Like a man walking through water he shuffled toward the S.P. water tower. The freight whooped like a Sioux who has seen too many westerns.
He stayed out of sight till the cars began passing.
The first stars arrived early that night to see how Dove Linkhorn was making out. And saw right off that here was one party who didn’t take funny stuff off anybody any more. Folks who thought this boy looked foolish felt different when they began to hurt. ‘Mighty rough customer,’ the planets agreed till Dove closed the doors on those gossiping stars.
He heaped straw for a mattress, wadded a bandanna for a pillow, pulled a yellowed rotogravure page to his chin for a sheet. Who needed Texas? Let Texas roll by.
And slept without remorse.
Only once, clasping his stomach as the car rocked and rolled him between nightmares and dreams, he whimpered a little.
When he wakened the cars were clanking an iron alarm and daybreak was shagging the shirtless and shiftless, the lame, the lost and the shoeless from under the brake beams and down the spines. Fleeing reefers, clambering couplings, climbing raggedly down off the ladders; walking wounded and battle-stragglers limped, leaned and hobbled to the closest aid-station.
‘Lots of fine folks out seein’ the country,’ Dove tried to get in step, ‘Didn’t reckon there’d be so many so early in the year.’ And stayed out of step for a quarter of a mile, to some half-sunken barns that might have stabled the federal cavalry that had once pursued Pancho Villa.
As a matter of fact, that was exactly what they had. Though the horses were gone with Villa now – mavericks and herd-bound hides alike. Hoof prints long sunk and riders unsaddled – captains and privates all alike. In rooms where the lighting was still by gas some lay drunk and others lay dying, and all were long since unsaddled. Dead or dying, drunk or derailed, Captains or privates, all alike.
The whole wide land looked disheveled as a bed in a cheap hotel.
‘Folks looken a bit peakedy,’ Dove observed, feeling slightly on the peakedy side himself. A lettered warning stopped him the way a stranger’s lips, moving silently, stop a deaf mute.
‘What do the sign sayz, mister?’ he tapped a fedora no higher than his shoulder, rambling along atop a faded plaid lumberjack.
‘It sayz here this is a city shelter,’ a foxlike bark came out of a face like that of a terrier bitch – a face neither feminine nor male, but the voice was a girl’s – ‘it sayz to scoff up here all you want ’n thank the citizens of San Anton’ for it in your prayers—’ she paused to let others give thanks – ‘but stay out of town or them same citizens will slap you right into the crummiest slammer in Texas.’
‘It sayz all that, sis?’
‘It also sayz Laughable Fools with Dirty Feet Keep Off All Trains Not In Motion, Laughable Fool. It says your best bet is to do what you see the smart people do. So crawl your weak-minded ass after mine and do what I do. Don’t do nothing you don’t see me do first. And don’t call me sis. Call me brother.’
‘You reckon yourself one of the smart folks ’n me just a big ignoramus?’ Dove considered the preposterous notion.
Brother raised a cautioning finger. ‘I got a jacket. You got no jacket. I got a shirt. You got no shirt. I got shoes. You got no shoes but we’re both up against a knife and fork. I ate last night and I ate this morning and you haven’t eaten since God knows when. Now who’s the smartest, me or you?’
The raggedy line shuffled one raggedy inch.
‘You’re so smart it’s a pure pity,’ Dove decided – ‘Just tell me this much – they got liverpuddin’ in that kitchen ahead or not?’
‘They not only got liverpuddin’ friend. They got candied yams, Virginia ham ’n possum pie.’
‘Yankee vittles is a mite rich for my blood,’ Dove was forced to decline. Brother glanced up to see who was being kidded now.
But Dove’s jaw hung so long, so mournfully from cheeks so cavernous, the hair bothering his eyes had been so long uncut and the eyes themselves so darkly shadowed, it was hard to believe anyone could kid in that condition.
‘You should of stayed in the hospital till they cut your hair,’ she advised him.
‘I bet if you taken off that hat you could stand a trim your own self.’ Dove answered. He felt a friendly hand on his shoulder.
‘Ah’ll bet y’all from the Big Bend Country, haint yo’?’ Dove tossed the hair back out of his eyes to see if it were someone he knew, forgetting for the moment that he didn’t know anybody. A Marine sergeant was studying him smilingly.
‘Me? No sir,’ Dove corrected him with pride, ‘I’m from Rio Grande country.’
‘Taylor ’n Halsted, pleased to meet you both,’ the terrier introduced herself so assertively that the uniform had to talk over the fedora in order to recruit Dove.
‘How’d you like three square meals a day, Red? A chance to see the tropics, chase Sandino, defend your country, get two pairs of shoes and a pension shortly after?’ He gave Dove a wink so broad that Dove winked back just as broadly – ‘and how those South American girls go for that uniform.’
‘It sounds like a right good position, mister’ – Dove decided. ‘I especially like that part about defendin’ my country. But first I got to git me a small bait of vittles.’
‘I think you’ll make a fine soldier, son,’ the sergeant was confident – ‘You got no physical deefect have you?’
‘Take another look at that squint, Colonel,’ the disguised girl recommended.
‘A squint aint no deefect,’ the sergeant explained authoritatively, ‘—it’s more what we term a “impedimunt.” We’ll get Red specs to correct his. Spanish women like soldiers with glasses.’
‘Look at them choppers.’
Without being asked, Dove opened his mouth and the sergeant put a big dirty thumb flat down on his tongue.
‘In six months the clown won’t have a tooth in his head,’ the girl seemed certain. ‘Jungle-rot will get him.’
‘Well, we don’t want him to bite Sandino,’ the sergeant already excused Dove from one detail.
‘I have one loose awready anyhow,’ Dove managed to tell simply by removing the thumb temporarily, between two of his own fingers – ‘it waggles’ – and replaced the thumb hoping the sergeant would waggle it a bit for him.
‘Let the army dentist do that.’ The sergeant took his fist out of Dove’s face. ‘You’re going to make one hell of a Marine. Wouldn’t be surprised if you caught Sandino yourself. You can close your mouth now.’
He took out a small notebook and a pencil. ‘Tell me, you got any other deefects, son?’
Dove reddened. That was when you couldn’t read or write. ‘I reckon that in time that might be corrected too,’ he answered evasively because of those standing about.
‘Nothing serious, is it?’ He gave Dove a nudge – ‘Nothin’ you picked up from town girls?’
The sarge had girls on his mind alright.
‘The second spell he took after supper last night he foamed a bit – Would that be anything serious?’ Dove’s friend asked blandly.
‘He takes fits?’ The Marine grew anxious. He didn’t want to lose a rookie but he didn’t want to hook a lemon.
‘I never throwed a fit in my whole derned life,’ Dove defended himself stoutly. ‘Pay no heed whatsoever to my brother here, captain – jest jealous cause I out-growed him. I aint even inclined toward spells.’
‘Good lad,’ the sergeant congratulated him, ‘Tex, you’re a real stand-up kid. Tell me this – routine question – nothing personal – if an enemy capable of rape had you trapped with your sister and mother and one of you had to be left behind, which one of you would you choose it to be?’