A Bullet for Billy (15 page)

S
he was there at the house, my house, waiting for me as if she knew I'd come. She was stroking the muzzle of one of the mares, and it pricked its ears at our approach, and the stud whinnied smelling the mare, his muscles rippled, as glad to be home again as I was.

Luz turned and did not move but stood watching, and my heart quickened at the sight of her.

I rode up casual as if I'd been gone on a Sunday ride, but she could see my overall condition was pretty poor, my clothes dusty and mud-caked, my shirt sweat-stained and my boots all run down.

I reined in and stepped down out of the saddle.

She did not speak and I did not speak. I unsaddled the stud and turned him out with the mares.

“You earned it,” I said. Then I turned to Luz and said, “How you been getting on?”

“Fine,” she said. “And yourself.”

“Been better,” I said. “Am better now that I'm home again.”

I saw my chicken coop was rebuilt and the fencing put up and some of the chickens put back inside, and that old red rooster that would wake me up every morning about the time it got light.

“You do that?” I said, pointing toward the chicken coop.

“Who else do you think would trouble themselves to round up your chickens and fence them in again?”

“Nobody I know but you.”

“That's right, mister, and don't you forget it.”

I took her in my arms then and gave her a hug and kissed her on the mouth like it was the first time—tenderly and gratefully.

“I've got some coffee on,” she said.

“I'd rather just sit out here and have a whiskey with you, and a smoke.”

“That can be arranged,” she said and went into the house and came out with the bottle and two glasses, and we sat in chairs facing off to the west where the sun was setting a passionate red in the sky, throwing off its light up against fingers of clouds. I rolled her a shuck and rolled myself one,
and we sat there smoking and sipping our whiskey.

“You want to talk about it?” she said at last.

“No, I don't reckon,” I said.

“I half thought you'd show up with your friend,” she said.

“I left him down there in that country,” I said.

She didn't ask which country I meant and I didn't volunteer it. It was enough to know the Cap'n was at rest now, that his two grandsons were home with their mother, and that what he set out to do got done. It didn't really matter which of us had done what. A mama had her boys back—that's what mattered.

“You hungry?” she said. “I can fix you something to eat.”

“I am,” I said.

She started to stand to go into the house.

“But not for food,” I said.

She turned and smiled and sat down on my lap.

“Oh,” she said. “Am I to guess what you're hungry for?”

“This,” I said.

The sun dropped out of the sky, the heat went with it. The land grew cool and pleasant all around us.

I said, “You know that little lake over yonder the river flows out of?”

“Yes, what about it?”

I don't think she ever looked as beautiful to me as she did in that moment.

“Let's go over there and take our clothes off and jump in,” I said.

“Really?” she said, arching her eyebrow.

“Yes, I had this dream while I was gone, about you and me making love in the water, and I'd like to see if it would be as good in reality as it was in that dream I had, because that was about the best old dream I ever had.”

She stood and took me by the hand.

And I followed willingly.