I reckon they was only gone a week but it seemed like forever. They're home now, and everything's fine but I still ain't forgive them for goin' off like that. I know in my head that that's some selfish so I don't say nothin' to them. But I come to know that I need folks and I can't get by without folks are lovin' me. I know they do but, Lord, seems when you got a brand new mama, your mama and daddy ought to be right here lovin' you. You don't need them off somewheres, sendin' you letters tellin' you they love you.
But - they're back and now Mama lives right in our house. It seems like a lot of things are the same but everything's different. Me and Paco do the same things during the day. We've got our chorin' to do. We go to the swimmin' hole. We play with them boys. We do all the same things we been doin' since we come to the Bent-Y but everything feels different.
I probably told you a hundred times how much we love our daddy. But what do you say about havin' a mama that's just yours? She ain't Juan's or Danny's or Spike's. She's just yours and you know when you get home she's gonna be there. You ain't scared or fussin' in your head about havin' to go home like I was when I had that other mama, because you know when you get there this mama's gonna be huggin' on you and kissin' on you. You know she's gonna be funnin' on you and just lovin' the hell out of you. What do you say about that?
I'm still thinkin' about how ladies are different than men. Our daddy still hugs us and it feels good bein' close to him and knowin' he loves us. But when Mama hugs us or we're sittin', Paco on one side of her and me on the other, our heads layin' on her shoulders and her arms around us - it says lovin' but it's different somehow. Daddy's strong and tough and his muscles are hard and big. When he's huggin' on you, you feel like nothin' in the world is gonna be able to hurt you. Mama's strong too but she's more soft and when she's huggin' on you, it feels tender and warm and comfortin'. When Mama's huggin' on you, it feels like there ain't nothin' in this world that's gonna try to hurt you.
Before Mama come, the only picnics we had was them Sunday picnics at the swimmin' hole that, seemed like, half the folks in north Texas come to. Our mama likes picnics and now we're havin' them all the time. You never know when you get to the house in the evenin' when she's gonna have a big picnic basket ready. Mama likes to go to the swimmin' hole but she found a pretty spot farther south, along the creek, and that's where we mostly go.
Me and Paco ride Happy and Hunter. 'Course, Daddy rides his gray and Mama rides her black. That black's name is Viento. That means "wind" in Spanish. That's a good name for Mama's horse. That's how he runs.
Viento and Daddy's grey get on fine unless Hunter is in heat. The first time she come into heat, Daddy had me ride Danny's little chestnut gelding so them stallions wouldn't want to be fightin' each other. But Daddy's likin' Hunter more and more and he said to me that he thought Hunter and Viento would make a nice foal.
The next time Hunter was in heat, Daddy let Viento get to her. Now Hunter's gettin' a baby belly and I'm some excited. I ain't sure what I'm gonna do with that foal but I know I ain't gonna sell it. Even though I got a real mama now, Hunter don't know that, I reckon, and she still thinks she's my mama. Hell, you don't sell your brother.
Daddy wouldn't let me watch when he let Viento in with Hunter. I can't think why. I knew what they was gonna do. You already know I seen it a whole lot with people and you can't help seein' it with all them cattle around. I just ain't never seen it with horses. I told all that to Daddy and he said he knew that. It was just that our mama asked him not to let me be there. When I knew that's what Mama wanted, I didn't take it so bad. Anyway, Uncle Brian about went crazy when he seen Mama's black. Daddy's grey was the daddy of Spike's filly. You remember, the one Spike watched bein' borned while he was hangin' on the wall. Uncle Brian's wantin' to have Viento daddy some more foals from his fancy mares and I know now: there ain't gonna be no foals if them horses don't do that. I'll be seein' it soon, I reckon.
While Hunter's got a foal in her, them stallions don't fight over her so our ridin' ain't no problem. I reckon when Hunter's about to foal, I'll have to ride Danny's chestnut but if I ask real nice, maybe Rosie will let me ride her sorrel.
On one of them picnics, Mama and Daddy went to actin' silly. They was always ticklin' and huggin' on each other and laughin' but that night, Mama got to teasin' Daddy. She was tellin' him that Viento was faster than his grey. Daddy said it ain't. So they had a race.
Paco and me couldn't believe what we was seein'. We had rode with Mama but never real fast like that. We knew that she could ride good, but Lord, she was doin' as good as our daddy. From where we was, me and Paco couldn't tell who won but when they came back, Daddy said it was a tie. Didn't either that grey or that black win. Them was two fast horses.
But Mama was in a silly mood. She got to pokin' and ticklin' at Daddy and sayin' might be his horse was as fast as hers but she knew that his six shooter couldn't shoot as straight as hers. I didn't know what she was talkin' about. I never seen her have no gun. But Daddy said, "We'll just see about that," and he whipped out his gun and you seen bark fly off the middle of a tree some ways off. Mama went to her saddle bag and got a gun that was some smaller than Daddy's. Paco was tryin' to tell our mama who she was dealin' with. Both him and me figured that her bein' way off in New Mexico Territory, she didn't know none of them Seamus Flynn stories. We loved her. We didn't want her embarrassed.
But in her silly mood, there wasn't no tellin' her nothin'. It turned out that we didn't need to be tellin' her nothin'. It turned out that me and Paco was the ones who was embarrassed. Mama put her bullet right in the same spot on that tree as Daddy did, looked like. Any target Daddy picked, Mama could do just as good as he did. They threw a stick in the air and they both hit it before it hit the ground. They was tellin' me and Paco to see which one was drawin' the fastest. Hell, you can't tell nothin' when you don't even see them guns come into their hands.
What the hell was goin' on here? Everybody knew that Seamus Flynn was the best shot in north Texas. How was our mama keepin' up with him? It wasn't botherin' Daddy. I knew his look when he was proud. I seen it a lot for me and Paco. Now I was seein' it for our mama. You seen that Daddy loved her just like he loved me and Paco. I reckon it wasn't just alike. He loved me and Paco a lot and you seen he loved her a lot but it was somehow some different with her. I can't say how. It was just different.
Paco seen that proud and that love in Daddy too. He had some proud and love of his own. He said, "Mama, you ridin' that black horse and all, and ridin' and shootin' as good as Daddy - you'd think you was La Nube Negra."
Daddy just looked at Mama and laughed. What Paco said wasn't supposed to be funny. He was tryin' to tell our mama how proud he was of her. Our daddy was mostly good at knowin' our meanin' when we talked to him. Why would he laugh at somethin' like that? I told you we just don't know that man no more.
Mama and Daddy are all the time laughin' and ticklin' and huggin' and kissin' each other. When they done that at the wedding, me and Paco was some embarrassed but, did I know then what I know now, I'd a been proud, not embarrassed. Them two people love each other so much. Their huggin' and kissin' and funnin' on each other just seems natural. Seein' how much Mama and Daddy love each other makes me and Paco know better how much they love us.
Me and Paco talked some on it. We don't hear most boys our age talk so much on love as we do. You never hear Danny or Virgil or Juan or Jorge talkin' on how much their mama and daddy love them. But them boys been knowin' love since they was babies. I reckon they think that's just how it is for younguns. I reckon they think just like you got skin and hair and such when you're borned, you got folks lovin' and takin' care of you.
Me and Paco know it ain't always that way. We know how it feels to wonder if anyone cares about you. We know what hate and fear feels like too and we know that love feels a whole lot better. I reckon that's why we talk on it so much.
One thing I have to watch out for: I get to feelin' mad at them folks that wouldn't let my daddy have me when I was a youngun. I try not to, but I even get mad at Grandpa Walton sometimes. I do my best not to think on it too much, but why would folks do a youngun like that? I asked Grandpa Walton once. He said, "It's the law, son. It don't make no difference if I don't like it. It's the law and a judge is sworn to do what the law says."
I asked my daddy why they would have a law like that. Why would they make laws that was so mean to younguns? Daddy said, "The folks who made the law weren't trying to be mean to younguns. It's the people who enforce the law. Too many of them are as insensitive, arbitrary and even cruel as the law allows. For some reason they think it's weak to be as supportive, compassionate and kind as the law allows.
"I don't understand it, Sam. You can have good men, like your Grandpa Walton, who just don't care. If it really was the law and they cared, they'd help see that the laws were changed. But, Sam, I'd be obliged if you didn't talk about this too much. You know how it gets me riled. Sometimes I feel selfish. I have you and Paco now but I still feel that I should be doing something about all those other children who are having to live like you did. I just don't know what to do. There just aren't enough of us who care. It seems like nothing can be done."
I don't ask folks about that no more. I'm like my Daddy. It just gets me riled so I try to make that question part of them bad times that's gone for me and Paco. Sometimes at night, though, when I'm tryin' to go to sleep, I know it ain't gone. I know there's a lot of younguns still bein' done bad by them judges and such but what the hell can somebody do?
Them pictures that was taken at the weddin' come. I seen somethin' on them pictures that made me some ashamed. That picture man wasn't makin' mistakes when he kept doin' the same thing over and over. He was takin' more pictures. On some of them pictures where I was supposed to be, it looked like two of me. It was the same for Paco and Jorge and Spike. We had moved. That was why that picture man was fussin' at us. It wasn't him that was doin' it wrong. It was us. He just wanted to do his job right so he kept takin' pictures until he got three or four good ones.
I'm tryin' to learn somethin' from that. I'm tryin' to learn not to judge folks too quick. I'm tryin' to remember that there's a lot of folks that know things that I don't know and if you judge them too quick, you get your thinkin' all set wrong. If they do somethin' or if they know somethin' interesting or helpful, you ain't gonna learn nothin' from them. Them pictures got me wonderin' what other important or interestin' things I never learned 'cause I judged folks too quick. I'm tryin' not to do that no more.
Even though we know Paco's birthday is in June, come my birthday in November, it was like the party was for both of us. We like that because we know our mama's gonna give us another party in June. It was mostly me who got presents but Mama and Daddy and them aunts seen to it that Paco didn't go without. I reckon they'll do the same for me come Paco's birthday. Havin' a mama makes them parties a lot more fun. She made it like a Mexican party. We had a pinata that looked like a donkey and you put a blindfold on and you try to hit it with a stick and break it. It seems like that shouldn't be too hard but when you're blindfolded, somebody goes and swings that pinata and mostly you're just swingin' at air. Everybody got a chance but nobody broke it on the first turn.
Jorge broke it on his second turn. When it broke, all kinds of stuff fell out of it. Mostly it was candies, wrapped in paper and everybody was grabbin'. I ate so much I didn't think I would want to eat any more until my next birthday. I felt different about it come breakfast time the next mornin'.
I'm thirteen now and Paco will be in June. We was talkin' and we decided we were ready for some privacy. I reckon, since Daddy told us we'd want some, we thought when you was thirteen, you should be ready. We found out we wasn't. Paco moved his things but most nights we sleep in the same bed. We're just used to it, I reckon. We ain't had no bad dreams since our mama came but it's still comfortin' knowin' the other one's there. I'm still lovin' Paco for a brother and lovin' Mama for bein' the same to me and him.
When I think about that, it's a wonder to me. She was hurtin' for him all them years. Seems like she would just naturally do him better. She don't. I can feel it. She loves me and Paco the same.
She can get some mad but when she does, she's funny. She talks real fast in Spanish. I can tell what she's sayin' but sometimes I act like I don't. I don't get away with nothin' though. I told you that lady knows everything that's in your head.
When me or Paco do somethin' we shouldn't, we ain't Sam or Paco no more. We're Francisco or Samuel. When she calls us them names, we know we better get to doin' what we're s'posed to. Like I said, she's some funny when she's mad. We don't laugh at her. We love her too much for that.