“Don’t you all kill the little ones,” Molly said. “I want one for a pet.”
“Sure,” Johnny said.
We blocked up the open end and then Johnny stomped a hole in the old rotten wood. One little coon jumped right out into the dog’s mouth, and that was all for him. I got down on my hands and knees and managed to grab another one by the neck and drag him out. He was nearly half-grown though, and I sure needed something to tie him with. Baling wire was what I needed, but that’s the way, when you need baling wire you can’t find it and when you don’t need it you’re tangled up in it.
“Do you think you can gentle him?” I said, holding him out so Molly could see.
“Probably not,” Molly said.
Then Johnny yelled. He had kept his foot in the stomp hole, so the other little coon couldn’t run out, only he discovered that his foot was stuck. I wasn’t very worried.
“Pull your boot off,” I said. “Or sit down or something.”
“Hell no,” he said. “If I was to sit down wrong, I’d break this hip agin and be laid up in the hospital another three months. My heel’s stuck. See if you can stomp more hole.”
Molly and me thought it was funny; we stood there and laughed. Only I didn’t laugh long. The little coon that was in the log decided it was time to come out, and he did, right up Johnny’s leg. Johnny yanked backward and fell a-spraddling. The coon went right over him and off, and the dog never seen it. I got so tickled I forgot I was holding anything, and the little coon I had whipped around and bit clear through the palm of my hand. When he turned me loose I was glad to do the same for him. I howled like a banshee.
So Molly didn’t get no pet, and we went home with just one and a half coons and a cowardly dog, but we had fun anyhow. When we got to Molly’s she bandaged my hand and we sat up in the kitchen, eating all the stray food and talking over old times. We were all in high spirits and Johnny told us a lot of stories about life on the plains. Finally me and him slept awhile on her living room floor, and about sunup she came in in her nightgown and bathrobe and woke us up and cooked the best breakfast I ever ate. We did her chores for her and about six o’clock rode off toward home, with Molly standing by the yard gate with a milk bucket in one hand, watching us go.
There was a big dew that morning, and the country looked as green and sparkly as it ever had in July. We stopped our horses on the Ridge and talked about the grass and the cattle for a while.
“Well, are you home to stay?” I said. “Did you quit your job?”
“Yep, I’m here for good,” he said. “You need a hand?”
“Boy, you bet,” I said. “If you want a job you can start today. And live in our bunkhouse and we’ll board you if you want to.”
“Fine with me if it’s okay with Mabel,” he said.
I said it was. We hadn’t said two words about her.
“Course you might be ready to go in business for yourself,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to stand in your way if you do.”
“I am in business,” he said. “The cowboying business. You can have the ranching business; I don’t want no part of it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I’ll go home and tell my old man and get my stuff,” he said. “See you after while.”
And him and old Jack-a-Diamonds went off along the Ridge west in a long easy lope, neither one of them carrying a care in the world. I just about envied Johnny, but I didn’t quite. He was the most carefree, but I thought I had a few more good things than he had. I meant to swap him out of his horse, though. The sun was drying up the dew, so I got rid of Molly’s bandage and went on home and ate another breakfast.
twenty-four
Johnny sure made a good hand. Me and him got things done in a day that I would have fiddled around with a week if I had been by myself. Besides, he was enjoyable to work with. At least most times. Sometimes he was the most aggravating feller I knew. Ever once in a while he acted like he still intended to try and court Molly some, but I didn’t figure he’d get very far with that.
Having him to do the cow-work left me more time to get ambitious, and the land bug began to bite me pretty bad. I had already decided that land was something I’d never have enough of. So one day I buckled on my spurs and rode to Wichita to the bank and borrowed enough money to buy them three sections that joined me on the northwest. They were a good place to start extending. I had a deed drawn up and took it with me for the other feller to sign, and started home.
I rode hard that afternoon; the automobile was broke down or I would have gone in it. The weather was terrible—it was late August—and I didn’t need no thermometer to tell me it was over a hundred degrees. When I crossed the Taylor place I decided to take the deed up and show it to Molly. I was proud of that deed, and I already knew Eddie wasn’t there; I had looked that morning.
Molly was, though, ever inch of her, and she couldn’t have looked better to me if she’d been Lily Langtry. I knocked at the back door and went on in, and she was just turning away from the stove. She had been putting up the last of her garden stuff.
“You’re about as hot as I am,” I said.
“I’m glad you come,” she said. “Let’s sit down and cool off.”
I drank a couple of dippers of water out of the water bucket. She sat down at the table and I offered her a dipper full.
“I believe I will,” she said, and she took the dipper and tilted her head back and drank. She had really been working: the arms of her shirt were sweated halfway down her side, and the tip ends of hair around her neck were wet. Her old shirt was plastered to her stomach. But she looked like the real thing to me; when she took the dipper down I leaned over and kissed her and she reached up to put her hands behind my head, so the dipper dripped water on my shoulder.
“You know why I’m glad you come?” she said. “I’ve been saving something to show you.”
I grinned; I sure felt good. “What have you got I ain’t already seen?” I said.
“This, Gid,” she said, standing up. She grinned to herself and pulled the ends of her shirttail up and stuck her stomach out at me. It didn’t look much bigger than it ever had, but it looked a little, and I got the message. Besides she grabbed me and hugged me.
“Don’t that make you glad?” she said. “We’ve got one started. That makes me so proud. It’s just what I’ve been wanting.”
I didn’t know what to say. It was okay with me, but I wasn’t wildly happy about it, like she was. I was more excited about the deed.
“Why sure, Molly,” I said, “if it’s what you been wanting. And it’s ours for sure?”
“It’s ours for sure.”
There was nothing else to say. She was happy enough to faint; she just sort of slid on me.
“Well, sugar,” I said, after it was too late for it to have done any good, “I don’t know about all this. You’re so excited about it, we want to be careful and not jar it loose.”
“This bed’s just a puddle of sweat,” she said, crawling over me. “I’ll get some water and sprinkle us, so we’ll be cooler.” She brought in the dipper and sprinkled the sheets with me in them, and then sat down by me and caught my hand.
“It won’t jar loose,” she said. “I’m so glad the first one is yours. I wouldn’t have wanted anybody else’s to be the first.”
“Honey, you’re an awful strange woman,” I said. “There ain’t another like you in the world.”
“That’s okay,” she said.
“See how this stretches the elastic,” she said, sticking out her stomach agin when she started dressing. She had just got into her underpants.
“I thought it was supposed to make women less exciting,” I said. “It sure hasn’t you.”
She flopped back on the bed and laughed a big one. I liked the way Molly laughed. “These sheets are still nice and cool,” she said. I was done half-dressed but I lay back down a minute and grinned and kissed her.
“And you’re my honey,” she said. In a minute we got u
p and dressed. I showed her the deed, but it didn’t impress her a snap’s worth. But I must have impressed her a little; she wouldn’t hardly turn loose of me that day.
“Gid, have you got time to see what’s wrong with my windmill?” she said. “It just barely has been drawing lately”
“Sure, come on out with me,” I said.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” she said. “I want to pin up this old hot hair.” She raised her arms to pin it.
I got a pair of pliers and a couple of wrenches out of her tool box and climbed to the top of the pipe. It was just the sucker rod loose, and I tightened it in two minutes. But I didn’t climb down, I rested a minute on the crossbars while I waited for Molly to come out. Dad was the only thing missing in life; I hated it that he had missed such a good year for cattle; it was just the kind of year he had always waited for. From where I sat I could see my new land.
I had my hand on the top of the pipe, and the damn rod went down and mashed my finger before I noticed. I damn near fell off, but caught myself. I had a blood blister to suck, and a big one. Some grayish clouds were building up in the northwest, so we might get rain.
Molly stepped out on the back porch, buttoning her shirt, with her hair pinned up high in a knot and her neck looking cool.
“Come on down,” she said. “I’ll get a crick in my neck looking up there.”
“I’m surveying my new land,” I said. “Except for your place I own everything west of here that I can see.”
“You and your land,” she said, “you ain’t getting mine. Come on down here to me.” She was shading her eyes and looking up.
So I climbed down. “I like to pinched my finger off,” I said. “I better get on home before I get in more trouble.”
She took my mashed finger and put it in her mouth and wet it; the finger still stung but I didn’t much want to go home.
“You’re supposed to kiss it,” I said, “not slobber on it.”
“I can’t feel him yet,” she said. “I ought to pretty soon.”
“One of these days I’ll repipe your windmill,” I said, and then I remembered Eddie. Molly looked a lot thinner with her hair up on her head; it made her look cool and tender.
“I see you ain’t interested in babies,” she said. “Come with me to milk. It’s cool enough now.”
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.
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away,
SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 64
RUIN HATH TAUGHT ME II
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 county. 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.”