Comanche Moon

  Still, both the Captain and Madame Scull had been very nice to Jake. Madame Scull had even, one day, complimented him on his curly hair.

  "Why, Jake, those curls will soon be winning you many female hearts," she said to him one morning, when he was carrying out a package she wanted sent off.

  The men, Augustus McCrae particularly, scoffed at Jake for accepting soft work at the Captain's house, when he should have been out riding on Indian patrols. But Jake had no fondness for horses, and, besides, had a mighty fear of scalping. He was but seventeen, and considered that he had time enough to learn about Indian fighting. If, as some predicted, the Indians were whipped forever, before he got to fight them, it would not be a loss that grieved him much. There would always be Mexican bandits to engage the rangers--Jake supposed he could get all the fighting he wanted along the border, and soon enough.

  When Madame Scull called him upstairs he supposed it was just to carry out another package; the worst it was likely to entail was hanging a drape--Madame Scull was always getting rid of drapes and replacing them with other drapes. She was always shifting the furniture too, much to Captain Scull's vexation. Once he had come home from a dusty scout and started to plop down in his favorite chair, with one of the scientific books he loved to pore over, only to discover that his favorite chair was no longer in its spot.

  "Goddamnit, Inez, where's my armchair?" he asked. Jake, flirting with Felice, had happened to be in earshot when the outburst came.

  "That smelly thing, I gave it to the nigras," Mrs. Scull remarked coolly.

  "Why, you hairy slut, go get it back right now!" the Captain yelled--the comment startled Jake considerably and put Felice in such a fright that she lost all interest in courting.

  "I've never liked that chair, and I'll decide what furniture stays in my house, I reckon," Madame Scull said. "If you like that chair so much, go live with the nigras--I, for one, shan't miss your damn tobacco stains." "I want my chair and I'll have it!" the Captain declaimed; but at that point Jake ran out of the kitchen and hunted up a task to do in the stables. He had never expected to hear a captain in the Texas Rangers call his wife a slut, much less a hairy slut. Behind him, as he hurried off the porch, he heard the argument raging, and a crash of china. He feared the Sculls might be approaching the bullwhip stage, and didn't want to be anywhere around.

  The morning he got called into the bedroom he had to make the same dash again, only faster. When he came into the bedroom, Mrs.

  Scull beckoned him over to the blue velvet stool where she sat. She was red in the face.

  "Ma'am, is it the drapes again?" Jake asked, thinking she might have got a little too much sun through the long windows beside her bed.

  "It ain't the drapes, thank you, Jake," Inez Scull said.

  "My sweet boy," she added. "I do so fancy dimpled boys with curly hair." "Mine's always been curly, I guess," Jake said, at a loss how to respond to the remark. Madame Scull still had the same, sun-flushed look on her face.

  "Stand a little bit closer, so I can see your dimples better," Inez Scull said.

  Jake obediently placed himself within arm's length of the stool, only to get, in the next moment, the shock of his life, when Madame Scull confidently reached out and began to unbutton his pants.

  "Let's see your young pizzle, Jakie," she said.

  "What, ma'am?" Jake said, too startled to move.

  "Your pizzle--let's have a look," Madame Scull repeated. "I expect it's a fine one." "What, ma'am?" Jake said again. Then a sense of peril came over him, and he turned and dashed out of the room. He didn't quit dashing until he had reached the ranger stables. Once there, he squeezed into a horse stall and got his pants rebuttoned properly.

  He spent the rest of the day and most of the next few days as far from the Scull mansion as he could get and still do his work. Jake didn't know what to think about the incident--at times, he tried to persuade himself that he dreamed it. He desperately wanted to find someone to confide in, but the only person in the troop that he could trust with such dangerous information was Pea Eye Parker, a gangly, half-starved youth from the Arkansas flats who was not much older than himself. Pea Eye had come to Texas with his parents to farm, only to have both parents, a brother, and three sisters die within a year. Woodrow Call had happened to notice Pea Eye in an abandoned cornfield one day--the farmer had been burned out and his wife killed by Comanches. Pea Eye was sitting by a fence, eating the dried-out corn right off the cob.

  "Ain't that corn too dry to chew?" Call asked him. The young fellow looked to be seventeen or eighteen--he didn't even have drinking water to wash the dry kernels down with.

  "Mister, I'm too hungry to be picky," Pea Eye said. He looked hollow in the eyes, from starvation and fatigue. Woodrow Call had seen something in the boy that he liked--he had let Pea Eye ride behind him, into Austin.

  Pea Eye soon proved to be adept at horseshoeing, a task most rangers shunned.

  Augustus McCrae particularly shunned it, as he would shun cholera or indigestion. Pea Eye had wanted to ride out with the troop, of course, but Captain Scull had left him in town at first, considering him a little too green for the field. But when the time came to visit Fort Belknap, the Captain decided to leave Jake and take Pea Eye. It was the day before they were to leave that Madame Scull put her hand in Jake's pants. Jake could not, with the troop's departure at hand, bring himself to say anything about the incident to Pea Eye, fearing that, in his excitement, he might blab.

  On the morning the troop was to leave, Jake half expected Captain Scull to walk up and kill him, but the Captain was as pleasant to him as ever. As the troop was preparing to mount, the Captain turned to him and informed him calmly that Madame Scull wanted him to be her equerry while the troop was gone.

  "Her what?" Jake asked--he had not heard the term before.

  "Equerry, equus, equestrian, equestrienne," Captain Scull said. "In other ^ws, Inez wants you to be her horse." "What, sir?" Jake asked. Since he began to deal with the Sculls, he had come to question both his eyesight and his hearing: for the Sculls frequently said and did things he couldn't understand or believe, even though he heard them said and saw them happen. In his old home in Kansas, nobody said or did such things--of that, Jake was sure.

  "She'll have her way, too, boy!" the Captain said, his temper mounting at the thought of his wife's behaviour. "She'll ride you to a lather before I'm halfway to the Brazos, the wild hussy!" "What, sir?" Jake asked, for the third time.

  He had no idea what the Captain was talking about, or why he supposed that Mrs. Scull wanted to ride him.

  "Boy, are you a stutterer, or have you just got a brick for a brain?" the Captain asked, coming close and giving Jake a hard look.

  "Inez wants to mount you, boy--ain't that clear to you yet?" he went on. "Her father's the richest man in the South. They've three hundred thousand acres of prime plantation land in Alabama, and a hundred thousand more in Cuba. "Inez"' ain't her name, either--she just took that name because it matches mine. In Birmingham she's just plain Dolly, but she was raised in Cuba and thinks she has a right to the passions of the tropics." He paused, and glared at the big brick house on the slope above the creek. Around him, the men were mounting their horses for the long ride to Fort Belknap. Inish Scull glared at his mansion, as if the house itself were responsible for the fact that his wife would not desist from unseemly passions.

  "Lust is the doom of man--I've often forsworn it myself, but my resolve won't hold," the Captain said, stepping close to Jake. "You're a young man, take my advice. Beware the hairy prospect. Do that and improve your vocabulary and you'll yet make a fine citizen. Old Tom Rowlandson, now there was a man who understood lust. He knew about the hairy prospect, Tom Rowlandson did.

  I've a book of his pictures right up in my house. Take a peek in it, boy. It might help you escape Inez. Once you start tupping with slavering sluts like her, there's no recovery: just look at me! I ought to be secretary of war, if not president, but I'm doing nothing b
etter than chasing heathen red men on this goddamn dusty frontier, and all because of a lustful rich slut from Birmingham! Bible and sword!" A few minutes later the troop rode away, planning to be gone for a month, at least.

  Jake felt regretful for a few hours--if he had tried harder to persuade the Captain to take him along, the Captain might have relented. After all, he had taken Pea Eye. If there was a fight, it might have meant a chance for glory. But he hadn't pressed to go, and the Captain had left him with the problem of Madame Scull.

  With the Captain gone and the threat of immediate execution removed, Jake found that his mind came to dwell more and more on what Madame Scull had done.

  There was no denying that she was a beautiful woman: tall, heavy bosomed, with a quick stride and lustrous black hair.

  It seemed to Jake that the Captain, for whatever reason, had simply handed him over to Madame Scull. He was supposed to be her equerry--t was now his job. If he didn't do his equerrying well, the Captain might even dismiss him from the rangers when the troop returned.

  By the time the troop had been gone half a day, Jake Spoon had persuaded himself that it was his duty to present himself at the Scull mansion.

  He had taken to going to the mansion regularly in order to intercept Felice at the well, where she was frequently sent. Madame Scull was reckless in her use of water--trips to fetch it took Felice back and forth to the well for much of the day.

  This time, though, when Felice came out the back door with her bucket, she was limping. Felice was a quick girl, who normally walked with a springy step. Jake hurried over, anxious to see why she was lame, and was surprised to see that she had a black eye and a big bruise on one cheek.

  "Why, what done that? Did the Captain strike you?" Jake asked.

  "No, not the Captain ... the Missus," Felice said. "She beat me with the handle of that black bullwhip. I got marks all over, from where that woman beat me." "Well, but why?" he asked. "Did you sass her, or drop a plate?" Felice shook her head. "Didn't sass her and didn't drop no plate," she said.

  "But you must have done something to bring on a licking," Jake said. Felice's dress had slipped off one shoulder as she struggled with the heavy water bucket--Jake saw a swollen black bruise there, too.

  Felice shook her head. Jake didn't understand. She had come from Cuba with Madame Scull, had been a servant to her since she was a girl of six. When she was younger the Missus might slap her once in a while, for some slip, but it was only later, once Felice had begun to fill out as a woman, that the Missus had begun to beat her hard. Lately, the beatings had become more and more frequent. If Captain Scull even glanced at Felice as she was serving breakfast, or requested a biscuit or a second cup of coffee, the Missus would often corner her later in the day and quirt her severely. Sometimes she punched her, or grabbed Felice's hair and tried to yank it out.

  There was no knowing when the Missus might beat her, but yesterday had been the worst. The Missus caught her in the hall and beat her with the handle of the bullwhip--beat her till her arm got tired of beating. One of Felice's teeth was loose--the Missus had even hit her in the mouth.

  Jake understood that Felice was a slave, and that the Sculls could do whatever they wanted to with her; still, he was shocked at the bruises on Felice's face. In Kansas, few people still owned slaves; his own family had been much too poor to afford one.

  Jake offered to carry the water bucket, which was heavy. As they were nearing the house he happened to glance up and see Madame Scull, watching them from a little balcony off her bedroom. Jake immediately lowered his eyes, because Madame Scull had no clothes on. She just stood on the balcony, her heavy bosom exposed, brushing her long, black hair.

  Jake glanced over at Felice and was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

  "Why, Felice, what is it?" he asked.

  "Are you hurt that bad?" Felice didn't answer. She didn't want to try and put ^ws to her sorrow. She had come to like Jake. He was polite and let her know that he liked her; besides, he was young and his breath was sweet when he tried to kiss her--not foul with tobacco smells like the Captain, who lost no opportunity to be familiar with her. Felice had been thinking of meeting Jake behind the smokehouse, one night--he had been pleading with her to do just that. Felice wanted to slip out with Jake--but she knew now that she couldn't, not unless she wanted to be beaten within an inch of her life.

  The Missus wanted Jake, that was plain. There she stood on the balcony, showing Jake her titties. The Missus would take him, too.

  Felice knew that she would have to give up on him and do it immediately, or else risk bad trouble. The Captain was gone--despite his stinking breath the Captain would sometimes take up for Felice, just to be contrary. But she belonged to the Missus, not the Captain. If the Missus got too jealous, she might even sell her.

  Several old, ugly men had cast glances at her when they came to visit the Sculls. They looked like rich men, too--one of them might buy her and use her harder than the Missus did. In Cuba, she had seen bad things happen to slaves: brandings and horsewhippings and even hangings. The Missus had never done anything that bad to her, but if she got sold to some old ugly man, he might chain her and hurt her bad.

  Jake wasn't worth such a risk--nothing was worth such a risk. But it still made her fill with sorrow, that the Missus would take the one person who was sweet to her.

  Once they got inside the house Jake didn't know what to do, other than set the water bucket on the stove. Felice had gone silent; she wouldn't speak at all. She wiped away her tears on her apron and went about her tasks, looking down. She wouldn't turn to him again--not a ^w, and not a look. It was a big disappointment. He thought he had about persuaded her to slip out some night and meet him behind the smokehouse--then they could kiss all they wanted.

  But that plan seemed to be spoiled, and he didn't know why.

  He was about to leave in dejection and go back to the ranger stables, when old Ben Mickelson, the skinny, splotchy butler, came in, shaking from drink. Ben wore a shiny old black coat and took snuff, sniff+ so loudly that it caused Jake to flinch if he happened to be nearby.

  "Madame would like to see you upstairs," old Ben told him, in his dry voice. "You're late as it is--I wouldn't be later." Old Ben had an ugly way of pushing out his lips, when he was spoken to by anyone but the Master or the Mistress. He pushed them out at Jake until Jake wanted to give him a hard punch.

  "What am I late for? I ain't been told," he said. The thought of going upstairs made him more and more nervous.

  "I ain't the Madame--if she says you're late, I guess you are," old Ben said.

  In fact, Ben Mickelson hated young men indiscriminately, for no better reason than that they were young and he wasn't. Sometimes he hated young men so hard that he got violent notions about them, notions that affected him like a fever. Right at the moment, he was having a violent imagining in which young Jake was being chewed on by seven or eight thin hungry pigs. There were plenty of thin hungry pigs running loose within the town of Austin, too. It was against the ordinances, but the skinny, half-wild pigs didn't know there was an ordinance against them. They kept running loose, a menace to the populace. If six or seven of the wild pigs cornered Jake, they would soon whittle him down to size. Then the Madame wouldn't be so anxious to get him between her legs, not if he was well chewed by some hungry pigs.

  Old Ben was violently jealous of the Madame and her lusts. Once, years before, in a moment of anxious weakness, Inez Scull had pulled Ben's pants down in a closet and coupled with him then and there. "You're an ugly old thing, Ben," she told him, after the brief act was over. "I don't fancy men with liver spots, and you've got 'em." Ben Mickelson was a little crestfallen. Their embrace, though brief, had been passionate enough to dislodge almost every garment hanging in the closet. He thought he might expect a compliment, but all he got was a comment about his liver spots.

  "I expect it's the climate, Madame," he said, as Inez Scull was fastening her bodice. "I never got spots when we lived
in Boston." "It's not the climate, it's all that whiskey you drink," Madame Scull said, whereupon she left and never touched Ben Mickelson again. For days and weeks he lingered by the closet, hoping Madame Scull would come by in a lustful state again--s lustful that she would be inclined to overlook liver spots. But what had occurred in that closet, amid ladies' shoes and fallen dresses, was never repeated. Years passed, and Ben Mickelson got bitter. Jake Spoon, not yet eighteen, with his dimples and curls, baby fat still in his cheeks, would not likely be liver-spotted, and that fact alone was enough to make Ben Mickelson hate him.

  Jake looked at Felice, as he stood at the foot of the stairs, but Felice would not meet his eye. He thought he saw tears on her cheeks, though--he supposed she still ached from the beating.

  Felice turned and took up her broom, so old Ben wouldn't see her tears. Old Ben had to be watched and avoided. He was always poking at her with his skinny fingers. But the threat of his fingers didn't cause her tears. She cried because she knew she would have to hold herself in, not let herself start feeling warm about any of the boys that came to the house. The Missus wanted all the boys for herself. Jake had been kind to her, helping her carry water and doing little errands for her when he could.