I don't know when it happened, but it come to me that I wasn't doin' all the decidin'. We was talkin' about what we was gonna do and decidin' together. That surprised me some. I mostly didn't want nobody tellin' me what to do and sometime when someone tried to, I done just the opposite of what they said. Had a teacher once, told me I was bull-headed. But when you got a friend, seems like you want to know what is his thinkin' and does he have a better idea than you got.
In our decidin', we both reckoned we'd best stay shy of Claude and that wagon train too. We didn't want them Claude folks who might have seen me gettin' them horses wonderin' at Paco and why we wasn't with the train. We didn't want them train folks askin' us a lot of questions.
The trail went off from the creek a ways and the train followed the trail. We stayed with the creek and that took us about a mile south of Claude. We rode quiet for a while. I don't know what Paco was thinkin' but I didn't care. I was just glad he was there. I was some worried. All that talkin' I done about bein' able to look after myself - well now I wasn't so sure. I was wonderin' what we was gonna end up doin'. I had that money and them papers that looked like they was good for money somewheres, but I couldn't let no one know I had it. On them papers I could read the words 'San Francisco' but them numbers was too big to read. There was ones and twos and fives and a whole lot of zeros on them papers and with all that gold and them papers I knowed was money, lots of them for one hundred dollars, I knowed I had a hell of a lot of money. If other folks knowed I had it, they would try to take it from me. If I tried to take it to a bank, they'd think I stold it.
Well, I'd have to think that out later. I set to thinkin' what we ought to buy in Amarillo. We needed boots. I was excited about that. I never had no new boots. I just had them that was give me by that storekeeper's woman. Her boy used boots bad before he got too big for them so I never had me no good ones. In the orphanage nobody had his own boots. There was just a bunch of them there, and you grabbed what you could. If by the time you got to them boots, they was all gone or there was none big enough for you, you went without. Havin' new boots was gonna make me proud. We needed some good knives and some better eatin' stuff like dishes and spoons and such like. We needed bedrolls but I didn't think we should buy all that stuff in one place. Folks would wonder about two boys buyin' so much stuff. Could be there was more than one general store in Amarillo. If there was, we was gonna be all right. If there wasn't, we could buy bed rolls and some of the other stuff in Amarillo and the rest of what we needed in the next town.
I was damn sure we was gonna get bed rolls in Amarillo. While I was thinkin' what other things we needed right off, Paco said, "Sam, you're actin' like you're my friend. Are you?"
I about cried. Now I knowed for sure he was thinkin' like I was. "Yes, Paco, I'm your friend and you're my friend."
"You reckon we're gonna be friends always? I ain't never had me no real good friend before except them Indians and 'cause we lived different, we knowed we couldn't be friends for always. But you're different Sam. We ain't all the same. You're white and I'm Mexican but that's more the same than if you was a Indian. You know somethin', Sam? I can't remember anyone feelin' bad for hurtin' me until you done it. I got a funny thing in my head about folks who done me good. I don't know why it's there 'cause I can't think of hardly no one who done me good, but when you was that feelin' bad kind of sorry for takin' that hide off me, that thing come back on me. Whatever that thing is, I like it. Sometimes when I'm goin' to sleep at night, I try to make that thing come on me. Sometimes I can and it makes me want to cry. Mostly I can't but you been makin' it come on me about everytime I turn around. I like havin' someone who treats me good and it was comfortin' to snuggle up close to you last night. I wonder if this is how people feel who have a family."
"I reckon so Paco. I like it too. I knowed you was my friend almost as soon as I seen you. I didn't know what you was thinkin', though. I was hopin' you'd want to be my friend. If I can help it, we'll be friends forever."I was gonna have to be careful here. I was holdin' on to my thinkin' all right but my feelin's was gettin' away from me. I wanted to trust him with who I really was and I reckon, in my head, I knowed I could. But I'd been keepin' my feelin' in me too long. I didn't even know how to let them out. I was afraid to try.
I had to change the mood. I tried funnin'. "Hell, we need each other. Who else would have a whore's bastard and a stinkin' greaser bastard?"
He laughed but he didn't say nothin'. I wondered if I should have called him a greaser bastard. I hoped he knowed I was funnin' but I couldn't think why he wasn't sayin' nothin'. When I looked at him, his eyes was all dark again. He wasn't mad. He was doin' some more of that real sad thinkin'. When he finally said somethin' it was like he wasn't talkin' to me. Seemed like he was just thinkin' and his thinkin' was comin' out of his mouth.
"Sometimes I feel like I ain't no bastard. It comes to me like a dream only I ain't sleepin'. It's like the thing in my head only it ain't the same. The thing is a feelin', my wide awake dreamin' is more like rememberin'. I think I remember a mama and a papa and a abuela and a baby. That baby is me. I ain't even sure what a abuela is. How do I know that word? When I can bring them people to my thinkin', that's when my thing comes on me. I ain't never told nobody that before, Sam. That wide awake dreamin' and that thing was the only good things I had and they was mine. I didn't want to share them with nobody. But I done it with you without even thinkin' on it. Reckon you know more about me now than anybody in the world except me and you know what? It comforts me knowin' you know."
I knowed what he was doin' and it kind of made me ashamed. He was givin' me part of him. He was showin' me his real self. He was trustin' me. I was ashamed 'cause I didn't trust him enough to show him me. I reckon I was some jealous of him for that. I wished I could do what he done. I wished I could show him who I really was. But I couldn't, not yet anyway, and that made me sad. He went on tellin' his story. "Seems like there was a house and a lot of other Mexican people. They all talked Mexican talk. I talked it too, what a baby could. Then, there was a lot of yellin' and shootin'. There was a lot of fire. That house was burnin' and I was livin' with folks who was real mean to me. From them stories them Indians was tellin' me, I think they must have been comancheros. They talked Mexican and by how mean they was, they must have been some of them Christians you was tellin' about. I was with them comancheros until I was some growed then they sold me to a peddler man named Weir. I know he was a Christian 'cause he was one mean son-of-a-bitch. He talked a different kind of white man talk and he had a medicine show. He'd make me look for bottles that folks had throwed away. I'd wash them bottles in the creek and fill them almost full of creek water. Weir would fill them the rest of the way with cheap whiskey.
"When he was tryin' to sell that stuff he'd have me standin' in the crowd and act like I was coughin'. He'd call me up to the wagon and make me drink some of that stuff and I was supposed to stop coughin'. Weir would tell them folks that that creek water and whiskey had fixed me. Folks is dumb, Sam. They'd buy that stuff. "One night he had me lookin' for bottles behind a saloon. I found a whole passel and when I was takin' them to him, my foot hit a rock and I fell. Busted about all them bottles. I got cut some from that broke glass but them cuts wasn't too bad. But I was little and that blood on me scared me. I went runnin' to Weir, yellin' from bein' scared of that blood and when Weir seen that I busted all them bottles, he went to beatin' on me with one of them leather lines you guide them mules with. With my scare from that blood and with Weir beatin' on me, I reckon I done some yellin'. Folks come around behind that saloon to see what was goin' on. I could hear folks tellin' Weir to quit beatin' on me but when he was mad he was crazy. He didn't pay them folks no mind. The mule skinner Vox told you about was one of them folks. He grabbed that line and pulled it away from Weir. Weir went to swingin' at the mule skinner with his fist but I reckon mule skinners don't take no beatin' from nobody. He hit Weir and knocked him down. Weir went for his gun but the mule skinner was faster. He shot Weir dead.
"When the sheriff come and was told what Weir was doin', he said the mule skinner done right and just walked off. The mule skinner asked, 'What am I gonna do with this boy?'
"The sheriff just kept walkin' and said, 'You found him. You worry about him.' The mule skinner put me in his wagon and we headed out of town.
"He took me to his cabin and I thought I was gonna get to live there. He had a whole passel of younguns and them younguns liked me. He had a boy some bigger than me who was nine and a girl some smaller than me who was eight. That's how come I figured I was more than eight when Vox got me. I wasn't there too long when that mule skinner's woman told him to get me the hell out of there. She reckoned she had enough younguns without botherin' with no damn greaser.
"That mule skinner seemed sad but he done it. He took me to a place where there was a whole passel of younguns but that man said his orphanage was for white Christians and not for no papist greaser. I been called a goddam greaser and a stinkin' greaser but that was the first time I was ever called a papist greaser. I reckon that's why I remember it. Don't know what the hell it means."
It come to me that it might have been the same orphanage but he couldn't remember where it was or nothin' about it. He said that mule skinner didn't know what to do with him. He was sayin' that Paco was too small to leave with nobody. That's when he got in that card game with Vox. Paco could make a story real interestin'. Even was his story real sad, I was wantin' to know what come next. He went on tellin'. "That's when Vox got me. He just had me about a week when them Indian younguns come sneakin' around. They was just lookin' but if they found somethin' they wanted, they would have stoled it. I got to know how they thunk. They was thinkin' that the white man stoled their land and killed all the buffalo. If they could get somethin' back, it was fair. Some of them Indian younguns was bigger than me but since Qua's daddy was the chief, he was kind of the boss of that bunch. They looked at me real close 'cause most of them never seen no boy but a Indian one before.
"I couldn't talk their talk then but somehow, me and Qua started likin' each other right off. I'd come to that camp to play and them Indians didn't care. I already told you that them braves done cowboyin' for that Pampa ranch and most of them growed Indians had a lot to do with white folks and, I reckon, Mexicans too. They never hardly paid me no mind and if they did, they done me like I was a Indian. They didn't like growed folks who wasn't Indian comin' to their camp though. They was thinkin' them growed folks might steal their children or bother their women.
"If it wasn't for them Indians, I'd most likely have died from livin' with Vox. He'd be gone for days and hardly never brought no food. Them Indians give me food and I'd sleep there some, 'specially when that damn Jigger come.
"I've knowed a lot of mean folks in my life but I never knowed nobody else like Vox. I just couldn't think him out. He was some mean when he was drunk but he was mostly dumb. He just couldn't think good. He even come to look to me to tell him how to do some things. He'd find a skin and just leave it lay around the cabin until it rotted if I didn't tell him to take it to town and sell it. He'd get about half way done makin' beans and forget he ever started. His folks was better than he was. They was crackers, Vox told me, and before they come to Texas his daddy was somebody. But Vox couldn't think good and he went to drinkin' and outta all the folks in Texas, I got Vox. He had some idea of good up-bringin' but he didn't know nothin' and up-bringin' was one of the things he didn't know the most. I asked him why he thunk he was givin' me a good up-bringin', him never bringin' food and beatin' on me all the time. He said I wasn't nothin' but a greasy Mexican and nothin' to him. I was havin' a good up-bringin' 'cause I was learnin' white man's ways. He said everybody knows that white man ways is better than Mexican ways. He figured that if a white man does it, it's good, I reckon.
"All the time I was thinkin' about runnin' off but where was I sposed to go, all bare-ass naked? Who would give a goddam greaser britches. If I tried to steal some, they'd most likely hang me. Even if I had britches, I found out from that mule skinner tryin' to do me good, nobody wants a greasy Mexican.
"I asked Qua's daddy once could I live with them and not be no Mexican no more but just be a Indian. He said if he let me do that, some of them white folks would be goin' to them soldiers and sayin' them Indians stoled a Mexican boy. Them Indians have to be real watchful on what they do. They're about the only ones left in Texas. A whole lot of white folks don't like them bein' here. They're even mad at them Pampa ranchers for gettin' the army to let them stay. Them Indians was real good to me but they wasn't gonna do nothin' to make the army raise hell with them.
"There wasn't nothin' I could do. I was just stuck with Vox. Him bein' drunk all the time and beatin' on me when he wasn't, was a good up-bringin'? 'Splain that to me. The man was just dumb. Hell, he's most likely happier dead, don't you reckon?"
"I reckon so. He needs to be dead if he's so mean he's gonna give somebody to them Christians. We don't need to think on no Vox or on Weir or no Comancheros or no damn Christians no or. You got me and I got you and we're gonna be fine."
I said that but I wished I believed it. I was still thinkin' what we was gonna do when we got all the stuff we needed.
We rode along slowly, mostly keepin' to the shallow edges of the creek. They ain't too many people in this part of the country and even though they're real spread out and their younguns hardly never get to town, most folks know who lives in this country and who is strangers. They generally ain't real trustful of strangers, even younguns. We knowed we had to get to Amarillo but we didn't need to be explainin' ourselfs to folks on the trail.
The creek made fine ridin' and was most likely cooler than that dusty trail. The water wasn't too deep and them horses seemed to like walkin' in it. Them places where it got deeper, we just walked our horses along the bank. We got clear to the edge of Amarillo and didn't see no one and, I reckon, no one saw us neither 'cause nobody bothered us.
While we was still ridin', after Paco was done tellin' me about him, he asked about me. "Ain't much to tell, I reckon. I don't remember ever havin' no daddy - just Mama and them men she was whorin' with."
I told him about how folks didn't want no whore's bastard around them and how I never had no one to play with, not even them Indians like he did. I had already told him some about that damn preacher man and that orphanage but I told him the rest, what I could remember. I told him how, just like he had that mule skinner who tried to do him good, I had Emma and that storekeeper's woman and that big red-headed cowboy. Before I knowed what I was sayin', I was tellin' him that I sometimes played in my head like that cowboy was my daddy.
I never told nobody that before. That was one of my private thinkin's, one of my feelin's that wasn't nobody's business. I knowed what playin' like that in my head meant. It meant that I really did need somebody and I was tellin' that to Paco. I never even told that to Emma but I was tellin' Paco and I wasn't scary. When it come to me what I done, I was glad I done it.
I asked Paco if he ever heard of Seamus Flynn. In a way it was a dumb question. Everybody knowed about Seamus Flynn. It didn't make no difference that Paco wasn't nowhere for more than three years, everybody knowed about Seamus Flynn.
Well, 'course Paco heard of Seamus Flynn. The way he answered me I could tell that he thought it was a dumb question too. He said that Vox and Jigger was always talkin' on how Seamus Flynn could shoot faster and straighter than any man in Texas. Paco said that even them Indians knowed about Seamus Flynn and was scared of him.
Seamus Flynn was the worst gun fighter in this whole part of the country. Folks was always sayin' how he'd just as soon kill you as look at you. I don't reckon all them stories was true, 'cause if they was, Seamus Flynn didn't have no time for nothin' but killin' folks. I reckon even a gun fighter has got to sleep sometimes.
Them men in front of Hans Gutner's saloon was always talkin' about Flynn and almost everyday someone had a new Seamus Flynn story. Them stories sounded like he had killed off half the state of Texas.
In all them stories I heard about Flynn, I never heard nobody say what he looked like. Sometimes I wondered if there really was a Seamus Flynn. Seemed like everybody knowed about him but nobody ever seen him. There was a whole lot of times, word was out around Goodnight that Seamus Flynn was comin' to town but I never knowed that he done it. Just the same, when I was real little them stories scared me and I would hide under my cot, hopin', did he come, he wouldn't find me. I told Paco that, even if I was scared of Seamus Flynn, I played in my head that Seamus Flynn was that big red-headed cowboy and that he was my daddy.
I told him about the storekeeper's woman, how she give me clothes and asked me to supper some and how she let me sit down right with her family. I told him that I liked that feelin' of bein' with a family.
But mostly I had to tell him how Mama seemed like she didn't know I was alive. She was some like Vox, I reckon. She didn't do for me and I told him how when she got shot, it was like hearin' about someone I never even knowed. I said, "I reckon she needed dyin', just like Vox needed dyin'. I got me the feelin' that that's what she wanted. I reckon that Marshal done good by my mama and we done good by Vox."
Our talkin' was real interestin'. Paco could tell things real good and his tellin' made me forget I was ridin' a horse, even was my ass real sore. He talked on a lot of things. He talked on how he thought Indians was better than most white folks was sayin'. He said there was good ones and bad ones in white and Indians. He reckoned it was the same with Mexicans but he didn't know none since he was a baby so he didn't know for sure. He said he reckoned that some folks was born to be happy and some folks was like him and me, just born to die. He reckoned we'd be dead like Vox and my mama soon. Used to fret him, he said, thinkin' about dyin' and never havin' no one who cared nothin' about him. But he figured he could die peaceful now since he had me for a friend. "I reckon that's all a body needs out of life," he said. "One good friend."
"I don't want you dyin!" I told him. "I ain't had that many friends myself to lose one as soon as I get him. I don't agree about some folks bein' born to die. I think they do that to theirselfs. Might be when they're as dumb as Vox they can't help it, but my mama could have done different. I don't reckon she was born bad. I reckon she decided to be bad and when she got so bad she couldn't stand herself no more, she decided to die. I don't think she knowed she decided that but someplace in her head, she was fixin' it so someone would kill her. I was thinkin' that for a long time before that Marshal shot her."
"I hope you're right, Sam. I don't want to die. I always figured that I was born to it and I was just gonna let it happen. I always wanted to die fast. That's why I didn't want them Apaches to get me. I hear tell if they don't work you to death, they got ways of killin' folks that take a long time and hurt you like hell. What you reckon happens to you after you're dead?"
"I don't rightly know. That damn preacher man said you go to hell where they got fires that's hotter than what's in a blacksmith's forge and them fires burn on you but they don't burn you up so they just keep burnin' on you for always."
"I wonder, did that damn preacher man say that God who puts you in that hell was a Apache? He sounds like he could be. He sounds mean enough."
"No, he's a white man. They got pictures of him all nailed to two wood boards and lookin' like he's hurtin' real bad. I reckon that's why He's so mean with that hell. Was I nailed to two wood boards, I don't reckon I'd feel too kindly toward folks."
Paco knowed a whole lot of things to talk on. It give me a wonderment how he knowed all them things, him never havin' no schoolin' and never bein' around folks but Vox and them Indians for so long time. I got the sense that he was real smart and done a lot of thinkin' and it seemed like he remembered everything he ever heard. I didn't always remember too good but looked like him and me was some the same on that thinkin'.
But as smart as he was and all that rememberin' and thinkin' he done, wasn't gonna get him by with folks. There's some things you have to know, you just can't think up by yourself. If he was gonna get on with folks and not do stuff to get us too much attention, there was some things I knowed that he had to know.
I ain't had the most schoolin' but I went when I could. Some years we had a teacher who wouldn't let me come 'cause them Goodnight folks was always mouthin' to that teacher about their younguns havin' to do with no whore's bastard. But a whole lot of years we had teachers who said that school was for everybody and they'd let me come. One of them teachers who wouldn't let me come because them people called a school board said he couldn't, let me come after them other younguns went home. He said I had a real good mind. I reckon I did 'cause I could learn that readin' and cipherin' real quick. I liked learnin' that stuff. Most of them younguns whose mamas and daddies made them come to school, didn't like it and never learned no more than they had to. But I took to learnin' real good. When I was real little, it made me cry when they wouldn't let me go to school.
My quick learnin' was another cause for them younguns and some of their mamas to bad mouth me. I reckon they didn't like no whore's bastard doin' better than their fancy-assed little darlin's.
But everything I knowed, I didn't learn in school. I learned a lot of things from gettin' my ass kicked for not knowin' them. When you're with folks, there's a certain way to be and don't you be that way, you either get run off or told about it real hard. I learned when you're with folks, you gotta use them manners.
See, folks who had the money to hire their chores done, liked them manners. Some of them folks livin' around Goodnight had a dozen bare-ass younguns runnin' around their place to do their chores and they didn't have no money to pay for chore doin' anyway. I never bothered them. Them folks who had the money, mostly had just one or two younguns and they was generally practicin' on the violin or readin' books or their mamas thought they was too high class for chore-doin'. With them people, if you was clean and if you said, "Yes, Sir," and, "No, Sir," and such like and if you never sassed back at them or fussed at their younguns even if they was real nasty to you and called you names like whore's bastard or somethin' like that, and if you went to the shit house when you had to piss or shit and didn't just piss where you was or go behind some tree to shit - if you done them things, generally they'd give you chores to do and some of them was even nice to you. But you had to have them manners. If Paco was gonna be with folks, he had to learn them manners.
I was almost as good at them manners as I was at that readin' and cipherin'. The only thing I done that got them fancy, chore-hirin' folks mad with me was my cussin'. I didn't mean no harm by it. I just talked the way my mama did and all them men at the saloon and them men who come to see her. That damn preacher man beat the hell out of me because I couldn't remember about that cussin'. Hell, I didn't even know it was cussin' until I went to that damn orphanage. Everybody I knowed talked that way. I thought it was just regular talk. Seems like I still do. It just comes out of my mouth. I reckon Paco thinks that way too. It sure as hell comes out of his mouth. He's probably some like I was. He probably don' even know he's doin' it but he's gonna have to learn. We're both gonna have to think on not cussin' but he has to think on a lot of other things if he's gonna have good manners.
Paco was like most range livin' folks. For them, seemed like nothin' was good or bad. It just was. Them range livin' folks didn't think no different about talkin' about shittin' than they did about eatin'. If a calf kicked them in the balls, they'd say it right out the same as if it stepped on their foot. Them range livin' folks figured if it was there, it was all right to talk about anyplace. They didn't know some folks don't want to hear nothin' about some of them parts you had on you.
"Folks is funny, Paco. I reckon everybody's got to shit and piss. Most folks is like us. If that stuff needs talkin' about, they talk about it. But some folks act like they ain't got nothin' under their britches and like they don't shit or piss. They don't want to hear nothin' about them parts you do them things with. You was lucky when you was talkin' about them boys' pissers that had no skin on the end of them. Their daddy was real nice about tellin' us why, even if I didn't know what the hell he was talkin' about. A whole lot of them fancy folks would run you off if you talked about them things to them."
"Are them fancy folks dumb or what? Seems to me if them things need talkin' about, you talk about them."
"No, they ain't dumb. They're play actin' like. They got to do all them same things we do but they just don't talk on them. I told you that damn preacher man was always talkin' about sinnin'. You listen to him, you come to think that everything somebody does is sinnin'. It gets goddam bothersome listenin' to all that sinnin' preachin'. It come to me that could be them fancy folks don't want to listen to that sinnin' preachin' either. Them folks know it ain't sinnin' if they talk about them things but they don't talk about it 'cause they don't want no damn preacher man preachin' at them about it all the time.
"Seems like not havin' them manners and sinnin' is the same thing. I ain't sure about that but it seems that way.
"Don't talk about them things to any of them town folks 'cause it's hard to tell which ones is fancy and which ones ain't. Don't piss in the street and find a shit house when you got to shit. Don't go behind no tree in them towns. Don't even fart when folks is around, specially them ladies."
"Goddam, Sam. When you got to fart, you got to fart."
"Well go off where folks can't hear you then."
"Can I breath"?
"Just do like I say and them town folks won't be runnin' us off and some of them might even be nice to us."
"What if I forget?"
"Well, try not to."
While we kept on ridin', I was tellin' him what words was cuss words them fancy folks don't want to hear. He couldn't hardly think that out.
"How the hell do them fancy folks tell things without them words? Seems like you can just say. Just sayin' don't hardly tell you nothin'. Seems like you got to use them words to tell how things really is."
"Well, you're just gonna have to learn to tell without them words don't you want your ass kicked everytime you open your mouth."
I reckon we looked passable for that town. My hair was some long 'cause I didn't save out no nickel from my chorin' money to get my hair cut. I was meanin' to but Mama went and got herself killed before I got it done. But it wasn't no longer than some of them younguns I'd seen runnin' around Goodnight and Paco's wasn't too bad. When his hair got so long it got in his way, he took Vox's skinnin' knife and cut it off. Them Indians taught him how to do that. For that kind of hair cuttin', he looked real good. I didn't think folks would be wonderin' on us for how we looked. They might be wonderin' about Paco's new britches but I knowed I could think up a lie for that if I had to.
When we rode on into Amarillo, Paco was doin' a lot of lookin'. I thought he'd get them big eyes again and get all excited but he just done regular lookin'. After while he said, "Towns ain't changed much. Reckon I didn't miss nothin' them three years."
There was two general stores in Amarillo. I was plannin' to use the same lie I done in Claude but I didn't have to. There was so many people in them stores them storekeepers didn't have no time to get to wonderin' on no two boys. The only wonderin' they done was if I had money when I started askin' for stuff. Once they knowed I had money, they didn't care about nothin' else. Them folks didn't wonder on Paco. I figured they would, him lookin' so poorly and havin' new britches and all. If they done it, I was gonna tell them Paco's daddy worked for the wagon master. A lot of Mexicans done that. Made me kind of mad. It was a good lie and I didn't get no chance to use it.
There was a lot of people from that train in town. We even seen them boys whose daddy said they was Jewish. They was with their daddy and I reckon that lady was their mama and them three girls was their sisters. They didn't talk to us but they smiled and acted friendly and I seen their daddy whisperin' somethin' to their mama and she looked at us and laughed. I reckon he was tellin' her what Paco said.
Folks from that wagon train was all over town. I reckon we wouldn't have had to but we did divide our buyin'. The second store was as crowded as the first one so I didn't need to use my Claude lie at all and we got all our buyin' done and looked like nobody was wonderin' about us.
Now that we had everything we needed, I didn't know what the hell to do. Up to now, we had plans. We had things to get and places to go to get them. Now what was we gonna do? I wasn't gonna go back to Goodnight. I knowed that but I had me a funny feelin' about it. There wasn't nothin' there for me but it was home. It was the place I knowed. Didn't matter about them mean-talkin' and mean-treatin' folks, I could handle Goodnight. All of a sudden I felt sad for probably never seein' Goodnight no more.
I knowed that Marshal wanted me in that damn orphanage. But runnin' off like this made me feel I was givin' in to him and them other mean-talkin' folks in Goodnight. I knowed I didn't want too and I didn't think I could, but I had this feelin' that I should be standin' up to them, not runnin' away from them. Somehow, in my thinkin', by runnin' away, I was lettin' them beat me. That thinkin' was in me but I knowed it's dumb to walk into a fight you can't win, and if I was gonna lose, I was gonna lose in a way that them goddam Christians didn't end up with me again.
We was ridin' real slow toward the west. I got to thinkin' on the Goodnight Marshal. When I was real little, he come to my mama a lot. I ain't sure but I think I can remember him stayin' right there in the cabin with us. He wasn't stayin' there no more but he come a lot even after I got back from that damn orphanage. He never did like me too much. He always talked real mean to me and he cuffed me and knocked me across the cabin a whole lot more times than one. He acted like he knowed somethin' about me that I didn't even know and what he knowed made him hate me. That questioned me but I was gonna do my best to see to it I didn't bother that goddam Marshal again until we was more even and I had a better chance of winnin' did we lock horns again.
I got some scared. I knowed Paco thought I knowed where I was goin' but all I was doin' was ridin' away from Goodnight. I didn't want to be too close to that train but I didn't want to stay in Amarillo. Amarillo was too close to Goodnight and that goddam Marshal. So we kept ridin' west. We was already out of the main part of Amarillo, out where them raggedy lookin' saloons was. Most of them saloons was just tents 'cause they kept movin' them west as the railroad moved west.
Then it come to me. We was ridin' west. Santa Fe was west. Santa Fe was a long ways from Goodnight and I had heard that it was even bigger than Amarillo and that there was both Mexicans and white folks there. Most folks who been there said there was more Mexicans and it was big enough that a fella could lose hisself there. It sounded like just the right place for a goddam greaser pup and a whore's bastard.
We could stay shy of that train but still stay close enough to see their dust and get there quick did we need them. We had more found than we needed and if we followed that train, I knowed we'd find water. I felt like a load was took off me. I almost cried. I said to Paco, "We're goin' to Santa Fe."