Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  Molly was hanging out clothes when I rode up. She had on an old red flannel shirt and a pair of overalls and was actually barefooted out in that cold. I guess it was a habit. The Taylor kids hardly ever put on shoes before Christmas, and they had them off agin by Washington’s birthday. She looked as pretty as ever. When I walked up she put her hand on the back of my neck, and it was cold from the wet clothes.

  “Don’t you hope it snows?” she said.

  I kissed her right quick and made her let me help her hang up clothes. It was so cold they practically froze while we were getting them over the clothesline. There were scraps of burned tow sack floating around the yard, so I figured the old man had let the windmill freeze and Molly had had to thaw out the pipes.

  Molly’s cheeks were red and her hair all blowy, but she didn’t seem to mind the weather. “Dad said he might kill a goose,” she said. “If he does, maybe you can come over and eat some of it.”

  “Maybe I’ll kill one myself,” I said. “Let’s go inside for a while.”

  I got the bushel basket the clothes had been in, and she caught me by the hand and led me in the house. The kitchen was nice. It was so warm the windows were fogged over. Molly had made some cookies that morning, and we sat down at the kitchen table and ate them.

  “It’s about time you came,” she said. “I been missing you so much.” She reached her foot under the table and kicked me with her toes.

  “Dad’s been working the daylights out of me. By the time I get loose from him I ain’t fit company for a pretty young lady.”

  “I guess I could stand you,” she said. “Ain’t these good cookies? I feel so good today now that you showed up.”

  I pulled my chair around by hers, so we could sit close together. I decided I would start taking more afternoons off.

  “Johnny comes by a lot,” she said. “He said you’all had a pretty big time in Fort Worth. I wouldn’t mind seeing Fort Worth sometimes.”

  “Maybe we’ll go there on our honeymoon,” I said.

  She looked at me, half-grinning and half-serious; part of what was in her eyes was mischief and part of it wasn’t. She had my hand in both of hers.

  “I told you about that once,” she said. “I don’t intend to get married till I’m going to have a baby.”

  “Oh, now hush,” I said. “That’s silly. We’ll get married by next summer, I don’t care what you say.”

  She shook her head and thought about it to herself for a while, and wouldn’t look at me.

  “Anyway, don’t go getting no black eyes week after next,” I said. “We don’t want to miss another big dance.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Gid,” she said. “I knew that was why you come over. I already told somebody else I’d go with him.”

  That knocked a hole in my spirits. But when I thought about it a minute, it didn’t surprise me. Johnny rode within two miles of her place every day; it was no wonder he’d asked her.

  “Well, I guess he deserves to take you to one dance,” I said. “Anyway I’ll get to dance with you a lot. Johnny won’t care about that.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t Johnny,” she said. “He asked me a long time ago. I promised Eddie I wouldn’t go to dances with anybody but him any more.”

  I didn’t have no idea what to say to that. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Are you plumb crazy?” I said. I started to bawl her out, but I seen she was sitting there about ready to cry. I held up.

  “Well, has he asked you to this dance?” I said. “I haven’t seen him lately. He may not be in this part of the country.”

  “No.” She didn’t let herself cry, but her eyes spilled over once. “I guess he’s in Oklahoma,” she said. “He ain’t been here in a month. But I promised him anyway.”

  “But, sweetheart,” I said. “He may not even be back in time for the dance. You don’t want to miss it, do you?”

  “No,” she said. “You know I don’t. But he told me not to go unless he was here to take me. So I better not.”

  “That beats anything in the damn world,” I said. “I ought to spank you right here. What kind of a feller is he? That ain’t no way to treat a girl.” But I hugged her anyway, and her face was all wet against my neck.

  “He’s not any count,” I said. “You know that, Molly.”

  “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t promised him,” she said. “But I did. You’re my favorite.”

  We set in the kitchen for a long time, kissing and not talking much. She wouldn’t say another word about Eddie or the dance. I didn’t care. It was a comfortable time, and I didn’t think much about the dance.

  “Stay for supper with me,” she said. “We butchered the milk-pen calf, so we can have beef. Dad may not be coming home to day, I don’t know.”

  So I decided to stay, and I meant to make it all night if she’d let me. I milked and done her chores for her and chopped enough wood to last her through the cold spell. I even put my horse in the barn. Then we ate and got real cheerful. We found some popcorn and went in the living room to pop it in the fireplace. The living room was neat, so I knew the old man hadn’t been there for a while. When he was around it was always full of junk and whiskey jugs.

  “Wouldn’t you like to get away from here?” I said. We were sitting on the floor close to the fire. Molly had unbuttoned her shirt a little and I was watching the firelight on her throat and chest.

  “Why no,” she said. “I couldn’t leave here. This is where I intend to live. Anyhow, who’d look after Dad?”

  We salted the popcorn and buttered it and ate it, and when Molly kissed me after that she tasted like warm butter and salt; I’ll always remember that.

  “I sure do like you,” she said. “You can come stay with me anytime you want to, you know that, don’t you? It doesn’t make any difference about the dances.”

  She lay down with her head in my lap, and I looked down at her.

  “I sure do like you too. But it makes a difference to me. You’re the one I want and I don’t want no other fellers around you.”

  She grinned and sat up and gave me one of those butter-and-salt kisses. The firelight lit up our faces. And just that minute we heard the back door kick in and the old man stomped into the kitchen. We heard him stamping around trying to get his overshoes off.

  It made us both so sad at first we didn’t even move. Then we sat up, and by the time he came into the room we were eating popcorn, just as innocent as you please.

  “We’re in here,” she said. “It’s Gid and me.”

  “Oh it is is it?” he said. He turned and went back to the kitchen and we heard him getting a glass out of the cabinet. When he came back he had a glass of whiskey in one hand and his bottle in the other. It was the first time I ever saw him drink out of a glass. He still had on his big sheepskin coat and his old dirty plaid cap, with the earflaps still pulled down over his ears and tied under his chin. He didn’t look in too good a mood; it kinda scared me, actually. I kept on eating popcorn.

  “Go get some firewood,” he said. “It’s a goddamn cold night.”

  I didn’t know whether he was talking to me or Molly, but I got up and went to the woodpile and got an armful of wood.

  “Put it over here,” he said. So I dumped it right by his chair and he took his gloves off and picked out a chunk and leaned over and pitched it in the fire. Sparks and ashes flew everywhere, and Molly had to jump to keep them from getting on her. It made me mad.

  “Good way to catch the house on fire,” I said. “Let me do it for you, Mr. Taylor.”

  “Hell no,” he said. He sat the glass down on one side of the chair and drank out of the bottle. I never did see him drink out of the glass agin.

  “All right,” I said. I didn’t want no argument with him. “It’s dangerous though.”

  “Danger-rus, my ass,” he said, grinning at Molly like he was fixing to tell her some big joke. “This here’s my house anyway, if I want to burn it down then by god I’ll burn it down. Never asked you nohow. Get o
n out of here and go home. Who asked you over here in the first place?”

  “He’s just visiting a little,” Molly said. “He ain’t doing any harm, Daddy.” She said it kinda timidly.

  He gave her a hard look. “I never asked you to take up for him,” he said. “A little licking wouldn’t hurt you, sister. You ain’t fixed my supper, so what are you sitting here for?”

  She looked hurt and sad: I think she was really scared to death of him and didn’t know it herself. She picked up the popcorn bowl and went to the kitchen without saying another thing.

  I stood up and put on my coat and went over to the fire to warm my hands a minute.

  “Get away from there,” he said. “Don’t stand between me and the fire, don’t you know better than that? A little licking wouldn’t hurt you none either, you damn coyote roper.”

  I didn’t see why I needed to take any more off an old surly bastard like him.

  “You ain’t gonna lick me,” I said. “You’re too drunk.”

  He grinned, but it was a pretty mean grin.

  “And quit trying to court my girl,” he said. “I’d chop her in two with an ax before I’d let a feller like you have her.”

  “You’re so damn tough my teeth chatter,” I said. “I’m a good notion to stuff you up this fireplace right now.”

  That was the first time in my life I ever said anything bad to a person older than I was. It scared me a little, but the old man just took another drink.

  “You’re a little piss-ant,” he said. After that he just stared at the fire, and I left him to his bottle.

  Molly was in the kitchen crying and stirring stuff on the stove.

  “Don’t argue with Daddy agin,” she said. “Please don’t, Gid. I won’t like you any more if you do.”

  I went up behind her and hugged her. “Yes you will,” I said. “I sure hate to go off and leave you tonight, you know that, don’t you?”

  She turned loose of the frying pan a minute and turned around and kissed me, but we were both uneasy because the old man was so close by.

  “You’re my girl,” I said. “You’re the only one I’m ever going to have.” I let her go then and started to leave, but she shoved the frying pan off the fire right quick and went out the back door with me, into the cold. And she still didn’t have no more clothes on than she had that morning.

  “I’ll go help you get your horse,” she said. “Dad’s done forgot about supper, and he won’t think of it till I remind him.”

  I hugged her up against me as close as I could. “What made him so mad?” I said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

  “Hush,” she said. “Don’t talk about Dad. I don’t want you putting the blame on him.”

  I shut up, but it still seemed an awful way for a girl’s daddy to act.

  “I don’t think he’ll lick me tonight,” she said. “He was just talking.” Molly was funny. She didn’t seem to realize there was much wrong with him licking her.

  The wind was singing down off the plains cold as ice, and by the time we got to the barn, Molly was about froze. I made her take my sheepskin while I caught the horse and saddled him. We lit the barn lantern and she held it so I could see what I was doing; even so the barn was mostly shadows and the horse didn’t like it. When I got through I set the lantern down and rubbed her hands to get them warm.

  “You’ll probably take pneumonia,” I said. “You ain’t got many brains to be so sweet.”

  She put her cold hands on my neck. “I just came out so you could kiss me goodnight,” she said. “It ain’t much fun in the kitchen when somebody else is around.”

  I did, and it was funny: she was so cold on the outside and so warm underneath it all. Molly was always the warmest girl I knew. I blew out the lantern and led her and the horse out into the cold. I put her in the saddle in front of me, where I could hold her. The moon was up, and the little thin cold clouds were whipping across it, going south.

  “I’d hate to be the moon,” she said.

  At the yard gate I got down and helped her off. But I held her up against the horse for a minute, so he could warm her on one side and me on the other.

  “Come on to the dance with me,” I said. “If Eddie bothers you about it, I’ll stop him.”

  She kissed me for a long time then, and kept changing from one foot to the other. I guess they were about to freeze. Then she pulled back and looked at me.

  “You ain’t the only kind of good person,” she said. “How do you know you’re any better than him?”

  “The same way you know it,” I said. “Only you won’t admit it. Come on and go with me.”

  “I can’t, honey,” she said. “I done promised. But I’m so glad you come over. Come back and see me a lot, Gid.”

  “You’ll see a world of me before it’s over,” I said. “That’s a promise I can make.”

  She held my hand even after I was on the horse; then we remembered she had on my jacket and she took it off and gave it to me.

  “Now get on in before you freeze,” I said. “I’ll see you pretty soon.”

  “I wish you could stay,” she said. “I hate to see you go off. You’re liable to freeze.”

  But she’s the one who would have frozen, if I hadn’t turned and ridden off. I don’t think she wanted to go back in very bad. I know I sure did hate to leave. I rode off about twenty steps and stopped to button my coat. “Don’t get lost,” Molly said.

  “Go in, honey,” I said. “It’s awful cold,” I guess she just grinned, I don’t know. The last time I looked she was still standing there by the fence, with the wind blowing around her.

  Eleven

  JOHNNY AND ME TALKED IT OVER AND DECIDED WE WOULD go to the dance anyway, and not take no girls. Neither one of us wanted to take anybody but Molly.

  “Course I might take Mabel home,” Johnny said. “If she comes. But I ain’t going to take her both ways.”

  “She won’t go home with you,” I said. “Mabel’s got more pride than that.”

  Neither of us could understand why Molly would make a promise like that to a no-count like Eddie. But we knew it had to be stopped.

  “I think we better whip him,” Johnny said. “You and me can fight over her in our own good time.”

  “Naw, we better not fight him,” I said. “That would just make her feel sorry for him. I guess that’s why she goes with him anyway. I’ll just tell him to stay away from her.”

  “He won’t pay a damn bit of attention to you,” he said. “Hell, I don’t pay much attention to you myself.”

  AT LEAST it was a pretty night for a Christmas dance, and not too cold. When we crossed Onion Creek we both got the real dancing spirit, and we loped the rest of the way into town. But we sure weren’t the first ones there. Half the horses and buggies in the country were hitched outside the dancehall, and there were even quite a few automobiles.

  I wanted an automobile myself, but Dad was too tight to buy one. Johnny said he wouldn’t have one of the things.

  We came in right in the middle of a square dance and didn’t have any way to get in on it, so we stood around patting our feet. The hall was nearly full, and the people were stomping and drinking a lot of eggnog and having a real good time.

  “There they are,” I said.

  Molly was dancing in a set just across the floor from us. Her black hair was flying around her shoulders, and she looked her rosiest. Eddie had on his roughnecking boots, so you could hear him all over the hall when his feet hit the floor. He wasn’t dressed up or nothing, and he looked like he was already drunk. It made me so damn jealous I could hardly stand still. Once when him and Molly met to do-ce-do he swung down and kissed her big before he went to the next girl; she never seemed to mind. I guess she was having such a big time being away from home that she forgot herself.

  “Why do you reckon all these old folks want to get out there and dance?” Johnny said. “It’s just making a spectacle of themselves, if you ask me.”

  I thought so
too. The whole town was there. All the little kids were running around screaming and chasing one another and talking about what they were going to get for Christmas; their mommas and poppas weren’t paying any attention to them at all. Everybody that could move danced. Fat ones and skinny ones and ugly ones and pretty ones. Of course there were a few bachelors off in the refreshment room, emptying the eggnog bowl and talking about the war, but there wasn’t over a dozen of them. I even seen a preacher dance one set, and that was a pretty rare sight.

  “I think I’ll partake of a little eggnog,” Johnny said. “Then we’ll see what we can do about Molly.”

  I let him go. I didn’t intend to drink much myself till after the dancing was over. I had a hard enough time dancing as it was.

  When the set was over I started across to Molly, but it was crowded on the floor, and of course about fifty people stopped me to shake hands and ask how I was and wish me Merry Christmas and ask how Dad was and how the cattle were and all that, so that they started a round dance before I could get over to her, and Eddie hugged her up and was dancing with her. It made me so mad I could have bitten myself. I didn’t see how she could breathe he was holding her so tight.

  I was right on the spot when that dance was over, though. Johnny was across the hall, talking to Mabel and some feller she was with. Eddie was grinning and red in the face and his cowlick was falling down in his eyes. He was in an awful good humor.

  “Howdy, cowpuncher,” he said, “dance with my girl awhile. I got to have me a drink. This dancehall is hot.” He handed me Molly’s hand and went outside; I guess he had him a bottle somewhere.

  “Merry Christmas, Gid,” Molly said. “I’m glad you’all finally got here. Guess what? Eddie’s bought him a car.”

  I never asked her the story on it; it made me blue enough just to hear it. It was just the kind of thing that crazy bastard would do. He never owned a shirt in his life that didn’t have fifteen patches on it, neither. We found out later he got the car secondhand for forty-five dollars. I guess he made the money roughnecking.