Philipp Meyer - The Son

“I guess the Colonel is quite fond of it.”

“Is it the one we use or the one the Huns use?”

“Ours, of course.”

“But the Huns have them too.”

“Of course,” I said again.

“Well, I hope you had a good time with it.” She shook her head. “The whole time I was listening to that gun I could only think about Glenn and Charlie.”

“I know.”

She stood there, and I noticed the lines around her eyes, deeper every year, like my own. She looked like my mother in that light, her pale hair and skin… but unlike my mother, there is always a wheel turning somewhere in her mind. Though today she looked tired of thinking. I went forward and held her.

“I’m not sure I can stay here anymore.”

“You’ve been saying that.”

“I really mean it.”

I shrugged and released my grip, but she pulled me tighter.

“We have to stick together,” she said. Then she added, “You haven’t touched me in weeks.”

“You haven’t touched me either.”

“I have. You just haven’t noticed.”

“Our children will be fine.”

“Pete,” she said, “is there anyone you ever have honest conversations with?”

I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “There isn’t anyone else.”

“So start with me,” she said. “Tell me exactly what you’re thinking. Not what you think I want to hear, but the truth.”

“You are talking crazy.”

She looked at me. “I know I don’t do much for you. I know I never have.”

What would I tell her? That I have always known I belonged here? That one day some action will be required that will prove my life’s value? A forty-six-year-old man, waiting for fate to take over… it likely already has.

“You promised me a place in the city when the children left.”

“I know,” I said.

“I still have a few years I could salvage. A few men still find me attractive. If you want me to move to San Antonio by myself, tell me. Otherwise I am willing to split our time between here and someplace civilized, if you will just come with me some of the time.”

“This place will fall apart without me,” I said. “And the Colonel cannot be left alone.”

“You are worried about your father.”

“He is eighty-one years old.”

She shook her head. She looked out the window for a long time.

“Is that your final decision?”

APRIL 15, 1917

Sally departed for the train station. We have made love four times in the past two days, more than the past year in total. Deep depression when I dropped her off, pointlessness of living alone… several times allowed the car to wander without my hands on the wheel… but that was not it, either. Somehow this was required. The greater plan. Strange tingling along my scalp, as before we rode on the Garcias, as on various days in my younger life, such as when Phineas stepped forward to take the halter of that black horse. My father had wanted me to do it, but in front of all those people, I could not touch it.

When I got home it was dark and the house was also dark, quiet, and empty. Added another item to the list I began in Austin, originally titled “The Seven Types of Loneliness” (a man and woman sitting close, boy holding his mother’s leg, a cold rain, the sound of crows, a girl’s laughter down a stone street, four policemen walking, a thought of my father); of course the list has reached several hundred now. I ought to have burned it years ago, but instead I add another item: “A quiet house.”

Tomorrow will release all the staff except Consuela and one or two of the maids. They should have no trouble finding work — men are being drafted left and right — I will give them three months’ pay.

I tried to fall asleep but after a few hours I got up and walked around turning all the lights on. I could hear the wind rattling windows on the other side of the house. Finally I couldn’t stand it and walked out to see if my father was still awake.

Pizon and the others, driving the thousand stolen horses, had reached camp a week before us, and stragglers continued to trickle in. We had lost eleven members of the band but the raid was quietly considered a success. Though we knew that if we continued to have these sorts of successes, there would be no Indians left to ride the horses.

Smaller raids continued all summer, mostly put on by young men who needed horses and scalps, both for marriage and because otherwise they had no status. The army had nearly finished a second line of forts — from Belknap to Abilene to Mason — but many settlers had already leapfrogged this second line. To the old-timers, the most ominous sign was the bee trees, which seemed to precede the line of settlement by a hundred miles or so and now reached nearly to the edge of the Llano. We were happy for so much honey, but we all knew what it meant.

The Comancheros had figured out we were prosperous again, and I convinced Toshaway to double the price of the horses we traded. Previously, a good horse might be traded for a handful of glass beads or a few yards of calico, but now we wanted more ammunition and gun parts, more steel arrowheads, and more food. I stayed in camp and hunted and broke horses, but mostly I spent time with Prairie Flower, who was no longer embarrassed to be seen in public with me, as my stature was now equal to N uukaru’s or even Escuté’s, even if my abilities were not.

THE MOST IMPORTANT event of late summer was the capture of a young buffalo hunter, who, along with the rest of his party, had misjudged the degree to which the army and Rangers could protect him. We caught them in the lower reaches of the Palo Duro and after a brief fight his companions were all killed. He crawled out from under their wagon with his hands raised and, knowing what would happen to him, I immediately nocked an arrow, but Pizon shoved me and it went wide.

The hunter was in his late twenties, with blond hair and beard and blue eyes and an innocent sort of look. I was happy to get his rifled Springfield and Minie ball molds, but the real prize was the man himself. Because he was alive and uninjured and so close to our camp, it was decided to bring him in to be tortured.

This caused great excitement and all work was stopped for the day. It was as if the circus had come to town, or a public hanging called among the whites. He must have seen what was going to happen because he begged me to help him but there was nothing I could do, and a few of the newer captives, whose position was less secure, stomped on his face to show their loyalty.

The torture of a captive was considered a high honor for the women of the village and all the female elders were gathered along with the younger ones. Prairie Flower was upset that she had not been selected. After stripping him naked, tying his hands and feet to stakes, spread-eagled so he was just barely suspended in the air, they poked fun at his pale hair and his privates, which were shrunken with fear; one woman sat on top of him and pretended she was going to rut him, much to the delight of everyone. Most of the village was gathered, with children sitting or standing on shoulders, the same as would witness a hanging in town. The women built four very small fires, one each at his hands and feet. Fuel was added carefully, keeping the flames to a minimum, only building them hotter when he stopped shouting, which indicated the nerves had died. They would increase the heat by adding one very small stick, at which point he would begin to sing again.

He shrieked himself hoarse and the children mimicked him with great joy. By late afternoon he was barely making a sound and I wondered if he’d ruptured his vocal cords. At supper he was given broth and water, which his body accepted gladly, though he must have known why we were giving it to him. Later they fed him again. I walked by, thinking he was in a stupor, but he recognized me and begged me to kill him — one Christian to another. I stood there thinking, knowing what I would want done for me, and then Toshaway caught me as I was returning to the tipi.