Bell didnt answer.
I always thought when I got older that God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didnt. I dont blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.
You dont know what he thinks.
Yes I do.
He looked at Bell. I can remember one time you come to see me after you all had moved to Denton. You walked in and you looked around and you asked me what I intended to do.
All right.
You wouldnt ask me now though, would you?
Maybe not.
You wouldnt.
He sipped the rank black coffee.
You ever think about Harold? Bell said.
Harold?
Yes.
Not much. He was some older than me. He was born in ninety-nine. Pretty sure that's right. What made you think about Harold?
I was readin some of your mother's letters to him, that's all. I just wondered what you remembered about him.
Was they any letters from him?
No.
You think about your family. Try to make sense out of all that. I know what it did to my mother. She never got over it. I dont know what sense any of that makes either. You know that gospel song? We'll understand it all by and by? That takes a lot of faith. You think about him goin over there and dyin in a ditch somewheres. Seventeen year old. You tell me. Because I damn sure dont know.
I hear you. Did you want to go somewheres?
I dont need nobody haulin me around. I aim to just set right here. I'm fine, Ed Tom.
It aint no trouble.
I know it.
All right.
Bell watched him. The old man stubbed out his cigarette in the lid. Bell tried to think about his life. Then he tried not to. You aint turned infidel have you Uncle Ellis?
No. No. Nothin like that.
Do you think God knows what's happenin?
I expect he does.
You think he can stop it?
No. I dont.
They sat quietly at the table. After a while the old man said: She mentioned there was a lot of old pictures and family stuff. What to do about that. Well. There aint nothin to do about it I dont reckon. Is there?
No. I dont reckon there is.
I told her to send Uncle Mac's old cinco peso badge and his thumb-buster to the Rangers. I believe they got a museum. But I didnt know what to tell her. There's all that stuff here. In the chifforobe in yonder. That rolltop desk is full of papers. He tilted the cup and looked into the bottom of it.
He never rode with Coffee Jack. Uncle Mac. That's all bull. I dont know who started that. He was shot down on his own porch in Hudspeth County.
That's what I always heard.
They was seven or eight of em come to the house. Wantin this and wantin that. He went back in the house and come out with a shotgun but they was way ahead of him and they shot him down in his own doorway. She run out and tried to stop the bleedin. Tried to get him back in the house. Said he kept tryin to get hold of the shotgun again. They just set there on their horses. Finally left. I dont know why. Somethin scared em, I reckon. One of em said somethin in injun and they all turned and left out. They never come in the house or nothin. She got him inside but he was a big man and they was no way she could of got him up in the bed. She fixed a pallet on the floor. Wasnt nothin to be done. She always said she should of just left him there and rode for help but I dont know where it was she would of rode to. He wouldnt of let her go noway. Wouldnt hardly let her go in the kitchen. He knew what the score was if she didnt. He was shot through the right lung. And that was that. As they say.
When did he die?
Eighteen and seventy-nine.
No, I mean was it right away or in the night or when was it.
I believe it was that night. Or early of the mornin. She buried him herself. Diggin in that hard caliche. Then she just packed the wagon and hitched the horses and pulled out of there and she never did go back. That house burned down sometime back in the twenties. What hadnt fell down. I could take you to it today. The rock chimney used to be standin and it may be yet. There was a good bit of land proved up on. Eight or ten sections if I remember. She couldnt pay the taxes on it, little as they was. Couldnt sell it. Did you remember her?
No. I seen a photograph of me and her when I was about four. She's settin in a rocker on the porch of this house and I'm standin alongside of her. I wish I could say I remember her but I dont.
She never did remarry. Later years she was a schoolteacher. San Angelo. This country was hard on people. But they never seemed to hold it to account. In a way that seems peculiar. That they didnt. You think about what all has happened to just this one family. I dont know what I'm doin here still knockin around. All them young people. We dont know where half of em is even buried at. You got to ask what was the good in all that. So I go back to that. How come people dont feel like this country has got a lot to answer for? They dont. You can say that the country is just the country, it dont actively do nothin, but that dont mean much. I seen a man shoot his pickup truck with a shotgun one time. He must of thought it done somethin. This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it. You understand what I'm sayin?
I think I do. Do you love it?
I guess you could say I do. But I'd be the first one to tell you I'm as ignorant as a box of rocks so you sure dont want to go by nothin I'd say.
Bell smiled. He got up and went to the sink. The old man turned the chair slightly to where he could see him. What are you doin? he said.
I thought I'd just wash these here dishes.
Hell, leave em, Ed Tom. Lupe'll be here in the mornin.
It wont take but a minute.
The water from the tap was gypwater. He filled the sink and added a scoop of soap powder. Then he added another.
I thought you used to have a television set in here.
I used to have a lot of things.
Why didnt you say somethin? I'll get you one.
I dont need one.
Keep you company some.
It didnt quit on me. I throwed it out.
You dont never watch the news?
No. Do you?
Not much.
He rinsed the dishes and left them to drain and stood looking out the window at the little weedgrown yard. A weathered smokehouse. An aluminum two horse trailer on blocks. You used to have chickens, he said.
Yep, the old man said.
Bell dried his hands and came back to the table and sat. He looked at his uncle. Did you ever do anything you was ashamed of to the point where you never would tell nobody?
His uncle thought about that. I'd say I have, he said. I'd say about anybody has. What is it you've found out about me?
I'm serious.
All right.
I mean somethin bad.
How bad.
I dont know. Where it stuck with you.
Like somethin you could go to jail for?
Well, it could be somethin like that I reckon. It wouldnt have to be.
I'd have to think about that.
No you wouldnt.
What's got into you? I aint goin to invite you out here no more.
You didnt invite me this time.
Well. That's true.
Bell sat with his elbows on the table and his hands folded together. His uncle watched him. I hope you aint fixin to make some terrible confession, he said. I might not want to hear it.
Do you want to hear it?
Yeah. Go ahead.
All right.
It aint of a sexual nature is it?
No.
That's all right. Go ahead and tell it anyways.
It's about bein a war hero.
All right. Would that be you?
Yeah. That'd be me.
Go ahead.
I'm tryin to. This is actually what happened. What got me that commendation.
Go ahead.
We was in a forward position monitorin radio signals and we was holed up in a farmhouse. Just a two room stone house. We'd been there two days and it never did quit rainin. Rained like all get-out. Somewhere about the middle of the second day the radio operator had took his headset off and he said: Listen. Well, we did. When somebody said listen you listened. And we didnt hear nothin. And I said: What is it? And he said: Nothin.