2
James Hogan lay on
his bed thinking of what he was going to say to his uncle Septemus
as soon as he saw him. Septemus had no right to speak so
slightingly of either James or his mother. She’d done a good job of
raising all the kids and if she wasn’t quite as good a father as
she’d been a mother, well, you still couldn’t blame her because she
was a refined lady whose tastes just naturally gravitated to violin
musicals in the parlor and the study of classical thinkers such as
Plato and Socrates. Nothing wrong with that at all.
But of course it was
Septemus’s aspersions on James’s own character that really had the
boy angry. Hinting that James was a panty-waist and a mother’s boy;
hinting that at this rate he’d never grow up to be a man.
He lay shirtless on
his back, a black fly crawling around on his red freckled face.
Maybe he should tell Septemus about the time he got drunk on beer
that Fourth of July night when everybody thought he’d gone up to
bed; or maybe he should tell him about how many times he’d loaded
cornsilk into a pipe bowl and smoked till he’d turned green; or
maybe he should tell him about the time, a spring moon making him
slightly mad, he’d nearly kissed Marietta right on the lips. Boy,
wouldn’t these things surprise Uncle Septemus? Wouldn’t he then
look at James in a very different way?
A pantywaist; a
mama’s boy. Just wait till he saw Septemus.
The knock startled
him. He turned his head to face the door so quickly that a line of
warm pain shot up the side of his neck.
“That you, Uncle
Septemus?” he called, uneasy about opening the door unless he knew
who it was. His mother had given him explicit instructions about
not putting himself in a position where he’d ever be alone with a
stranger.
And then he heard
Septemus inside his head: see how she’s turning
you into a sissy, son? Somebody knocks on your door and you won’t
even go open it, Now is that how a real man would act, son? Is
it?
He fairly flung
himself off the bed, making loose fists of his hands, striding to
the door. To heck with what his mother said. He was sixteen; he was
on his way to becoming a man. He would open the door and-
Halfway there, he
realized he didn’t have his shirt on. He was sure he shouldn’t open
the door half naked.
Feeling foolish and
vulnerable, he dashed to the chair on the back of which was his
shirt. He snapped it up and put it on and buttoned it. Then he went
back to the door.
James had seen few
men this tall. Even without a hat, the top of the man’s head
touched the top of the door frame. In addition to that, he was
fleshy in a middle-aged sort of way, somewhat jowly and with a
loose belly pinched tight by a huge silver buckle on which the
initials DD had been sculpted. He wore a western-style white shirt,
a brown leather vest, dark brown trousers, and Texastoed black
boots. He looked a little sweaty from the heat and a little sour
around his large, wry mouth. James couldn’t read his eyes at
all.
His grin was somewhat
surprising. “I take it you’re not Septemus, son.”
“No, sir,” James
said, then immediately recalled what his uncle had said about being
too deferential. “I’m sure not.” He tried to make the last sound
hard-bitten, but his voice had soared too high for that. He’d just
spotted the six-pointed star that the man wore tucked half under
his vest.
“You’d be-”
“His nephew.”
“I see.” The man put
out a huge hand. James slid his own into the other man’s grasp.
When they shook, James felt like a pump handle that somebody was
jostling mercilessly. When he returned his hand to his side. James
tried not to feel the pain the big man’s hand had inflicted on him.
“I’m Dodds.”
“Dodds?”
“The sheriff.”
“And you want to see
my uncle Septemus?”
“If I could.”
“He’s not
here.”
The grin again. “I
kinda figured that out for myself, son, I mean, I can see the whole
room from here and I can see that it’s empty except for you.”
James flushed,
knowing he’d been gently but absolutely shown his place.
“Any idea where I
could find him?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Any idea when he’ll
be back?”
“He said a couple of
hours.”
“How long ago was
that?”
“’Bout an hour, I
guess.”
“Will you remember to
tell him that Sheriff Dodds is lookin’ for him?”
“Doesn’t seem like
the kind of thing I’d forget to mention.” This time the grin was
accompanied by a whiskey laugh. “Say, you were bound and determined
to pay me back for that crack I made, weren’t you?”
James felt himself
flush again. That’s just what he’d been doing. Trying to show Dodds
that he was a lot smarter than the lawman might think. “Guess
so.”
Dodds lifted the
white Stetson he’d been keeping in his hand and cuffed James on the
shoulder. “Damn straight, son. I’ve got a smart mouth on me and
every once in a while somebody needs to put me in my place.” He
grinned again. “Damn straight.”
Then he nodded and
was gone.
James closed the
door. He thought about lying down but he was too stirred up now.
What would a sheriff want with Uncle Septemus?
He went over to the
window and the billowing sheer curtain and stuck his head out. It
was like leaning into an oven. Even though the water wagon had been
over the dusty main street once today, dust devils rose in the
still, chalky air. A crow sitting on the gable to James’s right
looked over at the boy with sleepy curiosity. The bird looked too
tired to move.
There was no sign of
Uncle Septemus.
James looked in every
direction this particular window afforded. Then he looked again and
saw nothing.
What the hell would a
lawman want with his uncle?
He took his shirt off
and went back and lay on the bed. There was no possibility of a nap
now. He was too churned up.
Nor was he any longer
angry with his uncle about the man implying he was a mama’s boy.
They could settle that particular matter later.
He lay on the bed.
Another black fly started walking around on his red freckles.
What the hell would a
lawman want with Uncle Septemus, anyway?