Leaving Cheyenne

by Larry McMurtry

  And Dad never either. Smelling the whiskey made me think of things about Dad that I hadn’t thought of in years. He always felt the worst when he was the nearest sober; I guess it just took whiskey to make life look good to him.

  One of the worst times I ever had with Dad in my life was the afternoon he told me and Richard about the facts of life. It was four or five years after Momma died; I was about seventeen. Except for one trip to town when I was a little girl, I had never been farther away from home than the schoolhouse. Eddie wasn’t even in the country then, and since we were all too big for school, I didn’t see Gid or Johnny more than a few times a year. Once in a while they would stop at the windmill for a drink of water. I had never even thought of having a boy friend—my brothers were the only boys I really knew.

  And it was the same way with the boys—none of them ever had a girl friend till after they run away from home. Richard never, I’m sure; he only went to the schoolhouse two years. Me and Mary Margaret were the only girls he ever saw, and him and Mary Margaret fought like cats and dogs.

  One evening I was rolling the flour to cook the supper biscuits, and Dad came in and sat down at the table. It was March or April, and the sand had been blowing; Dad’s hair was full of grit, and he sat at the table and stratched his head. He never said a word to me. I started to ask him if he wanted me to give him a haircut; I gave all the haircuts my family had, as long as I had a family. Except for one burr haircut Joe got while he was in high school; it made me mad because he sneaked around so about it.

  But Dad didn’t want one. He was in a strange kind of mood, and I didn’t bother him. I was getting ready to grease the biscuit pan when Dad went to the back door and yelled at Richard. In a minute Richard slouched in.

  “Just leave them biscuits awhile,” Dad said. “Come back here with Richard and me.” They went off down the hall, and I wiped some grease off my thumb and followed them. They had gone into Daddy’s bedroom and it was the biggest mess in the world. Dad never even let me make the bed.

  “Shut the door,” Dad said. He sat down on his bed and pushed back his hat. He sat there about ten minutes, just thinking, and I wanted to get back to my biscuits.

  “What did you want, Daddy?” I said. Me and Richard were just standing there. Except Richard wasn’t impatient. He never was.

  “I guess Richard’s old enough for me to show him a few things,” he said. Neither one of us had any idea what he was talking about. Finally he grinned at Richard.

  “Take your pants off,” Dad said. It didn’t surprise Richard; I guess he thought he was going to get a whipping, was all; he took off his overalls. It had been cold and he still had on his long johns.

  “My god them’s dirty underwear,” Dad said. “Take them off too.”

  “Aw, it’s cold,” Richard said, but he started unbuttoning, anyway. In those days me and Richard and Mary Margaret all slept in the same bed—just Shep got to sleep by himself—and I had seen Richard pee a million times, so he never thought of being embarrassed just because of me. I was just a little bit embarrassed—not so much that as worried, because Dad was acting so strange. Richard was cold-natured and got goose bumps all over his legs.

  “Now, Molly, get your clothes off a minute,” Dad said.

  I had been about to giggle at Richard’s goose bumps, but that surprised me. “Why do I have to?” I said. I knew better than that. Dad looked at me for the first time since he’d come in.

  “The next time you ask me why when I tell you to do something, you’ll get a real tanning,” he said. But he wasn’t mad, he was just warning.

  “What all did you say take off?” I said.

  He was cutting himself some tobacco then. “Ever stitch,” he said. “I need to show Richard about women, and you’re the only one around. Hurry up.”

  That was the first time I ever felt funny being around a boy. I took my pants and shirt off, but I sure did want to keep my underwear.

  “I’m cold too,” I said. “Ain’t this enough, Daddy?”

  “I’m gonna warm you in a minute,” he said. “I told you what to take off.”

  I still had on long johns too, only the legs were cut out of mine. I went ahead and took them off and stood there naked, holding my underwear in front of me. Dad never looked at me, but I felt awfully embarrassed; it was a strange feeling. Then Dad noticed I was holding my underwear and he snatched it out of my hands and threw it down on the floor. That made it worse.

  “All right, now, Richard, looky there,” Dad said, nodding at me. “That’s how they look.” Then he looked me up and down himself, a real long look. “Molly’s a real pretty gal,” he said. “You’re lucky to get to see such a pretty one. She’s a damn sight prettier than her momma ever was.”

  “What am I supposed to look at?” Richard said. “All I see is Molly, and I know her anyway.” If it had been anybody but Richard, I would have been even worse embarrassed. There wasn’t no harm to Richard.

  Dad laughed. “You ain’t looking good,” he said. “Come up here by her and squat down where you can see. See where that hair’s growing on her?”

  I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I knew Dad didn’t want me to cover myself up with them. Finally I held them behind me. Richard had squatted down by me and was really looking.

  “Oh yeah, that’s where she pees,” he said. “I see that. Why’s all that hair grow there? It’s on me, too, but not as much.”

  “That’s to make it hard to get into,” Dad said. “The thing to remember about it is that’s where you make babies, right up in that crack.”

  “It don’t look like a big enough place,” Richard said. “I’m still cold without my pants.”

  “Stand up here,” Dad said. “You can just stay cold. You ain’t much of a boy, anyhow. Make him stiffen up, Molly, so I can tell him how it works.”

  I knew what he meant, or thought I did, and I didn’t move. I didn’t want to touch Richard.

  “Take ahold of him,” Dad said. “He don’t know the first thing.”

  “No, I don’t want to,” I said. “Richard don’t want me to, either. He understands it, he’s seen the bulls.”

  “You’re the contrariest damn girl I ever saw,” Dad said. “Do like I told you.”

  Richard’s was hanging there, about arm’s length away, but I knew I wasn’t going to touch it, not even because Dad said to. In a minute I started to cry, and tears were running down my chest and stomach.

  “I’ll give you something to cry about,” Dad said, and stomped out. I knew he was going after the razor strap, and I couldn’t think of anything to do, I just stood there crying. But the minute Dad left Richard’s got stiff. When Dad got back it still was. Richard and me were both surprised.

  “Well, did she help you?” Dad said, when he seen it.

  “Naw, it just done it by itself,” Richard said. “I’m sorry. I never meant for it to.” He was as embarrassed as me.

  “Why, hell,” Dad said, “that’s what I’ve been trying to get you to do. Now you see, when it’s like that it fits the crack in Molly. And most of the time it makes a baby, so you got to be careful where you shove it.”

  “You mean if you don’t put it in you don’t have no babies? Then why do people have babies anyway?” Richard said. Richard had a hard time understanding it. But I did too. I just stood there wishing it was over.

  “Because it feels so good when it’s up in there,” Dad said. “You’ll feel it some day.”

  Richard perked up at that; he loved to feel good. “Oh,” he said. “Then can I try it with Molly right now? I’d like to know just how it does feel.”

  Dad hit him across the behind with the razor strap.

  “No, and get your pants on and get out of here,” he said. “I’ve shown you all you need to see. You don’t never do it with your sister; not never. And you better remember that.”

  I reached to pick up my underwear, but Dad shoved me back away from it.

  “I’m going to have a little talk w
ith you,” he said, and Richard left.

  “Why didn’t you do what I told you to?” he said. I tried to think of a good answer, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know why, actually.

  “I don’t know, Daddy,” I said.

  “Do you want me to whip you with this razor strap?” he said, standing up.

  I shook my head. But I knew he was going to.

  “If I brought that boy back and told you to do it agin, would you mind me this time?” he asked.

  I thought about that a long time. From the way Dad looked I knew about all I could do was take up for myself. Besides, I didn’t want to touch Richard.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” I said, “I sure wouldn’t.”

  “I’ll make you think wouldn’t,” he said, and I got the worst whipping he ever gave me. But I never did say I would, and he finally quit. He would always quit if I took up for myself long enough. Sometimes it was real hard to do, and it was hard then.

  Of course Richard was a pest after that. Dad had got his curiosity aroused, and he soon forgot the part about not doing it with his sister. He pestered me for two solid years. But he wasn’t no danger; he was just a nuisance. I could always fight Richard off.

  Dad always expected his kids to mind him without asking no questions, and whenever I got in trouble it was always for not minding, or for asking questions first. But I still thought he was an awful good daddy, and that’s what Johnny and Gid could never understand. They never liked Dad; neither did Eddie. But all they seen was his rough side. Dad never went around making over me, but I could tell he liked the way I fixed things and took care of him. It used to make me blue that I was the only one he had to love him. Momma and him wasn’t suited for one another; Dad was rougher on her than he was on any of us. The boys all hated him because he worked them so hard, and Mary Margaret couldn’t stand him.

  Him and Eddie did manage to tolerate one another, I guess because they both liked to drink whiskey. Likker was the only thing Dad ever gave away; mostly because he liked company when he drank. And Eddie liked free likker. He took advantage of Dad that way.

  Once Dad even told me that if I got married, to marry Eddie.

  “He ain’t much count,” he said. “But at least, by god, he’ll treat you like a wife ought to be treated. He won’t pussyfoot around with you, I’ll tell you that.”

  That may have been part of the reason I married Eddie. We hadn’t never been considered respectable, and he hadn’t either. Eddie and Dad were a lot alike; they never tried to get ahead like most men do. They spent their time trying to enjoy themselves, and a lot of the time they were miserable anyway. All Eddie’s folks were living in Arkansas, and he never had a soul to look after him or take up for him.

  I had liked Johnny ever since I knew him, but I never took marrying him serious. He wasn’t the marrying kind, and we both knew it. So it was between Gid and Eddie. I liked Gid better, and there were times when I stayed upset for days, trying to make up my mind to marry him. Sometimes I wanted to so bad I could taste it. But I thought Eddie needed a wife the worst—I was dead wrong about that. And then I thought I was too wild and bad ever to suit Gid; I was afraid if I married Gid everything I did would disgust him—and I was dead wrong about that. I married Eddie, and everything I did disgusted him, and nothing I did ever made Gid stop caring for me. I’m more like Gid, in the long run, than I am like Dad or Eddie, but I was years and years finding that out.

  I wasn’t just sorry for Eddie, either; I was crazy about him sometimes. I was just crazy about him, about the way his hair was always shaggy and curly on the back of his neck. That may have been what I liked best about Eddie; it may have been why I married him, silly as that is. He never got a haircut and I was always dying to put my hand on the back of his neck.

  But thinking about old times never got no loft cleaned out. I finally stoppered the bottle and got up, and then I pushed the sitting bale out the loft door, so I wouldn’t be tempted to sit down and daydream no more. It was four-thirty or so, and cooling off, and by the time I got the west side of the loft raked it was six or after, and milking time. I stood in the loft door and wiped the sweat off my neck and face with my shirttail and watched the milk cow come up. When I got down I hung the jug on a nail in the saddle shed, with the whiskey still in it. It was good and aged, there wasn’t no use pouring it out. While I was milking Johnny drove up in his pickup and I talked him into staying for supper with me. He wasn’t very hard to persuade.

  four

  I hadn’t got a car till 1941. Besides being expensive and dangerous, I thought they was just plain ugly. I couldn’t understand why so many people took such an interest in them. Both the boys were big car-lovers, of course: the first hundred dollars Jimmy ever made he spent on an old rattletrap Hupmobile. He run it for three years and sold it to Joe for fifty. From that time on they were both on the road constantly, going somewhere. I just let them go. Them driving didn’t worry me like me driving. They grew up in a time when cars were the thing, and they knew enough about them to handle them okay.

  After I had driven two years I got so I could wrestle the car to town and back without any serious danger, unless the road was slick or I met somebody in a narrow place. Gid and Johnny had taken me to Wichita and advised me when I bought the car. It was a Ford, a black one. We looked at about fifty, and it was the one Gid said I ought to get. I was enjoying the company, and I didn’t care. Johnny was in a hi-larious mood that day.

  “I wisht you’d get that red convertible,” he said. “A widow like you needs a car like that to haul her boy friends in.”

  “I wouldn’t mind it,” I said. “I think I’d like one open, so I could climb out if I needed to.”

  “You’d need to if I was with you,” he said. We had stopped to drink coffee and Johnny had drunk beer instead. It was old watery café coffee, so I wisht I’d drunk beer too. I was feeling good that day. We all were.

  Gid was solemn as a judge though until we got the car bought. Spending that much money, even if it wasn’t his, always made Gid sober. Just to tease him I made them take me around to the Cadillac place, and I even got out and went in. They had the nicest salesman we met, too; I would have just as soon bought one of his cars. But Gid rushed me off.

  “Whew, I’m glad to get out of there,” he said. “He’d have sold you a limousine in another ten minutes.”

  “Well, I guess if I had wanted it I’d have bought it,” I said. “It’s my money, you know.”

  “I know,” he said. “But it won’t be long.”

  After we bought the Ford he loosened up a lot and we went to a big cafeteria and ate lunch. Johnny cut up with all the waitresses; it’s a wonder they let us stay. Gid was just cutting up with me.

  “Well, we got that done, we can enjoy ourselves,” he said.

  After dinner they flipped a coin to see who would drive me home in the new car, and Gid won. Johnny didn’t care. He took off in Gid’s car, and I bet he went right to some beer joint and tanked up.

  Gid had on new boots and a new gray shirt that day, and he looked fine and handsome. He was just getting rich then; anyway he had a lot of confidence in himself. It was before Mabel made him move to town.

  “Well, since we’re here,” he said, “let’s just make a holiday of it. You want to go to a picture show?”

  “I guess so,” I said, “I’m just with you.”

  So we went and he bought some popcorn and we sat right in the middle of the theater, and Gid put his arm on the seat behind me, so that when I leaned back I could feel it against my shoulders and neck. It was such a comfortable feeling, and once in a while he would put his hand against my neck or my hair. Nobody else made me feel comfortable that way. I don’t remember what the picture was, or what it was about. I never can remember picture shows; most of them are so silly, anyway. When we came out of the dark show the sun was so bright I could hardly see, and he had to practically lead me down the street to the car. It was a shiny, new-smelling car then; after I’d hauled chicken f
eed in it for a month or two it smelled different.

  Gid drove, and we rode out of Wichita toward Scotland, into the open country. I took off my neck scarf and unpinned my hair; the bobby pins were hurting my head. It was nice to get out in the country agin; so far as I was concerned, Wichita Falls was the ugliest place on the earth.

  “Drives like a good car,” Gid said. “Just stiff. You bounce it over them old dirt roads awhile and it’ll get broke in.”

  “It better be good,” I said. “I intend for it to last me the rest of my life.”

  My hair itched from being pinned up all morning, and I combed it out while Gid drove home. It was early fall. The boys had both volunteered in August, and they were still in boot camp. After that Jimmy got sent to New Jersey and Joe to California. All the way across the country from one another.

  “Well, I guess the boys are doing okay,” I said. “The worst thing they’ve complained about is the cooking.”

  “Oh, have you heard from both of them?” Gid said.

  “No, just from Joe.” We were past Scotland, over in the dairy-farming country; I began to notice milk cows grazing in the pastures. “But he said Jimmy didn’t like the cooking either.”

  Gid was looking blue.

  “Don’t get depressed, honey,” I said. “We’ve had such a good day. There’s nothing we can do about him now.”

  “Well, I wish we could think of something,” he said. “I wish we could make it up to Jimmy someway, whatever we done wrong.”

  Gid’s little girl Sarah was six years old then, and Jimmy had been on his mind a lot longer than she had. She was a cute little girl, but you could sure see her mother in her.

  “You know we can’t,” I said. “We’d have to do over our whole lives. We just have to hope he’ll outgrow hating us for it.”