Read The Brave Cowboy for Free Online Page A

around by the sink, searching for something with soap-blind eyes. “Jerry…?” She put the towel into his hands. “Thanks…”
    “What did you think of Abigail and Psyche?”
    “Don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.” He dug the mud out of his ears with a corner of the towel.
    “The goats. The bearded one with the big bulging udder is Abigail and Psyche is her daughter.” She tossed the salad a little with a wooden fork and spoon. “Come on, it’s getting cold.”
    Burns smoothed back his long black hair with his fingers and sat down, “Say—where’s Seth? I knew somebody was missing around here.” He began cutting up a chunk of ham. “Haven’t seen him around.”
    Jerry filled his glass with milk from the clay pitcher. “He’s in school.”
    “What’s that stuff?”
    “Milk.”
    “That’s a good Mormon drink.” Burns paused between mouthfuls of ham and egg to drink some of the milk. “It’s all right—smells just like the one that tried to butt me.” He wiped the white foam from his upper lip and turned back to his plate. “So the little fella’s in school already; that’s a damn shame.”
    “He’s six years old now.” She sat down at the opposite end of the table. “Have some of the salad, Jack.” Vague emotions, formless ideas, were crowding her mind: she could not entirely suppress the foolish notion that this strange wandering friend, riding in like a knight-errant, might have the power through magic or valor or wit to bring back to her, somehow, the man to whom she had dedicated her love. She tried to attend to what he was saying:
    “… Thought you two was gonna teach him yourselves, bring him up right and proper so’s the authorities wouldn’t get their old superstitions planted in thebairn’s head.” Burns wiped up his plate with a slab of the dark bread, ate the bread, and took another hearty drink of goat’s milk, leaving a white tideline on his beard. He looked at her. “Well, naturally you can’t do that now—what with Paul in trouble and you havin to work, I suppose.” She made no answer. He pushed his plate aside and leaned on the table, gazing at her. “Mighty good fixins, Jerry. I’m right proud of you.” She said nothing. “Gotta toothpick?” She shook her head slowly, looking down at the table, after a moment he pulled a match from his shirt pocket and the jack-knife from a pocket of his jeans and began to whittle himself a toothpick.
    She was having trouble with her thoughts; this man Burns, whose mere physical presence was so reassuring, and whose love and loyalty she could never have doubted, yet made her feel for some reason a shade uncomfortable: in his sombre eyes, in his slow smile and the lines of his face, in the firm rank masculinity of his body, she thought she perceived a challenge. A challenge in his every word, every motion.
    “He’ll be home pretty soon, I suppose?” Burns said.
    She looked up. “Who?”
    “Seth.” He stared at her, puzzled, and then frowned and looked away.
    “You’ve got milk all over your mouth,” she said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes, in about an hour.”
    This is ridiculous, she told herself. I am an adult woman, mother of a six-year old boy, wife to Paul Bondi. I’ll not be lured into fantasy by anyone, not even by this smoky-eyed centaur on the other side of the table. And even as she said it another truth flared across her mind with the certainty of lightning.
    “Would you like some more milk?” she said.
    “No thanks.”
    “Would you like some coffee?”
    “No, don’t bother. Let’s have some later.”
    “It’s no trouble at all.”
    “No thanks, Jerry.” He rested his chin on his fists, looking at her with his grave, almost melancholy eyes.
    She felt suddenly annoyed with him. Was he making some sort of game out of her uneasiness?
    “Mrs. Bondi,” he said. She glanced at him, startled. “Mrs. Bondi, I came here to see you and Paul and Seth and maybe be of some use.