Did you ever notice how some days, for no cause, you feel all sad or all mad? Some days you ain't sick but you ain't right either and you wish you could be sick so folks wouldn't be fussin' at you for bein' grumpy. Hell, when you're feelin' like that, you ain't grumpy on purpose. You can't help it. I learned early on, and so did Paco, when you're livin' on the Bent-Y you better not have them grumpies around Aunt Lydia. She's got the notion that you got the grumpies because you need a good tonic and them tonics she gives you got two problems. First, I don't think rotten horse shit could taste any worse and second, once you got it in you, it keeps tryin' to get out. If you get too far from the shit house, you're in trouble. Folks on the Bent-Y who got the grumpies stay the hell away from Aunt Lydia. Even Danny.
I've only known a few folks in my life who like to be grumpy. Hans Gutner was one of them. That school teacher, Mr. Phipps, I reckon was another one. My mama was grumpy but that wasn't really her. Since my daddy told me how she really was, I know that was the whiskey. Mostly folks I know, especially younguns, like funnin' and bein' happy. Even before I come to the Bent-Y, mostly I liked feelin' happy and I did. I don't reckon I could live like that now and feel happy but then I didn't know no different.
Since we come to have our daddy, we're mostly happy all the time. Like I said, we get a mad once in a while and some days you just feel all sad and when you try to think on it, you can't think out no cause for it. I asked Daddy about it and he said I was just havin' the blues. I'd get over it. He was right. I don't worry none about them blues no more. When they come, I just go on down to the root cellar and think on things and before you know it, you ain't got the blues no more.
But blues and mads don't hardly take up none of our thinkin' no more. There are too many good things happenin', you don't have time for too much blues and mads. If they come, they're gone before you know it and we're back to bein' what we mostly are: happy and funnin' and lovin' and proud of bein' Flynns. Good feelin's are on us so much we don't hardly think on them. That's just the way things are. It don't surprise us none no more when good things happen. Fact is, we've come to the place where we're surprised when things don't go good.
But what was happenin' in our parlor that mornin' wasn't no regular happy Bent-Y thing. I knew it was big - as big as when we found our daddy. But this time I could feel it better. I didn't have to wonder if it would last or if it was just somethin' I was playin' in my head. I wasn't scared of love no more. I knew about love and happiness now. Our daddy had been givin' it to us for way more than a year and while you may not think on it all the time like we did when we first got it, you like feelin' it just as much.
I liked to think on that day my daddy told me who he was but then I had to learn how to love folks. I knew how to do that now and I knew how it felt. Seein' Paco huggin' his mama was about makin' me bust open just like them new lovin' feelin's I got from my daddy. I reckon what them real hard lovin' feelin's do to you don't change. There was only one thing to do - feelin' like I was - so I done it. I cried.
I think maybe my daddy took my cryin' wrong. He come over real quick and give me a big hug. I was glad he did. I needed to hug someone right then but I wasn't cryin' from feelin' left out. I was cryin' for Paco and his mama and for me and my daddy. I was cryin' cause the kind of love I was feelin' right then was the kind that was too big for anything but cryin'.
I thought again about my feelin's when I knew for sure that Seamus Flynn was my daddy. I knew Paco well enough to know from lookin' at him that he was havin' the very same feelin' right now. Things was goin' through my mind real fast. I seen them real scaredy eyes lookin' at me over the swayed down back of that mangy, broke-down chestnut. I seen his stickin' out belly and ribs and his skinny arms. I seen his bruises and scars. I seen that dark room look in his eyes and I heard him say that he reckoned he was just born for dyin'. I felt that first need I had for him and the tickle in my belly and down the back of my legs when he told me he wanted me for a friend. I seen that ornery grin and that twinkle in his eyes. I heard his happy laugh and I remembered his funnin' on folks. I seen the light that come to his eyes when he'd see Daddy or even me comin'. I had seen that boy go from almost dead - both in his thinkin' and bein' really dead - to bein' one of the most alive folks I knew. I loved him and he loved me and we had shared some of them bad times and all of the good times. While we was changin' from a whore's bastard and a stinkin' greaser to Flynns, we was always together. I remembered him huggin' me or me huggin' him when one of us was scared in the night. We done for each other and we took pleasure from each other's joys. I reckon this was one of the biggest joys of Paco's life. It was one we needed to share.
I walked over and gave Paco a hug. I knew he'd want me there. When I had my daddy, I didn't need Paco any less. I knew now that he had his mama, he didn't need me any less. When he felt me huggin' on him, he didn't let go of his mama. They both just opened their arms and made me part of their hug. I thought I was goin' to them to share Paco's happiness but when I was part of that hug, I knew that hug was why I was there.
Daddy come over and joined the huggin'. We was all cryin' and Paco's mama was kissin' us all. When she wasn't kissin' us she was sayin', "Mis dos hijos - - Mis dos hijos - - Mi familia - Gracias, Shay por mis hijos. Gracias a Dios por mi familia."
I reckon I knew that the huggin' and cryin' would have to be over soon or late but it was one of them times you didn't want ever to stop. But even didn't I want my daddy and Paco's mama to ever stop the huggin', I knew that this was just a good time - a special good time maybe - and havin' it with the folks you loved and who loved you - well - what you say about somethin' like that? But I knew that love was gonna be there huggin' on me and Paco even when they wasn't doin' it with their arms. I knew when they stopped huggin' on us that day, it wasn't the end of nothin'. It was a beginnin' and I had to cry harder because it come to me that I wasn't scared of beginnin's, even beginnin's with a new mama no more.
Daddy wanted to get a priest to come from Amarillo and have the weddin' right off but Aunt Jenny and Aunt Lydia wouldn't hear of it. It was Seamus Flynn who was gettin' married and things was gonna be done right. It would take at least two weeks for Uncle Sean and them to get here from San Francisco and by then, them Aunts figured we could have a real nice wedding put together. Aunt Lydia said that Daddy was too important a man and that he would disappoint too many folks if he didn't invite them to his weddin'. Daddy tried to fuss with her some but you know Aunt Lydia. Aunt Lydia decided we was gonna have a big shindig and when Aunt Lydia decides somethin', somebody's gonna do it.
Even though Consuela Gómez ain't really my mama until she and my daddy get married, I started to call her that. 'Course, she's already Paco's mama but he was almost like me. He remembered little things about her and sometimes she would tell him something that would bring back other memories but mostly he had to learn her just like me and just like we did our daddy. Those first few weeks, Mama hugged on Paco a lot and she would look at him and get water in her eyes. A whole lot of times she'd look at him and then have to go over and touch him - like she wasn't sure he was really there unless she was feelin' him. It give me a warm feelin', seein' that. All them years Paco was bein' done so bad, he had someone lovin' him just like I had with my daddy. She hugged on me some but I seen she needed to hug on Paco and he needed her huggin' on him. That was from that ache in her heart and from Paco's "thing" that had been on them both since they was took away from each other. All that huggin' and touchin' didn't bother me none. My daddy done the same with me when I first got him, I reckon, and anyway, our mama was treatin' me and Paco mostly the same.
Me and Paco seen right off that she was fun. You seen where Paco got that ornery grin and you seen that life was gonna be some different with both of them thinkin' up funny things to say. Some evenin's at supper, them two had me and Daddy about fallin' off our chairs. They even had them Chinamen laughin' and from what I seen, Chinamen don't hardly ever laugh when they're around white folks.
It didn't take no gettin' used to, her tellin' us what to do. Maybe I will someday, but I don't get mad none at her like I do my daddy when I'm out of fix and he tells me to do somethin'. Anyway, if she tells you to do somethin' and you don't want to do it, by the time she's done talkin' to you, she's got you thinkin' it was your idea in the first place and ain't nobody mad. She's some like Daddy with that. I reckon we get some mad at Daddy 'cause we had him longer and could be we'll get mad at her some day. I hope not but if we do, I reckon it's like Paco said, them mads don't mean nothin'. Me and Paco already know we love that lady.
Seems like our life is almost perfect. The only thing that's wrong right now is, she stays in our house all day, but when it's bed time, she goes to Aunt Lydia's to sleep. Me and Paco ain't babies but, big as we are, we still get them night scares sometimes. It's nice havin' a mama around during the day, but when you're as big as we are, you don't hardly need her then. It's at night, when them scares come on you, that some mama huggin' would give you comfort. But she said that it ain't right for a lady to sleep in the same house as a man you ain't married to if you got no chaperone. That surprised the hell out of me. I reckon she's a whole lot different than that old mama of mine. I reckon we'll just have to make do with our daddy until after the weddin'.
Our mama and them aunts decided that the wedding would be in three weeks after our mama came. Mama and Aunt Jenny and Juan's mama was helpin' some but most of the plannin' was bein' done by Aunt Lydia. Aunt Lydia wasn't buttin' in. She was good at that stuff and Mama said it was a big help to her. She had some hijos to get to know and plannin' a big weddin' would take time away from what she really wanted to do - get to know them boys.
We ain't played with the boys much since she come. I reckon we will soon but we got too much catchin' up to do with our mama. We go off ridin' together. That Black of hers is somethin'. At first he was gonna be some rank with me and Paco but she told him real hard in Spanish that he better don't be doin' them things. He ain't real crazy about us yet but he don't try to bite us or kick us no more.
You can't tell him nothin' in English and you can tell he ain't about to learn. He's a Spanish horse and it looks like he plans to stay a Spanish horse. I think he knows what you're saying when you tell him somethin' in English but he won't do it. He looks at you like he's sayin', "If you can't talk to me proper, don't bother to talk to me at all." But that's all right. Our mama's talkin' to us most of the time in Spanish anyway. She don't want Paco to forget and she thinks it's a good idea for me to learn better. Like I said, I already know some, but I think it's a good idea for me to learn better too. So does our Daddy.
Paco and me are beginnin' to think that weddings are a pain in the ass. Mama and Daddy took us to Amarillo to Fieldman's to buy our wedding clothes. When they brought them clothes out, it looked like Paco was gonna have to die. Mama was havin' us put on them same fancy suits with them long hangin' down things in the back like Daddy said he wore to that Governor's ball. You remember when Paco said the only time he'd get in them fancy suits was if he was dead? Well, Paco didn't die and I reckon the only thing that saved his life was them suits was gray, not black. Maybe they wasn't black but they still itched and them shirts with that lace on the collar and the cuff was all stiff and they dug into your neck, and them black shiny boots wasn't good for nothin' but show, and I knowed Danny was gonna laugh at us when he saw them string ties and them tall hats.
Daddy was gonna wear the same things but he was Seamus Flynn. The way folks thought on Seamus Flynn, he could have walked up that aisle in his union suit and folks wouldn't have laughed. Me and Paco was just boys and we knew we was gonna be laughed at and bein' boys, we figured from the laughin' there was gonna be some fightin' and from the fightin', there'd be some grown folks fussin' at us, maybe even whippin' on us. It ain't easy to get excited about a weddin' when you got them kinds of things in your head.
But the worst thing about that clothes buyin' was all that tryin' on and our mama lookin' at us in the front and then turnin' us around and lookin' from one side and then turnin' some more and her lookin' from the other side and then from the back and then you put on some other britches and she starts all over again. Lord have mercy! Hell, them first suits looked fine to us, but Danny said when you got a mama you got to learn to put up with all that lookin' when it comes to clothes buyin'. Anyway, she was doin' the same thing to our daddy and he seemed to like it. I reckon when you get real old like our daddy, you like them ladies fussin' over things like do your britches look good across your ass.
But you can't hardly get mad at mama. About the time me and Paco couldn't take no more, she said, "Why don't you boys go out and see if you can find something to do that is more interesting to you than this?" She ain't been our mama that long but she almost scares a body. Seems like she knows exactly what's in your head. Me and Paco talked on it some. We reckon if she knows that much, we'll have to be real careful with that thinkin' you do before you go to sleep at night.
We was about to go out the door when Mr. Feldman come out of his office. "Shay, why didn't you let me know you were here? I would have been glad to help you myself."
"Didn't want to bother you, Chiam, and I wasn't sure you were in."
Daddy went to introducing Mama to Mr. Feldman and they was talkin' so fast they didn't even notice that I was tryin' to say somethin'. I almost let my thinkin' get away from me and yelled, "Goddam! I'm tryin' to ask a question!" But then it come to me that Mama probably was some like Aunt Lydia and wouldn't want to hear no cussin'. Anyway, you get a different feelin' around your mama. For some cause you get the feelin' that it just ain't right to let them hear you cuss.
I reckon Mr. Feldman seen that me and Paco was kind of restless and finally asked did we want something. I asked if we could go to his house and play with Richie and Eddie.
Richie and Eddie are really Rubin and Ezra but them New York names just don't go good in Texas. Their mama still calls them Rubin and Ezra when she's mad at them but the younguns at their school mostly don't even know they got them New York names.
Daddy says that Feldman's store is doin' real good and it brings a lot of other business to Amarillo. When they first come, they spent about two weeks in the Flynn room at that hotel and then they fixed up the loft over that store building and lived there until their house was built. They built a real nice house out by the creek and me and Paco knew how to get there good. We went there a lot for playin'.
Them Feldmans look just like regular Texas folks now. When we first seen them with their curls cut off and Mr. Feldman's beard off, Paco right out and asked, "Ain't you Jews no more?"
Seems like Paco does to Mr. Feldman like he does to most folks. How he says things get them to laughin'. When he was done laughin', Mr. Feldman said, "Yes, Paco we're still Jewish. We're just not as Orthodox as we used to be." I seen from that that there was different kinds of Jews just like there was different kinds of Christians. I didn't know if them Jews had any of that mean kind. I just knew that the Feldmans were real nice people.
Them boys was glad to see us. It had been a spell since we'd seen them but we played with them a lot when Daddy brought us to Amarillo with him and Richie and Eddie even come to the Bent-Y some and stayed a week sometimes in the summer. They was learnin' good to be Texas boys and they was learnin' us some of how to be a New York boy. They learned us how to roll a hoop with a stick.
You look at that, seems like there ain't nothin' to it but it takes some doin' before you can do it good. Me and Paco are some good at it now but we still ain't as good as them Feldmans.
I already got in a fight in Amarillo with some boys who was callin' the Feldmans "dirty, Christ-killin' Jews." Folks in Amarillo know who me and Paco are so nobody mean-mouths Paco no more but seems like some folks just have to mean-mouth somebody. Richie seemed proud of me for stickin' up for him but he said his daddy said that his people have had to put up with that stuff for way more than a thousand years and just not to pay it no mind. Them Feldman boys think like my daddy. Some of them name callin' folks ain't worth botherin' with. I could feel that way when them folks in Goodnight was name callin' me. I knew who I was and I knew that their name callin' didn't mean nothin'. But when folks are doin' your friend bad, you don't know what's in your friend's head and it seems like you got to help him from feelin' bad. After while, I seen that them Feldmans were like me and Paco. They were what they were, not what folks said they were. Me and Paco like them Feldmans real good.
When Mama and Daddy come for us it looked like Mama had bought all the bolts of cloth in that store. Mama took it out to show to them Feldman's mama and cloth usually ain't what boys want to look at, but some of that cloth was real pretty. There was some real soft, white cloth that Mama said she was gonna make her weddin' dress from. There was all kinds of other cloth that she said she was gonna make the bridesmaids' dresses from. I didn't know what the hell a bridesmaid was but that was all right. As long as Mama and Mrs. Feldman was fussin' over that cloth, me and Paco and them boys just kept on with our playin'.
Daddy stayed right there and looked at that cloth. Hell, he'd already seen it in the store. Before Mama came and even before he started all the time goin' to Santa Fe, me and Paco would have wondered about him lookin' at pretty cloth. But we don't think on that no more. In them things, seems like we hardly know the man. But in the important things, like huggin' and teachin' us and lovin' us, he ain't no different - so - if he wants to look at cloth, I reckon that's fine with us. Seems dumb though.
On the way back home me and Paco got to talkin'. As much as we're learnin' to like kissin' girls, if weddings are this much trouble, we just ain't gonna bother. Kissing girls is fun but it ain't so much fun it's worth puttin' up with all that puttin' on and takin' off and then waitin' while they're pickin' out another suit and then startin' all over with the puttin' on and takin' off and lookin'.
Uncle Sean and Aunt Bridget and all their younguns got there about a week before the wedding. It was kind of funny, them bein' our cousins. It was even funny for Danny and Spike because they never seen them San Francisco cousins before. It was just like when me and Paco first come to the Bent-Y. You had to learn some new cousins.
Susie and Katy got to be real good friends right off. They had been writin' letters almost since they could write and it was almost like they already knew each other good. But, Spud - that ain't his real name. His real names is Sean but you know them Flynns. They're big on them nicknames. Spud was some harder to get to know. He's already thirteen but he ain't as big as me and even Paco's a mite bigger than him. Him and Danny is about the same big.
It wasn't that Spud was shy or uppity. He just knew different things than we did. He knew how to sail a boat and talked about goin' out in real deep water and seein' sharks and whales. He talked about goin' down them hills they got in San Francisco real fast on a bicycle. Just thinkin' about goin' down a steep hill on a bicycle or them sharks and that deep water scared the hell out of me. But he's scared of ridin' a horse and when we told him we'd take a buckboard to the swimmin' hole, he still didn't want to go because all that empty prairie scared the hell out of him. I got to thinkin', did I have to live in San Francisco with all them people pushin' on you and bumpin' into you, I'd be scared. How do you know who those folks are? There might be someone livin' right in the next house to you who was as mean as that damn preacher man. It's all in how you been learned, I reckon.
Even when we got the buckboard ready and was all ready to head out, we couldn't hardly get Spud in that damn buckboard. He was askin' if there was gonna be Indians after us and what would we do if a buffalo went to chasin' us. We told him, "There ain't none of them things. Don't worry none."
You look at him - he's worryin' anyway but he went with us. Seemed silly to me but for him, I reckon it was some brave. I got a proud feelin' for him.
When we got to the swimmin' hole Spud asked, "Where's the changin' house?"
We was all busy pullin' off our britches and when he looked up and seen us, me, Paco, Danny, Spike, Juan, Jorge, Ho Tau, and Virgil, all standin' there buck naked wonderin' what the hell he was talkin' about, poor Spud was some kind of embarrassed. It turned out that when you go swimmin' in San Francisco, you go to them beaches on the ocean but you and your friends ain't the only ones who come there. They got all kinds of folks and some of them you don't want seein' you naked so you wear what Spud called a swimmin' suit. I seen them before. Some folks who swim at them Sunday picnics got them. Most folks just wear their britches but some of them soldiers got them swimmin' suits. They look like longjohns with the legs cut short and the arms cut out of them. They got them all fancy colors and they look like pure D shit. You'd never get me in one of them things but Spud had one.
We told him, "There ain't no changin' house and if you want to wear that damn thing, put it on right where you are. We went off jumpin' into the swimmin' hole.
Jorge was the bottom baby and we was havin' fun, laughin' and splashin' and pullin' folks under and swingin' on that rope and Spud was just standin' there. Reckon we should have had better manners, Spud bein' company and all but, dammit, this was Texas. If he wanted to wear that damn suit, he should have stayed in San Francisco.
Pretty soon, I reckon, he decided there wasn't nothin' wrong with swimmin' naked and he pulled off his britches and jumped in. 'Fore long he was havin' so much fun, looked like he forgot he was naked.
Spud slept at Danny's, 'cause Danny don't have anybody and me and Paco got each other. Spike don't have anybody either because all the rest of them San Francisco cousins are girls. Maureen has two of them about her size and the other one is about the size of Buck. Spike don't talk as much as he did but he looks like they named him right when they give him the name of our daddy. That boy has got to the place where he can get some Irish. His mama says she'd take his talkin' any day to what she has to put up with now. Uncle Brian don't help much either. He says it seems fittin' to him that if the boy's got the man's name he might as well have his temper.
Spike threw a real Texas size fit when he seen that Spud was gonna sleep at Danny's. Aunt Jenny was gonna send him to his room but Uncle Sean said to leave him be. It was just like havin' his brother Seamus ten years old again. Aunt Lydia said, "It's a God's wonder that any of these younguns turn out to be anything the way you Flynn men let them take on."
Daddy said he thinks he understands how Spike feels. He's at a hard age and he's got ideas that's bigger than his body will let him do. That makes a boy some upset but fussin' at them too much will just get the boy in the habit of fussin'. He said Aunt Jenny's doin' it right. When Spike gets so he's too hard to live with, just send him off by hisself, don't fuss with him. He'll get over his Irish soon enough. If folks go to fussin' at him, he'll be quick to fuss back and breakin' that habit ain't so easy.
Spike felt some better when Aunt Bridget said Spud would sleep at Spike's the next night. It really didn't make much difference. In about three nights we was all sleepin' out under them trees just east of the house horse barn. Not just us Flynns but Virgil and Juan and Jorge and Ho Tau was out there. That was fun. I reckon it wasn't as much fun for the grown-ups. Aunt Lydia had to yell at us, "You boys hush. You're keepin' all of north Texas awake."
We hushed some but we didn't go to sleep yet. You get to know him, Spud is some funny like Paco and them two and Juan had us laughin' about all night. I was so sleepy in the mornin' I can't even remember milkin' my cows.
The closer that weddin' got, the less it seemed like we had a new mama. Hell, it didn't even seem like we had no daddy no more. Mama was all the time sewin' with them Aunts and with Senora Maria and Daddy was all the time makin' arrangements. Me and Paco talked about it. We don't know what arrangements are but when you're makin' them, you don't have no time for no boys.
Even though me and Paco don't like weddings none, you just had to get excited because of all the things that was goin' on. About three days before the weddin' was to happen, some of them big freight wagons started rollin' in to the Bent-Y. I ain't sure why, but I never knew a boy that didn't think at one time or another in his life that he wanted to drive one of them. You was sittin' up there so high and them horses or mules was so big and - - well, them big rigs just took your attention. I'm all over wantin' to drive one of them rigs but Spike and Danny and even Paco are still took by them and they was spendin' the day watchin' them rigs comin' in from that sidin' at Groom, full of benches and chairs and tables that Daddy had brought in from Austin.
Me and Spud was mostly off in the root cellar where he liked to be because it was cool and I didn't have to listen to him fuss about how hot it was in Texas. You get him started, he tells good stories about San Francisco. Hell, I know it's hot in Texas. I don't need him tellin' me that. I don't know hardly nothin' about San Francisco so if he had to be tellin' me somethin', I'd just as soon it was San Francisco stories.
It was about noon eatin' time and me and Spud went off to see if dinner was ready. Ho Chow told me to get Paco and my daddy and mama and said it was fine if Spud ate with us. I went runnin' after Paco, and Spud went runnin' after my mama and his mama over to Aunt Lydia's house. His daddy was in Amarillo with Uncle Brian.
Now I knew Paco liked them big wagons but when I got to him, the way he was lookin', you'd of thought he never saw one before. I said to him, "Lord, Paco, I can't think why a load of benches has got your attention so. You'd think you got enough of them benches in school."
I don't usually try to fun on Paco like that because he can always think up better things to say back than I can and while I still love him real good, it gets bothersome always havin' him outdoin' me in that kind of talkin'. I was ready for some funny sayin' that would make mine look like it come from one of them borin' geography books them teachers are always makin' us read, but he didn't say nothin'. He just kept lookin' and actin' like he never even heard me.
I was gonna try to be funny again when I got a look at his eyes. They scared me. It was the first time in more than a year that I seen that dark room look. Somethin' was takin' Paco back to them bad times.
He didn't say nothin' to me for a long spell and when he did say somethin', it was more like he was sayin' it to the air than to me. "I got to get my mama and daddy."
I already told you how our daddy come to be real carin' about me and Paco. He could get some upset and real worried and even Irish if he thought somethin' was the matter with us. When you went to tellin' him somethin' about us, you had to do it real easy so as not to set him off.
I found him in the farrier's room, helpin' Senor Pablo shoe a real rank horse. I tried to be as gentle as I could. I said, "Daddy, do you remember how Paco used to get that look in his eyes like you was lookin' into a dark room?"
Now you tell me. How could you say something any gentler than that? It wasn't gentle enough for Daddy though. He went runnin' out of that room and said, "What happened to Paco?
When we come back to where that wagon was, Paco already had Mama there. He was lookin' real hard at the driver of one of them wagons. He still had that dark-room look and he was about makin' me cry. I seen by the way Daddy's jaws were workin' that he was gettin' some upset too. I didn't know Mama that good yet so I didn't know what she was thinkin' except she knew by how close Paco was standin' to her that somethin' was botherin' him.
Finally he said, "What you doin' drivin' horses, Bill? I thought you was a mule man. You told me once that you'd just as soon carry that freight on your back as have to depend on horses. They ain't smart enough, you said."
That Teamster looked real puzzled at Paco. "Should I know you, boy?"
"How's Willie and Mabel and all them littler ones?"
The teamster looked real hard at Paco. You seen a look come in his eyes that told you he was some surprised.
"You ain't Paco? Lord, I thought you'd be long dead by now. Are you Paco?"
"Reckon so, Bill. How's them younguns of yours?"
Bill looked off the other way and didn't say nothin' for a long time. When he turned his head back, you seen that he had water in his eyes. "Willie's dead, Paco. So is his mama and them babies, Leah and Henry. They all took the gripe about two years ago and couldn't nothin' save them. I sold my mules and rig for the doctorin' money and after that I didn't have no way o make a livin'. Anyhow, the rememberin' was too hard. I took to the whiskey and the law took Mabel and them other two babies. I can't rightly say how they are. I ain't seen them in a year. I don't want them to see me like this."
Bill just put his head down. "I ain't real sure I like you seein' me like this."
Paco was almost cryin'. You could tell it when he said, "Mama, Daddy, this is Bill Burchheimer. He done me real good once. Daddy, you remember the muleskinner I told you about? Well, this is him. I knew you would be proud to talk to him by how proud you were of them Indians that did me good."
When Paco called Seamus Flynn, Daddy, Bill's head come up real quick. You could tell he was surprised but it took him a long time to say anything.
"Reckon that's life. Things change for the good for some and for the bad for others. I reckon I'm proud for you, boy. How'd you make out with that dumb hide hunter?"
"I got by. He's dead too. My daddy found me soon after that. I done real good since than."
You could tell Bill didn't want to talk no more. He was movin' around on that seat like a youngun in school who's got to piss and the teacher won't let him go. When he looked at Paco again', he had water runnin' down his face. "I'd like to move on now, boy. I ain't proud of what I come to be. It's hard to have to do with them who once looked up to me. I ain't nothin' now, boy. Your daddy was good enough to give me work and I reckon I'm proud to see that you made out. But you got to forgive me, boy. Seein' you puts the rememberin' hard on me and I ain't man enough to stand up to it.
"Mr. Flynn, I thank you for the work but I'll be quittin' after I unload this load. I reckon I'll be off to Pampa to try to take care of that hard rememberin' with a bottle."
Paco was cryin' now. "Bill, don't be sayin' you ain't nothin'. You done me good when mostly all I knew up to then was bad. If you didn't do me good, I'd be dead. When you done me good, I was nothin'. Look what your doin' done for me. "My daddy thinks a lot on God. He is always sayin' that God means for everybody to be somethin'. You helped God make me know I was somethin'. Maybe lettin' me see you here is God's way of lettin' me get back at you.
"Things have done you bad, Bill, but you ain't nothin'. In all them bad years I had you and Willie and Mabel and my "thing" was the only good rememberin' I had. To me you are something. When I was nobody and folks done me bad, you seen to it that I didn't die. I ain't sure how but I got to try to help you be something again. Daddy, can you help me?"
Daddy sent the rest of us on in the house to eat. He stayed out and helped Bill unload them benches and then spent the afternoon goin' back and forth to Groom with Bill.
When we was in our house, Mama took on a kind of mad look. It was a look me and Paco never seen on her before and it kind of scared us some. She asked Paco, "Pacito, what was the bad that Bill took you from? You have told me almost nothing about your life before your daddy found you."
Paco said, "Mama, I seen how some mamas get when they think their younguns are bein' done bad. They get all fussed and mad and they go to clingin' on their younguns. I had enough mad in my life and I reckon I been doin' for myself so long that I wouldn't take too good to clingin'. If I could have made the kind of mama I wanted, I'd have made her just like you. You're funnin' and you're lovin' and you're kind and gentle. I reckon you got some mad in you, but you don't show it to folks. Just know that you couldn't keep that mad in if you knew some of the bad that happened. Me and Sam don't need no mad mama. We need the kind of mama we got. Daddy took away them bad times for both me and Sam. You don't need to know nothin' about them. Them times are gone. You just be our mama for now and after. Don't think none on before. Mama, please don't never ask me nothin' about before no more. I don't want to think on it and I don't want you knowin' it."
Mama kissed him and they hugged. Mama never asked neither of us nothin' about before no more.
I don't know when my daddy told him to do it but just before dark, Manual come ridin' up in a buckboard full of younguns. You ain't seen no cryin' or huggin' like happened when Daddy and Bill come in with that last load. Mabel let out a scream and them two littler boys and Mabel and Bill was huggin' so you thought they was gonna choke each other.
Them younguns stayed with Lu Bronson in Juan's old house 'cause Lu done like she said she was gonna do. She wasn't fillin' up that house with younguns. She still had just one youngun and there was all them empty rooms. There was plenty of room for them younguns. Bill stayed in the bunkhouse. When we seen him in the mornin', he was bathed and shaved and helpin' some of them other men set them benches in rows in the north meadow.