I reckon some folks is borned needin' always to be on the lookout. That's one of the things that question me. There's a lot of things that question me but I reckon that's how it is when you ain't full growed. I don't know for sure 'cause I ain't had much chance to be with other younguns. I ain't even had too much chance to be with growed folks so I ain't hardly had nobody to talk to on things. Ain't nothin' I can do but think on them, so them questions just stay with me.
I reckon growed folks got more answers than they got questions. Ain't sure, but most growed folks I seen act like they know 'bout everything. Seems like I don't know hardly nothin' and them questions take up a lot of my thinkin'. I ain't gonna talk on all the things that question me now but I reckon you need to know right off that some folks have a danger on them right when they take their first breath. That's my biggest question. I ain't sure why that is. I only know for damn sure that I'm one of them.
I look around at folks, 'specially younguns, and if they're carryin' worries, you can't tell it. But me, Sam Martin, I got to be watchful all the time. Always bein' watchful seems like it would be hard work for a growed man but, let me tell you, it's damn hard work when you're 'leven. When you're 'leven, too many things can take your interest and you forget your danger. You can set your mind to bein' watchful and you can think you're doin' pretty good but then some horny toad or butterfly or such takes your interest. Before you know it, a whole hour has passed and you ain't been thinkin' about your danger.
The one thing I never wanted to happen again was to go back to one of them goddam orphanages. I was in one for almost a year when I was seven and them Christians that run them places is sons-a-bitches, I'll tell you. I didn't know if them damn Christians run all them orphanages or not but I wasn't takin' no chances. I never wanted to go back to one of them places again. That was my danger.
You see, my mama was a whore. I guess I knowed that since I can remember. I guess I also knowed that a whore wasn't the best thing to be 'cause lots of folks was bad-mouthin' my mama. A whole lot of them folks was sayin' that no whore ought to be raisin' no boy. That's another thing that questioned me. Why did they think like that? Them same folks that was sayin' no whore ought to be raisin' no boy was the same ones that was always callin' me a whore's bastard and runnin' me off from playin' with their younguns or runnin' me off did I come on their place to see could I do some chores for them. Hell, they wouldn't spit on me, so you know they wouldn't take me in and raise me, so why was they always bitchin' about my mama raisin' me? What the hell was I s'posed to do? What most of them folks wanted was for me to go back to one of them damn orphanages.
I knowed I didn't need no orphanage. I'd been lookin' out for myself almost since I could walk. But even though I knowed I could, when you're 'leven, folks don't figure you can look after yourself. For that and for them not wantin' no whore's bastard in their town, there was always the lookout that somebody might try to send me back to one of them places. I knowed that damn preacher man that run the one I was in sure as hell didn't want me back in his no more. You'll know why when I get to that part. But the way folks was talkin' on me and doin' me, I knowed I had to be real watchful that nothin' didn't happen to my mama or that I didn't do nothin' that would give that Marshal reason to cart me off. That's a heavy load to be carryin'. Seems like it'll damn near break you down when you're 'leven, that is, if you let it. When folks are thinkin' and talkin' like that on you, you got to pay them no mind. If you think on what they're sayin, you could go plumb crazy from bein' mad all the time. It come to me when I was real little that there was better ways to use my thinkin' than bein' mad at folks. Hell, what they said didn't mean nothin'. In my thinkin' I was what I thought I was, not what they said I was.
I didn't know for sure what a whore was until I was seven and in that orphanage. Some of them older younguns told me. Hell, I knowed that's what she done. I just didn't know that doin' it was what made her a whore. From what lots of folks was sayin, whores was ruinin' the good name of Goodnight. That was another thing that questioned me. Most of them men that was talkin' around town about gettin' rid of the whores and makin' Goodnight a respectable town was the same men that was all the time comin' to see my mama - sneakin' around, tryin' to make sure nobody seen them. Why do folks talk one way and do another way?
My mama never paid me much mind unless I got her mad somehow. Looked like that was the thing I done best. I don't know was it me or was it somethin' else but whenever I was near her, she was mad at me. I just seen to it that I wasn't near her much.
How I come to be in that orphanage was: the damn preacher man that run the place come to Goodnight one night and was preachin' in the street in front of the saloon where my mama did some of her whorin'. When she whored there, she had to give some of the money to Hans Gutner. He run the place and he talked real funny. You couldn't hardly tell what he was sayin'. Didn't hardly make no difference did I understand him or not. If he did talk to me he was mostly tellin' me to get the hell away from his saloon. Sometimes I done it but mostly I didn't pay him no mind and just done what I wanted. He didn't own the outdoors anyway and wasn't nobody gonna tell me where I could be if I wasn't on their property. My mama done most of her whorin' at home anyway. I didn't like them men that come to her. They was mostly drunk and all of them smelled bad. One thing I can't abide is folks that smell bad. When I was real little, some man would come to our cabin, Mama'd put me on my cot and tell me to face the wall and to stay there until she come for me. I didn't always face the wall. I knowed what they was doin'. It got to where she knowed I was watchin' so from the time I was about five, she'd run me off soon as she woke up. Like I said, most folks in town wouldn't let me near their younguns so mostly I didn't have nothin' to do. I spent most of my time outside the saloon watchin' them cowboys and such that come there to get drunk.
Lots of them was real funny when they was drunk but some of them was mean. You could tell which ones was gonna be mean and you'd best be on the lookout for them. I learned that real good.
One night I was sittin' on the step watchin' a horse chew on his bit and one of them mean ones come up on me before I knowed it. He'd been raisin' hell with folks in the saloon so Hans Gutner throwed him out. Hans Gutner was a real big man and when you said he throwed someone out, it wasn't just a way of sayin' he made them leave. He really throwed them. Just picked them up and throwed them in the street.
Well, I was the first thing that drunk seen and he come up out of that dirt so goddam mad he kicked me in the side and I went flyin'. Hell, I didn't even see him comin'. I was watchin' that horse and the next thing I knowed, I was layin' right under him. The horse shied and reared and was steppin around real nervous like them horses do when there's something under them and they're tryin' not to step on it. Scared the shit out of me. I just knowed I was gonna get stepped on. Didn't. Some other cowboy pulled me out from under there.
Didn't get hurt none from that horse but my side, where that drunk kicked me, felt like it was all caved in. The only doctor in our part of the country spent all his evenin's in Hans Guntner's saloon so he was one who come out to see what all the yellin' was about. Don't reckon I was really cryin' but my goddam side hurt so much I was sure doin' a lot of yellin' and cussin'. Couldn't even tell that doctor what happened. That cowboy that pulled me out from under that horse seen it all and he told the doctor.
The doctor went to feelin' and pushin' around on my side. Lord, that hurt. You'd think a doctor, that was s'posed to know about your innards, would know what he was doin' would hurt you. Looked like he didn't care. He just kept pushin' and I kept yellin' and cussin'. After while that doctor said, "Boy's got two ribs broke. Run on up there to one of them whorin' rooms and get me a bed sheet."
I don't know who got the sheet but I know what was done with it. That doctor tore it in strips and went to wrappin' them around me. He pulled them so tight I thought he was gonna squeeze out all the air and whatever else I had in me. The wrappin' hurt more than the feelin' and pushin' so I yelled louder and used all my best cuss words. There was a lot of folks gathered around watchin' and pretty soon my mama come pushin' through the crowd and when she seen that the yellin' was comin' from me, she told me to shut my damn mouth. I was upsettin' her customers. She didn't even ask to know what I was yellin' about. I don't think she ever did know I had broke ribs. She was like that with me. I could'a been cut half in two, layin' right on her lap and I don't think she'd a noticed.
Some of them cowboys and such was real nice though. Lot of them would give you a nickel to water their horse and I already got four bits for takin' a horse to the livery, grainin' him and rubbin' him down. I was so short then, I had to stand on a box to brush the horse's back. There was even some men who went to that church who would give me two bits to go in the saloon and tell my mama they wanted to meet her at the cabin. I don't know too much about church folks but I don't think they're Christians. They ain't mean enough. In fact, most of them was real nice. They was just like regular folks 'cept they didn't want to be seen in no saloon and I reckon, they didn't want nobody to know they was comin' to see my mama.
Now there's somethin' else that questions me. I started out tellin' you how I come to be in that orphanage and ended up tellin' you a bunch of other stuff instead. Seems like thinkin' or talkin' your thoughts is like a river with all kind of branches comin' into it. You know where you want to go is down the river and you start to follow the river but then you go to followin' a branch. Then you get off on a branch from that branch and then another branch and you never do get to where you started goin'. I can start to think somethin' out but before I know it, I'm way off thinkin' on somethin' else.
How come thinkin' is like that? If I don't get back to tellin' about that goddam orphanage you ain't never gonna know some pretty important things.
Like I said, mostly I didn't have nothin' to do. I was just seven years old and I was too little for folks to hire me for chore doin'. The place where everything seemed to happen in Goodnight was in front of the saloon so that's where I spent my time. That damn preacher man was yellin' about sinnin' and a whole lot of stuff I didn't know nothin' about and right in the middle of his yellin' he seen me. He stopped his yellin' and said to me in a real mad kind of way, "Boy, what you doin' hangin' around this den of iniquity?" I didn't say nothin' 'cause I didn't know what the hell he was talkin' about. He kept askin' me the same thing and I just kept lookin' at him, not sayin' nothin'. Reckin' he thought I was bein' bad by not answerin' his question 'cause he took hold of me and went to shakin' me. I thought my head was gonna fly off the way it was floppin' around. He was shakin' me so hard I couldn't a said nothin' even did I know what the hell to say.
Finally someone in the crowd said, "His mama's the whore here."
Well, you'd a thought a fit took that son-a-bitch. He went to preachin' and yellin' about the son of a harlot bein' in them evil places. He said it wasn't no wonder there was so much sinnin' in Goodnight with children havin' this kind of up-bringin'. He said he was gonna take me to his orphanage where I could have a Christian up-bringin'.
He took hold of me like he owned me or somethin' and I started to yell and cuss at him about him leavin' me be. He didn't pay me no mind. I tried to fight-like with him to get away but he was too big for me. He cuffed me along side the head, picked me up, and put me in his buckboard. Somebody went and got my mama and I figured she'd tell that son-a-bitch to leave me the hell alone. But when she went to talkin' to that damn preacher man, I couldn't believe what I was hearin'. She told that damn preacher man that she reckoned it would be a good thing for me to have a Christian up-bringin'. She told him to go ahead and take me. Goddam her!