On a Friday evening in late summer Temple Carrol and I went to watch Pete play in a ball game at the Catholic elementary school. I had let him ride Beau to the game by himself, and later we walked from the diamond to the café down the street and ate buffalo burgers and blackberry milkshakes. Outside the window, Beau pulled his tether loose and walked into the grove of pines by the stucco church and began grazing in the grass. The attic fan in the café drew the air through the open door and windows, and I could smell the evening coming to its own completion, the dusk gathering in the streets, the water that ebbed out of the irrigation ditch into the grass, the pine boughs etched against the late sun, the hot sap cooling on the bark of the trees.
'That's good about Lucas going to A amp;M this fall, ain't it?' Pete said.
'It's a fine school,' I said.
'Can I ride Beau back by myself tonight?'
'You're the best, Pete,' I said.
'He's a mighty good little boy, that's what he is,' Temple said, and hugged him against her.
'I'm gonna ride Beau out on the hardpan, where that Chisholm Trail is at,' Pete said, and grinned as though he had already begun an extravagant adventure.
Temple's eyes settled on mine, and I looked at the redness of her mouth and wanted to touch her hands.
Outside, I heard Beau's hooves thumping on the earth and I dipped a strip of buffalo steak in catsup that was as thick as blood and for just a moment, in my mind's eye, I saw dust clouds filled with hail swirling across the high plains, and I thought of Comanche Indians and saddle preachers and trail drovers and outlaws and was sure that somewhere beyond the rim of the world Great-grandpa Sam and the Rose of Cimarron turned briefly in their saddles and held up their hands in farewell.
