four-bit piece and he said, ‘Go buy yourself a candy stick, kid.’ That’s how I
got the name.”
“What name?” I asked.
“The Candystick Kid,” Mr. Cathcoate answered. “Mr. Earp came to my house
to have dinner. My dad was a farmer. We didn’t have much, but we fed Mr. Earp
as best we could. He gave me Billy Clanton’s gun and holster as a gift for
savin’ his life.” Mr. Cathcoate shook his scraggly-maned head. “I should’ve
thrown that damn gun down the well, like my momma wanted me to.”
“Why?”
“’Cause,” he said, and here he seemed to get irritable and agitated, “I
liked it too much, that’s why! I started learnin’ how to use it! Started
likin’ its smell, and its weight, and how it felt warm in my hand after it had
just gone off, and how that bottle I was aimin’ at flew all to pieces in a
heartbeat, that’s why.” He scowled as if he’d just had a taste of bitter
fruit. “Started shootin’ birds out of the sky, and believin’ I was a
quick-draw artist. Then it started workin’ on my mind, wonderin’ how fast I
could be against some other boy with a gun. I kept practicin’, kept slappin’
that leather and pullin’ that hogleg out time and again. And when I was
sixteen years old I went to Yuma in a stagecoach and I killed a gunslinger
there name of Edward Bonteel, and that’s when I put a foot in hell.”
“Ol’ Owen here got to be quite a name,” Mr. Dollar said as he brushed the
clipped hairs from Dad’s shoulders. “The Candystick Kid, I mean. How many
fellas did you send to meet their Maker, Owen?” Mr. Dollar looked at me and
quickly winked.
“I killed fourteen men,” Mr. Cathcoate said. There was no pride in his
voice. “Fourteen men.” He stared at the red and black squares of the
checkerboard. “Youngest was nineteen. Oldest was forty-two. Maybe some of ’em
deserved to die. Maybe that’s not for me to say. I killed ’em, every one, in
fair fights. But I was lookin’ to kill ’em. I was lookin’ to make a big name
for myself, be a big man. The day I got shot by a younger, faster fella, I
decided I was livin’ on borrowed time. I cleared out.”
“You got shot?” I asked. “Where’d it hit you?”
“Left side. But I aimed better. Shot that fella through the forehead,
smack dab. My gunfightin’ days were over, though. I headed east. Wound up
here. That’s my story.”
“Still got that gun and holster, don’t you, Candystick?” Mr. Dollar
inquired.
Mr. Cathcoate didn’t reply. He sat there, motionless. I thought he’d gone
to sleep, though his heavy-lidded eyes were still open. Then, abruptly, he
stood up from his chair and walked on stiffened legs to where Mr. Dollar was
standing. He pushed his face toward Mr. Dollar’s, and I saw his expression in
the mirror; Mr. Cathcoate’s age-spotted face was grim and thin-lipped, like a
skull bound up with brown leather. Mr. Cathcoate’s mouth split open in a
smile, but it was not a happy smile. It was a terrible smile, and I saw Mr.
Dollar shrink back from it.
“Perry,” Mr. Cathcoate said, “I know you think I’m an old fool half out
of my head. I accept the fact that you laugh at me when you think I’m not
lookin’. But if I didn’t have eyes in the back of my head, Perry, I wouldn’t
be alive right now.”
“Uh… uh… why, no, Owen!” Mr. Dollar blubbered. “I’m not laughin’ at you!
Honest!”
“Now you’re either lyin’, or callin’ me a liar,” the old man said, and
something about the soft way he said that made my bones grow cold.
“I’m… sorry if you think I’m—”
“Yes, I still have the gun and holster,” Mr. Cathcoate interrupted him.
“I kept ’em for old time’s sake. Now, you understand this, Perry.” He leaned
in closer, and Mr. Dollar tried to smile but he only summoned up a weak grin.
“You can call me Owen, or Mr. Cathcoate. You can call me Hey, you or Old Man.
But you’re not to call me by my gunfighter name. Not today, not tomorrow, not
ever. Do we see eye to eye on that, Perry?”
“Owen, there’s no call to be—”
“Do we see eye to eye?” Mr. Cathcoate repeated.
“Uh… yeah. We do. Sure.” Mr. Dollar nodded. “Whatever you say, Owen.”
“No, not whatever I say. Just this.”
“Okay. No problem.”
Mr. Cathcoate stared into Mr. Dollar’s eyes for another few seconds, as
if looking for the truth there. Then he said, “I’ll be leavin’ now,” and he
walked to the door.
“What about our game, Owen?” the Jazzman asked.
Mr. Cathcoate paused. “I don’t want to play anymore,” he said, and then
he pushed through the door and out into the hot June afternoon. A wave of heat
rolled in as the door settled shut. I stood up, went to the plate-glass
window, and watched Mr. Cathcoate walking slowly up the sidewalk of Merchants
Street, his hands in his pockets.
“Well, what do you think about that?” Mr. Dollar asked. “What do you
suppose set him off?”
“He knows you don’t believe none of that story,” the Jazzman said as he
began to put away the checkers pieces and the board.
“Is it true, or not?” Dad stood up from the chair. His ears had been
lowered considerably, the back of his neck ruddy where it had been shaved and
scrubbed.
“’Course it’s not true!” Mr. Dollar laughed with a snort. “Owen’s crazy!
Been out of his head for years!”
“It didn’t happen like he said it did?” I kept watching Mr. Cathcoate
move away up the sidewalk.
“No. He made the whole thing up.”
“How do you know that for sure?” Dad asked.
“Come on, Tom! What would a Wild West gunfighter be doin’ in Zephyr? And
don’t you think it’d be in the history books if a kid saved Wyatt Earp’s life
at the O.K. Corral? I went to the library and looked it up. Ain’t no mention
of any kid savin’ Wyatt Earp’s life, and in this book I found about
gunfighters there’s nobody called the Candy-stick Kid, either.” Mr. Dollar
brushed hair out of the chair with furious strokes. “Your turn, Cory. Get on
up here.”
I started to move away from the window, but I saw Mr. Cathcoate wave to
someone. Vernon Thaxter, naked as innocence, was walking on the other side of
Merchants Street. Vernon was walking fast, as if he had somewhere important to
go, but he lifted his hand in greeting to Mr. Cathcoate.
The two crazy men passed each other, going their separate ways.
I didn’t laugh. I wondered what it was that had made Mr. Cathcoate want
to believe so badly that he’d been a gunfighter, just as Vernon Thaxter
believed he really had somewhere to go.
I got up in the chair. Mr. Dollar pinned the barber towel around my neck,
and he combed through my hair a few times as Dad sat down to read a Sports
Illustrated.
“Little bit off the top and thin the sides out?” Mr. Dollar asked.
“Yes sir,” I said. “That’d be fine.”
The scissors sang, and little dead parts of me flew off.
3
A Boy and a Ball
IT WAS ON THE FRONT PORCH WHEN WE GOT HOME FROM MR. Dollar’s.
Right there, on its kickstand.
A brand new bicycle.
“Gosh,” I said as I got out of the pickup. That’s all I could say. I
walked up the porch steps in a trance, and I touched it.
It was not a dream. It was real, and it was beautiful.
Dad whistled in appreciation. He knew a good-looking bike when he saw it.
“That’s some piece of work, huh?”
“Yes sir.” I still couldn’t believe it. Here was something I had desired
in my heart for a long, long time. It belonged to me now, and I felt like the
king of the world.
In later years I would think that no woman’s lips had ever been as red as
that bike. No low-slung foreign sports car with wire wheels and purring engine
would ever look as powerful or as capable as that bike. No chrome would ever
gleam with such purity, like the silver moon on a summer’s night. It had a big
round headlight and a horn with a rubber bulb, and its frame looked as strong
and solid as the biceps of Hercules. But it looked fast, too; its handlebars
sloped forward like an invitation to taste the wind, its black rubber pedals
unscuffed by any foot before mine. Dad ran his fingers along the headlight,
and then he picked the bike up with one hand. “Boy, it hardly weighs
anything!” he marveled. “Lightest metal I’ve ever felt!” He put it down again,
and it settled on its kickstand like an obedient but barely tamed animal.
I was on that seat in two seconds. I had a little trouble at first,
because the way both the handlebars and the seat tilted forward I felt like my
balance was off. My head was thrust over the front wheel, my back pressed down
in a straight line in emulation of the bike’s spine. I had the feeling of
being on a machine that could easily get out of my control if I wasn’t
careful; there was something about it that both thrilled and scared me.
Mom came out of the house. The bike had arrived about an hour before, she
told us. Mr. Lightfoot had brought it in the back of his truck. “He said the
Lady wants you to ride easy on it until it gets used to you,” she said. She
looked at Dad, who was walking in a circle around the new bike. “He can keep
it, can’t he?”
“I don’t like us acceptin’ charity. You know that.”
“It’s not charity. It’s a reward for a good deed.”
Dad continued his circling. He stopped and prodded his shoe at the front
tire. “This must’ve cost her an awful lot of money. It’s a fine bike, that’s
for sure.”
“Can I keep it, Dad?” I asked.
He stood there, his hands on his hips. He chewed on his bottom lip for a
moment, and then he looked at Mom. “It’s not charity?”
“No.”
Dad’s gaze found me. “Yeah,” he said, and no word was ever more welcome.
“It’s yours.”
“Thanks! Thanks a million times!”
“So now that you’ve got a new bike, what’re you gonna name it?” Dad
asked.
I hadn’t thought about this yet. I shook my head, still trying to get
used to the way it held my body forward like a spear.
“Might as well take it out for a spin, don’t you think?” He slid an arm
around Mom’s waist, and he grinned at me.
“Yes sir,” I said, but I got off to chop the kickstand up and guide it
down the porch steps. It seemed an indignity to jar the bike before we’d
gotten to know each other. Either that, or I feared waking it up just yet. I
sat on the seat again, my feet on the ground.
“Go ahead,” Dad told me. “Just don’t burn up the street.”
I nodded, but I didn’t move. I swear I thought I felt the bike tremble,
as if with anticipation. Maybe it was just me.
“Crank ’er up,” Dad said.
This was the moment of truth. I took a breath, put one foot on a pedal,
and pushed off with the other. Then both feet were on the pedals, and I aimed
the bike toward the street. The wheels turned with hardly any noise, just a
quiet tick… tick… tick like a bomb about to go off.
“Have fun!” my mother called as she opened the porch door.
I looked back and took a hand off the handlebars to wave, and the bike
suddenly lurched out of my control and zigzagged wildly. I almost went down in
my first crash, but I grasped hold again and the bike straightened out. The
pedals were smooth as ice cream, the wheels spinning faster across the hot
pavement. This was a bike, I realized, that could get away from you like a
rocket. I tore away along the street, the wind hissing through my newly cut
hair, and to tell the truth, I felt as if I was hanging on for dear life. I
was used to an old, sluggish chain and sprocket that needed a lot of leg
muscle, but this bike demanded a lighter touch. When I put on the brakes the
first time, I almost flew off the seat. I spun it around in a wide circle and
gave it more speed again, and I got going so fast so quickly, the back of my
neck started sweating. I felt one pedal-push away from leaving the ground, but
the front wheel responded to my grip on the handlebars seemingly even as I
thought what direction I wanted to turn. Like a rocket, the bike sped me
through the tree-shaded streets of my hometown, and as we carved the wind
together I decided that would be its name.
“Rocket,” I said, the word whirling away behind me in the slipstream.
“That sound all right to you?”
It didn’t throw me off. It didn’t veer for the nearest tree. I took that
as a yes.
I started getting bolder. I sideslipped and figure-eighted and
curb-jumped, and Rocket obeyed me without hesitation. I leaned over those
handlebars and pumped the pedals with all my strength and Rocket shot along
Shantuck Street, the pools of shadow and sunlight opening up before me. I
zipped up onto the sidewalk, where the tires barely registered the passing
cracks. The air was hot in my lungs and cool on my face, and the houses and
trees were whipping past in a sublime blur. At this instant I felt at one with
Rocket, as if we were of the same skin and grease, and when I grinned, a bug
flew into my teeth. I didn’t care; I swallowed it because I was invincible.
And such ideas inevitably lead to what next occurred.
I hit a patch of broken sidewalk without slowing down or trying to miss
it, and I felt Rocket shudder from fender to fender. A noise like a grunt ran
through the frame. The jolt knocked one of my hands loose from the handlebars,
and Rocket’s front tire hit an edge of concrete and the bike bucked up and
twisted like an angry stallion. My feet left the pedals and my butt left the
seat, and as I went off into the air I thought of something Mom had said: The
Lady wants you to ride easy on it until it gets used to you.
I didn’t have much time to ponder it. In the next second I crashed into a
hedge in somebody’s yard and my breath left me in a whoosh and the green
leaves took me down. I had nearly ripped a hole clear through the hedge. My
arms and cheeks were scratched up some, but nothing seemed to be skinned up
and bleeding. I got out of the hedge, shaking off leaves, and I saw Rocket
lying on its side in the grass. Terror gripped me; if this new bike was busted
up, Dad’s spanking hand would be finding work. I knelt beside Rocket, checking
the bike for damage. The front tire was scuffed and the fender crimped, but
the chain was still on and the handlebars straight. The headlight was
