The cowboy at sunset

short story about redemption

The Cowboy at Sunset

By J. Kayne Keele

 

 

Israel Cloud was quiet and angry, needed money, and hoped that he didn’t have to kill anyone to get it.  His family had been in Arizona since before the territorial days.  His grandfather a serious Navajo man traveled in a wild-west show.  Israel’s half-white father hid his heritage and rode bulls, living a rodeo cowboy’s life.  By the time Israel was born his grandfather was dead, and his father may as well have been.

            Israel couldn’t speak Navajo, and didn’t know about horses or cows, but he could and did shoot a gun, the one tucked inconspicuously in his boxer shorts.  He used it to rob and intimidate.  At fourteen he tried crystal meth, and it was then that he knew he was as empty and dead as everyone else, and he chose a hard life.  Buying; Selling; Killing; Dying.

            He reached around and touched the gun through his shirt.  It was partially plastic- cheaply made, light weight, stolen and lethal.  Touching the handle was a superstition he followed before entering any building.  Today, he could use the luck.

            The building, a flimsy single wide trailer, was dark and lonely, although it was filled with people.  A dumpy old woman answered his knock.

            “Izzy- Pelo’s in his room.”  She said waving him passed. 

A sullen old man and two toddlers watched from the couch but said nothing.   The room was at the end of the hall on the left, he entered without knocking.  It was pitch black even at noon- aluminum foil covered the only window.  Israel picked up a pack of cigarettes from the dresser and tossed them at a man sleeping on the bed- striking him in the face.  “Ahh, damn. What are you doing?”  The sleepy man complained.

“Get up.”  Israel demanded.

“Ahh, What time is it?”

“Get up.”  Israel repeated.

“Alright, what do you want?”  The man asked.

“My money.”  Israel said stating the obvious.

“Damn.  I only got half.  I ain’t even paid my mom rent yet.”

“Give it to me.”  Israel said with the door open, knowing that no one down the hall really cared about their business.

Pelo, the sleeping man, got up from the bed fumbled for a cigarette from the open pack, lit up, then closed the door.  “One-twenty,” he started but was interrupted.

“One sixty.”  Israel dryly interjected.

“All I got is eighty.”

“That’ll do.”  The young business man curtly spoke.

“What am I gonna tell my mom?”  Pelo questioned pathetically.

“What do you always tell her?”  Israel answered with a sharp and honest question.

Pelo took a long puff from his cigarette in response, than passed the half smoked cigarette to Isreal, who in turn took a few drags.  He opened the dresser and pulled out his wallet and counted out eighty-four dollars.  Israel took the money, recounted and folded it away in his pocket.  It was an easy collection, Pelo was a friend.

“The other eighty,” Israel said slowly, “Forget about it.  But I ain’t selling you nothing any more.”

“You mean I gotta drive all the way out to Chevy’s?”  Pelo questioned.

“If you want some rizzo, yeah.  I needed more money than this.  You let me down.  I’m tired of it.”

“Izzy, Izzy, Izzy- Man I got, I got another twenty in my pants pocket.  I just remembered.”

Israel took the twenty and left without a word, he had more money to earn.

In the Succo Housing Projects of Phoenix he found apartment twenty-three.  It was the home of his girl-friend, her brother, and her mom.  The brother owed him three hundred dollars, and had a decent job so he was always good for the money.  His girl friend Chi-Chi, was not so reliable.  As always, before entering he reached around to tap his good luck charm, the gun, then boldly opened without knocking.

“Izzy.”  Chi-Chi said immediately snuggling up to him.  “You come to visit?”

“No.”  He answered shortly as always.

“Aye.”  She groaned. 

“You bring some cookies for mommy?”  She said tickling his belly.  It was revolting to hear her say mommy.  Three months before, she miscarried a boy in the third trimester, most likely his son.  She was a w***e and a liar, but he loved her, at least as he understood love. 

“No I need my money.”  He was all business.

“You know I ain’t got nothing.”  She didn’t have a job.  He hated people without jobs, even though he was convinced that he loved her.

Israel had a job.  Four days per week he was an assistant manager at the One-Stop convenience store.  He was actually a good employee- reliable, punctual, and with decent people skills.  The money he made provided cash flow to help run his real business; selling to small time fools like Chi-Chi’s brother.

Ironically, Israel was good enough at his other job that the store owner had offered him a position managing a store on the Mogollon Rim, near park service land, in the middle of the wilderness.  Israel laughed, imagining himself in a cabin surrounded by pine trees in the middle of nowhere.  Everyone knew Izzy was a big city boy- bright lights; starless nights.

Chi-Chi’s brother paid out, and she sat sulking on the sofa.  He didn’t understand his own emotions, just anger, and was clueless as to the source.  She didn’t know that he didn’t sleep for three and one-half days after the miscarriage; wondering as ‘holiday-only’ Catholics often do if un-baptized babies go to Hell; wondering also, if the boy wasn’t better off dead, than with him and Chi-Chi as his parents.

“Goodbye Chi-Chi.”  He said strutting out the door.  She didn’t respond she was too busy sulking.

The big score was an imposing north Phoenix home.  A judge’s kid; some 17-year-old punk with more money than common sense.  The kid wasn’t to be underestimated however, he was sharp and despite his posh upbringing was an opportunist thug.

Izzy touched the gun just before knocking on the door, this time he held his hand there just a little bit longer, as if trying to squeeze out that extra bit of luck.

“Come on in man.” The kid said with a hip handshake and a smile  “You want a beer or something?  Or maybe smoke a spliff?”

“No I’m cool.  I came for business.”  Israel replied.

“Come in- chill on the couch.  No body’s home I’ll get you a beer anyway.”  The kid handed him a beer and sat opposite to him on an angular leather love seat.  The house was stark and cold, in a strange way drabber than the trailer he had been in that morning.

“I need my money Dylan.  I want a thousand dollars.”  Israel spoke removing all doubt as to his intentions.

“A thousand is a lot and you’re like a week early.”  Dylan said scooting backward and inconspicuously sliding his hand in between one of the cushions.  “I haven’t even moved half of it.”

“If you moved half than that you should have over a thousand already.”  He shrewdly spoke.

“Is that how it is?”  The kid asked his hand fishing for something between the couch cushions.

Izzy instinctually noticed and rested his hand at his side, near his gun.  “Maybe but I got somewhere to be, and since you already got the money you can pay me now.”

The kid shifted his weight so that his left hand slid all the way in between the cushions.  “Where you gotta be?”  He asked in a demanding voice.

“It don’t matter.”  Izzy said.

“I thought we were tight, you know.”  The kid pressed.

“You really want to know?’  Izzy asked.

“Sure.”

“My dads’ funeral.”  Izzy answered quietly.

“Wow, you should have said something.”  The kid sat shocked, his hand still grasping something between the cushions, unsure how to process this new piece of information.

“Don’t be, I hardly knew him.”  Israel spoke honestly.

“He was a cowboy right?”  The kid said removing his hand from amid the cushions to scratch his chin.

“I guess.”

“I wonder what that would have been like?  Those guys were independent, powerful.  Just your horse and a gun.”  The kid spoke with a poetic reverence.

“I guess.”  Izzy repeated unable to muster reverence for his father.

Calmly the kid got up and went into his bedroom.  Izzy cautiously watched never moving his hand away from his gun.

Dylan emerged with $847.  “This is it.”  He swore.  “If you want to take a look at what I got left you can do the math.

Israel looked over the meth and did a running tally in his head.  Separating each and every individual baggie; nickels, dimes, etcetera.  He left not a single bag untouched.  Dylan hovered behind, an uncomfortably close distance; close enough to stick a knife in Izzy’s back.  Izzy turned around.  “Hey, you got another beer in the fridge?”

“I’ll get you one.”  Dylan answered.

Izzy continued his work but watched, he knew if the kid went back into the living room first, it meant he was going for whatever weapon was hidden in the couch, and he’d have to shoot him.

The kid did head toward the living room, but stopped just shy, grabbed Izzy’s empty bottle from the table, and went to the kitchen.

When he returned Israel diagnosed, “This should be $1,047.”

“Yeah I spent some money on my girl.”  The kid admitted.

“Alright, I’ll take it as is.”  Israel conceded.

Izzy decided to recount the money to be sure, halfway through his count the kid disappeared, as calmly as possible he completed the count and pocketed the money.  Afterwards, in the living room, the kid sat on the love seat which had been neatly tidied, the cushions were no longer askew.  “Talk to you later.”  He said, extending his right hand to shake, and snaking his left hand behind his back, ready to draw.  The kid shook his hand, arose and showed him the door.

As the door closed Israel heard the deadbolt click, a great relief; he didn’t want to kill the kid.

Israel had lied about his father’s funeral.  The funeral was today, but he wasn’t going.  The same corpse in that funeral home; was the corpse who would visit him in childhood; lifeless and broken.  No there was no point in going to the funeral.

Instead he drove out to the Gila River where his father had taken him in one of their few happy memories together.  Then it was a polluted and dirty place akin to a sewage plant, today it was cleaned up to his surprise.

He pulled an envelope from his glove box.  He signed a paper with a serious expression, and fished the money from his pocket, placing both items in the envelope.  He took out a pen and began writing an explanation to Chi-Chi.  He wasn’t a writer, but he needed to tell her why he was doing what he was about to do, and why he would never see her again.  It was neat and clean, so he folded it with perfect creases, and placed everything in the glove box.

Later, down by the river, he took his shoes and socks off and stood in the shallows.  The gurgling river reminded him of the humming freeway heard in his apartment bedroom, he wondered if he would miss the noise.  He tapped the gun at his back for luck, but wasn’t ready yet.

“The last of the cowboys.”  He spoke, “The cowboy is dead.”

Izzy had lost a son and a father.  He wondered if he too was a cowboy simply by default.  A cowboy should die with honor.  His son died too soon, his father too late.  It didn’t seem just.

He pulled bags of crystal meth from his pockets, big rocks he’d just stolen from the kid, and ground them to dust in his hands, sprinkling the ashy mixture in the river.  At last he could do what he knew he must.  He reached around and removed the gun from his waist band it felt light and oddly fake.

“Is this life?’  He questioned himself and perhaps God, wondering if he knew how it felt to be alive.  “I got no one- no one.”  It wasn’t fair.  He’d been on his own since the first time his mom went to jail.  “I didn’t have a chance,” he said in defeat.

He fired an echoing shot in the river; down into the water.  As always the gun overwhelmed his senses; sight, sound, smell, taste, touch.  He thought of the dirt-bag gang banger he’d shot- Izzy was sixteen then.  He remembered pointing the same gun at the liquor store clerk, the fear in her old eyes.  He didn’t know remorse then, but in the river today, he understood.  If he saw himself today, that punk in the liquor store, he’d blast himself out of existence.

He understood that he didn’t have the power, the gun did, and the lifestyle did.  All along he had been powerless.  With a firm grip, and a steely resolve he held that gun in his right hand, and with the left he pulled the clip from the weapon.  One by one, cautiously he emptied the bullets into the river.  When finished he mightily flung the gun up stream.

“When I die, my son will go to my funeral.”  He promised himself, and again perhaps God as well.  “I’m not my father.”

Trudging up the bank he was a new person.  In the car, he opened the glove box and eyed the Mogollon Rim cabin lease.  It was then that he heard the police siren.  In his rear view mirror he saw the roving light, and the familiar black Sherriff’s car.  “Damn how did I miss him?”  He said instinctually feeling for his gun, but his good luck charm was gone, he felt legitimate terror.

The officer approached in a stiff and serious manner, hand placed obviously on his holster.  “Sir, we had a complaint of a possible gun shot out here?”  The cop said interrogatively.  “Did you hear anything?”

“I think so, but I didn’t see anyone else down by the river.”  Izzy answered slyly.

“Hmmm.  Well I saw you coming up the bank, and you obviously didn’t have a gun.”  The silver haired cop said suspiciously eyeing him.  “What were you doing down there?”

Izzy was silent and thoughtful for a moment.  “It’s my dad’s funeral today, I came here to think.”  He answered sincerely.

            The cop eyed him, searching for a clue from his demeanor, but he found no fault.  “So, if I find a dead body down there, I’ve got your license plate, can I see your ID too, so I know who to arrest?”  The cop said dryly- there were a dozen body dumps in the Gila River each year.

“If there was a body down there; would have been mine.”  Israel said with more honesty than he knew he was capable of having with an officer.

The cop glanced down, the ID matched the registration.  He left to run the ID.

Israel awaited impending arrest.  He had no warrants but a record.  He knew the cop would find some reason to arrest him.

“Quite a record you got there...”  The officer said returning and giving him back his ID.

“Twenty years worth.  Since the day I was born”    Izzy answered knowing the nest step would be the officer asking him to get out of the car.

“Are you okay kid?”  The deputy asked switching duties, from serving to protecting, just a hint of worry in his voice.

“I’m cool.”  Israel answered shortly. 

“You can go.  You take care, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I will.”  Israel said but the cop just nodded in a hopeful way, moved by the young man’s plight.

Izzy aimlessly drove away with no particular destination, later that evening, he eyed the sunset over the White Tank Mountains.  His lease started in a week, until then he could sleep in his car.  Deciding to take the long way around, he drove toward the mountains and the Arizona sunset.