Leaving Cheyenne

by Larry McMurtry

  I made up with her for the afternoon, only she wouldn’t hear a word about marrying. I had to drop that for a while, but I didn’t care. She gave me a big kiss just before I got on my horse and held on to my hand until I had to turn loose and ride away. And she stood on the hill and watched me go.

  Later I got awful mad at myself for being such a sissy down at the tank. I must have been either scared to death or crazy, I couldn’t figure which. At least we could have gone swimming, that wouldn’t have been no great crime. The more I thought about it the worse it got, and it was all I could do to keep from riding back over that night. But I figured the old man would be back, so I never.

  I guess I always did think things over too much, at least where Molly was concerned. She was a special girl. Johnny, he would have done it and then thought it over later, but I always did the thinking first. The next time I got the chance I decided I would try his way.

  But things never worked out too good. Dad rode in the next morning with about a month’s work lined up to do, and I had to stay mad at myself all the time I was doing it. By the time things loosened up enough that I could get back over to see Molly, why it was the middle of October and Johnny was home agin, so I had him to worry about. If there was one thing I learned that day, it was not to miss no opportunities. I just wish learning it had done me a little more good.

  four

  I guess it was being so mad at myself over Molly that caused me to run off one night and court Mabel Peters. I knew at the time I didn’t have no business doing it. In the first place it was on a Friday night, and I never got off work till after dark, and I knew I would have to start agin before sunup. And it was nearly six miles over to Mabel’s house; I could have gone over and seen Molly with a lot less trouble. But I was still kind of ashamed of the way I acted around Molly; I didn’t want to see her that night. Mabel wasn’t the kind of a girl I could get excited about in no permanent way, but every once in a while she was the kind I could get real excited about in a temporary way. Her folks were so poor and they lived so far off from everybody that none of the boys courted Mabel much. She was right pretty in a neat, timid kind of way, but she never had no real boy friends, and I knew she was so anxious for a sweetheart she would do most anything. So I wasn’t very proud of the reasons I went to see her, but I went, anyway.

  Mabel’s ma and pa were pretty old and usually went to bed early; except for one or two of the younger kids, Mabel was nearly always up by herself. I rode up to the yard gate in the dark and sat on my horse till the dogs kind of quieted down. One thing I hated about visiting the Peterses was them barking dogs. There must have been six or eight; I never knew Old Man Peters to keep no less. In a minute Mabel came out and stood in the door.

  “Who’s that out there?” she said.

  “It’s just me, Mabel,” I said. “I’d get down but I’m afraid these dogs would eat me.”

  “Gid?” she said. “Hush up, Pete, hush that.” I guess Pete was the boss dog, because he went running over to her, and in a minute they all quieted down. Then I got off my horse and tied him to their mailbox.

  “Have you been to supper?” she said. “Come on in and I’ll fix you some.”

  But I never let her get me in the house. Their little old house always nearly suffocated me. It was an old chickenhouse, was what it was; Old Man Peters had just kinda rebuilt it. It never had but four little tight rooms, and they were so small and squeezed up and had such low ceilings that I couldn’t hardly breathe when I was inside. I don’t see how they lived through the summertime; it would have been like living in an oven.

  Mabel knew I didn’t like it, too, and it always embarrassed her. She wanted me to come and see her, but then when I did come she didn’t have no nice place where we could go, and that preyed on her mind. Mabel was awful pretty in the face; I was just kinda awkward around her because it took me twenty or thirty minutes each time to get over feeling sorry for her. She’d worked and wanted her whole life, and she always looked like she’d do just anything for somebody who’d give her the chance to have some fun.

  “Aren’t you going to come in awhile?” she said. “We can’t just stand out here on the steps.”

  “No,” I said. “I feel like moving around, how about you? I thought you might like to take a little walk with me. It’s such a bright moonlight night we wouldn’t need no lantern.” That was true. The moon was big and white that night, sailing up over the pastures.

  The Peterses’ house didn’t have a porch, just front steps and back steps, because it was propped up on bricks, but Old Man Peters kept his wagon back behind the barn and I figured that would be our destination. It was a good big Studebaker wagon, and he kept his wagon sheet in it.

  Mabel was agreeable enough to the walk.

  “That’d be nice, Gid,” she said. “Where will we walk?”

  “Just here and there.” She grabbed my hand herself and held on to me tight. I guess she was afraid of snakes. She walked so close to me I was afraid to move my feet for fear of stepping on her. I went dumb then; I could have kicked myself. I couldn’t think of one thing to say. And I was a little snake-shy myself; nobody’s very anxious to get rattlesnake-bit. But Mabel didn’t mind the quiet; she walked along sort of humming to herself.

  “It’s sure nice to see somebody,” she said. “I swear Ma and Pa have been about to bore me plumb to death.”

  “Dad bores me a good deal sometimes too,” I said. I was beginning to get a little excited from her walking so close to me that way. I never could understand how a little thing like Mabel could get me so excited, but she sure could. She was so thin you wouldn’t even notice her if she was standing sideways to you, but once she got near you she sure did make herself felt. We sashayed around by the postpile a time or two and the pigpen once or twice and then I sidled over toward the wagon. I didn’t need to sidle. When I asked her if she wanted to sit down awhile she just nodded, and it wasn’t two minutes till we were kissing like old sweethearts. Mabel never pulled back a time; it was always me. At first I was kind of wishing it was Molly that was there, but then I quit caring so much, and I guess we’d have done the whole works without no conversation or nothing if I hadn’t made the mistake of stopping to ask.

  “You can if you want to, Gid,” she whispered. “I don’t care. And then we can get married and start having babies. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. You’ll be the best husband in the world.”

  She just barely whispered that in my ear, but it hit me like a bucket of ice water.

  “Goodness, we can’t do that, Mabel,” I said. “Dad would raise too much Cain, and your dad too. Let’s go ahead anyway.”

  She didn’t get mad, or say a word back to me, and she kissed me a whole lot more, but it never meant anything then. She had put on all the brakes. I was so mad at her I could have stomped her for a minute, but she kept on acting sweet and happy and never seemed to notice. She did notice, though; she was just too sly to let on. That was the big difference in her and Molly. Molly was wild, but she was warm, and she wasn’t sly. Mabel wasn’t really a bit wild, but she was really cold and sly. Mabel’s little brain was cold as an icicle.

  You couldn’t guess that from the way she acted in the wagon. She cuddled up with me on the wagon sheet just as long as I wanted to stay, and I did stay a good while, hoping she would change her mind. But she wouldn’t change her mind any more than the moon would change its direction. She sure did want to get married.

  Finally I helped her out of the wagon and we walked back to the house. She never talked at all; she knew she couldn’t do any good talking. But she kept close to me; I practically had to crawl out from under her to get on my horse.

  It was just when I was about to ride away that she began to look real sorry. She had one hand on my ankle, and I was afraid she was fixing to cry.

  “Come back to see me,” she said. “I get awful bored around here, and I don’t like for nobody to come to see me but you.” And before I could get away, I was feel
ing sorry for her agin. I decided on the way home I would have to come back and give her another try. It had been worth it anyway.

  Only next morning I wasn’t so sure. I hadn’t been asleep but two or three hours when Dad came in and started shaking my damn foot to wake me up. That was sure a long day.

  five

  Johnny got back from the Panhandle on a Sunday night and went to work for us on Monday morning. He rode over about breakfast time, to see how I was doing, I guess. It was branding season and we were getting in some new cattle, so when Dad got back from his morning ride he asked Johnny if he wanted to go to work on a day basis, and Johnny said he did.

  “And when I say work, I mean work,” Dad said. “I ain’t gonna squander no dollar a day for you to sit on your butt.”

  “I ain’t never run from no work yet,” Johnny said. “Of course there’s some kinds I’d rather do than others. But you’re probably that way about it too, aren’t you, Mr. Fry?”

  Dad grunted. He didn’t like much conversation out of Johnny. “The kind I like best is none,” he said.

  I thought working up on the big ranches might have given Johnny a little responsibility, but it never. He was just as wild and crazy as he’d always been. One thing I noticed, though, he must have done a lot of riding. His new saddle was broken in to where it was comfortable as could be. He let me ride it a time or two, and I liked the way it rode.

  He asked me right off if I had been taking good care of his girl.

  “Mabel, you mean?” I said. “You bet, ever chance I get.”

  “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. Johnny 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.”