The boy asked no questions. Dodd pulled his horse toward the road and the boy followed. Out of sight of Laker’s house, Dodd reined in until the boy was riding beside him. The paint was new-broke and the boy had to work to let her know who was in charge, but he was doing well. Dodd said nothing but he watched with pride as the boy worked the horse and slowly brought her to his will. The boy said nothing but he knew that the pride in Dodd’s face was for him. He said nothing but he felt plenty. For the first time he could remember he felt like he meant something to someone and he felt safe.
The boy had seen something in Dodd right from the start. He sensed that if he played his cards right, things could get better for him. Dodd never interfered when a Laker was beating the boy but the boy saw that Dodd was watching. He saw that with each beating or cursing there was new fire in Dodd’s eyes and a new resolve to his efforts. Dodd had never said he would take the boy, in fact, they almost never talked but the boy sensed that it was just a matter of time before the Lakers went too far. The boy had gone out of his way to see that he got more than the usual amount of beatings.
Dodd had not been completely sure what he was going to do about the boy until the previous day. The boy had been told to scrub clothes on the washboard but instead he sat on the top rail of the corral and watched Dodd gentle-down those horses. The boy had been there for about half an hour before the woman noticed him. She yelled at Laker to do something about that lazy little bastard and Laker, who had been sitting in the shade drinking whiskey, came up behind the boy and cuffed him so hard on the side of the head that the boy was knocked off the fence into the corral, almost under the hooves of the bucking horse. Dodd knew then that it was either take the boy or hear him dead.
Although Dodd had said nothing, the boy sensed then that he would be going with Dodd. He saw the fire in Dodd’s eyes and the resolve in his face fade into a kind of calm determination. He knew that Dodd had come to a decision. When he woke that morning he had placed his only personal possession, a picture of his mother and father, in the chest pocket of his bib overalls. He knew he had spent his last night on the Laker place.
“You’re holdin’ that horse good, boy.”
The boy looked at Dodd, smiled but said nothing. He had watched and listened to Laker and Dodd, at first with a sense of satisfaction, even delight and finally with amazement and a feeling that he didn’t know quite how to put a name on. The satisfaction came from watching Dodd face Laker down. The amazement came when he heard Dodd say, “I’ve took to him.” The new, strange feeling was because the boy knew what that meant. It meant that Dodd not only wanted to protect him but that he liked him, that he had liked him enough to work extra hard and to have been ready to fight for him. All of that took some thinking. That was not the way any grown person had thought on him before. This was not a time for talking. How do you talk when you’re feeling something you don’t understand? Dodd respected the boy’s silence and let him be.
Dodd had hoped to be back on Roker’s line by evening. He had promised Roker he’d be back Saturday night and that he’d stay on until at least the end of May—that would be six more weeks. Dodd was sure that as soon as the roundup started, he’d be off the line. It would have been better on the line because the boy would have been fine staying with him in the line shack and Dodd knew he would have enjoyed the company. He had almost decided to stay with Roker through the summer but the boy had changed that. Dodd would stay as long as he had promised unless Roker didn’t want the boy on the place. If that happened, promise or not, he’d take the boy and go home. An idea was beginning to form in his mind that he believed would make a lot of people, including the boy, and especially his brother Jared, very happy.
But it was late afternoon and Dodd was still in Lawton. He reckoned now they’d have to stay the night. Even though they’d gotten an early start—they had left Laker’s at about six thirty and were in town by eight—the whole process had become much more complicated than Dodd had expected. They ate breakfast in the cafe, something the boy had never done before and which obviously excited him. Dodd was pleased and amused at the boy’s excitement. The boy deserved to be well treated and to be fed a good meal and the way the boy went after the eggs and steak pleased Dodd. But the boy was also proud so he did not want to show too much emotion. He tried to act as if he did this sort of thing every day and he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding his boyish excitement and that amused Dodd. Knowing how the boy had lived, Dodd marveled that he had been able to maintain his pride and had not lost the exuberance of a little boy.
Before they went to the sheriff’s office, Dodd bought the boy some decent clothes then took him to the barber shop for a bath and a haircut. Aside from telling Dodd what he wanted to eat and which boots he liked best, the boy had still said nothing. Dodd still did not push him to talk. He knew from having watched the boy two weeks that that would come.
When told where the boy had been, the sheriff flew into a rage. “We’re goin’ right over to Judge Glenn’s office. That damn Scotsman’s been told about sending young ’uns to the likes of Laker.
Judge Glenn was delighted to see Dodd again. “How long’s it been, boy? When did you get back from the east? Did those folks at Harvard teach you anything useful? Luke said you read the law but you must be a slow learner. Took you a hell of a lot longer to learn the law than it took me. What you doin’ in that cowpoke getup? You’re a big-shot Harvard-educated lawyer.”
“Good to see you, too, Uncle Henry. From your questions I assume that you haven’t talked to Dad for the past year, or are you holding a grand jury investigation?” Both men laughed.
“A lot of questions, I know but it’s been too long, boy. Tell me all about it.”
“I did read the law at Harvard but I also became interested in medicine so I stayed and read that too. That’s why I was gone so long. I’ve been back almost a year but I needed to do a little growing up before I decided which discipline to pursue as a career. I guess you’d have to say that I’ve become a saddle tramp. I’ve been working for Jess Roker since the last roundup and I promised to stay with him through this one.”
“You’ve been with Jess for a year and haven’t come to see me? What’s a Harvard trained doctor and lawyer doing punchin’ Jess Roker’s cows?”
“You’ve known me since I was born, Uncle Henry, and you know that I was not brought up in the Forrest tradition. I became a spoiled, selfish, lazy, dependant little imp.”
“Well, you were a demanding, outspoken little shit but you’re being a bit hard on yourself, aren’t you, Dodd?”
“Uncle Henry, I had lived all my life with honest, hardworking folks. I thought I was like everyone I knew. I thought when I was ten years old that I knew as much as my older brothers. I did learn quickly and Dad often said he was proud of me but my people pitied me too much. When I got to Harvard I was completely disgusted by the pompous shallowness of many people I met but it was meeting them that made me realize that I was really no different then they were. I was just as pompous and shallow and a great deal less sophisticated. I didn’t like them and I didn’t like myself. Dad convinced me to finish my schooling but he did agree that I should take time to make a man of myself when I got back. I deeply admire my father. I thought I’d try to make a man of myself the way he did—and for that matter, the way you did, Uncle Henry. I didn’t come to see you because I had to make it on my own—not because I was Luke Forrest’s son or Henry Glenn’s friend.”
Henry Glenn was not a blood relative of the Forrests but he and Luke Forrest had become great friends when they were young men doing what Dodd was doing now. They did not have Dodd’s advantages but they had the same determination to amount to something.
Luke Forrest and Henry Glenn became partners in a small ranch which, through hard work, they had made successful. But Henry had always wanted to read the law. He sold his half to Luke, went to St. Louis, studied hard and became a very successful lawyer.
He became very wealthy and progressively more and more unhappy. He had no taste for ranching but the mountains and the prairie were too much in him. He finally had all he could take, sold his St. Louis practice and hung out his shingle in Lawton.
The decision had cost him his marriage. His wife was very much involved in the St. Louis social whirl. She could not abide the thought of leaving her literary societies and self-assumed importance. Their only child had died very young so there was really nothing to hold him. She stayed in St. Louis but it had never been much of a marriage anyway.
“I need to tell you about this boy, Uncle Henry. Jess loaned me to Eli Laker to break horses. Laker had this boy on the place and you can imagine how he was being treated.”
Dodd didn’t have a chance to say more. Henry Glenn’s eyes flashed and he took on a look of anger and exasperation. He was almost shouting when he said, “I don’t know how many times I’ve told that damn stubborn Angus McGurdy to watch who he bound children to. This is the end of it. The man’s got to be a damn fool or the meanest son-of-a-bitch God ever created to send a boy to Laker. We’re goin’ out there and have it out with that pompous bastard right now.”
“This is not my problem, Uncle Henry. I may be Harvard educated but I’m still a Forrest. I came close to killing Laker this morning and I think I would have enjoyed it. I don’t want to have to talk to a man who would put a boy with someone like Laker.”
“I want that damn Scot to hear first hand what you saw. Then I’m going to put a court order on him and if he ever does anything like this again, I’ll jail him.”
As quiet as he’d been since Dodd took him from Laker, the boy surprised Dodd by asking, as soon as he saw Angus McGurdy, “Where’s Ervin?” There was an edge and a sass to the boy’s tone and McGurdy moved toward the boy, his hand raised to strike. It occurred to him, however, that the judge was there and he did a funny little dance to retain his balance as he withheld the blow.
McGurdy had fire in his eyes and rage in his voice. “Children should be seen and not heard and speak only when spoken to. You just leave Ervin be. He’s trouble enough without your evil influence.” Again, as with Laker, Dodd had to force himself to refrain from giving the man a good beating.
Angus McGurdy was a tall, pinched-faced man not much older than Dodd. He had, however, adopted the demeanor and authority of a much older man. His life was as humorless as his Calvinism was rigid. Everything, in his mind was foreordained by God, so, if it happened, it was the Will of God. It was a very comfortable way to believe. It made it unnecessary for him to ever consider his actions for he was one of the Elect. God would not allow him to do anything that was not His will. He was, therefore, not the least bit concerned by Dodd’s explanation of the boy’s treatment at the hands of the Lakers.
His brogue was thick and his explanation unbelievable. “The boy’s name is Peter John Stevens. His parents were going to California on a wagon train but they died of typhoid. They left no record of family nor any record of where the boy was born. He was no more than six months old when the wagon master brought him to me.
“Weak and sickly as he was, he should have died but he had the devil in him. He was too stubborn to accept the will of God and the older he got, the worse he got. The Lord saw the evil in him and took his family for punishment. The Lord sent Eli Laker to rack his vengeance on this evil child of the devil.”
Henry Glenn, his face red and the veins in his neck bulging, struggled to control his temper. “How can a six-month old baby have the devil in him?”
“We are all born with the sin of our original parents on us. Every baby is nothing but a small bundle of total depravity. God chooses who He will save and who He will damn. This boy is one of the damned and you are doing a dangerous thing, Judge Glenn, interfering with God’s wrath and His Will.”
Dodd had heard this kind of argument before. It was a common point of view among the arrogant blue-bloods whose families had become rich exploiting their workers and excusing it all by comforting themselves with the thought that every detail of life was foreordained by God so if they became rich as a result of other people’s misery, they were simply implementing the Will of God. That pompous defilement of the scripture and of John Calvin’s theology angered Dodd when he was a student at Harvard and it angered him now.
Theology was required reading for all Harvard students and, although he did not pursue it as a major area of study, he had found it to be interesting and much of his recreational reading was done in that area. He had long ago developed, in his mind, a powerful reaction to such arguments. Now he had heard enough. He could no longer stay silent.
“Sir, I have had the opportunity to read theology at Harvard College. I have met many who argue as you do and I have considered carefully their arguments. I have come to this conclusion. God, not man, is the judge of who are the Elect but He has made very clear in the scriptures how those Elect will act and think and deal with their fellow men. The scripture also makes quite clear that there is one sin which cannot be forgiven. That is the sin of blasphemy. Defined in its simplest terms, blasphemy is insulting God.
“I agree, sir, man is by nature sinful. But Christ, through his life as recorded in the Bible and through his atonement showed us the way of God.
“The Bible teaches us how to live as Christ lived. It teaches us to forgive and to love and to share and to care lovingly for all of God’s children. It states very clearly that judgment is God’s prerogative. But too many people read the scripture, not to learn God’s ways, but to prove that what they already are is God’s way.
“The scripture is very clear that man’s nature is finite—God’s is infinite. No man has the right to assume God’s prerogative, to place himself on a level with God. If you will recall, Sir, it was for that reason that Satan was cast out of heaven. You, Sir, have acted with vengeance, arrogance and cruelty. You have made judgments that are God’s alone to make. Those, Sir, are fruits of the flesh, not of the spirit. To ascribe man’s evil actions to God is an insult to God. It is blasphemy, Sir, and I will not listen to more of it.”
Angus McGurdy stood dumbfounded. He had learned his rigid Calvinism as a boy in Scotland but, as do many ‘Christians’, he had chosen to remember only those parts that served his selfish purposes. He was of essentially weak character, unsure of his ability and extremely afraid of criticism. He protected his fragile ego by making a weapon of God and he had been bludgeoning his way through life with it throughout his entire adulthood. Never before had anyone challenged him. Of course, most of the people he came in contact with were children who were easily bullied, or unschooled people who knew him to be a hypocrite but did not have the theological knowledge to challenge him. Since his thinking was never challenged, he assumed that it could not be and became all the more bold in its pronouncement and radical in its application.
McGurdy was not a theological scholar. He could not use the rules of theological debate to refute Dodd so he did as he had always done. He tried to bully him. “You are placing your soul in eternal danger, young man.”
Young man? McGurdy’s pompous and condescending manner almost amused Dodd. Had Dodd not already been angry, it would have been funny. McGurdy was no more than two or three years older than Dodd.
McGurdy continued, “You are not to question the Will of God nor are you to touch His anointed. I would pray for you but I feel that you are already damned and beyond the reach of my prayer.”
“I shall allow God to be the judge of that. As for you, Sir, I will pray God’s forgiveness for you for I fear you have offended his ‘little ones’ and are in grave danger. You would be better off, I fear, to have a millstone placed around your neck and be cast into the sea.”
Angus McGurdy was furious and frustrated. He could think of nothing more to say.
Henry Glenn’s amusement at Dodd’s puncturing of McGurdy’s pomposity was obvious. It was with a twinkle in his eye and obvious sarcasm in his voice that he said, “I’m telling you now, McGurdy, from this day forward, any child you bind out will have to be with my approval. I withdraw the right I gave you to sign the legal papers which bind a child. I’ll let God make the decision about the millstone and the sea. But if you go against my direction, I’ll place irons around your legs and cast your ass in jail. I’ve already signed the papers giving custody of the boy to Doddson Forrest. All I have to do is fill in his name. What was that again?”
Dodd answered, “Peter John Stevens.”
McGurdy did not quite grasp the significance of the Judge’s words. “That boy is bound to Eli Laker. He must go back. Mr. Laker may have a heavy hand but that’s what this boy needs. He has not learned proper humility. He is an orphan. He is not a regular boy. But look at him standing there now, defiance on his face and pride in his heart. He must learn humility and obedience. He must learn to be thankful to those who apply the rod of chastisement. He must learn that it is by our benevolence that he is alive.”
Dodd had intended to say no more but he could not hold his tongue. “What, Sir, is the difference between an orphan and a regular boy? The scripture I read says that all are equal in the eyes of God. Yes, the boy must learn to be thankful but not to you, Sir. And it is not because of you that he is alive. God gave him life and it is to God he must be thankful. If he is to be an honorable man, he must learn respect. But he must learn to respect only respectable things. It is my deepest hope, Sir, that he never learns to respect the likes of you.”
“You, young man, are a vile sinner who…”
Henry Glenn had heard all he wanted to listen to. “I want you to do two things, McGurdy. First of all, shut your damn mouth, and second, remember what I said about binding children. Dodd, bring your boy and let’s go. I’ve had about all the religion I can take at one time.”
As late as it was, Dodd agreed to stay the night with Uncle Henry. The Judge still had business at his office and told Dodd to go on out to his place by the river, some three miles out of town. Again Pete rode quiet. All his life he had known nothing but McGurdy’s harshness and Laker’s cruelty but he had known they were not right. He had talked to children who had become orphans after having known loving homes so he knew there was something else out there. He didn’t know exactly what it was but he felt he saw whatever it was in Dodd. He had watched Dodd face Laker down and talk McGurdy down. He had thought the things Dodd had said about how McGurdy used God, but he could never put his thoughts into words. He wondered how Dodd, who had seen McGurdy only once in his life, could know him so good to say to him just what needed sayin’.
Pete had never hated McGurdy, He wouldn’t let anyone, even Laker, have that much effect on him. He knew from a very young age that if he hated someone, they were controlling him. But it did make Pete feel good to hear Dodd get the better of McGurdy.
But it was the things Dodd kept saying about him that took up most of Pete’s thinking. He was thinking so hard that he almost didn’t hear Dodd.
“Peter. That’s a fine name. There was a Peter in the Bible who talked too much. I see you don’t take after him. You’ve hardly said a word since we left Laker’s.”
“Got plenty to say. Just ain’t got the words to say it with.”
Dodd understood. He had seen the relief and relaxation in the boy as they rode away from Laker’s. He saw a growing admiration and perhaps even affection in the boy’s eyes. When he looked at those eyes now, he saw a yearning in them—and the hint of tears.
It had been a long time since Dodd had been hugged by his father but he remembered the good feeling it gave him. He saw that was what Pete needed now. He reined over, pulled the boy to him and wrapped his arms around him. Pete, although he could not remember being hugged before, let his yearning take over and he squeezed with a strength that surprised Dodd coming from so small a body.
“I think I understand how you feel, Pete. Those feelings are hard to put into words but you don’t have to. You feel good because of what I’ve done for you. I understand that but you have to understand that I get good feelings just from having you with me.”
“See, you done it again. It ain’t so much what you done. I can thank you for that and I do. But them things you keep sayin’ about me. Hardly nobody never said nothin’ good about me. Them things you say about me and just how you do me give me a feelin’ I never had before. Don’t know if I should laugh or cry but I get the feelin’ that the way we is holdin’ on to each other is kind of sayin’ it for me.”
“Haven’t you ever been hugged before?”
“Can’t remember of it.”
“I guess you’re right, Pete. Hugging does say more than any words can. When I was your size, I took all I could get from my daddy and I see now that he was getting something from it too.
“And about those things people said about you: They had to be blind as bats. Anyone half looking can see that you’re a special kind of boy. I like you very much, you know that and I can see that you like me. Folks who like each other don’t always have to be saying it. You just be you and give me a hug now and then. That will say all that needs to be said.”
They rode quietly again. Pete still had not thought out all he was feeling but the hug and what Dodd said did help some. He had always been one to say what he thought and to ask what he wanted to know and he wanted to know something now.
“How come you talk so different to McGurdy and that Judge than you did to Laker?”
“Well, I guess it’s because when in Rome you should do as the Romans do.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means things just work out better when you act and talk as much like the folks you’re with as you can. Right now, I need to be a cowpoke and I want to get along with folks. You heard me tell Uncle Henry that I have been at Harvard. That’s a very important college in the east but it’s not very important to folks around here. The way I talked to Uncle Henry is the proper way to talk at Harvard and to people like Uncle Henry but the way I talked to Laker is the proper way to talk to folks like him. It’s somewhat like if you don’t speak Spanish to most Mexican folks they won’t know what you’re talking about.”
Henry Glenn had a new-killed haunch of venison hanging in his smokehouse. Dodd found enough ingredients in Henry’s garden and in his larder to have a nice stew prepared by the time Henry got home. Dodd was pleased with himself. He was not a good cook but this stew had turned out well. Pete ate heartily and laughed at some of Uncle Henry’s jokes, most of which he didn’t understand but he laughed because Dodd laughed. He still said very little. He was feeling more and more at ease and the significance of the day’s events was beginning to sink in but, for the first time in his life, he didn’t have to be aggressive to be heard and he realized that he didn’t know how to join in a conversation when he was welcome to do so. He wanted to talk and he knew that he would not be hit or yelled at if he did but he had never heard a conversation like this one.
Dodd and Uncle Henry were just talking. They weren’t fighting. They weren’t yelling at each other. They weren’t angry or distant. Pete wanted to be like they were but he was afraid if he said something it would come out sassy or mad. So, he listened and laughed and reveled in the atmosphere of friendliness and especially in Dodd’s presence.
Pete reluctantly went to bed when Dodd sent him. He really didn’t want Dodd out of his sight. Consciously he knew better, but he couldn’t get the fear out of his head that if he went to sleep, Dodd and all this new feeling would be gone in the morning.
Henry Glenn talked wistfully and sadly about the son who had died at age ten. “He’d be twenty-four years old now. They say there’s nothing better than the love of a good woman. I had a woman and I reckon I’d have to say she was good but I can’t say she loved me so I don’t know if that’s true. But I can tell you that there can’t be much that tops the love and devotion of a son. I had that, Dodd, and if I think about it too much, it still breaks my heart. That boy looks at you the way Harry looked at me. He may not know it, the way he’s been treated, but that boy loves you, Dodd, and that’s a treasure I’m not sure you deserve. If you’re going to keep on saddle trampin’ for a while, what you going to do with him? If you just go off and leave him somewhere, you’ll break his heart.”
“I’ll keep him with me until I go back home. If Jess don’t want him on the place, I’ll go now. I’d like to keep my word and go after the roundup but the boy comes first.
“I’ve seen how he feels about me and I’m concerned about it. I don’t know if one can learn to love someone this soon but I feel something very strongly for Pete. That’s the problem. I’m not ready to settle down but I think I have a solution to the problem. You know my brother Jared’s Libby has never been able to carry a baby full term. Pete’s about the age of the first one she lost. He’s a fine boy and I know Jared and Libby would be proud to have him for a son. I thought I’d stay home long enough for Pete to get to feel toward Jared and Libby the way he feels toward me. He’ll be my nephew and he’ll have a much better home than I can give him right now.”
“He’ll never feel toward Jared and Libby the way he feels about you but I reckon that is a good solution to the problem. But revel in his love while you’ve got him, Dodd. Lord willin’, you’ll have your own son someday but then you may not. I hope you do. I don’t want you to get to be an old man like I am and have only the heartbreaking memories of what you lost.”
Pete, who was accustomed to long days of hard work, usually had no problem falling asleep. Now, however, he lay awake. He had had a physically very easy day so he was not really tired. Had it been anyone but Dodd who sent him to bed, he would have refused to go. He knew when he was tired and needed to go to bed and that certainly wasn’t now. It was almost an instinct for him to rebel against whatever didn’t make sense to him. But his ‘feeling’—whatever it was—made him willing to do anything to please Dodd. Along with the fact that he was not tired, there was all that thinking to be done. He heard Uncle Henry say, “He may not know it … but that boy loves you.” Well, Uncle Henry was wrong. Pete knew what love was and he knew that he loved Dodd. Dodd had said that maybe he loved Pete too. It worried Pete some when he heard Dodd talking about leaving him with someone else but when he thought about that, he kind of lost that new feeling and felt some of the old fears and anger. He was not angry at Dodd. He was sure that Dodd would never do anything bad to him but thinking about the future had always scared him and when he was scared, he was angry. He convinced himself that if Dodd thought Jared would be good for him, so did he. Pete dozed off and on but never really slept until he was aware that Dodd was in bed with him. Then he could allow himself to feel safe as he had while riding away from Laker’s. He felt his body relax, moved closer to Dodd, and fell into a deep sleep.
Copyright © 2003 Gordon L. Klopfenstein