Five

 

Gillom found Bee Dunn, Ivory Bean, and Johnny Kneebone, Jr. in the thicket of cottonwoods and tall brush at the river’s edge, smoking and joshing as Bee splashed about in the turgid water, hoping to stir up a frog. All three youths attended the old Central School where four upper classes met weekdays in rooms on the second floor. All three were pleased to see their compadre when he hailed them.

“Gillom, lad! Bring an offering to the party?” yelled the blacksmith’s big son.

“I did, Mister Kneebone! A nip of the cacti to go with a relaxing smoke after a hard day in the classroom.” Gillom broke through the brush to his pals, pulling a bottle out of his bag, which he’d purchased out the back door of one of the cantinas clustered along the road to the border crossing. He’d bought that Mexican’s tobacco pouch, too.

He held up a small pint bottle of golden liquor with a blue agave on the label. Gillom pulled the cork with his teeth as he strode up to them. “Mezcal!”

Young Ivory smiled. Named for his thin blond hair and pale skin only a shade darker than an albino’s, this teenager’s delicate skin forced him to wear a felt cowboy hat always, even in cloudy weather like today, just in case of sunshine.

“Missed an arithmetic test today, Gillom. It was a wooly booger!”

Swallowing a first snort, Mr. Rogers breathed through his mouth, exhaling alcohol fumes. “Had more important things to do. Like buy a holster for these beauties.” Proudly he pulled his holstered specials from the burlap.

His three mates were dumbstuck, mouths opened.

“J. B. Books’s guns?” gaped Ivory.

“Matched Remington .44’s. Told you he left ’em to me. Books had ’em sweetened. Filed down the notch on the hammer, loosened the spring on the trigger so they’ll fire quicker.” He passed both pistols gingerly to the young men. “Careful. You breathe on ’em hard, they’ll go off.”

The blacksmith’s son filled his hand. “No front sight.”

“Faster pull. Mister Books did his killing close in. He had sharp eyes, good reflexes, but he told me careful aim wasn’t as important as a close distance to your man.”

“Gol-lee fishhooks.…” Bee Dunn petted one pistol like you’d stroke a cat.

Johnny Kneebone, Jr. closed an eye, extended his gun hand. “Let’s try ’em.”

“Shots echo off this water. Somebody’s sure to come down here, see what’s going on,” said their most pragmatic pal, young Mr. Dunn.

“Bee’s right, Johnny. Don’t.” Ivory was the mortician’s son, well acquainted with the tragic results of gun trouble.

Gillom stuck out his hands. He took both pistols and slid them carefully back into leather sheaths. “Bought saddle soap and oil, to shine up this old leather. I’ll get a new holster someday.”

“Was that Books’s, too?” Bee asked.

“No. Just bought it at Jim Dandy’s. Books left me some of his savings.”

Ivory yelped. “Christmas in April!”

Gillom turned to young Kneebone. “Get your own pistol, Johnny, you wanna become a dead shot.”

“I wanna practice with the shootist’s smoke wagon. See what made him so good.”

Bee snorted. “So good? He got killed, remember?”

Gillom shook his head. “Not a chance of usin’ these guns here.”

“Buy one from yah.” Kneebone appraised his thinner pal. “Thirty dollars.”

Gillom shook his head again. “This matched pair’s worth hundreds. To collectors.”

Johnny cat-eyed his compadre. Gillom returned his stare. He and Johnny were friendly rivals among a group of senior boys, but since Gillom had recently dropped out of high school and then had the luck to get involved in Books’s big shoot-out, his esteem had grown in the other boys’ eyes, his reputation for toughness burnished. Now the green-eyed monster reared its ugly head.

“Bet you. Remington for my Barlow knife. Mumblety-peg.”

Gillom scowled. “That’s no fair bet, knife for a fine pistol.”

“Plus thirty dollars.”

Gillom chuckled nervously, looked round at his classmates. “You don’t have that kind of money.”

“I win, I’ll scrape it up. You keep Books’s revolver till I do.”

Gillom was reluctant, but he saw the eager faces about him. A dare!

Bee, his closest friend among the bunch, was the first to compromise him. “C’mon, Gillie. You need a good knife to go with those pistolas.”

“You’ll still have one, if you lose,” chimed Ivory.

The gauntlet had been tossed. Reluctantly, Gillom Rogers nodded.

Kneebone pulled out his three-bladed clasp knife and wiped its four-inch steel blade clean on his corduroy trousers. “Yank yer boots off.”

“Yeah!” yipped young Mr. Dunn. “Bare feet makes it interestin’!”

Both boys bent to unlace their brogans, which were made of leather heavy enough to support mine workers. Cocky with his own weapon, Johnny flung it by the handle, sticking the knife into the riverbank’s moist soil, next to the work boot Gillom was unlacing.

“Hey! Not ready!”

A crooked smile crossed the bigger kid’s face. “You won’t be, either, when I stick that steel between your toes.”

Gillom pulled the pocketknife from the soft dirt and wiped the blade off. He chewed his lower lip. He leaned and tossed the sharp knife into the dirt a foot and a half from Johnny’s foot. Kneebone slid his bare foot out to reach the blade, then yanked it out to lean across his body and stick it a foot-length the other side of Gillom.

Boys in west Texas grew up playing mumblety-peg, graduating from small penknives to single-bladed hog stickers. More dangerous barefooted, this match bid to be a good contest. Over pretty quickly, too, at the rate these limber youths were reaching, sticking, then spreading their legs wider, almost doing splits now. First one to miss sticking the knife blade in the dirt, handle up, would lose more than his pride.

Showing off to the grinning lads, Johnny held his steel blade by its sharp point and flipped it end over end to stick another eight inches beyond Gillom’s left little toe.

“Nice throw!” yelled young Bean.

Johnny smirked. “I need that Remington to practice my aim, so’s when asked whether it’s gonna be guns or knives, won’t make no difference which one my victim chooses.”

Gillom leaned far to pull the knife. He was spread wide, with not much length left in his legs to maneuver. But he managed to reach and stick the blade again four inches beyond Johnny’s far foot. Kneebone reached and pulled. The longer legs he inherited from his tall blacksmith daddy gave him an advantage. Showing off again, Johnny took the blade point between thumb and forefinger, leaned and flipped his knife. The sharp steel rotated end over end, but the teenager miscalculated the arc and stuck Gillom right on top of his foot, back of his little toe.

Gillom fell backward. “Owww! Damn! You cut me deliberately!”

“Gillie, I’m sorry.”

Gillom rolled on his back, holding up his bleeding foot. “Yes you did!”

“No, Gillom. I just missed.”

Gillom’s juices were running now, bringing him to his feet, limping around on one bleeding foot. “If you’ve made me a gimp, swear to God I’ll kill you!” He was as angry as the other boys had ever seen him. Bending to his bundle, Gillom ripped the two prized pistols from the burlap.

“Trying to hurt me, put me down so’s you can grab my new guns! I’ll show you who lays the chunk!” Barely aiming, he pulled a hair trigger, blasting a bullet near Kneebone’s bare foot. Johnny jumped as if from a hot foot!

“Dance, Kneebone, dance!”

Bullets from Gillom’s six-shooters kicked up clods of dirt at Kneebone’s feet, with Johnny frantically hopping about. “I’m sorry, Gillom, sorry! Didn’t mean—”

A ricochet cut him off, bruising Kneebone’s instep. The gunshots, flying dirt, mezcal coursing through their veins, scared the other boys. Bee Dunn and Ivory Bean backed away, turned to make tracks. Young Mr. Kneebone wasn’t far behind, leaving his work boots lying as he galloped off in big bare feet.

“Yeah, pull your freight for home, Kneebone! Taste a what you’ll get, you ever try to stick me again!” Gillom fired one last shot at the retreating trio, over their heads.

“You’re pure-dee crazy, Gillom!” Bee yelled back.

Gillom sat down suddenly, breathing hard from the pain, his fury, and his frustration with his confused life and his abandonment by his old pals. He pulled a fairly clean handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wrapped his bloody foot, trying to squeeze off the pain. He rested his foot and picked up his new Barlow knife. He balanced the knife in his palm, musing upon his predicament, and then softly, for only the third time since he was a little boy, Gillom Rogers began to cry.

*   *   *

His mother was waiting as he limped in the front door. She herded him into her kitchen and got out the antiseptic. His explanation of mumblety-peg with the boys at the river didn’t wash well, either.

“At least your friends are in school. Why don’t you go back with them, finish your senior year together?”

“Aw, I can’t now. Word’s around I was involved in that gunfight. Teachers would mark me down for bein’ dangerous. Girls wouldn’t talk to me and the fellas would be botherin’ me to show ’em those guns, just like the boys this afternoon.”

She hesitated before dousing a clean rag with carbolic acid. “You had Mister Books’s pistols out in public?”

“No. But the boys sure wanted to see ’em.”

She rubbed disinfectant right onto his wound, causing her son to jerk straight up!

“Sufferin’ Jesus!”

“Wound doesn’t look too deep. I think you’ll walk again.” A little more scrubbing by her and a lot more grimacing by him and his cut foot was freshly bound.

“Gillom. If you won’t attend school now, you need a job. Keep you busy, out of more trouble, while you learn a trade.”

“Given it some thought.”

She waited while he wriggled his foot about to see if it still worked. “And?”

“Well, I’m now known for my weapons skills. So something to do with security. Bank or train guard, maybe.”

“And get shot.” She frowned. “To go along with your toe-cutting today? I think not. Something not involving weapons. Cashier in a bank perhaps? You’re good with figures.”

Gillom tested his weight on his wounded foot. “Could be a bouncer in a saloon, but I’m not full-grown yet. Might not win the fistfights.”

“Or sales clerk in a mercantile. You’d meet lots of people in a store, nice girls.”

“Boring. Like a little excitement with my pay.”

His mother shook her head. “I’ll ask around, Gillom, at church, my ladies’ club. See if anyone respectable is looking for unschooled help.”

Gillom moved well enough to limp back toward his new bedroom. “Sure, Ma.” He hesitated. “Thanks. Foot feels better already.”

Taken by this little tenderness, the only empathy she’d had with her son in too long a while, Bond Rogers nodded.