it.

  “You needn’t snicker,” I said. “I found out all about it. I know you laid up with her. I done it too, of course, but you was the first, so she’s really your responsibility. Now one of us has got to do something.”

  “I believe you’re serious,” he said. “And I know you’re crazy. What in the world are you talking about?”

  “It’s simple as mud,” I said. “You sweet-talked Molly into letting you spend the night with her. Okay. Hell, I don’t blame you, I done it too. Anybody would want to. Only the first one has the most responsibility. It ain’t no way to do a good-hearted girl like Molly, and you know it. Now is it?”

  “Why, you beat all I ever seen,” he said. “After being in that whorehouse and all that mess we went through in Kansas getting you cured, and you still sit there and talk like a damn preacher.”

  “Now you better watch it, or you’ll get a real fight, Johnny.” I said. “I ain’t talking like no preacher. I’m just talking about doing what’s right about Molly.”