Philipp Meyer - The Son

AFTER A TEN-MINUTE search I find her in the library. The nicest spot in the house, as most of the windows face north and there are a few seeps hidden among the rocks to keep the view green.

“What’s wrong?” she says.

I shrug.

“I saw you walking back from your father’s house.”

I shrug again.

“Of course. Consuela’s given me a few things, I’ll get them together.”

“Didn’t your family have a bank account?”

“They did,” she said, “and what little I could withdraw I used to live.”

“Is there really nowhere else?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“He’s always done this,” I say, referring to the Colonel.

“The land makes people crazy.”

“It’s not the land.”

“No, my great-uncle was the same. A person to him was an obstacle, like a drought, or a cow that would not do what he wanted. If you crossed him he might cut your heart out before he came to his senses. If his sons had lived…” She shrugs. “Of course we didn’t belong here, my father was two years into university when his uncle died. But…” She shrugs again. “He was a romantic.”

“He was a good man,” I say.

“He was vain. He loved the idea of being a hidalgo, he was always telling us how blessed we were to live on the land. But really, there was no we . It was only him. He could not accept that his neighbors might one day kill him, and so he kept us all there, despite the risks, which we were all aware of.”

It gets quiet.

“You don’t belong here, either,” she says. “You’ve probably always known it and here you are.”

Not always, of course, but perhaps since my mother died. Though I cannot tell her that story; it does not compare to her own. Instead I tell her another:

“I remember when I was a kid, we caught this boy who my father thought had stolen cattle from us. He was maybe twelve or so, but he wouldn’t tell my father anything so my father threw a rope over the top of the gate, put it around the boy’s neck, and tied the other end to a horse. When they let him down he started talking. He scratched a map in the dirt and said the men we were looking for were white, that they’d made him come along because they didn’t know the land.”

She nods. I can’t tell if I should continue or not. But I do:

“I was taking the noose off him when my father slapped the horse and the boy went back up in the air.”

“And then?”

“He died.”

“Did they catch the others?”

“He hanged the ones he didn’t shoot.”

“The sheriff?”

“No, my father.”

THERE WERE NINE of them but the last four gave themselves up and my father stripped the saddles off their horses and found a proper cottonwood and hung them with their own ropes. I held the camphene lamp while Phineas put the nooses on. At first Phineas was nervous but the last man he noosed he told: It’ll all be over in a minute, partner.

That is real kind of you, said the man.

My father said: Either way you’re hanging, Paco. It’s just whether it’s now or in a few weeks in Laredo.

I’ll take the few weeks. Spit popping in his mouth.

You ought to be happy we aren’t skinning you, said my father.

MARÍA HAS COME to sit next to me. The sun is going down, the light in the room is dim. She brushes a hair behind her ear and I swallow. Her eyes are soft. She touches my hand. “You should stop thinking about it,” she says.

I can’t. But that is difficult to explain to people, so I don’t say anything.

PHINEAS STOOD BESIDE one of the horses and slapped it, then moved down the line to slap the next one. When the last man dropped it was quiet except for the ropes creaking and the men gurgling and shitting as they pedaled their legs. They were still kicking when my father said: There’s some nice saddles here.

“PETER?”

Her hand is covering mine and I am afraid to move.

“That is in me somewhere,” I say.

We sit there like that and I wonder if something might happen but we both know there is nothing right about it.

Iarrived in Bastrop and found the address of my new home, a rickety frame house with multiple rooms added, built before statehood when materials were thin. But there was a large front yard with flowers and grass and a whitewashed fence.

My stepmother was in her forties, with a harsh expression and a tightly tied bonnet. She looked like she’d been raised on sour milk and when the Indians thought of white people, she is the person they imagined, from the look she gave, she did not exactly think me nickel-plated, either. Her two sons were both taller than me and they smirked. I made up my mind to bash their heads.

“You must be Eli.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, we found some clothes for you. You can change out of those things. You better give that pistol to Jacob.”

The taller one was reaching for my Colt. I slapped his hand away.

“We lock our guns up here,” she said.

I slapped his hand away again.

“Mother.”

She looked at me for a long time and then said: “Let him be.”

I had a pallet in the same room as the other two boys, who were eyeing my bow, knife, pistol; everything I owned. As soon as I’d been given the tour I went on a walk, and, after losing my stepbrothers, who were trying to follow me, I buried the pistol and everything else I cared about in my bag, taking only my bow and arrow and a small wallet of things I did not think would interest anyone.

On the way back I saw my stepbrothers walking in circles, trying to cut my trail, considered ambushing them but decided against it, and made my way back to the house.

That night we had salt pork, which I would not touch. I ate most of the corn bread and all the butter, though. The family was originally from East Texas and did not believe in buying wheat. The fact they had butter was a small miracle.

I could not fault my stepmother as she had bought me a new set of clothes, including shoes, and the next morning I was dressed up like her sons, tripping over my shoes the first time I walked in them, which inspired great hilarity in everyone but myself.

The state was paying for my schooling, on the judge’s orders, and there was one room and a very young teacher trying to teach two dozen children of all ages. After sitting a few minutes I stood up so I would not fall asleep. I felt sorry for the other students, who could not imagine saying no to this teacher or anyone else; they were going to spend entire lives doing things just like this. I felt so sorry for them I nearly burst out crying. The teacher forgot how nice she was and came after me with a paddle and I let her chase me awhile before going out the window.

I spent the rest of the day building snares and setting them, walking in and out of people’s barns. I stole a mare, rode her for an hour, and returned her to her stall. I watched a pretty older woman reading a book on her back porch, her fine brown hair going gray, just wearing a shift on account of it being warm. She adjusted one breast and then the other and then reached up under her shift and left her hand there, which was too much. I ran off and had a few moments to myself. I thought I could probably make it in Bastrop.

When I got back home, my stepmother was waiting.

“I heard you left school,” she said, “and I heard you were seen on Mr. Wilson’s horse and I heard you were walking around the yard of the Edmunds, looking in their windows.”

How she had learned this I did not know. I expected her to check my hands for the mark of Onan. Then I noticed a strange smell. Something was burning and I went to the fireplace and saw that some person had put my moccasins, bow, arrows, and loincloth into the flames.