Since I come to the Bent-Y I was almost never alone. I had Paco or one of them cousins or them friends with me all the time. I liked that fine but I got to rememberin' them times in my secret place. I wasn't thinkin' on them times when I went there for tryin' to get hold of my thinkin', them times when I had almost more than I could handle from folks bad-mouthin' me. I was rememberin' them times I went there just for thinkin' on them questions. I knowed that everything around them times was bad, but them secret-place times was good. Them was times when I felt like my thinkin' could make me almost magic. It wasn't just playin' in my head about a better way of livin' or playin' that I had a daddy. It was them questions that took me down that river and them branches to places that wasn't really places. They was more like ideas and they give me a scare and a wonderment and a joy all at the same time. I mostly never got no answers on them questionin' trips down that river but I knowed they were there. I just had to go a little farther and I'd find them.
Now that I had a daddy that loved questions too, I knowed that sometimes to find them answers, you needed someone to take you. You needed kind of like a guide like my daddy done for the army in them Indian wars.
I loved my new way of livin' and I loved my daddy and my brother but I missed my secret place. I had to find me a new one.
Off, kind of on the north-east corner of the milk house, between there and the cow barn, where it got shade most of the day, there was the root cellar. It wasn't nothin' but a hole dug in the ground and someone had made wood doors that you had to lift up on but it stayed some cool down there and we kept things like taders and turnips, when we had them, and such like. Them things didn't go bad near as quick down there. Only them cooks, Ho Boy, Aunt Jenny and the bunkhouse cook ever went down there and they went only in the mornin'. I picked the root cellar for my secret place. It was dark in there and it didn't have no creek to watch but it was quiet and it was cool and I could be alone. I didn't need to go there often but when I did I was glad I had it.
I told Paco about it and he knowed right off. I didn't need to tell him why I needed it. Some of them friends and cousins would get to wonderin' where I was but Paco never told. That's why I was surprised when I heard someone openin' the door one day when I was thinkin' on how air that you couldn't even see could make a tornado that could knock down a barn.
It was Daddy. He told me Paco knowed I wouldn't care if he told him about my secret place. He give me a hug. He said he'd had one way up in the attic of that big house in San Francisco where he lived when he was a boy my big. What was I thinkin' on?
I told him and he said he had a book that told about them things and he'd let me read it. I seen that he was my guide. I hugged him.
Daddy set down on a bag of carrots and said, "Sam, we've got to do some talking."
Right away I got to thinkin' I done somethin' bad and it worried me some. I couldn't think what it was. Since I had him so long now, I was gettin' used to him and I done stuff I never thought I'd do when I had a daddy. I talked back to him some and I was mad at him some and I even seen that he was mad at me some. But I seen from watchin' them other families on the Bent-Y that that's how it is with lovin' folks. Some of my time in that root cellar was spent thinkin' on lovin' and bein' mad at the same person but no sense on that come to me so I didn't get no answer to that one yet.
"Did I do somethin' bad, Daddy?"
"No, Son, I've wanted a time just with you but I could never find it. I didn't want Paco to feel left out so I waited until he trusted me enough to know that I loved him and that being with just you just meant that I loved you too, not that I didn't love him. He's over at Senor Pablo's playin' with the babies, Jaime and Rolando. That boy really takes to those babies doesn't he? I think they remind him of how he was treated when he was that size and Senora Maria and Aunt Jenny are real proud of him. He spends a lot of time watchin' those babies and that lets their mamas free to do other things."
"Daddy, sometimes it's scary how much your thinkin' and mine is the same. I been thinkin' that about Paco for a long time. What do we need to talk about?"
"Sam, I want to tell you again how much I love you and how proud I am of you. Most children who grew up like you did would never share their daddy with someone like you do Paco. You know how much I have come to love that boy. Everyone on the Bent-Y takes right to him and his clever sayings get him a lot of attention. I've never once seen you jealous or do any showin' off to get that attention too. You're a real man, Son, I'm proud of you. I love you so much that sometimes I think I'm going to burst with love and pride. I needed to tell you that."
There ain't nothin' to say to somethin' like that. I knowed I could do some things Paco couldn't and that folks didn't notice them as much as the things Paco done but that didn't matter none. I seen my daddy noticed them. He seen how good I was gettin' on a horse and I seen his chest get big when I hit the ball a long way. I seen how him and me was the same in most things and how he was proud when I said my thinkin' on somethin' we was talkin' about. I reckon I was gettin' to think good on me and it's nice to have folks likin' you but when you think good on yourself, you don't need them showin' you all the time. Paco needed folks showin' him they liked him. He still had a lot to learn about thinkin' good on hisself.
But I got to say again. Paco's way of talkin' was just in him. He didn't do it to get folks to make over him. He just done it 'cause that's how he done things. 'Course, he didn't run off when folks went to makin' over him.
Anyway, I couldn't think why my daddy would think I would be jealous of Paco. I reckon I loved Paco as much as my daddy did. Paco was a friend to me when I didn't have nobody else. He liked me, could be he even loved me when nobody else give a damn for me. He give me company when I was lonesome and he made me laugh when I was scared. Paco and me was more brothers even than Juan and Jorge. They was just brothers because they had the same mama and daddy. Me and Paco was brothers 'cause we needed each other.
Daddy said, "Sam, how do you think on your mama now?"
"I reckon I don't much but when I do, I feel some sad for how she was and how you told me she could have been."
"Sam, I loved your mama and I'm sure that one day you'll come to know that you loved her too. Do you know what a funeral is?"
"I seen them in Goodnight. It's a lot of folks cryin', I reckon."
"It's a time to give respect for a life. Your mama got to be real sad but she was a life, a life God made and that life needs its respect. Sam, I think you and I ought to go to Goodnight and give your mama the respect her having been alive deserves."
I was surprised at how I was feelin'. Can you remember me sayin' that I never wanted to see Goodnight again? But I was thinkin' that Daddy just let out a feelin' in me that I didn't even know was there. I wanted to go. I wanted to give respect to what my mama could have been. If I done that, I could forget what she was and love and respect what she could have been. I hugged my daddy. I really wanted to go back to Goodnight and say a proper good-by to my mama.
We was all together at Uncle Kevin's for Maureen's birthday when Daddy told the Flynns what we was gonna do. Did you know that you give people presents when they have a birthday? I never knowed that. When Daddy said about me and him goin' to Goodnight, Uncle Brian and Uncle Kevin said they was goin' with him but Daddy said this was somethin' he had to do alone. Them Flynns was real close and they stood by each other but some things is just for you. What Daddy felt for my mama he had to take care of by hisself.
But when I got to thinkin' on goin' back to Goodnight, it come to me that I needed more than just my daddy. I knowed I needed Paco and when Danny and Rosie said they wanted to go, it made me feel all warm. They was just like them growed Flynns. They was standin' by me but I was different than my daddy. I needed them to help me with what I had to face. I cried when Daddy said they could go.
It turned out that it was gonna be kind of like a camping trip. Goodnight wasn't big enough that it had a hotel and Daddy didn't go there much. The Flynns owned the bank there but usually Billy or Manual or sometimes Uncle Kevin or Brian went there to look after things. Daddy never hardly went to them small towns 'cause of them Seamus Flynn stories and he didn't like bein' no side show, he said. If it was just Daddy goin', he had some friends that he could stay with but with all us younguns goin', Daddy thought it would be better if we took bed rolls and camped out. He knowed we'd like that too. He was right.
A man could ride to Goodnight in one day but he'd a knowed he done somethin'. It was about fifty miles and there wasn't no need for us to ride that hard. We took our time. We camped the first night about half way, just some north and west of McLean.
I said I wasn't gonna eat no more beans but there ain't much else you can eat on the trail. Anyway, them wasn't bad. Both Daddy and Paco worked on them and Daddy had brought some side meat and put that in them beans. They was good.
You get one of them breakin'-your-head feelings when you're layin' on your back in that bedroll lookin' at all them stars. Daddy was tellin' us that some of them stars might not even be burnin' no more. They could have burned out a hundred years ago but we're seein' the light 'cause they're so far away it takes the light that long to get here. You can't think on things that big. I was glad when Daddy started singing, "Yippy Ti I Oh Get Along Little Doggy."
I used to sing them songs in school and I liked singin'. Danny and Rosie sung good but Paco said he never sung before. At first, his singin' wasn't where it should be but he caught on and got so he could sing right on them same sounds with the rest of us.
We sung different songs until we was all sleepy. Daddy said that was enough, we'd better get to sleepin'. We had some ridin' to do yet tomorrow. I was just about sleepin' when I heard Paco kinda like hummin' a song I never heard before. Daddy said to Paco, "Where did you hear that song?"
Paco was cryin'. He said, "It just come to me. That's the song that old lady sung to me when she was huggin' me in that chair that rocked back and fourth. I been tryin' to remember it all them years and I reckon that singin' we done brought it back to me. Is that a real song, Daddy, or am I just makin' it up in my head?"
"That's a real song, Son. It's a Spanish song called La Paloma. It means, The Dove. Those things in your head really happened, Son. You had somebody who loved you before you got your daddy and your brother."
Paco wiggled his bed roll over closer to me. He whispered to me, "I take comfort from bein' with Jaime and Rolando. In a way, they're me when I had somebody who loved me. Now I know that ain't just made up. I know it happened. I ain't just no damn greaser. I'm somebody's baby and just like folks love and take care of Jaime and Rolando somebody was lovin' and takin' care of me." He went to sleep leanin' against me.
It was some toward evenin' when we rode into Goodnight. All that day I was thinkin' I wasn't gonna let nothin' bother me but the closer we got to Goodnight, the closer I rode to my daddy. We didn't go on past Hans Gutner's. We went straight to the grave yard.
The preacher man from that there Goodnight church was standing by a grave. I knowed it was my mama's grave because it was some new and all the dirt didn't sink in it yet. We rode right up to that grave.
I seen a new grave stone by that grave. It said, "Amelia Martin, 1866 -1896, Her long, sad journey is done. She is at rest."
We got off our horses and stood in kind of a half circle around the grave. I was standin' real close to my daddy. In fact, I was leanin' on him and he reached down and put his hand on my chest, kind of huggin' me like to him. He took off his hat and bent his head down like he was gonna pray but he didn't say nothin'. He just had water in his eyes. Me and Paco and Danny took off our hats too. I seen that preacher man had one of them backwards collars like that damn preacher man wore, but somehow, I wasn't scared. I seen that man a lot around Goodnight but he never paid me no mind and, anyway, I knowed Daddy was doin' the right thing. He wouldn't have no mean Christian here.
The preacher man started talkin', "We must speak the truth. Amelia Martin was not a respected member of this community. She was, in fact, shunned, even despised by those of us who consider ourselves respectable. I, myself never offered her a word of encouragement nor did I even offer up a prayer for her. I considered her evil. Since she was despised here, it didn't enter my mind that she was ever loved by anyone. I never thought of her as a happy little girl or a beautiful young lady. I only saw the sin. I never saw the person. I was wrong.
"I can never condone what she became but her life was a gift from God and I should have revered that gift. I should have sought to help her value that gift. Perhaps I could have done nothing to help her but I should have tried.
"Being seen with her would have ruined my reputation, I told myself. But Christ didn't concern Himself with His reputation when He said, 'Let him who is without sin among you, cast the first stone.' He thought about people, not His reputation, when He ate with publicans and sinners.
"Amelia Martin was a symbol of sin and evil in Goodnight, Texas but she was also probably its most eloquent sermon. We should have loved her because she was God's child, not despised her because she was the devil's tool. We should have separated the sin from the sinner. Could we have made a difference? I don't know but we could have shown her God's love.
"How much better people could we have been had we loved rather than despised? How much fuller would our lives have been had we nurtured her son rather than turning our backs on him? How foolish we have been simply to thank God that we were not as other men. How we limited ourselves by simply feeling more holy than this poor sinner rather than aspiring to the holiness that God offers us.
"Let us pray. Oh, God, forgive our foolishness and our pride. Let the town of Goodnight learn from the sermon of Amelia Martin's life that but for the grace of God, we all could be Amelia Martins. Help us to care and not to judge, to remember that You are not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Help us to understand that You love those to whom You gave life and, if we are to be like You, we must love them too, regardless of how unlovable they seem to us.
"Thank You for Your goodness in restoring Sam to his father. Grant him a long, happy and useful life in Your service.
"Forgive our cruelty, our cold-heartedness and our pride. Teach us to love as You love. Amen."
That wasn't like no Christian thing I ever seen before. I felt like somebody besides us people was there. I felt like my mama's livin' and dyin' was for something. I felt like I loved my mama, not just what Daddy said she was when she was a girl but I loved her. I loved the mama I knowed and I cried for her.
I felt my daddy's arms go around me and I put my face in his belly and I sobbed. I never done that before but I was cryin' like Paco done when we was first goin' to the Bent-Y. I cried for Sam Martin. I cried for my mama. I cried for that damn preacher man and his shit house. I cried for all them times I knowed I was more than a whore's bastard and I cried for knowin' it was all over. I knowed why Daddy wanted to do this. Mama's livin' needed some reverence like that man said but my Goodnight life needed an endin' too. This was it. I stopped cryin' and hugged my daddy real hard.
Paco let me and Daddy have our time but I seen he was cryin' too. So was Danny and Rosie. When they seen I was ready, they come to me. They hugged me too. That preacher was right. God was good for lettin' me be a Flynn.
That preacher man come to me and hugged me and told me how sorry he was for not lovin' me when I was livin' with my mama. He said after my daddy told him about my mama and me it come to him that he had no right to put a value on any of God's children. He said that he had to confess that in his thinkin' I was just a sinnin' little waif, not worth his time or his prayers. It didn't change his sinnin' against me but he wanted me to know that he would never again look on any child as less than a child of God.
I knowed he was tryin' to be nice to me but what he was sayin' made me some mad. "I'm the same boy I was when I was livin' in Goodnight. Why does knowin' that I have a rich and famous daddy make a difference? If what you was sayin' about life bein' a gift from God is true, it shouldn't make no difference if you're a Flynn or a cracker, should it?"
"No it shouldn't, Son, and it won't in the future. But it took your daddy telling me about his love for you to make me think of God's love for all his children. I was wrong. With God's help I will be a different man."
I wasn't sure what all that meant but I got the sense that if some other whore come to Goodnight and had a boy, he was gonna be some better off than I was. I was some mixed up too. This was a preacher man, a Christian. Now that I seen him more, I reckon I did remember him but I mostly knowed them Goodnight men what came to my mama. But this preacher man was bein' nice to me. He was lovin' me. He wasn't mean. I reckoned I was gonna have to give that Christian question some more thinkin'.
Daddy shook hands with that preacher man and thanked him real hard. Daddy give him some money and the preacher rode off in his buckboard, Daddy callin' after him to come see us on the Bent-Y sometime. Then he looked at me and petted my head like he done and asked was I all right. I told him I reckoned so and that I was glad we done this. What that preacher man said give me a much better way to think on my mama. I hugged my daddy again.
Daddy asked was there anything in the cabin I wanted or did I just want to go past to see it. I didn't want to. He said he understood but he wanted me to know that this would be my last chance. The Flynns owned the cabin and the land it was on and they was gonna burn it down so they could build a holdin' pen for stock that was bein' drove to the railroad siding at Groom. If I thought I'd ever change my mind and want to see it again, I had to do it now because it wouldn't be there tomorrow.
I didn't have to think on it. There was nothin' there for me. I was glad it was gonna get burnt down. I didn't want to see it.
Daddy said since he was here, he was gonna stop by the bank just to see how things was goin'. We could ride around some or we could wait in front of the bank. He wasn't gonna be too long.
We knowed we was gonna have a long ride so we said we'd wait in front of the bank. We was just sittin' our horses because the only benches to sit on was in front of the saloon and they was always filled with them old men. You could tell the horses didn't like Goodnight no more than I did. They was anxious to get on the trail. Danny's chestnut was some like him, some feisty and Danny was havin' to work some to keep him standin' there.
While we was sittin' there, Emma come to my mind. I knowed she'd be proud of how I was bein' took care of and I reckon I wanted to see her just for seein' her. I give Paco Hunter's reins, jumped down and walked to Hans Guntner's saloon. I seen them same old men in front of there but they didn't know me. I went on in like I done before and Hans cussed me like he done before. For some cause he knowed me right off. He said he thought he was shed of me since that damn stinkin' whore was shot. I was to get the hell out of his place and not come back no more.
I didn't like what come over me. I turned into the old me. I told him to use his goddam head. This was nothin' but a goddam rat hole and nobody but goddam drunks would be here unless they had important business. I was as anxious to get out as he was to get me out. I was gettin' the hell out of there as soon as I seen what I come for. Where the hell was Emma?
"Emma come into some money from someplace and she left here about a week after your mama got shot. Left me with no goddam whore. I still ain't got one and I ain't doin' no business. Now get the hell out of here. You're bad luck."
"Just rest easy, you fat old son-a-bitch. I'm leavin' and you won't never be bothered with me again. And my mama might have been a whore but she at least wasn't no fat assed, German pig like you. I hope this place goes to hell and that you go with it!"
I was glad to leave. I hated how I was in there. I was mad and I was nasty and I was mean. All them years I was tellin' myself I wasn't lettin' them folks make me mad. I knowed now that they was.
I got back on Hunter and went to talkin' to Paco and them cousins so I could get the mad out of me. Paco seen it and tried to help me get past it. He said he knowed why I didn't want to see that cabin. He didn't want to go anywhere near that cabin he lived in with Vox. Them places was behind us and was best forgot. Anyway, he didn't want to get that stink on him again. He looked at Rosie and Danny and said, "You get that hide hunter stink on you, they give you some dumb white boy to bath you and he scrapes all the hide off you and in case you got some stink in your eyes, he puts fire in there and tries to burn it out."
Rosie and Danny didn't know what he was talkin' about and I didn't feel much like laughin' but I still was feelin' warm for Paco tryin' to help me over my mad.
We was just sittin' there tryin' to think of somethin' more to talk about. One thing you got to learn when you got a daddy is that when they say they ain't gonna be a long time doin' somethin', they're gonna be a long time. I wanted to go in that bank and tell Daddy to hurry up but I knowed I better not. I was gettin' about as restless as Danny's chestnut and was about to ask did them others want to do some ridin' when I heard, "Look who's back in town all gussied up. It's the whore's bastard."
I had to look. The voice sounded some like I should know it but it kept goin' up like a boy's voice and down like a man's voice and when it wasn't one of them it was squeakin'.
It was who I thought it was. It was that storekeeper's boy. He was with them boys that had throwed me in the horse tank.
"Pretty fancy duds for a goddam orphan. What you doin' in town, whore's bastard orphan? Don't be thinkin' you're comin' to my house for supper. We burnt sulfur in our house to get your stink out and anyway, probably Seamus Flynn's comin' for supper. He's in the bank right now talkin' to my Pa about us buildin' a bigger store. Pa's gonna ask him for supper and he sure as hell won't want to be with no damn whore's bastard orphan."
Danny said, "They ain't so much. We can whip their ass. Let's get them."
Rosie was almost off her horse. She was ready to fight. That storekeeper's boy was the biggest and he was just gettin' that squeaky voice. The other two was some older than me but not much bigger. I thought on fightin' them but then it come to me how my daddy done Jigger and Clayhurst. There was some that was so low they just wasn't worth your time. I don't reckon them boys was that low but somethin' was comin' to me that would do them a whole lot worse than a beatin'. I had a better way of gettin' even. I told Danny and them that there wasn't gonna be no fightin'.
Them boys heard me and went to bad mouthin' us some more. "Looks like some orphans got some grit. They all ain't got a yellow streak like whore's bastards, I reckon. Why don't you all just get on out of here. Goodnight don't need no whore's bastards and goddam orphans. If you're here when Seamus Flynn comes out that bank, he'll whip your ass. He don't like no whore's bastards or goddam orphans. And I think that gray is his horse. You'd best get away from it. He shoots them that bother his horse."
Paco was some mad. He started to say, "Seamus Flynn's our....."
I made him stop. If he told them, he was goin' to ruin my gettin' even.
More folks had heard Seamus Flynn was in town and there was a crowd gatherin' around that bank. Them boys got to showin' off for that crowd. They went to throwin' rocks at us and pullin' on our britches tryin' to get us off our horses. Danny was gettin' so mad he was shakin' like my daddy done and I didn't think I could hold him much longer. Some of them folks in that crowd was tellin' them boys to stop botherin' us but some of them was laughin'.
The door of the bank opened and our daddy, that store keeper and the man I knowed run the bank come out. Folks cheered and clapped and I seen that my daddy was some put out. That crowd closed in around my daddy, everybody pushin' and shovin' tryin' to get close to my daddy and shake his hand and talk to him. Them boys pushed their way right up to the front and was pullin' on Daddy's coat, tryin' to get his attention.
I got off Hunter and pushed my way toward my daddy. When I got there that storekeeper's boy give me a cussin' and pushed me down, "Seamus Flynn don't want no damn whore's bastard near him."
Daddy got fire in his eyes. He come to me and picked me up and brushed me off. He said to the storekeeper's boy, "Who's your daddy? I want to talk to him. You had no cause to do my son like this."
I said, "Daddy, I'd like you to meet Horace Kottner. His mama fed me some when I lived in Goodnight."
I didn't even wait for nobody to say nothin'. I walked as tall and as proud as I could through that crowd. I could feel everybody lookin' at me. I got on Hunter and rode right on out of town. I was laughin' inside. I wanted to see what was happenin' but it would have ruined my gettin' even.
When my daddy caught up with me he give me a little hug and said, "You're an ornery one, aren't you? You couldn't have done that boy any worse if you'd have horse whipped him. That boy got so white in the face, I thought he was gonna pass out. He looked at me like he was sure I was going to shoot him. He's been listening to too many Seamus Flynn stories."
Danny said, "His daddy took him off home pullin' him by his ear. I reckon he got what he had comin' but I'd of sure felt better if I could have got in a lick or two."
I didn't say nothin'. I didn't need to. I was Seamus Flynn's son and Horace was at home gettin' his ass whipped.