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.
I said What the hell are you talkin about, nothin? What did you hear? And he said: I mean you cant hear nothin. Listen. And he was right. There was not a sound nowheres. No field-piece or nothin. All you could hear was the rain. And that was about the last thing I remember. When I woke up I was layin outside in the rain and I dont know how long I'd been layin there. I was wet and cold and my ears was ringin and whenever I set up and looked the house was gone. Just part of the wall at one end was standin was all. A mortarshell had come through the wall and just blowed it all to hell. Well, I couldnt hear a thing. I couldnt hear the rain or nothin. If I said somethin I could hear it inside my head but that was all. I got up and walked over to where the house was and there was sections of the roof layin over a good part of it and I seen one of our men buried in them rocks and timbers and I tried to move some stuff to see if I couldnt get to him. My whole head just felt numb. And while I was doin that I raised up and looked out and here come these German riflemen across this field. They was comin out of a patch of woods about two hundred yards off and comin across this field. I still didnt know exactly what had happened. I was kindly in a daze. I crouched down there by the side of the wall and the first thing I seen was Wallace's.30 caliber stickin out from under some timbers. That thing was aircooled and it was belt fed out of a metal box and I figured if I let em run up a little more on me I could operate on em out there in the open and they wouldnt call in another round cause they'd be too close. I scratched around and finally got that thing dug out, it
