"In a minute." Quantrill waited for the door to swing shut; considered several questions. Instead, he said,
"I tried every way I knew to find you, Sandy. If that — that boar succeeded where I failed, I'm in his debt.
I know for certain he's taken out some enemies of mine so," he sighed and slapped his thigh with rueful good humor, " — I guess I have to count him as a friend." He put down his cup, grasped his traveling gear.
"You have to admit this is a little hard for me to take in, all at once. But I thought I'd forgotten how to laugh until I recognized you. Now I'd better go."
He was in the doorway when she said, very softly,
"I don't want you to go, but yes, you'd better. Tell Lufo I'll send Childe out with bowls of menudo when she gets home. Wouldn't want him to think I maltreat my guests." But her smile was the real apology.
CHAPTER 65
Neither of the men found the right words before dinner. They spent the time with a deck of Lufo's cards and reminiscences. At last the shadow-quiet Childe faced them, offered steaming bowls of savory tripe soup and, after studying Quantrill for long minutes, ghosted away again. With the sun down and the breeze up, they were soon lying on their backs in mummybags.
Lufo lit a cheroot. After a few puffs he offered it to Quantrill. "Some things a man can share, compadre,"
he said.
Quantrill, who disliked cigars, accepted this one for its symbolic value. Handing it back, exhaling luxuriously, he asked, "You two married?"
"No. Now don' interrupt; I have some things to say but they won' be the right ones if you push me.
Okay?"
"Right."
Long silence before, "I talk too much. But I only exaggerate a little. I have three wives; since I already tol'
you about that, I may as well keep on. I don' know what you two had going when she was a kid, maybe nothing, but I know how she looked when she saw you today. I know that look." Chuckling gruffly: "It was a jump-on-your-bones look, compadre. Maybe that's layin' it on some, but take it from me, she mus' have missed you a lot once, and she didn' forget you."
Long ago, Quantrill had noted the heightened sibilant TexMex speech accents in his friend at times when he was not posturing. He recognized them now as Lufo went on: "In la raza there is a code. I'm glad it isn' your code because it gives you two places to stand in this matter, but only one way to move. You could act as a brother or as the one with the horns, the cuckold. Either way you'd have some bad business with me for trifling with Sandy. Because either way, you have a prior claim. I donno, maybe it is your code. Is it?"
"I don't know. Not the way you put it, but I won't see her victimized. If she knows all about you and likes it that way, it isn't up to me to make trouble."
"She doesn' know what you know — and I'd jus' as soon she didn'. What my code says is, the nex' move is yours. If you don' go for my hide then I can either keep on seein' Sandy, or I can admit you have first claim and shy off. But it's your move."
Quantrill puzzled over that for awhile. Eventually he said, "An old guy named Brubaker told me everybody's got an ethic whether he knows it or not. An ethic, a code, — whatever. Yours says I'd have to act as an injured party, but mine says no; it's none of my affair if she isn't hurt. And I go by my ethic, not yours. If you go on with her like this, not telling her your ways, sooner or later she will get hurt. And then you and I will have what you call bad business. If you really care about her, seems to me you have a choice, and I won't try to make it for you."
"I can read an angle's moves, compadre, but not his mind. What choice?"
"Tell her about your wives or shy off. Any other way, you'd be treating her like someone without rights."
A chuckle: "The rights of a woman? Yours is a troublesome code, compadre."
From Quantrill, a sigh: "Don't I know it."
"At leas' it gives me room to live with mine. Whatthefuck is that word? Ay, compassion. I am a compassionate man. I don' want Sandy hurt, and telling her would hurt her. I already have enough women. If I let this one go she might hurt for awhile, but I think it would be a pleasant hurt and she would recover. Unless somebody else tol' her."
"Aw, shit, why do you beat around the bush?"
"Rafael Sabado from Houston did not beg favors, and Lufo Albeniz of Wild Country does not beg favors."
"No, by God you sure don't," Quantrill grumped. "Now I know why you guys never overpopulated Texas; you kill so many of each other off! Anyway — no, I won't tell her if I don't have to. As you say, telling her would hurt her. I guess. Christ, how would I know? I haven't seen her since she was a scrubby little kid! For all I know she might be happy to squirm around in your bed with all your other women watching!"
"Hey," Lufo broke in, harsh and bellicose, "you don' talk that way about my woman!"
Quantrill's reply was a guffaw. After a moment the big latino joined in, peals of laughter resounding inside the tarp as their tensions drained away.
Sandy's journal, 2 Oct,'
AAARrrgh! MEN! The laughing embrace of Ted Quantrill (!!) should have made this a day to remember, yet ten minutes later I was denouncing him and Lufo. It cannot be pleasant to be compared unfavorably with swine. Still, I spoke the truth. Or did I? I have only Lufo's word for Ted's reputation. & what of my reputation? What must they think & say of me? I hear them now, hooting & hoorawing out there, I hope the woodpile falls on them both!
Ted has changed, of course. The scars, the broken nose, the sparse hair behind one ear similar to Lufo's. Some dreadful initiation rite, perhaps. But his laughing mouth & those malachite eyes are the ones I knew, however briefly, however long ago…
I remember seeing him making love with that woman on the ground, the day he says they searched for me. Some search! & why do I feel anger at that? He gave me only kindness & owes me nothing.
Imagine! The mere appearance of my first love-object, & I am babbling about him to Lufo's exclusion. I must not forget that men, especially men like Lufo, can be violent children. Shall I be mated to a violent child? Dear God, are they all alike?
Tomorrow we ride near Sonora in search of more destruction. Childe will be off riding with him.
Must remind her to keep an eye on the place. Wish I had never told Lufo of that frightful device in my cave. It makes me resent the cleverness of the human race. Were it not for gadgetry, Lufo would not be gallivanting all over hell & Wild Country. (Nor would I have a holo or aspirin or a water pump!) Perhaps by making us more independent, gadgets help us alienate ourselves.
Sorry, journal, I feel doggerel coming on. Well then:
THERE IS NO GOD OF MACHINES
Now then O cunning poet: who the hell is 'thee'? I doubt that I shall know before I'm an old crone of thirty.
Holo promises good weather. Must remember buckskins & parfleche of jerky, just in case. Dread this trip. MEN! AAARrrgh!
CHAPTER 66
They encountered the broad shallow arroyo of Devil's River Canyon late in the morning of the next day, Sandy's outflung arm lancing past Lufo's shoulder as she recognized a rock outcrop. They passed old tire tracks in hardened mud, now crumbling with recent fall rains, and the scant shrubs were green with that memory.