Thalia

by Larry McMurtry

  I got the bucket. The old brindle cow was already in the lot, waiting.

  “Want me to milk?”

  “No, she don’t like strangers. You’d have to hobble her.” So I put the feed in the stall and old Brindle went in. Molly got out her milking stool from under the trough and set down on it and went to milking. The old cow was an easy milker, but she kept switching her tail at flies and hitting Molly in the face. I got tickled.

  “Here,” I said. “I’ll hold her tail.” The old cow never noticed.

  “If she ever steps on your foot you’ll learn to wear shoes,” I said. I squatted down by her and put my free hand on the back of her neck, where her skin was cool. I slipped my hand on under her shirt and rubbed her back and belly a little; a trickle of sweat slid along her ribs from her armpit.

  “I wish I understood you,” I said. “I never know just what you want from me. You’ll make a good milker yourself.” I felt in front and she grinned.

  “I just want your loving and a little less conversation,” she said.

  We left old Brindle in the lot, eating prairie hay. I carried the milk bucket and she put her arm around my middle; we walked up to where my horse was tied. I set the milk bucket over in the yard and came back and kissed her bye. She poked her belly against me, but I got on my horse anyway, and she stood there grinning, fiddling with her shirttails.

  “Aw, I’m glad, Molly,” I said. “I just got this new land on my mind. I better go, I’m getting lonesome for you and I ain’t even left yet.”

  “I guess I know what’s good,” she said. “Say hello to Mabel.”

  “I will, you say hello to Eddie.” It was a kind of joke. If either of us actually did it, it was her; she was just that crazy.

  “If I come by agin in a day or two, will you chase me off?” I said.

  “That’s one thing I’ve never been guilty of,” she said. The little barn swallows come out and begin to flitter around, and she looked up at them. “I love the cool of the evening,” she said.

  I loped across the hill and left her standing by the fence, fiddling with her shirttails. It was strange riding off from Molly; I never done it in my life that I didn’t want to turn and go back a dozen times before I got out of sight. She always stood right where you left her, as long as she could see you. I remembered her in the kitchen that afternoon, all sweaty and loving, drinking the dipper of water and her throat wet. I felt like Molly was just as permanent as my land. Old Denver wanted to tear out for the barn, but I held him to a lope and we got to the lots just as the sun was going down behind the Ridge.

  II

  RUIN HATH TAUGHT ME

  Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

  That Time will come and take my love away.

  SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 64

  One

  JOHNNY CAME IN ONE AFTERNOON AND CAUGHT ME CRYING. I had been listening to Kate Smith.

  “My god, cheer up, Molly,” he said. “You’re going to ruin the oilcloth.”

  “Sit down,” I said. “I know it’s silly.” I got up and poured him a cup of coffee, and he blew on it awhile and didn’t say anything, and finally he reached over and squeezed one of my hands.

  “Now look, quit this stuff,” he said. “It’s a beautiful day. You ought to be out making a garden instead of sitting in here like this. What brought it on?”

  “Oh, the radio,” I said. “Listening to Kate Smith. Ever time I do that I get blue.” And not because of her, because of the songs. “God bless A-mer-ica, land that I love . . .”—she always sang that. I just wanted the war over and my boys home. My boy home.

  “Aw, quit listening to all this patriotic stuff,” he said. “It’s just depressing. And it don’t do no good.”

  “You make me mad,” I said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to be a little more patriotic. You ain’t gonna cheer me up talking that way. I just wish we knew something definite about Joe.”

  He rubbed my hand and drank his coffee.

  “Well, I do too, honey,” he said. “He was my boy too. But imagine he’s dead; be better for us to face it. Missing over a year. We can’t just sit here and quit.”

  He made me get up and go outside with him, and he was right, it was a real pretty day. Being outside cheered me up. We sat on the cellar awhile and he took his hat off and put his arm around me.

  “I knew you’d smile sooner or later,” he said.

  “Look how tall my corn’s getting,” I said. “Three more weeks and I can cook you some roasting ears. Where’s your boss today?”

  “He’s off trying to buy him another ranch for me to take care of,” he said. “Gid’s plain land-crazy.”

  “Well, you just let him go ahead.” Johnny was always trying to slow Gid down. “Everybody’s some kind of crazy.” It was so clear we could see half the country. May was usually my favorite month.

  “What kind of crazy are you?” Johnny said.

  “Just plain crazy,” I said. “I haven’t got enough brains to be any other kind.” Then he leaned over and kissed me; I figured he was getting about ready to. He’d had it in his mind ever since he came in.

  “Well, Molly, I’m woman-crazy,” he said, holding my shoulders and grinning his old reckless grin. He tickled me. I couldn’t help loving Johnny, even when I wasn’t much in the mood for him. Even when he was acting the soberest there was something about him that was like a boy; he never lost it, and it was one of the nicest things about him; when he was around I could have a boy and a man in the same person. Not like Gid at all—Gid never had been a boy; I guess his dad never gave him the chance. And that was why Jimmy was so much harder for me to raise than Joe. I never had any trouble handling Johnny and Joe.

  “You want to help me tie up my tomato plants?” I said. “I might as well do that today.”

  “Well, now, you might as well not, either,” he said. “I’d like to be treated like company for once, not like a damn hired hand. If I’m going to have to work, it had just as well be for Gid. He pays me.”

  “Pardon me,” I said. “You was the one that mentioned gardening.”

  “Yeah, but you had the war blues then. Actually, why I’m here, I came a-courting.” He kissed me agin; he was so funny.

  “Why yes, honey, I’ll marry you,” I said when he quit. “Just let me go get my pocketbook so we can pay the preacher.”

  That always embarrassed him, even if he knew I was kidding. If there was ever a bachelor, it was Johnny McCloud.

  “Aw hush,” he said. “I’d just as soon marry an alligator.”

  It really got off with Johnny when I mentioned marrying; I should have quit doing it. I guess Gid kidded him about it all the time, and he was probably ashamed of himself for not wanting to marry me. If he had ever really asked me, I could have really turned him down, and he wouldn’t have felt that way any more. I wouldn’t have married agin anyhow; Eddie was enough husband for me. At least not Johnny. Gid I might have. But that was a different story.

  “Well, I guess the tomatoes won’t get tied up,” I said, and took his arm. I wasn’t too eager to go in the house with him then—for one thing, it was so pretty outside—but he was eager to go with me, so it was okay. I was the only woman Johnny had ever been able to count on, and I usually tried to give him what he needed—it wouldn’t have been very loving of me not to.

  He had a big ugly-looking blue spot on his hip where he said a horse had pitched him off against a tree stump, and I went in the pantry and got the liniment and made him lay back down while I rubbed some on it.

  “You’re sure nice to me,” he said. “I’d have probably been a cripple years ago if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “It don’t take much to rub on liniment,” I said. “You could have done that much already if you weren’t so careless of yourself.”

  “It’s so much more pleasant when you do it,” he said. “You can rub my back a little if you just insist.”

  That was another difference in Johnny and Gid. Once Johnny got in a bed, no matter f
or what reason, he’d think of excuses to stay there for hours on end. Gid was just the opposite. You practically had to tie him down to keep him in bed ten minutes. I had been trying to break him of it for nearly twenty years; I hadn’t made no progress, and in fact I’d lost ground. When we were both younger I could entice him to relax once in a while, but the older we got the less luck I had. Mostly, I guess, it was because Gid had so much energy he couldn’t hardly stay still; but partly it was because he was ashamed of himself for being there in the first place, especially if it was in the daytime. At night he wasn’t as bad, but then I never got to see much of him at night.

  Not Johnny. He could lay around and enjoy himself for hours.

  “Say, Molly,” he said. He was lying there watching me; he was such a watcher it tickled me sometimes. “What’ll you take to patch my britches pocket before I get them back on? I’m afraid I’ll lose my billfold and all them valuables in it.”

  “I may not have any blue thread,” I said.

  “That’s all right, I ain’t particular.”

  I put my brassière on and patched them for him, while he dozed. His clothes were always just on the verge of being worn out; I think he just wore that kind when he visited me so there would be something for me to patch. I watched him sleep. Joe had his features to a T, and his eyes, and his recklessness; if he hadn’t had the recklessness he wouldn’t have got in no bomber crew to begin with. But that pleased Johnny. One day after Joe had already been reported missing, Johnny told me he’d rather have a dead hero for a son than a live coward.

  “I’d rather have Joe than either one,” I said, and I don’t think he knew what I meant. Men don’t think like women, or maybe it’s that they don’t feel the same kind of feelings. Gid had said practically the same thing to me when Jimmy got sent to the Pacific. And the boys were the same way, I guess. Joe actually enjoyed living over in England and flying in the bomber. I guess he had a million girl friends over there; I was always afraid he’d marry one of those English girls and bring her home to Texas and not know what to do with her. In his letters he never mentioned things like that. “How’s the place, Momma?” or “What’s Gid and Johnny doing?” or “Momma, I sure do miss your cooking, these army chefs sure can’t cook like you. Why don’t you send me some cookies?” Letters like that. Joe was the liveliest kid in the world, and the best natured. I waited till he was sixteen to tell him Johnny was his dad—it had bothered Jim so much when he found out Gid was his. But it tickled Joe flat to death. I imagine he pretty well suspected it anyway, but when he grinned at the news I cried for half an hour I was so relieved. I doubt Johnny and him ever talked about it. They usually just talked about horses and ballplaying and rodeos, things they were interested in. They probably never even mentioned it. Things like that just didn’t worry Joe like they did Jimmy.

  Johnny was sound asleep. He was woman-crazy all right, at least where I was concerned, and he tickled me the way he let me know it. But he wasn’t as crazy as he had been. One time years before he had come charging into the kitchen in such a hurry that he hadn’t even seen me and knocked me flat on my back—it scared Jimmy to death. I guess the time was coming when Johnny wouldn’t barge in on me in the afternoons, and I would miss that, mood or no mood. I put the needle in the pincushion and got back in bed and made him turn over so I could lay against him, under one of his arms. I never did doze off, I just lay and looked out the window and counted Johnny’s pulse once in a while, for the fun of it. It looked like a cloud was building up in the south. Ever once in a while Johnny would grunt like a hog, just one grunt, and then be quiet agin. One time straightening out his leg he stratched me, so I jumped; he was the worst in the world about toenails. Once I gave him a pair of clippers and he kept them about two days and broke them trying to cut a piece of baling wire. The arm I was holding had his watch on it, and when it got to be six o’clock I got up right quiet and put on my dress and cooked supper. Steak and gravy and black-eyed peas was about all we had, but I had a few fresh onions from the garden, and Johnny loved fresh onions.

  When I went back to the bedroom the room was full of shadows, except for the one west window where the last of the sunlight was coming in. I sat down on the bed and gave Johnny a shake.

  “Get up if you want any supper,” I said.

  He opened his eyes and stretched. “Aw hell, you’re done dressed,” he said, and grinned.

  “You heard me,” I said.

  “We ain’t wrestled in a long time,” he said. “You want to?”

  “Not specially,” I said. “I’ve lost my girlish strength.”

  “You never had none, you was just awful wiggly,” he said.

  I went on and set the table and he stomped around dressing and washing up for ten minutes before he ever showed himself in the kitchen.

  “Boy, where’d you get them onions?” he said. “Have you milked?”

  “No,” I said. “You can milk while I wash the dishes.”

  “These dishes won’t need washing,” he said, and they didn’t much.

  He went to the barn with me but I did the milking. He let the cow in and made conversation, but milking was a little beneath his dignity. Gid would grab ahold and do anything, but Johnny was finicky about the things he worked at. A lot of that rubbed off on Joe, only I never let Joe get away with it. One time I sent him out to hoe goatheads, and when I went out to see about him he was playing with a stick horse and hadn’t hoed a lick.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “I thought I sent you out here with a hoe.”

  He had really worked his nerve up by that time. “Momma, go to hell,” he said. “I’m riding. Cowboys don’t hoe.”

  “I’ll cowboy you, sonny,” I said, and I did. Johnny, he laughed about the whole thing and just made Joe worse, so the next time he came loving up to me I told him a thing or two. “Go court your horse,” I said, “cowboys don’t fool around with girls.”

  “Aw, honey, now you ain’t mad at me,” he said, but he didn’t get nowhere that day.

  When I finished the milking Johnny opened the gate so old Muley could go out, and I started to the house with the milk bucket. He came up and put his arm around me and made me slosh some milk out on my foot, so I gave him the bucket to carry.

  “I never was no hand at milking,” he said. “Think of the time it’s saved me.”

  The only time I ever got Johnny to do chores was the winter after Eddie got killed, when I come down with the flu so bad. Gid and him took turns with my chores until I got over it. Both the boys had it too.

  It was a warm, pretty evening. I strained the milk and Johnny poured himself some coffee. I got a jar of plum preserves and opened it for him; he loved to drink coffee and eat plum preserves. After he had spit about a hundred seeds into his coffee saucer I took the jar away from him and put it back in the icebox.

  “It’s a wonder you haven’t took sugar diabetes, as much sweet stuff as you eat,” I said.

  “It’s a wonder I haven’t tooken something worse than that from associating with old widow women like you,” he said.

  I walked over behind him and squeezed his neck a little. “I always get old after supper,” I said. “In the afternoon I’m still young and pretty.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” he said. “I wonder why it is.”

  We sat around awhile and then he put his hat on and we walked out to the back gate. There were plenty of stars showing, but there was a good bit of lightning back in the west.

  “Well, I guess Gid’s bought him another five sections by now,” he said. “It’s all I can do to keep him from working me to death. You’d think a man forty-seven years old would begin to slow down.”

  “Gid got a late start,” I said. “He didn’t really catch hold till after his dad died.”

  “He’s making up for it.”

  “Tell him to come and see me,” I said. “I don’t get to see too much of him since they moved to town.” And when he did come by he was in such a hurry I didn’t get to t
alk to him long.

  “He comes by often enough without me telling him to,” Johnny said. “I’d just as soon not encourage the competition.”

  “How are him and Mabel making it?” I said.

  “Oh, they’re having trouble, Molly. But when ain’t they? At least now they got a house big enough that they can kinda keep out of one another’s way.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Gid deserves better.”

  “I think so too,” he said.

  “We never heard the news tonight. I forgot about it.”

  “We didn’t miss nothing,” he said. “You keep up with this war stuff too close.”

  “Well, you’re an American,” I said. “Don’t you want to know what’s happening?”

  “Not particularly,” he said. “When the Japs or the Germans cross the county line, then I’ll be interested.”

  I didn’t say no more; it was a sore spot with us. There was no changing Johnny. But I think he was sorry he said it, because he knew it made me blue.

  “I ’pologize, honey,” he said, patting my arm. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Sure enjoyed the meal.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. I kissed him on the cheek and he got in the pickup and started off. Then he stopped and leaned out the window.

  “Much obliged for patching them pants,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.” He bounced on across the hill, hitting all the bumps. I could see the taillights bouncing. Johnny was a sorry driver and so was Gid. Joe and Jimmy could drive circles around either one of their dads. I stood by the fence until the taillights went out of sight. It seemed like I’d spent a lot of my life watching Gid or Johnny or one of the boys drive off across the hill. That was all right. I enjoyed being there where they could find me if they took a notion to come back—and they always had. After I watched the clouds awhile I decided it wasn’t stormy looking enough to worry, so I went in and went to bed.

  Two

  IT WASN’T BUT A FEW NIGHTS AFTER THAT THAT IT COME A real bad cloud. Just before I went to bed I stepped outside to look around, and it was as pretty a night as anybody could want—I could see ever star in the Milky Way. I went back in and read a piece or two in the Reader’s Digest and went to sleep. When I woke up the wind was blowing a gale and the limbs of the old sycamore tree were thrashing against the roof. I got out of bed and made sure the windows were all down, and then went out on the back porch to see if I could tell anything about the cloud. The wind was out of the southwest and just about took my nightgown off. That was too much wind to sleep under, so I went back to the bedroom and got my bathrobe and a pillow. There was a cot with several quilts on it already made up in the storm cellar; I had learned long ago to have things like that ready.