When I first started tellin' you this story, I told that some folks was borned always needin' to be on the lookout and that I was one of them. Well, for that, havin' a daddy and a brother and a fine house and a new way of livin' ain't changed nothin'. I still always got to be on the lookout but it ain't the same kind of lookout.
I already told you that my daddy liked funnin'. He was funnin' on me and Paco even before we knowed, ah..., knew (I got to remember that) he was our daddy. Do you remember how he was laughin' at Paco when we was eatin' in the Continental after Grandpa Walton sent Jigger off to jail? Well, all them Flynns and, seems like, all the folks who live on the Bent-Y love funnin'. You ain't never sure what's gonna happen.
I reckon I should have kno...knew...no, that ain't right. Well, hell, knowed will have to do for now. I should have knowed how things was from the "welcome" I got. Folks on the Bent-Y just love playin' tricks on each other. If one of them cowboys lays down his hat, it's likely to be full of water or dirt when he goes to put it on again. You might reach in your back pocket and find a horse apple there or find it full of dirt. You don't ever know when you're gonna get a bucket of water throwed on you and one day, one of them growed cowboys was leanin' against a tree, sleepin' after noonin' and when he woke up, he was tied to that tree. Most of them tricks is little tricks like pouring water on you but some of them is big and take some plannin'.
The first kind of big one I seen after my "welcome" was one Señor Pablo done on Juan. Me and Juan got to the placed where we was doin' real good with them workin' horses and we was askin' Juan's daddy to learn us how to do some doctorin'. Some horses got a funny way of runnin' and sometimes they'll cut the back of their front leg, right above their hoof, with the shoe of their back hoof. Them cuts mostly ain't too bad but if you don't put some of that stinkin' salve that Señor Pablo makes on them cuts, they may go to festerin'. Me and Juan was askin' Señor Pablo to learn us how to put on that salve and wrap them ankles.
Finally, one mornin', he told us he had a horse gentle enough that he was gonna let us try wrappin'. That horse's ankle wasn't hardly cut at all and I seen a lot of cuts that little that Señor Pablo said wasn't bad enough to bother with. But, for some 'cause he said this one needed salvin' and wrappin'. He had me do it first. I done good but that dam.., that salve almost makes you puke. Señor Pablo said my wrappin' should have been some tighter but it was good for my first try.
You got to wrap them ankles just right. If it's too tight, it's gonna make the horse lame. If it's too loose, it's gonna come off. Señor Pablo told me to undo it and try again. When I was doin' that, he squatted down beside me, put his hand on my back and when I was doin' good, he kept tellin' me that and pattin' me on the back.
Juan done about like me his first time and his daddy done the same thing with him. He had Juan do it over too.
Now, I got to tell you this. For years, range mamas made all the clothes their younguns wore. They even made clothes for their husbands. It kept them mamas real busy with all them other things they had to do. Someplace back east they started makin' bib overhalls. Growed men wear them there, folks say, but here cowboys wear them real tough Levi britches. But Levi britches ain't too good for boys. They cost too much for puttin' on younguns and you got to have a belt to hold them up and they're so tough they start to grind on you and you get sores in places you don't want no da... - you don't want no sore. With the railroad, them bib overhalls got real easy to get and most mamas stopped makin' britches for their boys. They could buy them bib overhalls about as cheap as they could make britches and it took a lot less time. Whenever I'm talkin' about younguns' britches, I'm talkin' about them bib overhalls.
But Juan's mama had the idea that she wanted her boys dressed like her brothers was. She said she knew this wasn't Mexico and that things was changin', but she had a lot of good memories from her childhood. Seein' her children dressed in them ways, give her pleasure. Even with all them younguns she had, she still made the britches and the dresses that Juan and his brothers and sisters wore. Them britches didn't have them shoulder galluses like them bib overhalls. They was kept up by a stout string like thing, tied around your middle. You got to know all that stuff about britches if you're gonna understand about this trick.
When Juan was wrappin' that horse's ankle his daddy was doin' him just like he done me. Señor Pablo was squatted down beside him, tellin' him he was doin' good and pattin' him on the back. Only Senor Pablo wasn't pattin' his back. He was cuttin' that string so that when Juan stood up, his britches didn't stand up with him. They was layin' on the floor around his feet.
Señor Pablo went to laughin' and you could tell that some of them wranglers knew it was gonna happen. They was hidin' a few stalls over and they come out laughin' and one of them said, "Well, now, ain't that a shame? I'm plumb sorry, Juanito. I recollect tellin' you you can't be no Bent-Y wrangler until you get horse shit in your ears but I reckon we forgot to tell you, Bent-Y wranglers always wear their britches."
Juan didn't get mad. You seen he was used to them kind of tricks and you seen, even while he was pullin' up his britches, he was thinkin' on a way to get back. He done it by fixin' a bucket of water over the tack room door so the water would spill out when that door was opened. He got his daddy.
You just never knew when somethin' was gonna happen. Every time you go through a door or around a corner, you're thinkin', I'm gonna get a soakin'. If you ain't gettin' one, you're thinkin' on how to give one to someone else.
Like Danny said that first mornin' me and Paco woke up on the Bent-Y, our daddy is kind of the boss here. He says them tricks are fine so long as nobody does somethin' dumb and gets somebody hurt. He says folks work hard on the Bent-Y and they deserve a good laugh once in a while. Anyway, he says, he likes funnin' on folks.
Mostly it's us younguns against them growed ones. Them growed ones been funnin' longer and they can think up better tricks but, there's times when we get back at them. Like the time Danny went to his daddy with somethin' in his eye. Uncle Kevin got it out but he said he reckoned he'd better put some salve around that eye. Uncle Kevin said it looked like Danny had a half a mountain in there and if that eye wasn't gonna go to festerin', it needed to be took care of. He took Danny in the house. It had me and Paco and Juan and Virgil some worried.
When Danny came out, he had a big black ring around his eye. His daddy didn't put no salve on him. He put boot black on him. You'd think Danny would have knowed somethin' from the smell, but then, all them salves stink like hell and you can't tell nothin'.
There wasn't nothin' for Danny to see hisself so he couldn't think why we was laughin'. He knowed his daddy had done somethin' to him 'cause he'd been livin' on the Bent-Y all his life and he knew what went on there. He went in the house to ask could he use his mama's mirror. He seen that black and he had to laugh hisself. It was a good trick.
Aunt Lydia didn't think it was so damn funny. She come out and told Uncle Kevin that was a awful way to do his own boy and she wanted Danny in that house right now. She was gonna get that black off him.
I reckon Danny never thought on his mama playin' no trick on him and you seen he didn't look in no mirror when she was done with him. When he come out again, he still had the black, but now he had some red all around the black too. Aunt Lydia put some of her face paint on him.
Danny got back at his mama by puttin' a raw egg in with some hard boiled ones. I already told you that Aunt Lydia don't do much cookin' but she does make a potato salad that Uncle Kevin likes real good and she was makin' that salad that day. Danny got her good. He's still thinkin' on a way to get his daddy.
I never knew that folks could be like they are on the Bent-Y. Folks work hard and they're mostly real proud of what they do so they do it good. But with the funnin' and everybody thinkin' good on mostly everyone else, it makes livin' real joyful. It ain't only bein' loved and took care of. It's just takin' joy from livin' and from other folks. It's bein' part of somethin' and gettin' things done. It's knowin' that what you're doin' is worth somethin' and that just bein' you is worth somethin'.
I reckon I don't have to tell you that I take the most joy from my daddy and my brother. I been gettin' a lot of huggin' from a lot of folks on the Bent-Y. Me and Paco both go to Danny's for that Aunt Lydia huggin' almost every day. It come to me all at once one day, I got a whole new way of lookin' on ladies. I hardly never think of them fat lady Christians no more. When you don't think on them kind of ladies, you see that most ladies do more lovin' on you than yellin' and beatin' and you just got to have some Aunt Lydia funnin' on you and huggin' on you every day. She's his mama and he's been gettin' it all his life, but Danny ain't tired of it yet. He sees to it that he gets his share too. Even Aunt Jenny, who is some shy and who you don't see huggin' her own children too much, does some huggin' on us.
But the best part of my day is still them evenin's when me and Paco is sittin' on Daddy's lap and he's got his arms around us and he's readin' to us or we're just talkin'. Every time I'm sittin' there, I get to thinkin' about all them times I played in my head that that big red-headed cowboy was huggin' me and almost every time it puts water in my eyes knowin' he's really doin' it.
He finished Treasure Island. Jim Hawkins should have been more careful who he picked for friends. He had one, Long John Silver, who turned out to be a son-a-bitch pirate even though he seemed real nice when Jim Hawkins first got to know him. Things mostly turned out fine though.
Now Daddy's readin' us a book by some General in the war between the states. It's got Romans and chariots. From how big that book is, he may still be readin' it to us when me and Paco are fifty.
Daddy has me read some. I do some good but that da..., that general uses words I ain...I haven't heard of. Paco's gettin' so he can tell what some words are. When he's readin' school books, he does real good. It's just like Daddy said. It didn't take much teachin' before Paco caught on to what readin' was all about. He learned them letters in about one day and he knows them sounds real good. He just needs to do a lot more practicin'.
When he first started learnin', he about sent me wild by fussin' at me to read with him. That's all he wanted to do until he got where he could figure out most words by hisself. Daddy helped him a whole lot too but you know who helped him the most? Katy, and when she's helpin' Paco with his readin' and his cipherin', you wouldn't never know she's no pop-n-jay. She's real smart and she just loves teachin' and it ain't hard to see that she's gettin' to love Paco just like everybody else does. She still can be some uppity and she can make me almost as mad as she makes Danny but she's never uppity with Paco. She's just teachin' him and doin' for him and tellin' him how cute he is. I reckon I'm glad she does. He needs folks tellin' him things like that.
For some cause, seems like cute ain't ...isn't... aren't... --- For some cause, it don't seem like you ought to call a boy Paco's big cute. Seems like that's a word for babies. But I can see what them ladies are talkin' about. Paco's lookin' real good now. His stickin'-out belly is gone and he's got almost a regular ass. Now that he's more filled out, he's got a real nice face and from that and from them things he says, and how he takes to them ladies makin' over him, I can see how them ladies think he's cute, I reckon. He's still some skinny but he ain't no skinnier than Virgil and wasn't nobody ever said Virgil had the malnutrition so I reckon Paco's over his and you can tell he's tryin' not to get it back no more. He eats as much as he ever did.
Most Sundays, when them that goes get back from meetin', everybody on the Bent-Y and a lot of neighbors meet at the swimmin' hole for a picnic. A picnic is some like campin' out only you don't sleep there. You just eat outdoors and mostly the cookin' is done in them houses and cabins so you don't have to eat no beans, don't you want to. They got mostly chicken and ham and tad..potato salad and things like that. Everybody brings something and you don't just eat your own things. Everybody puts what they brought on the bed of a hay wagon somebody brought there to make a kind of table and folks take what they want. There's always a lot more food than folks eat.
All kinds of folks come. It ain't - - It's not just for Bent-Y folks. The close-by ranchers and some of their help come and that means more younguns. Most picnics them men play a baseball game so friends of our daddies and other folks who like to play come from Claude and them other little close-by towns and sometimes even from Amarillo. Billy and Cill come almost every week. Little Jasper's gettin' to like me almost as good as he likes Paco. A whole lot of times, Grandpa and Grandma Walton come too but Grandpa don't play. He umpires and if you think you seen fussin' in his courtroom that day with my daddy, you got another think comin'. You ain't seen no fussin' until you seen the fussin' folks do at umpires at them ball games.
There's always some soldiers there and I'm gettin' to like baseball real good and I wish them damn soldiers would pay as much attention to their baseball as they do to folks like Sarah Weidaker and them Holloman girls from two ranches over.
Mostly after we eat, folks just lay around for a while. Them growed ... it's grown, ain't it? Them grown folks got some idea that you got to wait for a hour before you go swimmin' after eatin'. Seems dumb, but then a lot of things grown folks do seems dumb, like lookin' at that Minnie Holloman and lettin' a ball go right between your legs. Rolando's only three years old and I know he could have got that one but then, he's got enough sense not to be lookin' at no girl when he's should be payin' attention to baseball.
After the layin' around comes the baseball. We could go swimmin' then, or, if there's enough younguns for two teams, we'd sometimes get up our own game. Mostly, though, us boys like to watch our daddies play.
Them games are some good and all them Flynns can hit the ball a long way. Uncle Brian can pitch so hardly nobody can hit him. Uncle Kevin can hit the ball clear over the creek. Danny thinks he can hit it farther than my daddy but he's only ten years old and you can't expect him to see things right. Me and Paco was talkin' about it. We reckon when he's 'leven like us, he'll know enough to see that there ain't no ball player in Texas can hit the ball as far as our daddy.
Swimmin' at them picnics is fun. You got to wear some kind of britches and that part ain't fun. It's like wearin' somethin' to bed. It feels like it's chokin' your middle and whatever you're wearin' gets all wet and heavy and you get wore out quicker. But, if you ain't got somethin' on your ass, they ain't gonna let you swim so you just put up with it. Them daddies and them other grown-up folks play with us: throw us in the air and let us splash down in the water, put us on their shoulders and let us try to knock each other off, stuff like that. It's fun too 'cause Rosie and Isabela and them other girls get to swim with us and they do good and they're fun to tease. A whole lot of times, especially at them picnics, I wish Rosie was my sister. The way she does things and the way she is, I feel proud of her like I do my brother.
Nate's changin' a lot and it all started at one of the first picnics after me and Paco come to the Bent-Y. Nate's sister is married to Ben Holloman. He's the one with them sisters who ruin them ball games and the one whose daddy owns the Rolling H ranch. Ben and Sadie have a whole passel of younguns and the oldest one is a boy named Benjie who's six years old. Nate's his uncle. Ain't that funny? A boy no bigger than Paco and me and he's a uncle. I thought you had to be a grown man to be a uncle.
When we was gettin' our eats, Nate and Benjie was right together and Benjie took a chicken leg Nate wanted. Nate give Benjie a push and knocked him into the hub of one of them wheels on that hay wagon. Put a cut in his head. It wasn't as bad as my cut but it don't have to be much of a cut on your head to be all blood. To look at him, you'd of thought Benjie was dyin'. Aunt Lydia is one for takin' care of everyone so she had some of that burny stuff you pour in them cuts to keep them from festerin'.
When you're six you ain't near full grown but by how he sounded, I reckon your yell is full grown. Lord, you'd of thought a whole tribe of Indians had cut heads layin' under that wagon gettin' burny stuff poured on them.
Aunt Lydia done some bandagin' and some huggin' and before long Benjie was all quiet but his mama wasn't. She was all over Nate like a case of the hives. She was tellin' Nate she was sick and tired of his spoiled, hateful ways and if he ever laid a hand on Benjie again, she'd do what her mama should have done a long time ago. She'd wear out his behind until there wasn't nothin' there but a couple of red bumps and a asshole. Nate run to his mama and Sadie was right after him.
Nate's mama said, "I thought I taught you better, Sadie. That's no way for a lady to talk, 'specially to her baby brother."
"That's just the problem, Mama. Nate is no baby except what you make him be. He is my brother and I love him but if you won't let him grow up, I'm going to make him. He ain't the way he acts. He's a good, smart boy. When he's at my house, he acts like an eleven year old boy should. When he's with you, he acts like the spoiled baby you want him to be. He's not a toy, Mama. He's a boy. He's my brother and I love him and I won't let you keep on like you're doin' him. Me and Ben and Pa been talkin'. I never wanted to say it here but Bent-Y folks is all family anyway and they might just as well hear it. If you won't let him grow up, me and Ben are takin' him to the Rolling H to raise. Pa agrees."
Nate's mama took on a real surprised face and looked at her husband. "I reckon I do, Abby. You won't listen to me and I'm just as sick of the way you're doin' Nate as Sadie is.
"Abby, all your children have tried to talk to you about it. You just shut them off with that 'he my last baby' bull shit and we come to a decision. Hell, I come to a decision. I love that boy as much as you do but I'd rather have him away from me than keep goin' like he is. It's up to you. You take him in hand or let me take him in hand or he goes to Sadie's and Ben's.
"And that blubberin' you do about him bein' your last baby ain't gonna do you no good. I ain't wanted to fight with you on this but I ain't seein' you ruin my boy either. You never would talk on it with me so now you're gonna listen. You know how to raise boys. You raised three of them real good and them four girls. Ain't no reason why you can't do the same for Nate. There ain't gonna be no yellin' at me, no blubberin' and no bitchin' about havin' no more babies. Lord, woman, you're sixty years old. You don't need no babies but grandbabies and you got sixteen of them. It's up to you. Let Nate grow up or let him go. I said all that's gonna be said on it!"
You'd of thought Nate would have been some mad or scared or somethin' but all he seemed to be was proud of his daddy. I ain't sure what happened over to the Taylor's but Nate didn't go to Sadie's and Ben's and you could see some difference in him almost right away. He's still some aggrivatin' but he's really tryin' and he's got chores to do and he's really took to his daddy. Seein' how Nate's daddy does him makes me all the more proud of our daddy. Nate's daddy does him real good. He tells him when he does good and he's gentle about tellin' him when he don't, but you got to remember, Nate's daddy had all that practice with them other seven younguns. My daddy just knowed how to do them things without no practice at all. Now you tell me. How can there be a better daddy than Seamus Flynn?
Even though you know they aren't, you get to thinkin' on them Bent-Y families like they was part of your family. You get strong feelings for them and if you hear one of them is sick, you worry on it. I don't know any of Nate's brothers and sisters but Sadie, but Virgil has a sister named Sarah who's fifteen. Sarah and Katy are some good friends but Sarah ain't uppity like Katy. I reckon she's outgrowed ... outgrown her pop-n-jay. She's right nice but she fusses at Virgil too much. Sometimes she acts like she thinks she's his mama. Virgil don't fuss back at her like Danny does Katy. I reckon his shy don't let him.
Juan's new baby come. It was another boy. I reckon they're havin' trouble thinkin' up new names 'cause they named this one, Pablito, for his daddy. That makes five boys and three girls in his family. Sometimes I feel sorry for Isabella. With all them younguns, she works as hard as a mama and she ain't but ten. Uh...She isn't but ten..
When we was comin' to the Bent-Y, Daddy called what Juan and Virgil and them was livin' in cabins. But they wasn't like I think about a cabin. They was really houses but they wasn't as big and grand as the houses the Flynns lived in. You got a good feelin' from them hand houses though, especially Juan's. You got the feeling that that house wanted you there.
Me and Paco learned that there were hand houses and corrals and barns and such like at the headquarters of the four major herds on the Pampa Bent-Y. They have the same buildings at the McLean Bent-Y but they don't have no school. The McLean spread isn't as big as the Pampa Bent-Y but Luther Chalk has to look after all the range land the Flynns own down around Goodnight too. Daddy told us that Vox's cabin was on Flynn land. Both me and Paco been livin' on Flynn land most of our lives and we didn't even know it.
Our daddy and Uncle Kevin are always teasin' Uncle Brian about bein' a Fancy Dan. He loves fancy clothes but he loves fancy horses the best of all. The house horse barn has about thirty stalls and there ain't but thirteen horses there now. Uncle Brian is always sayin' that he's going to breed fancy horses but he ain't..... You know, this learnin' proper talk gets bothersome. I like the way my daddy talks and I know he wants me and Paco to talk that way too but, damn, it takes too much thinkin'. You ain't only got to think on what you're goin' to say. You got to think on what words is right. That's too much thinkin' even for one like me who loves thinkin'. I'm tryin' real hard to do good 'cause I know my daddy wants me to but if I'm ever gonna get this story told, I'm just gonna have to think on what I'm tellin' you and let them words take care of theirselfs.
Uncle Brian still ain't got all them fancy horses he keeps talkin' about. Aunt Jenny keeps tellin' him that he has enough irons in the fire and he's got no business gettin' a bunch of horses that's gonna take up all his time. He's got a family, you know, and he better think on spendin' some time with his boys. He can have a horse any time but his boys is gonna be men and gone before he even knows he's got them if he ain't careful.
Uncle Brian told Aunt Jenny that she does so little talkin' that when she tries to do it, it don't come out good. He said she don't know how to make no sense. He says that them horses will give him and his boys somethin' to do together. He says he don't tell her how much flour to put in her pie shell and he reckons maybe she shouldn't try to tell him how many horses to put in his barn. Aunt Jenny ain't like Aunt Lydia. She isn't one to come right out and put her foot down but she must be doin' somethin'. Uncle Brian keeps sayin' he's gonna get them horses but I notice he ain't done it yet.
I already told you that he does have some fancy horses and he loves to just look at them. He brushes and curries them and he does have Spike out there with him when he's doin' them things. Spike loves them times and he's takin' an interest in fancy horses too. When one of Uncle Brian's fancy mares was in foal and his daddy told him that foal would be his when it was born, Spike about come apart. He had got so he could hold hisself when he was excited and didn't talk so much but when that mare was gettin' close to foalin' time, Spike just plain out lost his grip.
We was all in the barn watchin' when that mare was startin' to birth that foal and Spike was talkin' faster than he done that first mornin' me and Paco was on the Bent-Y. Uncle Brian and Señor Pablo was there makin' sure that mare didn't get into no trouble and after while it looked like Spike's talkin' kind of got to his daddy. We was all sittin' on the top rail of that birthin' box stall and Uncle Brian come over and picked Spike off that rail. He said, "You're gonna have some work, boy, takin' care of this foal and you got me plumb worried. You're talkin' so fast you ain't only gonna wear out your jaws. You're gonna wear out your whole body. You need to rest it, boy."
Uncle Brian grabbed Spike by the galluses of his britches and hung him on a wood peg stickin' out of the wall. Spike's feet was about as high as he is off the floor. His daddy said, "There now, I reckon with you hangin' there, you aren't even wearin' out your bottom from sittin' on it. By the time this foal's born, you should be all rested up."
It was another one of them tricks the Flynn daddies love to play. We all had a good laugh from it, even Spike and he went to kickin' around, tryin' to get hisself off that peg. When the foal's front feet came out, Spike quit kickin' around and just watched his foal, a pretty little bay filly, get borned while he was hangin' there on the wall. Really, he could see better than any of the rest of us boys.
Spike's mostly back playin' with them boys his age. He's got Jorge, Juan's brother and his cook, Ho Boy's, boy, Ho Tau. Their mamas still think they're too little to go ridin' off across the range with us bigger boys so they got them a lot of places where they play around them buildings. They make forts and fight Indians in the hay mow of the workin' horse barn and they got a tradin' post in the cow barn where Maureen and Carmen and, when they ain't helpin' their mamas, even Rosie and Isabela come and buy things. I done a lot of pretendin' in my head but I never really done it like they do. I reckon I'm too big for that now but I sometimes wish I could pretend like them girls and them littler boys. In pretendin' you can be anything you want to be. It looks like fun.
Ho Boy, Uncle Kevin's cook, has his own cabin. Like I said, it isn't really a cabin but that's what folks on the Bent-Y call them houses. It's kind of half way between Uncle Kevin's and Uncle Brian's 'cause Ho Boy and Ki Tuan work in both them houses. Aunt Lydia don't like to do cookin' if she don't have to and Aunt Jenny wants to do her own cookin' but she don't like cleanin' the house so it works out good.
Since we ain't got no mama in our house, our cook and his wife live right in our house. Them Chinese do things in some funny ways. Aunt Lydia and Aunt Jenny have the same last name as their husbands. They're both Flynns. Them Chinese don't do it that way. Our cook's name is Ho Chow. He's Ho Boy's brother. His wife's name is Ling Pau. There isn't nothin' in her name to tell you she's Ho Chow's wife.
I ain't sure why they do them names that way but I reckon it don't matter none. There was a time when I thought if folks didn't do things the way I was used to, there was somethin' wrong with them. Since I got my daddy and come to the Bent-Y I seen there's a whole lot of ways that work good for folks that I never knew there was. Some of them things look dumb to me and when they do, I mostly say it right out. A whole lot of times I made a fool of myself but I reckon I can't help it. Aunt Lydia says that I got the impulsive. I ain't sure what that is. I reckon it's some like the malnutrition but it don't give you a stickin' out belly and take away your ass. I think it makes your mouth work before your brain can tell it not to. I know you get over the malnutrition from eatin' better but I don't think you can do nothin' to get over the impulsive. From what I can tell, you ain't gonna die from it. You just wish you could sometimes.
Our cook don't talk English too good and Ling Pau don't hardly talk it at all. She cleans our house and looks after us when Daddy's gone to Amarillo or Santa Fe or someplace like that. Not bein' able to talk to her don't make things too good. Me and Paco don't like it when our daddy's gone anyway and so we're mostly out-of-sorts. Havin' to listen to all that jabber you know means she's mad at you but don't give you no idea what the hell for, don't make things no better. At first, we didn't do Ling Pau good but we changed that real quick. Ling Pau told Ki Tuan and Ki Tuan told Aunt Lydia and Aunt Lydia don't hit you or even yell at you but she's got a way of givin' you the idea you'd be smart to keep it that way.
I love my new way of livin' and, I don't need to tell you, I love my daddy but that don't mean there ain't some hard times. They ain...aren't hard times like when I was livin' in Goodnight. They're hard times from learnin' to think about other folk's feelin's. I never had to do that before. I'm not wantin' to hurt folks' feelin's or make them mad at me but I reckon I got some of my daddy's Irish temper and I already told you, I got the bull-head and I got all them habits from all them years.
Except when I was at that orphanage, I never had too much trouble with grown folks. Some of them run me off but mostly they didn't pay me no mind and I didn't pay them no mind. None of them told me what to do. But I'm findin' out that havin' a family's got two sides. Your daddy and them aunts and uncles are lovin' you and takin' care of you but they're tellin' you what to do, too. There's times when knowin' they're takin' care of you and wantin' you to do things good feels good. There's times when you wish they'd mind their own damn business. I ain't figured out yet, what makes the difference. My daddy can tell me the same thing and some days it feels good and some days it makes me mad.
Gettin' told what to do don't never seem to bother Paco none at all. I reckon he was used to bein' bossed and how he was bein' bossed here was a hell of a lot better bossin' than he ever got before. If he gets mad from bein' bossed, he never said nothin' and you sure can't tell nothin'.
When I wasn't chorin', I never had no boss. When I first come to the Bent-Y I was all the time thinkin' on how much I love my daddy and how much I liked my new way of livin'. I was so busy learnin' how to be loved and how to live different, it never come to me that I was bein' bossed.
When I got some used to Bent-Y livin', my bull-head and them old habits come back on me. I don't know if I caught the impulsive since I come to the Bent-Y or if I had it before. I wasn't mad at nobody and I wasn't tryin' to be bad. I reckon I just started bein' me again. If I felt like goin' off somewheres, I done it. That was never bad or got anyone fussed before. I couldn't think why my daddy had fire in his eyes when I got home. He was mad 'cause he was worried about me, I know that now and it gives me a real warm feelin' knowin' that. But then, I just thought he was mad and that made me mad.
I even got to talkin' to my daddy like I done Hans Gutner or anybody who I wasn't chorin' for who tried to boss me. I told him once when he was some mad at me for goin' off and nobody knowin' where I was, "How the hell you think I got to be 'leven years old without you to tell me everything to do?"
I seen Paco get a kind of scared look on his face and it come to me what I done. I had two feelin's in me. I was surprised and some scared that I was mad enough to talk to my daddy that way. The other feelin' was that I knowed that I done wrong and that I had my daddy mad at me but that didn't change nothin'. I could still feel the love. I knew I loved him and that he loved me. I knew I was bein' bad but there's somethin' in you that won't let you let other folks know that you know that. So me and my daddy fussed some and he sent me to my room some when I wouldn't shut my mouth and I'd stamp up them steps and slam the door but it never come to me to think that my daddy didn't love me or that I didn't love him. I'd just think on how you can have them two things, love and mad, at the same time.
I reckon when I got over my mad, I loved him more 'cause he loved what I was. I didn't have to be somethin' just for him. I could be me, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes out-of-sort and he loved me. He didn't always like them things I was bein' and he let me know that but he loved me. Ain't that somethin'? You ain't always got to be doin' somethin' to make folks love you. They just love you because you're you.
Anyway, me and Paco are all the time gettin' to treat our daddy more like a daddy instead of Seamus Flynn. He scolds us some, especially when I get bull-headed or when Paco thinks he's still hide-hunter livin' and runs to the outhouse naked or somethin' like that, or when me and Paco are fussin' at each other. I think it's kind of funny about Paco forgettin' to put on his britches for goin' out of the house. Do you remember how when he first got some, you couldn't hardly get them off him even for bathin' or sleepin'. I reckon he ain't got the bull-head or the impulsive and he's over his malnutrition but he got them old habits, just like me.
We both been whipped once for doin' what our daddy told us not to do but I don't reckon we're gonna get that no more. It ain't that we ain't gonna do wrongs things no more. We just ain't gonna do them whippin' wrong things. The whippin' didn't hurt you much but makin' him do it hurts you in your chest a lot.
Learnin' to take scoldin' or other punishment ain't easy. One time Señor Pablo gave me a kind of nervous cow pony to work with. He told me that the horse would be all right if you don't just come up on him and he doesn't know you're comin'. He told me to go in front of them mangers and let him see me and to talk to him and to keep talkin' to him until I'm in the stall with him so he knows who's touchin' him. He said if I do all that, that horse will be fine but if I surprise him, he'll kick me.
Well, it takes time to walk around them mangers and I never seen that horse kick nobody and I'd been workin' with horses for about a month so I didn't figure I needed Señor Pablo tellin' me what to do. I ended up on my ass.
I was lucky. That horse didn't catch me square so the kick didn't hurt me much but Daddy took Hunter away from me for a week. I knew why. I didn't obey Señor Pablo and I was careless, but knowin' that didn't make the punishment any easier to take. I wish I could be more like Paco. Usually, when he forgets and runs outside naked, Daddy makes him stay in the house for a day. It don't look like that bothers him. But when I get punished, I got to argue about it and then I end up feelin' bad for what I done.
The worst thing I done since I come to be a Flynn, I didn't get whipped for but I ain't never been punished no worse. It all got started on one of them days I went off by myself without tellin' no one. Paco was off playin' with Danny somewheres and me and Juan was playin' catch. That's playin' baseball without no bat and all them other younguns. It's just you and somebody else throwin' the ball back and forth.
Me and Juan done that for a spell when his mama said he had to come help her with the washin'. He hates doin' that 'cause on a ranch that's woman's work and even when I told him I done a lot of washin' helpin' when I was chorin' for folks in Goodnight, it didn't help none. He still hates doin' it but with all them younguns his mama's got and Isabela bein' only ten, I reckon there's more chorin' in his house than Isabela and her mama can handle. I really think he lets on more than he hates it. I think when you're a boy livin' on a ranch, you're supposed to let on like you hate doin' house things, even if you don't.
When Juan went to help his mama, I didn't have nobody. I looked some for Paco and Danny but then it come to me that Virgil was with his daddy at the west herd. I decided to go on over there to see was Virgil busy helpin' his daddy or could he play.
Turned out he could play and I didn't think none on goin' home 'til them cowboys come back to camp for supper. It was dark by then and Virgil's daddy wouldn't let me go on home in the dark. He said you can think you know where you're goin' but things is different in the dark. I might think I know my landmarks but what you think you're seein' ain't always what you're seein' and I could end up in Kansas or lord knows where. I'd just best stay the night. My daddy wasn't gonna be no more upset in the mornin' than he was right now.
At first I didn't think that much on it. I knowed that Virgil and his daddy was goin back to the Bent-Y in the mornin' and I knowed where I was and there was a whole lot of times I went off for almost a week and my mama never knowed where I was. She never said nothin'.
But them cowboys got to funnin' on me. A whole lot of them cowboys ain't much older than us boys. They're like seventeen or eighteen, around in there. They're all the time funnin' on us and mostly it's fun funnin' but sometimes they get mean. Some of they pop-n-jay cowboys like to see us boys my big fret. They tell us scary stuff and mostly you know they're full of shit but sometimes you ain't sure.
They got to tellin me how my daddy was gonna wear me out. One of them said if he was me, he wouldn't bother goin' home. He wondered, did I ever see Seamus Flynn really mad? He said I'd best just head for Mexico.
I knowed they was funnin' but like I said, sometimes you ain't sure and it scared me some. I knowed what it was like not to have a home where folks loved you and them damn cowboys had me half wonderin' if my daddy would be so mad for what I done he'd run me off. Thinkin' about havin' to live like I done in Goodnight almost had me cryin', I was so scared. Virgil's daddy seen what was happenin' and he made that cowboy shut his damn mouth. But stoppin' that cowboy's funnin' on me didn't stop my scare.
Mostly when I get scared, I get mad. In my scare and my mad, I couldn't get to sleep and my thinkin' was all mixed up. I loved my daddy and I needed him and my home. If them cowboys was right, my daddy's mad was gonna take that all from me. In my mixed up thinkin' and my scare, the whole thing got to be his fault.
I knowed I'd done wrong but I'm like most folks I know. Most folks don't let on that they know they done wrong. Some folks, like me and Danny, get mad and try to make it someone else's fault. Folks like Paco let on like they're real sorry when you know they really ain't. They're just doin what it takes to get them that's fussin' at them to shut their damn mouth.
I did sleep some, I reckon, but mostly I was scared that them cowboys might be right and my daddy might send me away. My thinkin like that got me real mad at him.
I don't know how upset my daddy was the night before but I knowed how mad he was after he found out I was all right in the mornin'. He didn't say nothin' to me. He just took me by the arm real rough and we headed for our dust room. Looked like I was gonna get my second whippin'. He started tellin' me how much I had him and Paco and everybody on the Bent-Y worried and did it make any difference to me that he was on a horse all night lookin' for me? He said, "I love you, boy, but you're going to learn to respect other people's feelings."
Like I said, I knowed I done wrong but I had that mad on me too. Before he could say anything else I said, "If you love me so damn much, why'd you let me live like a rat all them years. You're Seamus Flynn, goddamit! You can do anything you want. You could'a took me and there wouldn't a been a damn thing my mama could'a done about it. You don't love me none. You just love fussin' at me."
I heard myself sayin' it but I couldn't think that it was me. I was mad at my daddy but I never knowed that kind of thinkin' was in my head. I don't know where it come from. As soon as I said it I lost my mad and took on a awful scare. For what I said, I knowed for sure that my daddy was gonna send me away.
I was afraid to look at him. I started to cry. I wanted to run to him, to hug him, to tell him I was sorry. I wanted to do all them things but I knew that I'd just lost the right to do any of them. The only thing I could hope for was that my daddy would forgive me.
I couldn't even ask him to do that. I looked up at him and tried to tell him with my face that I didn't mean them things, that I loved him and that I needed him to love me.
I never seen a look on nobody like the look that was on my daddy's face when I got the water out of my eyes and seen him. He didn't have no color to him. His broad shoulders was stooped forward and he looked a hundred years old and his face said that every one of them years was filled with nothin' but misery. What I was seein' wasn't hurt feelin's or even one of they real bad chest-hurtin' times. I didn't know a word for it then but I come to know later that what I was seein' in my daddy that day was anguish.
He didn't say nothin' for what seemed like a hour. He just looked at me. He got water in his eyes. Finally he said so soft that I could hardly hear him, "Sam, please go to your room," and he turned and walked away. I don't know where he went but I went to my room.
I didn't cry. I was too scared to cry and I was sorry - Oh, was I sorry. I wished I could take them words back but I knowed I couldn't. I had a teacher once in Goodnight who was tryin' to teach us not to say hurtful things. He drove a nail in a board and said the nail was like the hurtful thing. He said you can say you're sorry and and say you didn't mean them hurtful words. When he said that, he pulled out the nail. He didn't say nothin' more. He just showed us the board. The nail was gone but the hole was still there. I reckon everyone in that school took his meanin'. I know I did. I don't remember thinkin' much on what that teacher said until that day in my room. I couldn't get that board with the hole in it out of my head. I just sit there knowin' I done somethin' that could never be set right again. I just knowed I'd lost my daddy and my new way of livin' and I wondered what I'd do and where the hell I'd go.
It seemed like forever before my daddy come back. The hurt was still in his eyes. He didn't say nothin' to me. He come right to me and took me in his arms. The way he was huggin' me told me I didn't lose nothin'. I wasn't goin' nowhere. I still had my daddy and he still loved me. I done a awful hurtful thing to him but I could tell from how he was huggin' me that he wasn't doin' it just for me. He was doin' it for him. He needed me. Seemed like I done the worst thing any boy could do to his daddy, and he didn't just still love me. He needed me. He could'a horse whipped me and it wouldn't a been a bad as punishment as I was feelin' from knowin' what I done to him.
I don't know how long I cried but the front of daddy's shirt was all soaked when I got quit and he turned me loose. He kissed my forehead and his gentle pushin' on me told me he wanted me to sit on my bed.
"Sam, how can I explain to you why I didn't just take you from your mama? I don't know how to tell you because I never knew if what I decided was right. I don't know now if I was right. You are my son. My first duty is to you. But how was I to perform that duty? Should I go against law just because I could?
"Sam, I told you how my daddy taught me. Doing things just because you could didn't make it right. I joined the army and rode with posses because I believed so hard that if Texas was ever going to be a great state, we had to make people follow the law. Some of the men I killed, both Indians and white men, believed they were fighting for their rights. They believed that if a man had the power to do a thing, he should be allowed to do it. But they took away other people's rights. They thought what they were doing was right but it was against the law. They fought for what they believed and a lot of us fought them because we believed that in order to be strong as a country, we had to follow the rules -follow the laws that were democratically made. That word may not mean anything to you now, son, but I believe very strongly in democracy. You know how I feel about all folks' rights. Well, that's what democracy is.
"Was my duty to you to ignore the law just because I didn't like it, or was my duty to you to respect the law even if it hurt you? I don't know, Sam. I didn't know when you were living in Goodnight and I don't know now. I knew if I just took you, that you would know someday that I had broken the law to get you, that I had done something just because I had the power and the money. One day you will have power and money, Sam. Would you come to think that if your daddy could ignore the law whenever he wanted to, so could you? Would you fight someday and perhaps be killed because I taught you that the law didn't apply to you if you didn't want it to?
"Sam, I have always loved you but I decided that I must obey the law - even a law that was not fair. That's why I decided to run for the state senate. I wanted to change that unfair law, but most people don't care enough about children to even know that the law is unfair. I have a lot of friends in Austin but on the subject of fair treatment for children, no one pays attention to me.
"I can say nothing more, Sam. I made a decision. We both suffered for it, you more than I, I know. But, Sam, we both would have suffered if I had made the other decision too. You probably don't understand that now. I hope that someday you will."
He kissed me again and I cried again. I thought rat-livin' folks like me was the only ones who had hard problems. I didn't know what was the right thing for my daddy to do. But I seen that fancy livin' don't take away all your hard problems. Sometimes it gives you worser ones.
One night after we was in bed, me and Paco got to talkin' on how we think so much different on Seamus Flynn than we did when we first got him for our daddy. We talked about all the stories we'd heard and how Seamus Flynn was a hero to every boy in Texas but how all them boys was scared of him too. We talked about how he's the same man we heard so much about and how we're proud he's our daddy but how he's more a man than a story and how the man is so much better than the story. We talked about how two 'leven year old boys who ain't real big fuss at Seamus Flynn and how grown men are afraid to cross him. We talked about how most folks are scared to death of him but, even when we're mad at him or he's mad at us, the mad ain't the thing that's most in your thinkin'. Love is in your thinkin'.
The mad is some like the whitewash on them buildings. The whitewash ain't nothin' but there. The building is what it's all about. The whitewash comes off after while but the building's still there. The whitewash is the mad and the building is the love. I reckon I don't have to tell you that Paco said all that. He said it real good. That's just how I think too.
There's a lot about Sam Flynn that's different than Sam Martin but there's a lot that's the same too. One of them things that's the same, is them red-headed cowboy feelin's. I know what them feelin's are now. They're love for my daddy. I reckon I got to admit that gettin' so used to havin' a daddy that we do him like I been tellin' you ain't the whole story. He has to go away some. He goes to Amarillo a whole lot and sometime he takes us with him and we get to go to Grandma Walton's or we get to play with them Feldmans. But mostly when he goes off on business, he leaves us on the Bent-Y. He goes to Santa Fe and me and Paco hate that. Santa Fe is a long way off and he's gone for more than a week.
The worst part is when he goes to Austin. He's a State Senator and when you're that, you got to stay in Austin a long time. They got a thing there they call a Legislature and, the way Daddy talks, you can't have no Legislature without you got State Senators there. When your daddy goes off to a Legislature, you get to thinkin' he's never gonna come back. We might get mad and fuss at our daddy some but we want him here. We ain't had a daddy that long. We don't need him goin' off all the time.
We cry some when he leaves and we get real ouchy at Ling Pau and at each other. I reckon we know we're bein' good took care of and that he loves us even when he ain't here but we don't have them evenin' times when he's readin' to us or we're just talkin' or just layin' there on his lap bein' hugged. That huggin's somethin' you can never get too much of.
Paco's gettin' real excited because Ling Pau has a baby belly and it's gettin' big. You get him started once, he'll talk all night about when we're gonna have a baby right in our house. He loves Juan's babies but he just can't keep his hands off Buck. Even at them picnics, he's holdin' him in the shade until he goes to sleep and then he puts him in a kind of a bed that Aunt Jenny makes in that little box on the back of them buckboards. Even when we're swimmin', Paco runs over to see is Buck still sleepin'.
Seems like Buck thinks Paco's his brother more than Spike. That don't bother Spike none. He says let Paco take Buck. He ain't worried none about losin' his baby brother. By the time Buck shits on Paco and cries all night a couple of times, Paco'd be ready to give him back.
I reckon you seen that me and Paco are tryin' to watch our talk and to quit our cussin' around folks. It's workin' some good but, like I said, you got to think on it. Sometimes I remember real good and I try to make myself talk right. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. Paco's learnin' me how to talk Mexican talk and that ain't no different than learnin' proper talk and talk with no cussin' in it. It takes two kinds of thinkin' to do them things and that's hard so I don't do it all the time. But I think I'm gettin' some better. Even when I ain't doin' them two thinkin's, I find myself doin' proper talk sometimes. Do you reckon it's just gettin' to be part of me?
I got a lot more practisin' to do before I can quit all my cussin'. I know how to say a lot of things and not cuss but some things I ain't learned yet. I already know that words have meanin' but sometimes meanin' ain't enough. I reckon folks can get your thinkin' without no cussin' but it seems they can't really get your meanin' without you put a hell or a damn in there. Maybe I'll learn how to tell my meanin' someday so Aunt Lydia won't frown when I'm doin' it but I ain't learned how yet.
Another thing about cussin'. All us younguns on the Bent-Y, even Rosie sometimes, know our parents don't want us cussin' and mostly, when we're around them, we don't. But it's funny how you can love them people and you still have to do what they tell you not to sometimes. I don't know why that is but even though I don't take too good to bossin', I come to know I ain't big enough to be my own boss. I already told you that I get bull-headed sometimes but I try to do what my daddy wants. But when us younguns is together, seems like we got to do some things our way. We don't flat out disobey our parents. Me and Paco don't ever want to make our daddy whip us no more. That man loves us so much, you could tell that whippin' us was about the hardest thing he ever done and, like I said, seein' that hurts you in your chest a lot. I reckon cussin' when it's just us younguns is about as brave as we get when it comes to doin' things our own way.
I hate evenin's right now. Daddy's still in Austin and you feel like you got a leg off or some other part of you is missin' when you don't have them times with your daddy. Paco said that too. Daddy writes a letter every day and since Manual has to go to Pampa every day, we get them everyday.
Manual must be real smart. He's always workin' with them papers and writin' numbers in books and takin' them books to Pampa and Amarillo or he's showin' them books to them Flynn daddies. When he takes them books to Pampa he brings back our letters and if Daddy ain't got no letter from us for a spell he tells us about it real hard in our letters. We don't write every day but we do most days. We do it in the evenin' when we're usually settin' on his lap. You feel kind of close to him when you're writin' them letters but you miss him so much you want to cry. That's why we don't write some days.
I reckon I shouldn't be, but I'm some surprised at how fast Paco took to readin' and writin'. When he first learned them letters he was either pesterin' me for readin' or he was perterin' Manual for paper so he could practice his writin'. He does real good. I ain't seen Spike's writin' but I don't reckon it can be no better than Paco's. We like to get them letters from our daddy but a damn letter ain't no hug.