Leaving Cheyenne

by Larry McMurtry

  For a day or two after Dad died I had actually been in the mood to sell the place, just dump it, and go where I wouldn’t have to be reminded of Dad all the time, or of Molly. But I got over wanting to do that. For one thing, I got so I liked being reminded of Dad. Of course I didn’t like to think of Molly and Eddie, but it would have been pretty yellow-bellied to let them run me out of the country. Most of the time I hadn’t paid much attention to the country; Dad had done that. But what I saw that afternoon looked pretty good to me.

  I didn’t think no more about moving; but even staying took a lot of thinking about. One thing for sure, I wasn’t no solitary owl. I couldn’t stay on the place by myself; in about a month I would have been dead of lonesomeness. So I figured the best thing to do was marry Mabel. She was the best girl left in the county, and I figured I could get along with her okay. She would be so grateful to me just for marrying her that she shouldn’t fuss none for about fifteen years.

  Then if Johnny ever come back, I could hire him to help me run the place. I wanted to buy some new land if I could; I didn’t intend to stop with what I’d inherited; that would have been pure laziness. Of course Mabel and Johnny wasn’t too fond of one another, but I figured that would iron out once me and her was married and he quit trying to get in her pants.

  I sat on the fence and never even noticed sundown. I happened to notice the moon’s reflection in the milklot water trough. The house looked so lonesome I just didn’t go in, I caught old Denver and rode to Thalia without even eating supper.

  When I stepped up on the boardinghouse porch I could see Mabel hadn’t gone to bed. She was sitting in her chair, patching a quilt. I felt sorry for her. When I knocked she had to put on a bathrobe before she let me in.

  “Why, come in, Gid,” she said. “I was just thinking about you.

  “You look kinda blue,” she said. “Want some hot chocolate?”

  I said no. Her bedroom was neat as a pin.

  “I guess I am a little down in the dumps,” I said. “You want to sit out on the porch awhile? It’s a real warm night.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  We got in the glider and rocked, and she snuggled up against me, warm as a hot-water bottle. We seen the moon, way up there, and I wondered if its reflection was still down at the ranch, in the water trough.

  “Honey, let’s get married,” I said. “I’m sick of this living alone.”

  “Why, I am too,” she said, and she squeezed my hand right hard.

  I hugged her and kissed her and stood up, thinking she’d go in and get her clothes on, so we could wake up the J.P. and get it done and go on home, but boy she fooled me. I never seen her run backward so quick.

  “Why, I couldn’t hold my head up if I got married that way,” she said. “What are you thinking about?”

  She talked like it would take us two weeks, just to get married. I never knew she was that silly about things before. She wouldn’t even let me spend the night with her. I ended up having to pay fifty cents to spend the night in the damn hotel.

  But I didn’t back out. There wasn’t nothing to be gained from that; not that I knew of. Only I told her the next morning that I wasn’t going to wait around no two weeks, I had too many other things to do. She said I’d have to at least ride back to the ranch and get my good clothes; I had just come in like I was. So I done it. While I was gone she quit her job and packed her suitcases. And when I got back to town I hunted up a feller I knew and just bought me an automobile. I figured if Eddie White could afford one, I could too. He showed me how to drive it and I got it to the rooming house and put Mabel’s stuff in it. Then we walked over to the Methodist preacher’s house. It was a pretty day and Mabel was dolled up like a hundred dollars; I had on a wool suit and was about to cook. Anyway, the preacher called his wife in to witness, and he married us. I gave him three dollars. Mabel hung on my arm all the way back to the rooming house, and I guess everybody in town knew what we’d done. I sure was hot and embarrassed, but Mabel didn’t even want me to take my coat off till we got out of town. It took a lot of wrassling to get that damn car home, no better roads than there were; I wisht a hundred times I’d never bought it. But we finally made it, and I yanked the car stopped by the back gate.

  “Well, here we are,” I said. “Man and wife.” And I started to get her stuff out of the rumbleseat.

  “Gid, you ought to be ashamed, ain’t you going to help me down?” she said. “I see I’ll have to do a little work on you.” And she never wasted no time starting.

  nineteen

  The first month we were married, I don’t think we saw a living soul but one another. I guess I must have run into a few other people, here and there, but I sure didn’t say much to them, and I didn’t give them the chance to say much to me. If there was one thing I didn’t feel like putting up with, it was jokes about newlyweds. Just being one was joke enough.

  Of course, it really wasn’t that Mabel was so bad herself. She was a good person, a real good person, I guess, and she damn sure wasn’t lazy or anything like that. She did her work, and she looked after me a damn sight better than I had been looking after myself. And there was a many a time when I was awful glad to have her around.

  Still, it never changed the facts, and the facts was that I had done an awful ignorant thing. When I first realized just how ignorant, I was flat embarrassed for myself. A ten-year-old kid could have showed as much judgment as I showed. I guess Dad had been right when he said I didn’t know anything about taking care of myself.

  Mabel was a big surprise to me, of course. I thought I knew her to a T before I ever went in to marry her. I hadn’t been married to her two weeks before I knew that a blind idiot could have found out more about her than I managed to. For one thing, she was a lot prouder of herself than I thought she was, and for another, a lot less proud of me. I soon found out that she didn’t consider me no particular prize, but I had better be sure and let her know that I considered her one. She seen herself as the belle of the county; nobody was going to talk her out of that view. I soon gave up trying; she could see herself any way she wanted to.

  It come down to two things: the first was that Mabel just wasn’t a very generous person. I guess she never had anything to learn to be generous with. For every nickel’s worth of her she put out, she wanted a dollar’s worth of me. And got it, too.

  The second thing was that I was still crazy about Molly. What few little times I’d been with her meant more to me than a lifetime with Mabel could have. I had feeling for Molly, and didn’t for Mabel. And Mabel had none for me.

  It wasn’t very long before I was hanging around the lots till dark for a plumb different reason. It used to be I didn’t want to go to the house because nobody was there; pretty soon I was working late because I didn’t know what to do at the house when I got there. I seen the moon in the water trough many a time, and I seen it in the sky, and if one thing was for sure, it was that the moon didn’t care. What I did didn’t make no difference to it, or to nothing, or to nobody, I felt like. I did get a card from Johnny, but I didn’t have the guts to answer it.

  I never was bluer than I was that first month. If a feller has to be lonesome, he’s better off being lonesome alone. But I’d kicked that advantage away forever, and there was no use sulking about it. It was done and that was final; I would just have to make the best of it. Only it didn’t look like a very good best.

  It reminded me of something Old Man Grinsom had said one time; it was the day we first run into him in Clarendon. Just to make conversation I asked him how long he had been in the Panhandle.

  “Since ’93,” he said. “I come here with nothing but a fiddle and a hard on. I’ve still got the fiddle.” And when we seen them seven boys we knew where the other went. My case was a little different. I got married with a ranch and the other, and I still had them both. And to be right honest, I guess it served me right.

  twenty

  It was late April when we married, and May was the month we sta
yed by ourselves. By June I knew I had to do a little better than that for myself, someway. I was getting where I didn’t even enjoy my work. One morning I had to fix a little fence on the northwest side, and when I got that done I decided it was time I went and checked up on my neighbors. The closest one was Molly.

  When I rode past her barn I didn’t see no automobile, and that was a great relief. It took so much nerve to get me there I would have hated to have to ride away agin. But Molly, she was there, out in the back yard hanging the washing on the line. There was a good breeze, and the sheets were flapping, so she didn’t notice me riding up. She looked like the same old Molly, only more so, wearing Levis and an old cotton shirt with the shirttail out; she had a clothespin in her mouth and three or four more in the shirt pocket. Her shirttail was damp in front, where the sheets had flopped against her. And her hair was loose, hanging down her back and getting in her face now and then; I seen her brush it out of the way with one hand. I thought she just looked lovely.

  I got off and tied old Willy to a mesquite tree; then I walked into the yard and stopped behind her, at the windmill. I didn’t know if I could talk.

  “Hello, neighbor,” I said. “How are you getting along?”

  She turned around with a tablecloth in her hands; I thought she was going to cry. She had those little dark places under her eyes. She dropped the wet tablecloth in the grass, and I went over to pick it up.

  “My, Gid,” she said. “You scared me.”

  For some reason I was real embarrassed; I squatted down and picked up the wet tablecloth and was going to try and wipe the grass off it. But Molly squatted down too and put one of her wet hands on my neck, and then there was her face and she kissed me. I shivered clear through. But her face against mine was as warm as sunshine, and I had to sit down in the grass and hug her.

  “Now ain’t this some way for old married folks to be acting?” I said.

  She grinned, but it was just half a grin, really, and her mouth quivered.

  “It’s nice, though,” she said. “I’m so glad to see you. Let’s go in the house.”

  I helped her up and put my arm around her; we let the tablecloth and the clothespins lie where they fell. I asked her if she wanted to finish hanging out the washing, and she shook her head.

  “No, but let’s sit on the cellar awhile,” she said. “It’s too pretty to go in; I just don’t like to sit on the dewy grass.”

  The cellar was stone, and the sun had warmed it up. She held one of my hands.

  “Where’s Eddie?” I said.

  “Just relax,” she said. She knew what I was thinking. “He’s gone to Oklahoma, working in the oil fields.”

  “Good lord,” I said. “He’s a strange feller. I don’t see how he can stand to go off and leave somebody like you.”

  She snickered. “That’s because you ain’t Eddie. He ain’t the married kind. He’d go crazy if he couldn’t get off and run around.”

  I wanted to ask her why in the hell she married him, then, but I bit my tongue and didn’t.

  Molly was in the sweetest, happiest mood. She kept glancing at me and smiling and she rubbed my hand between hers.

  “Well, I’m just so glad to see you,” she said, and in a minute turned around and kissed me. I held onto her for a long time, and then I figured I better tell her something for her own good. Only she knew what was on my mind agin.

  “Don’t be so scared,” she said. “That’s no way to make me happy. It’s just us here, you know.”

  “I know,” I said. “And you’re the sweetest woman I ever had hold of, I don’t mind saying that. But now listen. We got to get something straight. I’m married and you’re married, and I ain’t the shy old kid I used to be.”

  “Good,” she said, grinning. “What’s shy got to do with it?” She reached up and pulled a thread off my shirt collar and rubbed my neck with her hand.

  “It’s got a lot,” I said. “This kissing and hugging is just inviting it. The state I’m in, it’s whole hog or nothing.”

  “That’s so nice,” she said. “One thing I’ve always hoped is that you’d come over here some day ready to be whole hog in love with me. I hoped sooner or later you would.”

  That just flabbergasted me.

  “Honey, good lord,” I said. “I been whole hog in love with you for the last ten years. Maybe more. Surely you know that.”

  She looked me in the eye for a long time, a little sad, with one corner of her mouth turned up just a little. “I know you think so,” she said. “But you haven’t, Gid. You ain’t even this morning, yet.”

  “Well, what do you mean, whole hog?” I said. It seemed to me, looking at her with her face so close to mine, that it was impossible to love a person more than I loved her, and the way she sent that cool look up at me made me mad. I could have hated her. It was a bad feeling; I felt myself getting mad, and I didn’t want to.

  “I mean just you loving me,” she said. “And nothin’ else. Just pure me and pure you. But you’re always thinking about Johnny or Eddie or your ranch or your dad or what people will think, or what’s right and what’s wrong, something like that. Or else you’re thinking about yourself, and how much you like me. Or else you just want to get me in bed. Or else you just like to think about having me for a girl. That ain’t loving nobody much. I can tell that.”

  “Why, goddamn you,” I said. “That’s some way for you to talk.” I was thinking about her marrying Eddie.

  “That’s the way I’ve always talked to you, darling,” she said. “You ain’t thinking about me, you’re thinking about Eddie.” She reached up her hand to my cheek and smiled, but I was too mad then to care; it was like my blood vessels had busted. I yanked her back across the cellar, I seen later where it skinned her leg, and held her down and kissed her. It’s a wonder she didn’t get fever blisters. And for a long time we stayed that way, and she kissed back, only I knew it wasn’t working somehow, it wasn’t convincing her of anything. I let up and looked at her: she felt warm but she still looked cool, and there was a terrible strain inside me; I didn’t know what to do or how.

  “Molly, what do I have to do?” I said. “You drive me half-crazy, don’t you know that?”

  “I wish I could drive you all the way,” she said, holding my hand against her chest. I could feel her breathing.

  “I didn’t know you were like that,” I said. “Why do you want to hurt me that way?”

  “Oh, Gid,” she said, and tears come in her eyes, “I don’t want to hurt you. I just want you to turn loose of yourself for a minute, so you can hold me. That’s the only thing I want.”

  She got upset then and cried and I was ashamed of myself for getting mad. At the same time I was still mad. I didn’t see how she could go marry Eddie and then expect much of me. But I didn’t want her sad.

  “I just don’t guess I know how to do that,” I said. “If I did I would.”

  She sat up and wiped away the tears and smiled at me, her cheeks still wet. “I know you don’t,” she said. “But maybe I can show you.”

  She took me in the house then, and it was nice and cool and shady, after the sunshine. I made her let me put some iodine on the big skinned place on her leg; it burned like the devil. I felt silly, to have done a rough thing like that. But Molly never mentioned it. I was all nervous and tense and jumpy and nearly sick, and she kind of loved it all out of me, like a fever. I was so upset that for a long time after we had done it I couldn’t go to sleep or be still in the bed, but she stayed with me, I remember her face, and I finally did sleep and slept good. When I woke up the afternoon sun was pouring in the windows and the room was hot. Molly was still with me and was holding my hand against her chest. She had thrown all the covers back.

  “You’re a good sleeper once you get to sleep,” she said. “You slept four hours without even turning over.”

  I pulled her down so my face was right against hers. “I’m not going to let you go,” I said. “I’m going to give you everything I’ve
got to give; you’re the only person that’s worth it. I don’t know why you wanted to take up with somebody worthless like me agin, but it’s too late for you now.”

  She swung her head back to get her hair out of her eyes, and it fell all over my face. I lay for a hour, I guess, smelling her and listening to her breath; I could tell she was pleased about something. She was a mystery to me, but I was glad I had finally pleased her someway. After a while the sun moved and the sunlight came right on the bed, so we were laying in a shaft of it, with a million little dustmotes in the air above us. Things looked lovely and funny for a change.

  “I swear you smell like a gourd, Molly,” I said. “I never noticed that before.”

  “Maybe I never smelled that way before,” she said. “I’m starving, you stay here and let me get us something to eat.”

  I was pretty hungry too. Only not hungry enough to get up; I never felt so good and lazy in my life. Maybe I would just stay there in Molly’s bed for a month or two. That would have set people on their ears. Molly crawled out and wound up her hair, standing by the bed with the sunlight across her stomach.

  “You’re a shapely hussy,” I said.

  She snickered and pulled on her Levis. I must have dozed off agin for a little while. When I opened my eyes she was sitting on the bed cross-legged, with just her Levis on, eating a piece of cornbread and drinking buttermilk. There was some for me, with a couple of pieces of cold chicken, sitting on a chair by the bed. It wasn’t there long. When we finished there were cornbread crumbs all over the bed and Molly had buttermilk on her upper lip. I wiped it off with a corner of the sheet. I wanted her to lay down agin, but there were so many cornbread crumbs in the bed that it wouldn’t do, so we both got up and I put on my pants and we went in the living room and sat on the couch and hugged and talked awhile.