I know you do.
The old man smoked. If what you're askin me is what made me the unhappiest then I think you already know that.
Yessir.
And it aint this chair. And it aint this cotton eye.
Yessir. I know that.
You sign on for the ride you probably think you got at least some notion of where the ride's goin. But you might not. Or you might of been lied to. Probably nobody would blame you then. If you quit. But if it's just that it turned out to be a little roughern what you had in mind. Well. That's somethin else.
Bell nodded.
I guess some things are better not put to the test.
I guess that's right.
What would it take to run Loretta off?
I dont know. I guess I'd have to do somethin that was pretty bad. It damn sure wouldnt be just cause things got a little rough. She's done been there a time or two.
Ellis nodded. He tipped the ash from his smoke into a jarlid on the table. I'll take your word on that, he said.
Bell smiled. He looked around. How fresh is that coffee?
I think it's all right. I generally make a fresh pot here ever week even if there is some left over.
Bell smiled again and rose and carried the pot to the counter and plugged it in.
They sat at the table drinking coffee out of the same crazed porcelain cups that had been in that house since before he was born. Bell looked at the cup and he looked around the kitchen. Well, he said. Some things dont change, I reckon.
What would that be? the old man said.
Hell, I dont know.
I dont either.
How many cats you got?
Several. Depends on what you mean by got. Some of em are half wild and the rest are just outlaws. They run out the door when they heard your truck.
Did you hear the truck?
How's that?
I said did you...You're havin a little fun with me.
What give you that idea?
Did you?
No. I seen the cats skedaddle.
You want some more of this?
I'm done.
The man that shot you died in prison.
In Angola. Yes.
What would you of done if he'd been released?
I dont know. Nothin. There wouldnt be no point to it. There aint no point to it. Not to any of it.
I'm kindly surprised to hear you say that.
You wear out, Ed Tom. All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it. Your grandad never asked me to sign on as deputy with him. I done that my own self. Hell, I didnt have nothin else to do. Paid about the same as cowboyin. Anyway, you never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. I was too young for one war and too old for the next one. But I seen what come out of it. You can be patriotic and still believe that some things cost more than what they're worth. Ask them Gold Star mothers what they paid and what they got for it. You always pay too much. Particularly for promises. There aint no such thing as a bargain promise. You'll see. Maybe you done have.
Bell didnt answer.
I always thought when I got older that God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didnt. I dont blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.
You dont know what he thinks.
Yes I do.
He looked at Bell. I can remember one time you come to see me after you all had moved to Denton. You walked in and you looked around and you asked me what I intended to do.
All right.
You wouldnt ask me now though, would you?
Maybe not.
You wouldnt.
He sipped the rank black coffee.
You ever think about Harold? Bell said.
Harold?
Yes.
Not much. He was some older than me. He was born in ninety-nine. Pretty sure that's right. What made you think about Harold?
I was readin some of your mother's letters to him, that's all. I just wondered what you remembered about him.
Was they any letters from him?
No.
You think about your family. Try to make sense out of all that. I know what it did to my mother. She never got over it. I dont know what sense any of that makes either. You know that gospel song? We'll understand it all by and by? That takes a lot of faith. You think about him goin over there and dyin in a ditch somewheres. Seventeen year old. You tell me. Because I damn sure dont know.
I hear you. Did you want to go somewheres?
I dont need nobody haulin me around. I aim to just set right here. I'm fine, Ed Tom.
It aint no trouble.
I know it.
All right.
Bell watched him. The old man stubbed out his cigarette in the lid. Bell tried to think about his life. Then he tried not to. You aint turned infidel have you Uncle Ellis?
No. No. Nothin like that.
Do you think God knows what's happenin?
I expect he does.
You think he can stop it?
No. I dont.
They sat quietly at the table. After a while the old man said: She mentioned there was a lot of old pictures and family stuff. What to do about that. Well. There aint nothin to do about it I dont reckon. Is there?
No. I dont reckon there is.
I told her to send Uncle Mac's old cinco peso badge and his thumb-buster to the Rangers. I believe they got a museum. But I didnt know what to tell her. There's all that stuff here. In the chifforobe in yonder. That rolltop desk is full of papers. He tilted the cup and looked into the bottom of it.
He never rode with Coffee Jack. Uncle Mac. That's all bull. I dont know who started that. He was shot down on his own porch in Hudspeth County.
That's what I always heard.
They was seven or eight of em come to the house. Wantin this and wantin that. He went back in the house and come out with a shotgun but they was way ahead of him and they shot him down in his own doorway. She run out and tried to stop the bleedin. Tried to get him back in the house. Said he kept tryin to get hold of the shotgun again. They just set there on their horses. Finally left. I dont know why. Somethin scared em, I reckon. One of em said somethin in injun and they all turned and left out. They never come in the house or nothin. She got him inside but he was a big man and they was no way she could of got him up in the bed. She fixed a pallet on the floor. Wasnt nothin to be done. She always said she should of just left him there and rode for help but I dont know where it was she would of rode to. He wouldnt of let her go noway. Wouldnt hardly let her go in the kitchen. He knew what the score was if she didnt. He was shot through the right lung. And that was that. As they say.
When did he die?
Eighteen and seventy-nine.
No, I mean was it right away or in the night or when was it.
I believe it was that night. Or early of the mornin. She buried him herself. Diggin in that hard caliche. Then she just packed the wagon and hitched the horses and pulled out of there and she never did go back. That house burned down sometime back in the twenties. What hadnt fell down. I could take you to it today. The rock chimney used to be standin and it may be yet. There was a good bit of land proved up on. Eight or ten sections if I remember. She couldnt pay the taxes on it, little as they was. Couldnt sell it. Did you remember her?
No. I seen a photograph of me and her when I was about four. She's settin in a rocker on the porch of this house and I'm standin alongside of her. I wish I could say I remember her but I dont.
She never did remarry. Later years she was a school-teacher. San Angelo. This country was hard on people. But they never seemed to hold it to account. In a way that seems peculiar. That they didnt. You think about what all has happened to just this one family. I dont know what I'm doin here still knockin around. All them young people. We dont know where half of em is even buried at. You got to ask what was the good in all that. So I go back t
o that. How come people dont feel like this country has got a lot to answer for? They dont. You can say that the country is just the country, it dont actively do nothin, but that dont mean much. I seen a man shoot his pickup truck with a shotgun one time. He must of thought it done somethin. This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it. You understand what I'm sayin?
I think I do. Do you love it?
I guess you could say I do. But I'd be the first one to tell you I'm as ignorant as a box of rocks so you sure dont want to go by nothin I'd say.
Bell smiled. He got up and went to the sink. The old man turned the chair slightly to where he could see him. What are you doin? he said.
I thought I'd just wash these here dishes.
Hell, leave em, Ed Tom. Lupe'll be here in the mornin.
It wont take but a minute.
The water from the tap was gypwater. He filled the sink and added a scoop of soap powder. Then he added another.
I thought you used to have a television set in here.
I used to have a lot of things.
Why didnt you say somethin? I'll get you one.
I dont need one.
Keep you company some.
It didnt quit on me. I throwed it out.
You dont never watch the news?
No. Do you?
Not much.
He rinsed the dishes and left them to drain and stood looking out the window at the little weedgrown yard. A weathered smokehouse. An aluminum two horse trailer on blocks. You used to have chickens, he said.
Yep, the old man said.
Bell dried his hands and came back to the table and sat. He looked at his uncle. Did you ever do anything you was ashamed of to the point where you never would tell nobody?
His uncle thought about that. I'd say I have, he said. I'd say about anybody has. What is it you've found out about me?
I'm serious.
All right.
I mean somethin bad.
How bad.
I dont know. Where it stuck with you.
Like somethin you could go to jail for?
Well, it could be somethin like that I reckon. It wouldnt have to be.
I'd have to think about that.
No you wouldnt.
What's got into you? I aint goin to invite you out here no more.
You didnt invite me this time.
Well. That's true.
Bell sat with his elbows on the table and his hands folded together. His uncle watched him. I hope you aint fixin to make some terrible confession, he said. I might not want to hear it.
Do you want to hear it?
Yeah. Go ahead.
All right.
It aint of a sexual nature is it?
No.
That's all right. Go ahead and tell it anyways.
It's about bein a war hero.
All right. Would that be you?
Yeah. That'd be me.
Go ahead.
I'm tryin to. This is actually what happened. What got me that commendation.
Go ahead.
We was in a forward position monitorin radio signals and we was holed up in a farmhouse. Just a two room stone house. We'd been there two days and it never did quit rainin. Rained like all get-out. Somewhere about the middle of the second day the radio operator had took his headset off and he said: Listen. Well, we did. When somebody said listen you listened. And we didnt hear nothin. And I said: What is it? And he said: Nothin.
I said What the hell are you talkin about, nothin? What did you hear? And he said: I mean you cant hear nothin. Listen. And he was right. There was not a sound nowheres. No field-piece or nothin. All you could hear was the rain. And that was about the last thing I remember. When I woke up I was layin outside in the rain and I dont know how long I'd been layin there. I was wet and cold and my ears was ringin and whenever I set up and looked the house was gone. Just part of the wall at one end was standin was all. A round had come through the wall and just blowed it all to hell. Well, I couldnt hear a thing. I couldnt hear the rain or nothin. If I said somethin I could hear it inside my head but that was all. I got up and walked over to where the house was and there was sections of the roof layin over a good part of it and I seen one of our men buried in them rocks and timbers and I tried to move some stuff to see if I couldnt get to him. My whole head just felt numb. And while I was doin that I raised up and looked out and here come these German riflemen across this field. They was comin out of a patch of woods about two hundred yards off and comin across this field. I still didnt know exactly what had happened. I was kindly in a daze. I crouched down there by the side of the wall and the first thing I seen was Wallace's .30 caliber stickin out from under some timbers. That thing was aircooled and it was belt fed out of a metal box and I figured if I let em run up a little more on me I could operate on em out there in the open and they wouldnt call in another round cause they'd be too close. I scratched around and finally got that thing dug out, it and the tripod, and I dug around some more and come up with the ammo box for it and I got set up behind the section of wall there and knocked the dirt out of the barrel and jacked back the slide and here we went.
It was hard to tell where the rounds was hittin on account of the ground bein wet but I knew I was doin some good. I emptied out about two feet of belt and I kept watchin out there and after it'd been quiet two or three minutes one of them krauts jumped up and tried to make a run for the woods but I was ready for that. I kept the rest of em pinned down and all the while I could hear some of our men groanin and I sure didnt know what I was goin to do come dark. And that's what they give me the Bronze Star for. The major that put me in for it was named McAllister and he was from Georgia. And I told him I didnt want it. And he just set there lookin at me and directly he said: I'm waitin on you to tell me your reasons for wantin to refuse a military commendation. So I told him. And when I got done he said: Sergeant, you will accept the commendation. I guess they had to make it look good. Look like it counted for somethin. Losin the position. He said you will accept it and if you tell it around what you told me it will get back to me and when it does you are goin to wish you was in hell with your back broke. Is that clear? And I said yessir. Said that was about as clear as you could make it. So that was it.
So now you're fixin to tell me what you done.
Yessir.
When it got dark.
When it got dark. Yessir.
What did you do?
I cut and run.
The old man thought about that. After a while he said: I got to assume that it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time.
Yeah, Bell said. It did.
What would of happened if you'd stayed there?
They'd of come up in the dark and lobbed grenades in on me. Or maybe gone back up in the woods and called in another round.
Yeah.
Bell sat there with his hands crossed on the oilcloth. He looked at his uncle. The old man said: I aint sure what it is you're askin me.
I aint either.
You left your buddies behind.
Yeah.
You didnt have no choice.
I had a choice. I could of stayed.
You couldnt of helped em.
Probably not. I thought about takin that .30 caliber off about a hundred feet or so and waitin till they throwed their grenades or whatever. Lettin em come on up. I could of killed a few more. Even in the dark. I dont know. I set there and watched it come night. Pretty sunset. It had done cleared up by then. Had finally quit rainin. That field had been sowed in oats and there was just the stalks. Fall of the year. I watched it get dark and I had not heard nothin from anybody that was in the wreckage there for a while. They might could of all been dead by then. But I didnt know that. And quick as it got dark I got up and I left out of there. I didnt even have a gun. I dang sure wasnt haulin that .30 caliber with me. My head had quit hurtin some and I could even hear a little. It had quit rainin but I was wet through and I was cold to where my teeth wa
s chatterin. I could make out the dipper and I headed due west as near as I could make it and I just kept goin. I passed a house or two but there wasnt nobody around. It was a battlezone, that country. People had just left out. Come daylight I laid up in a patch of woods. What woods it was. That whole country looked like a burn. Just the treetrunks was all that was left. And sometime that next night I come to an American position and that was pretty much it. I thought after so many years it would go away. I dont know why I thought that. Then I thought that maybe I could make up for it and I reckon that's what I have tried to do.
They sat. After a while the old man said: Well, in all honesty I cant see it bein all that bad. Maybe you ought to ease up on yourself some.
Maybe. But you go into battle it's a blood oath to look after the men with you and I dont know why I didnt. I wanted to. When you're called on like that you have to make up your mind that you'll live with the consequences. But you dont know what the consequences will be. You end up layin a lot of things at your own door that you didnt plan on. If I was supposed to die over there doin what I'd give my word to do then that's what I should of done. You can tell it any way you want but that's the way it is. I should of done it and I didnt. And some part of me has never quit wishin I could go back. And I cant. I didnt know you could steal your own life. And I didnt know that it would bring you no more benefit than about anything else you might steal. I think I done the best with it I knew how but it still wasnt mine. It never has been.
The old man sat for a long time. He was bent slightly forward looking at the floor. After a while he nodded. I think I know where this is goin, he said.
Yessir.
What do you think he would of done?
I know what he would of done.
Yeah. I guess I do too.
He'd of set there till hell froze over and then stayed a while on the ice.
Do you think that makes him a better man than you?
Yessir. I do.
I might could tell you some things about him that would change your mind. I knew him pretty good.
Well sir, I doubt that you could. With all due respect. Besides which I doubt that you would.
I aint. But then I might say that he lived in different times. Had Jack of been born fifty years later he might of had a different view of things.
You might. But nobody in this room would believe it.
Yeah, I expect that's true. He looked up at Bell. What did you tell me for?
I think I just needed to unload my wagon.
You waited long enough about doin it.
Yessir. Maybe I needed to hear it myself. I'm not the man of an older time they say I am. I wish I was. I'm a man of this time.