Clockwork Cowboy

Chapter 6

There, in the foggy recesses of his memory, he could see The Great Dismal Swamp. The place that had made him who he was, and yet - while giving him so much - had taken everything away.

He could remember his dinghy, gliding through the swamp. The clicking of the copper wheel that he'd crafted for the rear of the boat, working to help churn the small vessel through the water. His arm ached from the intermittent cranking of the wheel.

The curved trunks of the trees reflected upon the water. Amongst them - on the bank - she stood. Her auburn hair pulled roughly back from her face, revealing an expression that Jese couldn't decipher - then or now. Rage or admiration? Perhaps it was a strange mixture of the two?

"Where have you been Jose?" Her voice cracked through the air like a whip. Rage then?

"About."

"In Scuffletown?" A haughty look settled upon her face. "Creating a stir?"

"If you say so." He moved the handle of the copper wheel, steering the boat to shore. He contemplated turning about and head back to town instead.

"Why are you doing this to us, Jose?"

"Doing what, my love?"

"The war will be over soon enough, yet you are running around town. Flouting yourself under their noses.  So determined to be captured." She waited for a reply. When none was forthcoming she became even more enraged. "God damn it, Jose! Do you think I want to be a lonely widow?"

She was so enraged because she loved his company. How could he not find that endearing?

Her chin jutted out. "You smile? You forget that you have a son. Would you have him perish out here because you've been lynched by the Home Guard?"  She was quick to anger, his fiery Scots-Irish wife, but she was equally quick to forgiveness.

"Magda, you know how I feel. I would rather my son was proud of me in death than indifferent to me in life." Jese could see his son's big brown eyes peering out from behind his Mama's full calico skirt. He was waiting for his Daddy to reach the shore and then he would advance, chubby hands held aloft. Those brown eyes making Jese's heart expand to the point where he was afraid that his ribs would crack.

Every day he'd spent as a father he knew a little bit more about the power of love.

Magda gave an indignant sniff before trying to guide their son further away from the shore. "Come on in, dinner is gettin' cold."

He bit his tongue. Deftly mooring his dinghy he followed her to the house, his son's arms tangling around his legs like some kind of lethal trap. "Up, up." Once he'd lifted the boy in his arms the toddler was content to gaze out upon the scenery from this great vantage point.

Following Magda he found his dinner waiting on the table alone. She sat - their son on her lap - and watched her husband eat. "How was everyone?"

"All in hiding methinks."

A frown marred her forehead. "For what?"

"It seems that Henry shot Harris."

"Harris? The Home Guard?"

He nodded in reply.

"He'll be killed! When that nasty old bastard gets the bullet removed well-!"

"Oh no, he was shot dead. At point blank range. He won't be getting back up from that one."

She fell silent. "Oh Jose."

The silence between them stretched out, only broken by his son happily thumping a large ladle on the wooden table rhythmically. An ominous beat.

"Jose," she said. "I've got a bad feelin' about this. A really bad feelin'."