April, 2011

Issue #19

Cayo Bradley
by Nina Romano

A whistle sleek as moonlit grass captured the attention of Darby McPhee. She listened to the remains of its sibilance with longing, wanting to run away. How long could she stay in that cottage slaving away her youth for her five brothers and father? Darby was days shy of her fifteenth birthday when the three o'clock whistle blew. She'd made up her mind. Tomorrow she'd be on that iron panther heading for the east, her Aunt Bea's, an education and a new life.

There were several obstacles she'd have to overcome not the least of them the fact she might never return. She would take her courage in her two hands, like her Pa told her so many times to do when she faced a fearful thing and she'd tell Cayo Bradley just how she felt about him. And it would be today. Wondering what it would be like to kiss him, she rolled up her sleeves.

Darby reached for the butter churn and poured in the cream she had skimmed off the milk. Her thoughts followed the white stream. Then veered with, After all, I may never see him again, and a man ought to know if he's been loved, even if it's a starry-far-away love that can never be fulfilled. Her anger and fear were felt in every forceful slam of the stick with its round flat disk end. She'd make butter all right and she'd cream away every worry and dang thought about the long train ride east, leaving Pa and telling Cayo. What if he didn't feel the same? Wouldn't matter, she'd be leaving anyway. And a man should know.

Darby rushed to finish her chores. She set the table, pulled the muffins from the oven, turned the bacon, and whisked a dozen eggs with farm cheese she'd made earlier that morning. Standing in the doorway, she clanged an iron triangle, calling the men to breakfast. When will I tell Pa? She patted the pocket of her apron, which held Aunt Bea's letter stating all the arrangements she'd made for her niece. Darby slapped the butter onto a daisy form cut-out made of an oval piece of sorrel wood, closed the three inch high wooden mold with scalloped edges around it and hooked a curved nail over the head of another nail to secure it. She ran to the barn giving a hoot to her eldest brother Garret and buried the butter shape under the ice protected by hay. It always amazed her how the hay kept the blocks of ice from melting, but this would be the last time she'd have to concern herself about farm things like this. Aunt Bea had an ice box. City folk lived so much better.

The omelets were made and served. Garret reached for the strawberry preserves that Darby put up last summer.

"Pa, pass the biscuits," Garrett said. "Hey, girl, where's the butter?"

"I've a given name, Garret, just like you," she said. "I'll get it. I put it to cool in the barn."

"Probably just cuddling that dumb old sheep dog is all," Darby's father said.

"Not," Darby muttered and walked out the kitchen door.

Garret and Pa. She'd miss them. The only ones who recognized the fact that she was the opposite sex. Darby's younger brothers, Bixby, Randy, Chad and Pat, were inconsiderate. Darby thought of them as irresponsible assholes. Pa and Garret were always at them to fix something they'd messed up. Or to get going on a task or chore that should have been finished days before. Lazy bunch of oafs, serve them right to have to clean up after themselves.

When Darby came back from the barn the sun was full up.

"Can't you read?" she asked the men.

"Sure," said Pa. He pushed away from the table and was about to light a cigarette he'd just rolled.

"Pa, out of respect for your dead wife and my Momma, please don't smoke in the house," Darby said. She took hold of a sign she'd made. It was pinned to the gingham curtain on the window nearest the big oak dining table where her family sat.

She read, "Close the shades when the sun is full up."

Darby let the curtain fall and closed the shade. Then she picked up a sign that was leaning on a milk bottle used as a vase for wild flowers.

"More stink weeds in this house than milk," said her younger brother Pat.

"Hush up," she said. And she read from her second note. "It says here, pick up your dish and bring it to the kitchen, or you can eat off the unwashed, doggone thing, oink oink, next meal."

She tossed the note on the table and began clearing away the breakfast remains.

"Skinny as a broomstick, child. You eat?" Pa asked.

"Sure, Pa, at three o'clock when I got up to start my chores." Now's my chance. "I've got a letter from Aunt Bea. Been meaning to let you read. I'll set it by the wash bucket."

"I'll have a look see when I come in at sundown," said Pa.

Thank Heavens. "I have to rush now. Mrs. Miller expects me at the store early today, it being Saturday. There'll be lots of farmer wives and hands coming in for supplies," Darby said to her father who'd caught her around the waist and gave her a squeeze. She felt a twinge of guilt. Looking at her father, she thought of a dozen kindnesses he'd gone out of his way to do for her. She'd miss him, but she couldn't sacrifice her life any longer. Momma's been gone five years. It goes by all too quickly, and I'm not his wife.

At times Darby felt like a mother hen to his sons. That was a thing her father would have to reckon with when she left. Darby had mulled this over in her mind many times. But the day before her departure it was a tune that was wearing itself out. Momma's dead, not coming back and I'm leaving, Pa. This time I'm really going.

Chad had gone out and come back in. He was holding a piece of paper in his hand. "Hear ye, hear ye. I found this note nailed to the outhouse door in Darby's scratchy hand. Says: Throw in lye after each deposit."

Everyone laughed. And Darby went to the kitchen to do the dishes. A note meant for the boys, said, Always, prime the pump. They'll get on just fine.

That dusty summer of 1873 found Cayo Bradley working as a hired hand and sometime cowpoke on the Lindstrom ranch in Parcel Bluffs. Cayo never had a day off, but Saturday afternoons he'd hitch up the wagon for Libby and Mrs. Lindstrom and take them to town. Libby was nothing like her friend Darby. The Lindstrom girl was spoiled and arrogant and Cayo overheard Darby once tell Libby that her Daddy ought to give his darling daughter a once-and-for-all-time good licking to straighten her skinny ass out. Mr. Lindstrom had tossed Cayo a full pouch of chewing tobacco for the ride to town. Cayo guessed it was the old man's way of thanking him for putting up with his daughter. But all his boss had said was, "Watch the ruts and gofer holes, Cayo, and have a high time, ladies."

The Lindstrom women would go visiting at the parlor in Hotel Ryder, drink tea, and, with tongues as sharp as scissors, cut to pieces every other woman in town. Sometimes they would go to the dressmaker Fanny Oates, or tend to some other womanly tasks. Lastly, before they headed home they would stop into Fern and Harris Miller's General Store where Darby McPhee worked as a salesgirl.

The Millers were childless. Fern was able to handle the regular trade during weekdays, but on Saturdays and Sundays things were hectic because the farm folk turned up in town to replenish their stores. Darby was hired to take up the slack and deal with the weekend rush. Fern was a motherly figure for Darby and tried to draw the girl out. She was partially responsible for Darby's decision to leave Parcel Bluffs for educational greener pastures in the east with Aunt Bea.

Cayo Bradley was a lean man with sharply cut cheekbones and bronze skin. Some said he was part Apache. Others claimed he was left for dead by bandoleros, and because of his mean disposition, not even the coyotes would go near him. Maybe that's where he got his name. Nobody in town knew him by any other. Whatever his component parts were, it was for certain he was a man quick with a Bowie knife, swifter with a whip. He wore chaps every day but Saturday when he drove the buckboard. Cayo carried a Colt pistol in his holster and never rode his horse without a Winchester rifle strapped to his saddle. He was a man that people respected, a man who kept his mouth shut and eyes peeled, even the eyes they said he had in the back of his head.

On Main Street, Cayo would stop and talk a spell with Sheriff Link Jones. He rode posse for Link when the train had been held up the year before. Link didn't care if Cayo was a man with a past or not. All Link knew for certain was that Cayo could draw fast, shoot sure, ride and rope better than any damn cowhand he'd seen since his own father died. And because Cayo joined last year's posse, Link was able to apprehend Bick McAlister and his brother Greer. But Cayo wanted no part of the lynching, and, afterward, when he was offered Bick's new tooled boots, he refused.

Cayo would stroll to the bath house and have a shave and bath, paying his two bits, with a thumb snap underneath, flipping the coin in the air for the owner Sara Birch. Trim and tidy, he'd meander over to Miller's General Store flanked by a telegraph-assay office on one side and a bank on the other.

When Cayo opened the door to the general store and stepped inside he was surprised at the cool dank air that hit him. Like a cellar. The next thing he sensed was the autumn rich smell of dried apples. When his eyes became accustomed to the dark, then he noticed, almost tripped on, a keg of dried fruit. He began to make out clear images. Not in the least was the tall, straight young body of Darby McPhee. She was standing behind a counter. The shelves and wood planks behind her were beautiful intricate patterns of flowers, deer, and mountain goats. The carvings were disarmingly graceful patterns straight out of the mountains of Bavaria designed by the capable chipping and scaling of the carpenter Heinz Schroeder. The shelves were lined with Mason Jars of peaches preserved in thick syrup, and glasses of homemade raspberry, blueberry, blackberry and strawberry jams, covered with wax. There were tins of black strap molasses, hurricane lanterns with extra long wicks, boxes of four inch wooden sulphur matches and bottles of tomatoes.

On the counter were burlap sacks of strange spices marked with names like oregano, basil, peppercorns, marjoram, sage, rosemary, thyme and dill. On the floor in front of the counter were larger gunnysacks of white beans, rice, lentils, cane sugar, flour and cornmeal.

Darby said, "Say, Cayo."

Cayo tipped his hat. "How do?"

"Tickety-boo." She smiled her father's smile.

Cayo looked about and seeing the owner absent asked after her. "And Miss Fern?"

"Over to the tinsmith. You needing something beside your shirt? Need tobacco? Special blend costs five cents a pouch, but this here one's just as sweet and it's a penny."

It was like there were no other customers in the place the way she looked at him. Not yet fifteen, but a woman made.

"Make it a penny worth. He walked up to the counter and extended his doe-skin pouch.

She deals with all these cackling hens, boisterous drunks. Cooks and cleans for her Pa and five nasty suckers she calls brothers. She loves me. I feel it. Know it. She takes extra care of me spending too much. And here again. He watched Darby as she folded his ironed shirt and started wrapping it in brown paper.

"Hold on," Darby said, "Let me tend this first so's it don't smell like tobacco."

Cayo put a five cent piece and a penny on the counter.

"Too much," she said. "Only one cent for work shirts. Five's for dress ones, if they's got ruffles."

Was she saving me money here, too? She could charge what she liked. Fern Miller let Darby take in ironing and she made her own prices. Cayo's face flushed and he was glad of the darkness, and the cooler inside air. He switched a penny, taking up the Shield nickel from the counter. Opening his pouch, he waited. Not just for chewing tobacco. For what? I'm fifteen years her senior, yet when I see her I'm a dunce of twelve. He looked at his hands, the palms began to sweat. He wiped his hands on his pants.

When I'm at the spread I think of things I'm going to tell her—how a calf is all warm when he's born, and after—how he's all wet with his momma's juices. The thanks in the mother's eyes when you've helped pull her baby free. What it feels like to rope a steer, and how the air smells when you burn his flesh with a branding iron. I can tell her of the high full moon over the prairie and stars you can touch with all the shooting arches of light that make you think there's another universe somewhere out yonder. And here I'm wanting to give her cornflowers and buttercups and Libby's bell-shaped tiny lilies of the valley. Tell her I'd like to have her for my own. To smell the skin of her, to wake up to her tousled hair on my pillow and arm. There's that knot again in my stomach. If I don't eat Johnnycake for a year I wouldn't go and miss it. But it ain't corn bread, it's when can I tell her? And how do I?

Darby's fingertips barely touched Cayo's. They looked at each other. Long and hard. She drew her hand away as if she had all day to do that one thing.

Then she turned her back and started putting things on the shelves and said, "I'm home bound at four o'clock today. I take the back path by the old curved road. It's earlier than I usually leave."

Why's she telling me this?

Darby faced him, dusted the counter of the spilled tobacco with her apron and said, "I'll be doing some packing and such besides preparing supper for the boys and Pa. Tell Libby for me I'll ride by later around eight. They'll be finished eating then, won't they?"

Cayo stood there like a storefront Indian. A wooden statue had more life. He felt no blood course through his veins. Time stood still. She's leaving. Leaving Parcel Bluffs. Leaving me. Without ever having told her how I feel about her.

"Can I walk you home, Darby?"

"It's a ways, Mr. Cayo Bradley, but I'd be pleased of the company. And ... " she pulled her hair behind her ears, and gulped some air, "and there's something I've been meaning to say to you."

A customer came in with two small children. Cayo held the door for the woman.

"Yeah, me too," Cayo said, tipped his hat, and walked out.

Libby Lindstrom knew how Darby felt about Cayo. Libby had hoped that Cayo felt the same way about her, not Darby. But somehow she knew he cared only for Darby. He was in love or desire or whatever with Darby McPhee, her best friend since forever.

Libby noticed how at times when she talked to him how he'd get that far look in his eye, and be someplace else. Mind traveling she called it. But at the mention of Darby's name, his pointy ears'd prick up and his nostrils wriggled—a coyote who'd caught a scent.

There were other things. Little things. Libby couldn't define surely, but the signs were there for anyone interested enough to read them. And she was interested. Now her dear friend and foe would be leaving on the train east tomorrow. The night before Libby hadn't slept well with the excitement of Darby's parting and the possibility of taking hold of Cayo's lonesome heart. Darby's secret was the one thing she kept to herself. She'd been a chatterbox all the way to town.

"Woodpeckers make less fuss with their morning tapping. The buckboard noise seems quiet compared to you, Libby. Hush now you're bringing on one of my migraines," Mrs. Lindstrom said, fiddling with an empty bottle of laudanum through the cloth of her purse.

Libby wasn't sure, but could swear Cayo smirked. It seemed to her that he was keeping the corners of his mouth controlled as they worked to turn upwards. Thunderation and damnation. What do I see in him anyway he's so ornery and mean-tempered? He could look under my skirt and still never crack loose with a smile. I hate him forever. Well, till tomorrow anyway.

At Mrs. Ryder's social tea, Libby didn't join in with the usual catty talk of the women. Instead she sulked, got up and looked out the window, her mind calculating the whereabouts of Cayo Bradley. He always went to the Miller's for stores, but who knew just when.

Libby didn't want to give the lovers a chance to declare their rightful feelings for each other. She wanted to ruin the bittersweet departure—a probable promise of letters and a future meeting.

Probably die and go straight to hell, I will, trying to break up something right as raindrops on windflowers.

"I declare," Mrs. Ryder said to Mrs. Lindstrom, pouring tea into a porcelain cup, "your gal's a might quiet today."

"Thank the Almighty," said Mrs. Lindstrom. "Libby was a mockingbird on our way into town." She lifted the honey pot and heaped a generous spoonful into the steaming brew.

"Mrs. Ryder, Ma, I'll take leave now and get a breath of air; maybe set a spell with Darby over to Miller's. It's always cooler there."

"You do look a bit peaked. You all right?" Suddenly there was a note of concern in Mrs. Lindstrom's voice.

"Um-hum," said Libby. "Really. Fine."

She walked out the door listening to her mother call her a flibbertigibbet, and worst tempered-soul the Savior ever put in Parcel Bluffs. "Why the only person who can hold rein on that girl is Cayo Bradley."

"That so?" Mrs. Ryder asked as Libby closed the door.

She sauntered her most genteel walk over to Miller's, every now and again using her parasol as a walking stick. On the walk to Miller's, she dwelt on how the conversation would go with Darby, and what she could buy as a pretext for walking in without her mother. Rock candy.

Libby hadn't timed her visit right. Instead of Cayo, Darby was waiting on a different cowboy. When Darby finished, she turned and excused herself to Fern Miller. Libby heard Darby say, "I need to have a moment's privy, to tend something personal, if it'd be all right?"

Fern said, "Sure thing."

Darby and Libby stepped into the back storeroom behind a curtain and perched themselves on a bale of cotton. As if by ritual both girls fanned themselves with their smocks.

"Did you get my message?" asked Darby.

"What message?"

"I told Cayo to tell you I'd be over after your supper tonight to say my farewells."

"Cayo was here already? Where'd he go to?"

"Mighty interested in a hired hand, Libby. Thought you'd be caring to hear the particulars of my departure east."

"Sure I am. It's just that I'm surprised."

They put down their aprons and smoothed the folds.

"Surprised at what?"

"He came in so early."

"Snooping, huh? He always comes for his ironing. Today he came ahead of time cause he's plum out of chewing tobacco."

"That's untrue, Darby McPhee."

"You calling me a liar? What's got into you? The man bought chewing—"

"He couldn't chomp a pouchful in two hours." Libby fidgetted with her hands.

"The pouch was empty." Darby stressed the last word.

"I saw Daddy fling a small bulging purse to him this very morning."

"We're arguing over something real dumb, you know that? Hold on just one tinker's damn."

"No need to curse."

"Why you're jealous, and flushing red. Got a hankering for your Daddy's ranch hand, now don't you, little Miss Libby Lindstrom?"

"Not—"

"That's a sin of covetousness. You know how I feel about him. Known forever. Out the sky drops a hawk, no a vulture. Some friend." Darby jumped off the bale. "You could have leastwise had the decency to wait till I was snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug tucked in at Aunt Bea's."

"Did you tell him your feelings yet?"

Darby put her hands on her hips and swayed slightly. "Now that's for me to know and you to find out. None of your concern. And forget the message. I won't be riding out to see you tonight or ever."

At four o'clock sharp, Darby said goodbye to Harris and Fern Miller. She thanked Harris and kissed Fern, then put her pay in her pocket. Cayo Bradley slouched against the back wall of the General Store, his hat pulled low over his eyes. He tipped it back and stood up straight before Darby's hand touched the door.

Darby walked outside and immediately shielded her eyes. As soon as they adjusted to the brightness, she dropped her hand. She wanted Cayo to take hold of it, but knew he wouldn't even if he was dying to. How to begin?

For the first fifteen minutes she began but faltered, trying to make small talk. He took up where she left off, his efforts were more clumsy and more endearing.

Sagebrush rolled across the path. Mountains surrounded them. Scrub pines, yucca and thistles covered the dry patchwork of red earth. Cattails and wild iris interspersed goldenrod.

Cayo linked his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants and Darby walked with her arms in back of her, right hand grasping her left thumb.

She stopped to pick a piece of prairie grass and kept on walking as she chewed the flat blade till it gave up the last of its juices. Then she tossed it, watching the slight breeze glide it to the ground. Kite to the right, she thought. She stopped again in the middle of the path.

"I've been meaning to tell you about my Aunt Bea back east."

"Don't think I want to hear if it's to do with them bags you'll be packing."

"I lack book learning. Need to get away from my brothers. I'll miss Pa, but he'll get on, and before you know it I'll be back in Parcel Bluffs—"

"They ain't no such thing as coming home. Once a critter leaves the nest, he gets a taste for flying high. Things look mighty different from up there."

"How'd you know? You a bird?"

"I been a bird sometimes in Indian country. I've tasted ground herbs make you fly like a feathered arrow, make you know life from inside an eagle."

Darby and Cayo continued walking, shoulders almost touching.

"What's it like?"

"Like to bust out your skin, or hold on tight to a girl. Never let go, if'n that girl be you."

Darby looked sidewards but was afraid to stop walking, kicking up little squalls of dust for fear she'd never recapture this moment. But she had to look at him, see the moonless night of his eyes.

Darby stood dead still in her tracks. Cayo put his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders. She hesitated a minute then said, "I think of you sometimes ... when I'm pitching hay, or milking, or rag-washing the kettles, or dusting Momma's Bible." Darby brushed back the hair off her face. "Even with my eyes open, looking at something else, I see you."

Cayo spat the rest of his chewing tobacco through his teeth. "I've seen you in the cottonwoods when I was flying over," he said pointing to the sky. "Even before I knowed it were you. I saw the black panther riding east. But you was churning butter. In Indian country." Cayo pulled out his tobacco pouch, looked at it, put it back in his pocket.

Darby's eyes followed his movements, remembered the feel of the doeskin and beadwork she'd touched just a few hours ago. Who had made it for him? "Libby came to Miller's after you left. She told me her Daddy gave you a pouch this morning."

"That be true. I gave it to Link Jones. Don't cotton to gifts with tie strings, makes a man indebted." He heaved a sigh. "Miss Libby. Well, now, she's got some real learning to do. She ain't no Darby McPhee."

Darby felt her cheeks get hot. The McPhee ranch was in sight. Cayo took Darby's hand in his and squeezed the fingertips gently. They walked to the shade of a pinon tree on top of a bluff. The whole valley lay before them like a penny postcard. Darby leaned against the tree. They stood inches apart. Cayo rested his hand on the trunk just above her shoulder.

"I ain't much with words, Darby, but I got lots of feelings. If you want, I'll talk to your Pa. Tonight if you say, and you can pack your duds, but, not to travel east, to set up house with me."

Darby looked a little frightened and puzzled, until Cayo added, "It'd be a proper wedding with a preacher. You tell me if and when you're a wanting to get hitched.

He put his other hand up above her shoulder.

Bird in a cage.

"I'll be heading back up there." He nudged his chin in the direction of the Sangre de Cristos Mountains. "Soon as the summer corn's in. Got a cabin needs a woman's hands to give it warmth.

"I was banking on learning to be a teacher." She heard herself hedge.

He took hold of both her hands.

"I can help nature teach you things ain't in no books. You can school your own kids. Ours. Time I was settling in, Darby."

Darby listened, her heartbeat pulsing faster with every word he stammered on. Her mind raced. No fair asking a man to wait. And me afraid he wouldn't want me. But he does. Darby grew so still, she thought he'd hear the pounding in her chest.

Finally she said, "I never been east, nor seen the ocean." But the deep of his eyes'll be forever.

She reached up to grasp his hands.

"You'll glimpse it all when our baby calls you in fright cause he climbed a perch too tall, and you catch him in your arms."

"Lots of folks never go east or travel to the sea." She took a deep breath and blurted out, "I can't chance leaving you to make high-cheeked babies with the likes of Libby Lindstrom."

Cayo smiled a small smile.

Darby returned the smile. "Got some yellow gingham I was fixing to sew into curtains."

"Yellow'd be mighty pretty on them cabin windows. What do you say, Darby?"

"If that's a proposal, Cayo Bradley, my answer's yes, but I best get home afore Pa sees Aunt Bea's letter."

"I'll come round to talk to your Pa at 8."

"Make it 7:30? Got to telegraph Aunt Bea to come west."

Time sped to no time. Before she could even dream it, Cayo took hold of Darby's sun-warmed arms and clasped them around his neck. She closed her eyes and tilted up her chin. But the second Cayo covered her lips with his, she opened her eyes. A kiss for all times.

A kiss to remember.

The author was inspired by and is grateful to Elizabeth Bishop's anthologized poem "Behind Stowe," for this line from that poem: "A whistle sleek as moonlit grass," which begins the first line of this story.

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