The Carpetbaggers

5

In Nevada, where I was born and raised, there is mostly sand and rocks and a few small mountains. But there are no oceans. There are streams and lakes, and swimming pools at every country club and hotel, but they're all filled with fresh, sweet water that bubbles in your mouth like wine, if you should happen to drink it instead of bathe in it.

I've been in a couple of oceans in my time. In the Atlantic, off Miami Beach and Atlantic City, in the Pacific, off Malibu, and in the blue waters of the Mediterranean, off the Riviera. I've even been in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, off the white, sandy beach of Bermuda, chasing a naked girl whose only ambition was to do it like a fish. I never did get to find out the secret of how the porpoises made it, because somehow, in the salt water, everything eluded me. I never did like salt water. It clings too heavily to your skin, burns your nose, irritates your eyes. And if you happen to get a mouthful, it tastes like yesterday's leftover mouthwash.

So what was I doing here?

Hot damn, little man, all the stars are out and laughing at you. This'll teach you some respect for the oceans. You don't like salt water, eh? Well, how do you like a million, billion, trillion gallons of it? A gazillion gallons?

"Aah, the hell with you," I said and went back to sleep.

I came trotting around the corner of the bunkhouse as fast as my eight-year-old legs could carry me, dragging the heavy cartridge belt and holstered gun in the sand behind me.

I heard my father's voice. "Hey, boy! What have you got there?"

I turned to face him, trying to hide the belt and gun behind me. "Nothin'," I said, not looking up at him.

"Nothing?" my father repeated after me. "Then, let me see."

He reached around behind me and tugged the belt out of my grip. As he raised it, the gun and a folded piece of paper fell from the holster. He bent down and picked them up. "Where'd you get this?"

"From the wall in the bunkhouse near Nevada's bed," I said. "I had to climb up."

My father put the gun back in the holster. It was a black gun, a smooth, black gun with the initials M. S. on its black butt. Even I was old enough to know that somebody had made a mistake on Nevada's initials.

My father started to put the folded piece of paper back into the holster but he dropped it and it fluttered open. I could see it was a picture of Nevada, with some numbers above it and printing below. My father stared at it for a moment, then refolded the paper and shoved it into the holster.

"You put this back where you got it," he said angrily. I could tell he was mad. "Don't you ever let me catch you taking what doesn't belong to you again or I’ll whomp you good."

"Ain't no need to whomp 'im, Mr. Cord." Nevada's voice came from behind us. "It's my fault for leavin' it out where the boy could get to it." We turned around. He was standing there, his Indian face dark and expressionless, holding out his hand. "If you'll jus' give it to me, I'll put it back."

Silently my father handed him the gun and they stood there looking at each other. Neither of them spoke a word. I stared up at them, bewildered. Both seemed to be searching each other's eyes. At last, Nevada spoke. "I’ll draw my time if you want, Mr. Cord."

I knew what that meant. Nevada was going away. Immediately, I set up a howl. "No," I screamed. "I won't do it again. I promise."

My father looked down at me for a moment, then back at Nevada. A faint smile came into his eyes. "Children and animals, they really know what they want, what's best for them."

"They do say that."

"You better put that away where nobody'll ever find it."

The faint smile was in Nevada's eyes now. "Yes, Mr. Cord. I sure will."

My father looked down at me and his smile vanished. "You hear me, boy? Touch what isn't yours and you'll get whomped good."

"Yes, Father," I answered, loud and strong. "I hear you."

I got a mouthful of salt water and I coughed and choked and sputtered and spit it out. I opened my eyes. The stars were still blinking at me but over in the east, the sky was starting to turn pale. I thought I heard the sound of a motor in the distance but it was probably only an echo ringing in my ears.

There was a pain in my side and down my leg, like I'd gone to sleep on it. When I moved, it shot up to my head and made me dizzy. The stars began to spin around and I got tired just watching them, so I went back to sleep.

The sun on the desert is big and strong and rides the sky so close to your head that sometimes you feel like if you reached up to touch it, you'd burn your fingers. And when it's hot like that, you pick your way carefully around the rocks, because under them, in the shade, sleeping away the heat of the day, are the rattlers, coiled and sluggish, with the unhappy heat in their chilled blood. They're quick to anger, quick to attack, with their vicious spittle, if by accident you threaten their peace. People are like that, too.

Each of us has his own particular secret rock, under which we hide, and woe to you if you should happen to stumble across it. Because then we're like the rattlers on the desert, lashing out blindly at whoever happens to come by.

"But I love you," I said and even as I said them, I knew the hollowness of my words.

And she must have known, too, for in her scathing self-denunciation, she was accusing me with the sins of all the men she'd known. And not unjustly, for they were also my sins.

"But I love you," I repeated and as I said it, I knew she recognized the weakness in my words. They turned empty and hollow in my mouth. If I had been honest, even unto my secret self, this is what I would have said; "I want you. I want you to be what I want you to be. A reflection of the image of my dreams, the mirror of my secret desires, the face that I desire to show the world, the brocade with which I embroider my glory. If you are all these things, I will grace you with my presence and my house. But these are not for what you are, but for me and what I want you to be."

And I did little but stand there, mumbling empty platitudes, while the words that spilled from her mouth were merely my own poison, which she turned into herself. For unknowing, she had stumbled across my secret rock.

I stood there in the unaccustomed heat and blazing brightness of the sun, secretly ashamed of the cool chill of the blood that ran through my veins and set me apart from the others of this earth. And unprotesting, I let her use my venom to destroy herself.

And when the poison had done its work, leaving her with nothing but the small, frightened, unshrivened soul of her beginnings, I turned away.

With the lack of mercy peculiar to my kind, I turned my back. I ran from her fears, from her need of comfort and reassurance, from her unspoken pleading for mercy and love and understanding. I fled the hot sun, back to the safety of my secret rock.

But now there was no longer comfort in its secret shade, for the light continued to seep through, and there was no longer comfort in the cool detached flowing of my blood. And the rock seemed to be growing smaller and smaller while the sun was growing larger and larger. I tried to make myself tinier, to find shelter beneath the rock's shrinking surface, but there was no escape. Soon there would be no secret rock for me. The sun was growing brighter and brighter. Brighter and brighter.

I opened my eyes.

There was a tiny pinpoint of light shining straight into them. I blinked and the penetrating pinpoint moved to one side. I could see beyond it now. I was lying on a table in a white room and beside me was a man in a white gown and a white skullcap. The light came from the reflection in a small, round mirror that he wore over his eye as he looked down at me. I could see on his face the tiny black hairs that the razor had missed. His lips were grim and tight.

"My God!" The voice came from behind him. "His face is a mess. There must be a hundred pieces of glass in it."

My eyes flickered up and saw the second man as the first turned toward him. "Shut up, you fool! Can't you see he's awake?"

I began to raise my head but a light, quick hand was on my shoulder, pressing me back, and then her face was there. Her face, looking down at me with a mercy and compassion that mine had never shown.

"Jennie!"

Her hand pressed against my shoulder. She looked up at someone over my head. "Call Dr. Rosa Strassmer at Los Angeles General or the Colton Sanitarium in Santa Monica. Tell her Jonas Cord has been in a bad accident and to come right away."

"Yes, Sister Thomas." It was a young girl's voice and it came from behind me. I heard footsteps moving away.

The pain was coming back into my side and leg again and I gritted my teeth. I could feel it forcing the tears into my eyes. I closed them for a moment, then opened them and looked up at her. "Jennie!" I whispered. "Jennie, I'm sorry!"

"It's all right, Jonas," she whispered back. Her hands went under the sheet that covered me. I felt a sharp sting in my arm. "Don't talk. Everything's all right now."

I smiled gratefully and went back to sleep, wondering vaguely why Jennie was wearing that funny white veil over her beautiful hair.