David Markson - The Ballad of Dingus Magee

“Who’s there? What—”

“Please, ma’am!” Dingus staggered toward the indrawn door, lifting his face plaintively to the light. “Outlaws! I need help bad. I been hurt—”

“Why, you are hurt. And you’re just a boy—”

“Yes’m. If I could only come inside.”

He managed to slip past her in her confusion, stumbling toward a table and bracing himself there with his head hanging again. He commenced to pant.

“But what is it? Do you need a doctor? Should I—”

“They’re after me! The door! Please, oh please, out of Christian charity—”

“But I don’t—”

The door closed, however, perhaps because he had turned to confront her again, once more with his face screwed into a grimace of terror and plaintiveness (although he was seeing the woman herself finally now also, the mouse-colored hair in curl papers, the long blunt equine jaw, the plain dull disturbed expression above the drab nightrobe, so that even as he continued to feign desperation he was already thinking, “Well, Doc dint tell me any lie about her looks, but at least she ain’t built bad a-tall”). “Thank you,” he gasped. “The good Lord will bless you for this kind deed done for a boy in distress.”

“But what is it? What’s—”

He let his breath become regular, straightening himself somewhat. “Badmen,” he declared with gravity then. “They shot my old clipped daddy, kilt him dead, and now they’re after me because I seen their faces and can be a witness. They shot me too, only I can’t tell you where. What I mean, it’s sort of delicate, being my backside—”

“Oh, you tragic boy. But I don’t see any blood. Is it—”

“No,” he said quickly, “that were earlier. I got that patched up, but then I saw them again and now they’re hunting me. Like fiends. In the town here.”

“But the sheriff— shouldn’t you go to Sheriff Birdsill?”

“Oh, no, no—” Dingus lifted a hand imploringly. “That’s jest what they expect me to do, so they’ll be watching over that way, do you see? But I’d be safe from harm’s way here, if’n you’ve got a floor for me to rest on — only ‘til dawn, and then I’d slip away and never intrude upon your goodness again. You’d be saving a wretched orphan’s life, ma’am.”

Miss Pfeffer kept glancing toward the door, concerned for him but still dubious, so he lurched away from her then and staggered toward a farther room, clutching at the doorframe for support. “Oh, but it pains me so!” he sobbed.

“Oh, dear me—” Miss Pfeffer sprang after him. “Yes, you dear child, lie down, use my bed there, it’s—”

“Oh, no ma’am, you’re too kind. Any old place on the floor will do me…” Dingus sagged into her arms.

“But you are hurt! Here, I insist!”

So he let himself be led to the already turned-back bed, tumbling across it. He lay on his side, with his feet over the edge. “My boots,” he sighed. “I jest ain’t got the strength to—”

“Here, here, let me—” Miss Pfeffer set down her lamp, kneeling to the first of them. It came free easily, exposing the soggy, bloodstained sock. “Oh!” Miss Pfeffer cried. “Oh, it’s all—”

“Yes’m. I lost considerable amounts before I got to the doc.”

“Oh dear! Dear me!” She removed the other boot, rising to hold it in consternation. The color had drained from her long face, such color as there had been. “Your clothes. Do you think you ought to—”

“Yes’m, I’d rest far more comfortable. Only”—Dingus blushed, lowering his eyes—“I’d take it right kindly if’n you’d leave. I can manage, I’m sure I can—”

Miss Pfefier’s own face was averted. “But you’ll call me, if you’re too ill—”

“Yes’m.”

He undressed leisurely then, hearing her pace elsewhere in the house. Now and then she mumbled something. When he extinguished the lamp, calling out to her, she pranced back into the room anxiously.

“I hope you’ll forgive the lamp being off without your permission,” Dingus started then. “But my daddy would think badly of me, if’n I were lacking my proper clothing in a lady’s presence without the light was out. Oh, my poor daddy—” Dingus commenced to sob. “Right before my very eyes, this very day, they shot him down like a dog, and I won’t never kiss his dear furrowed brow again—”

So Miss Pfeffer hovered above him now. “You unfortunate soul. How did it happen? Will it help you to talk about it?”

Dingus sobbed and sobbed. “It were rustlers. They took our cattle, even every last helpless little calf that my daddy toiled so hard to care for. And then they set fire to our ranch, too, that my daddy homesteaded with the sweat of his tired, lame shoulders. Oh, it were jest unbearable!”

A hand stroked his own in commiseration. “And to think they would take up arms against someone of your age!” Miss Pfeffer shuddered. “But your mother, don’t you have a—”

“Oh,” Dingus wailed, “don’t make me talk about my mother, please! That were too sad, I still can’t think about it without I start to weep worse’n ever!” The hand bad started to lift; Dingus clutched at it desperately. “And it’s all the more sadder here, too, because you remind me of her. Not that you’re anywheres near as old as her, but jest that you’re beautiful the same way. And kind, too, and refined. But then those dreadful Comanches come, and they dragged her out into the fields, and they bound her to four stakes in the ground, and then they—” Dingus emitted a choked gasp. “But it ain’t a fit thing to relate before a woman. It were God’s pure mercy that she died within the month. I weren’t but eleven…”

“Dear heaven! And now you’re all alone—”

“All alone on God’s earth, yes’m. But I’m safe here. Only—”

“Yes, what is it?”

“I’m so cold. All of a sudden, my wound hurts right bad, and I feel this terrible chill. I can’t hardly keep from shivering.”

“Wait, here, let me—”

Dingus felt the additional blankets being spread across him. “But them must be what you would of slept with yourself,” he protested, shaking now. “I c-c-couldn’t take y-y-yours.”

“Oh, dear, it is bad, isn’t it?”

“Yes’m. I sure wish I had a brother or some kin here. My mommy always used to tell me that were the only way to stop a ch-ch-chill, to sleep all huddled up close to your brother. Excepting it were Apaches that kilt him. When I were nine. They — they—”

Dingus shivered and shivered. “Oh, heavens,” Miss Pfeffer said in the darkness, talking as if to herself now. “Oh dear me. But I must, yes. It is only charitable. Christian. I must—”

He waited until he was certain, hearing the rustling. Then he cried, “Ma’am, ma’am, what are you doing ?”

“Hush now. That chill could be the death of you.”

“Oh, I know that, ma’am. I could go to my reward before the night is past, I don’t doubt that I could. But I done stripped down completely out’n my—”

“But that’s how it must be done.” Dingus felt the blankets being drawn aside, waiting without a move as she drew him into her embrace. “Of course,” she said, “you feel feverish too. Indeed. I think perhaps if you would turn over, then I could cover you more fully.”

“Oh, dear,” Dingus said. “Is that the only way it will save me? Because I can’t stay nohow but on my stomach, alas, what with this wound I got. Would it work to keep me warm the same way if’n I was the one who climbed on the—”

“Yes, I believe so. It’s the transference of the body’s heat which is important. Here. Wait, and I’ll—”

“This sure is a kindness, ma’am. I’m feeling considerable warmer already. But I’m right embarrassed too. What I mean, I’ve never been in the same bed with a female person, of course, but isn’t this how — I mean the way — I mean—”