Cowboy For a Rainy Afternoon by Stephen Bly

Author:Stephen Bly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new mexico, cowboys, 1954, stephen bly
Publisher: Bly Books

CHAPTER 31

“It ain’t like Miss Diane to make a mess, then walk off and leave it,” Shorty said.

“How do we know what she’d do?” Thad said. “Until a few hours ago, we hadn’t spoken to her much.”

“Except for Quirt. He seems to know his way around the back room,” Bronc said.

“If you are accusin’ me of somethin’, you better make it clear,” Quirt fumed.

Thad grinned.

“What does that remind you of, Pop?”

Granddaddy patted my head, then pulled his fixings out of his shirt pocket. He rolled another quirley.

“The time the Rockfield twins said the same words to ol’ Navel-Less.”

Thad motioned to Granddaddy and he passed the tobacco fixings.

“Navel told them it would be healthier for ever’one if there were six mules in the corral when he finished eatin’ his supper.”

“Was he in the Navy, Granddaddy?” I asked.

“No, Little Brother. He didn’t have a bellybutton, so he got the nickname, Navel-Less. And one of the twins said, either Albert or Alfred, ‘If you are accusin’ us of somethin’, you’d better make it clearer than that.’“

“But a man has to have a bellybutton,” I protested.

“Ol’ Navel pulled out his revolver and laid it on the table to the right of his plate,” Thad said. “Then he yanked out his boot gun and laid it to the left.”

“Everyone has a belly button,” I complained louder.

“Adam and Eve didn’t,” Shorty said.

Granddaddy ignored us both.

“Waving a steak knife as big as ol’ Jim Bowie’s, Navel hollered loud enough for ever’one on both sides of the Rio Grande to hear.”

“What do you mean, Adam and Eve didn’t have belly buttons?” I insisted.

“As I recollect,” Thad chimed in, “Navel called them horse thieves, drunkards, slackers, moral degenerates, and an embarrassment to humanity, and he’d be happy to be more specific if there was any part they didn’t savvy.”

Coosie leaned back on the brown leather sofa and roared with laughter.

“Ol’ Navel was about the best there was at sizin’ a man up and puttin’ him in his place.”

Shorty leaned toward granddaddy and me.

“Little Brother, a belly-button is a scar where you used to be tethered to your mama before you were born. Adam and Eve got created direct by the Good Lord, so they didn’t have no scar.”

Granddaddy lit his hand-rolled cigarette and took a slow puff.

“The line that sticks in my mind was when Navel called them ‘worthless dung in the corral of life.’“

Thad handed Granddaddy’s fixin’s back.

“Ol’ Navel was beggin’ for a fight, that’s for sure.”

I yanked off my straw cowboy hat and rubbed my forehead, then glanced at Shorty.

“You mean Navel-Less didn’t have a mama?”

“I think Navel would have loved to have an excuse to ‘clean the corral’, if you catch my drift,” Granddaddy said.

“Of course he had a mama, Little Brother,” Shorty reassured me.

Granddaddy took another drag on his quirley.

“One of the twins growled, ‘Are we goin’ to let him talk to us like that?’”

Shorty lowered his voice and aimed it right at me.

“Navel got injured in the Spanish War. He took a bayonet in the belly.

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