Downhearted, I would wait until they let her down. All the
girls would stand around, looking up, looking down, waiting,
trying to see who it was, trying to figure out who was missing,
who got caught, who was pretty, who slowed down.
*
Inside mother was dying and outside, oh, it was incredible to
run, to run, racing heart, around the houses and between the
cars and through the alleys and into the half-open garages and
just up to the boundaries of the block, farther, farther than
you had ever been before, right up to the edge: to run with a
boy chasing you and then to saunter on alone, out of breath,
having run and run and run. If only that had been the game.
But the game was to get caught and put in the cage and hoisted
up the telephone pole, tied by rope. Sometimes they would tie
your hands behind you and sometimes they would put tape
over your mouth. The game was to be the witch and have
them chase you and catch you and put you in a wooden cage
and tie your hands and hoist you up a telephone pole and tie
the rope so the cage would stay up high: you weren’t supposed
to want to be the witch but if you were a girl and running
there was nothing else to want because the game was for the
boys to chase you. Everyone else just stood around waiting
until the boys got bored and tired and let the witch down.
*
The horses were running as fast as they could, Roy Rogers
was sort of standing up on the wagon driving them on,
shouting go boy go faster faster, and you could see the horses
streaking by up and down the roughest mountain roads, the
fringes on his cowboy jacket were all swept back by the wind,
and he looked back over his shoulder as he sort of stood up and
shook the reins so the horses would go faster and shouted how
you doing back there do you like this you uppity little thing or
something like that with his grin from ear to ear like a smartass,
and instead of the covered part of a covered wagon there was
a wooden cage like maybe from a medicine show that had a
circus and transported animals and it was heaving over the
rough roads at the full speed of the horses with Roy making
them go faster and faster and up against the slats Dale Evans
was holding on, her face all dirty, imprisoned in the wooden
cage and saying she would never speak to him and he had
13
better let her go. She had been snotty to him and he had gotten
her in the cage and locked her in and taken off, making the
horses go faster and faster and she was screaming and
screaming for him to stop and saying she never would never
