Marathon Cowboys (15 page)

plan, to just make it happen by sheer force of will, might

very well backfire. But I didn’t know what else to do.

“Make it so,” I said, quoting Captain Jean-Luc Picard

and pointing down the long, dusty road back to Marathon.

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“Failure is not an option.” I wondered if a street map of San

Francisco would look anything like the Borg.

I got back about midnight, and the lights were off in the

studio. I washed a couple of strawberries, set them beside

Jesse’s bed. He was sleeping like a baby seal that had been

clubbed in the head. I wondered if The Original had drugged

his coffee.

The house was still asleep when I got up and went for

my run, but there was coffee brewing in the kitchen by the

time I got back. I jumped in the shower, noticed a stack of

clean boxers and T-shirts on the little dresser in my room.

Somebody had done laundry while I was out roaming the

back roads of West Texas. Jesse was in the kitchen, looking

into the cabinets. “I got everything on your list, including

bok choy, which the grocery store had labeled as collard

greens.”

“Thanks, Mary. I ate two sweet strawberries this

morning before I even got out of bed.”

“Gary sent you something, a riata. Some sort of a

rawhide whip, or rope. I’ve got it down in my room.”

I brought the bag back, set it on the kitchen table, and

he pulled it out and looked at it. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Probably.”

“I want to take a picture of this wrapped around your

waist. Can we do that this morning? It’s for the Grievous

Angel.”

“Sure.”

“Let’s have cereal with berries, okay?”

“I think it’s your turn to cook, and I’ll take whatever you

want to feed me.” I sat down at the table, unfolded the paper,

turned to the comics.

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He looked over at me, gave me a little pinch next time I

looked up. “How was Gary?”

“Good. He told me you painted him looking lonely and

miserable on the steps of a bookstore in the Castro.”

“He was one sad little puppy, let me tell you. Kept

looking around, wondering where all the girls were.”

“He said Sam might not realize he’s the
old
boyfriend.”

“What?”

“Is he still managing your money, Jesse?”

“Yes, he is.”
And that’s none of your business.
He didn’t

say it, but his eyes were suddenly pissed off. “You can be a

big-balls devil dog in the bedroom all you want, Mary, but

you’re not running the rest of my life.”

“Are you two living together?”

“No, I told you we split up. Why? You have a reason not

to believe me?”

“I never slept with three in a bed before. I thought he

might not like it if I kicked him in the head in the middle of

the night. With my new cowboy boots.”

“The boots are done? Oh, let me see.” Jesse ran back

down the hall, came back with the boots, singing that old

Nancy Sinatra classic and walking the boots through the air.

I thought he was doing a pretty good job of avoiding my

question, and I decided to let it go. Have some strawberries

in my cereal and enjoy the morning.

Jesse poured a couple of bowls of cereal, sliced up the

strawberries, and put half on his cereal and half on mine.

Then he sat down on my lap and ate his berries, and then he

ate mine. One after the other, right out of my bowl, looking

right into my eyes with a
don’t fuck with me
look on his

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pretty face. Then he hopped off, poured the skim milk, and

handed me a cup of coffee and a spoon.

Interesting. So, if I bring up Sam before breakfast, I can

expect to get my strawberries taken away. He rinsed the

bowls in the sink when we were done eating. “Come on, grab

your boots and your whip, cowboy. We’ve got work to do.”

He put me up against one of the blank canvases. I tried

to get a look at what he’d been working on, the Grievous

Angel, but he had it covered with a long piece of butcher

paper. “I’m trying to keep the dust off,” he said, seeing my

look. “As fast as the acrylic dries out here, it still gets dust in

the paint when the wind blows too hard. Mary, when you got

that shrapnel in your chest, do you remember what it looked

like?”

“Yeah, I do. Black metal, and the edges looked twisted,

almost ripped. It wasn’t shiny, more like a dull black matte.”

I closed my eyes. “The weird thing was it was smoking.”

“What?”

“The metal was hot. I could see the smoke rising, and it

sort of burned the edges of the wounds. That’s why I didn’t

bleed to death. The other guys were screaming, because the

metal had fallen on them, burned their skin. But I looked

down and all these pieces, they were sticking out of me, and

the steam was rising.”

He was sitting in his chair, pale down to his lips.

“Jesus.”

“Okay, so what do you want me to do? Put it around my

shoulder?”

He shook his head. “You need to strip down. The riata

around your waist. And your boots. Your tattoo, the one on

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your arm. Can you see it if your arms are stretched out like

this?”

I pulled my T-shirt off, stretched my arms out, then put

my hands behind my head.

“Okay, good.” He was taking pictures of my upper arms.

“Jeans off, and let’s see how the riata looks.”

I pulled off my jeans, then put the cowboy boots back on

and wound the riata around my waist. He stood there, one

hand on his hip. “Is this the way you wanted it?”

He pointed at my boxers. “I think you forgot something.”

“Jesse, for Christ’s sake!”

“The rawhide needs to be against your beautiful brown

stomach, zo-zo. That’s why I picked it out. The Grievous

Angel is not wearing striped poplin boxers.”

“If you sell nude photos of me wearing cowboy boots and

a whip, I’m going to have the shortest career as a cartoonist

in the history of the world.”

“Oh, the hat! I almost forgot the hat. Don’t be silly,

Mary. Nothing I do is going to hurt your career.”

He handed me an old US Cavalry hat, which I shoved on

my head, then I stepped out of my boxers. “Shit.”

He gave a low wolf whistle. “Robert Mapplethorpe is

crawling out of his grave right now, slouching toward

Marathon on zombie hands and knees.” He studied me.

“Okay, put your arms out to the sides, like you’re hanging

from a cross. Palms out.”

I listened to the flash, stared up at the rafters. I was

going to kick his ass for this. He came closer, adjusted the

rawhide so the end of the whip dangled down next to my

cock. “Now put your arms up behind your head, like Saint

Sebastian, waiting for the arrows.” More clicks and flashes.

“Okay, now spread your legs. I want to get the boots.”

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This went on for a lot longer than I was interested in

putting up with, and I finally pulled off the hat and rested it

down over my groin. “Enough.” He got one last picture of the

hat, resting between my legs, and then he put the camera

down and picked up my boxers.

“Here you go, zo-zo.” He was suddenly contrite, like any

boy who had eaten all the strawberries, then talked

somebody into nude photographs.

“You,” I said, pointing at his chest, “are the most spoiled

brat of a man in the history of Marathon, Texas, and San

Francisco, California. I have a good mind to turn you over

my knee and paddle your butt, but I think you’d enjoy it too

much.”

“Santana today,” he said, and cranked up the volume on

the CD player. “
Supernatural
!”

I love Carlos as much as most hot-blooded American

men, but after four hours I had to go into the house and

shove some cotton balls in my ears. It was too hot to work,

anyway. I was falling into a pattern down here: run early, get

to work, and break off about two. Sleep in the heat of the

afternoon, with a nice fan blowing on me, then get up and

work again in the evening. The Original woke me up about

six for supper. “I’m having a hard time with the girl,” I told

him.

“How come? You must have worked with lots of girls in

the corps.”

“Yeah, but they were mostly support staff. I mean,

combat infantry units are still pretty gender-specific, no

matter what Congress says we should be doing.”

“Better just leave ’em support, then. It won’t work if you

try and force somebody into your company.”

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“That might be a good narrative thread, though. What

happens if they put a girl in the unit against the wishes of

the platoon leader. Bound to cause lots of interesting

conflict.”

He yelled for Jesse out the back door, then went out and

banged on the studio door. Jesse came in the house five

minutes later. “Sorry, Granddad. I wanted to get the paper

taped up over the painting. It looks like we’re gonna have a

storm tonight.”

The Original had made a blueberry pie for dessert, and

Jesse looked at it for a long moment, the beautiful purple

juice bubbling up through the crust. “What happened?”

The old man sighed, lifted slices with an old-fashioned

silver pie server. He looked at me. “An old family tradition.

We fix a good pie so we can share bad news.”

Jesse pulled his piece over to him and waited until I had

mine before he took a bite.

“Sadie checked herself out of that rehab. They don’t

know where she is. She must have got a ride, but they don’t

really know.”

“Aren’t they supposed to watch her? I mean, she just

leaves, nobody knows….”

“She’s twenty-three, Jesse. They didn’t have any reason

to have her committed, so she could go if she wanted.”

“But they don’t even know who picked her up?”

“I suspect you know that better than anyone else. You

were the only person Sadie would talk to about this

boyfriend of hers.”

Jesse shoved a piece of pie into his mouth. “I can’t talk

about it, Granddad.”

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“All right, son. You just remember I’m here, you need

some help. Make sure Sadie knows too, that I would never

judge her. She can always come home.”

After the old man had left the kitchen, Jesse slung a

cup towel over his shoulder. “I’ll dry. Fuck. That is bad news,

and I had such a good day today.”

“You don’t think she’s in any danger, do you?” I filled

the dishpan, squirted lemon soap in the hot water.

“He tried to get her to make a porn film a couple of

months ago. I sent her down here, then I came down,

thinking I could keep an eye on her.” He took a plate from

me, dried it off. “Oh, I came to paint too, but I just thought it

would be better if we got out of Dodge, you know? She’s

getting a little bit erratic.”

It seemed to me Sadie was a lot erratic and plenty old

enough now to be running her own life, and not letting her

big, strong cousin tell her where to go. But what did I know.

I knew enough to keep my mouth shut.

“You play the guitar, Mary?”

“Nope. I’ve never been musical. I like music, though.”

“I played when I was younger. I listened to Carlos

Santana and Yo-Yo Ma play ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’

today. Made me want to sit on the porch after supper and

sing.”

“I’ll sit with you.”

We looked at each other across the kitchen, the smell of

blueberry pie and lemon bubbles in the sink, washing dishes

together. I liked him. I liked his company. I wanted to sit on

the porch with him after supper and listen to him play the

guitar for the rest of my days. What was I going to do when

he went back to San Francisco? What was I going to do if he

didn’t invite me to go along?

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He hung the dishcloth over the handle on the oven to

dry, went back to his bedroom and came out with the guitar.

He sat on the top porch step, and I took one of the rocking

chairs. He played an old classical guitar with nylon strings,

and the sound was muted and gentle, old Spanish songs and