Read Online The Ballad of Dingus Magee by David Markson - Free Book Online

that way, do you see? But I’d be safe from harm’s way here, if’n you’ve got a floor for me to rest on—only ‘til dawn, and then I’d slip away and never intrude upon your goodness again. You’d be saving a wretched orphan’s life, ma’am.”
    Miss Pfeffer kept glancing toward the door, concerned for him but still dubious, so he lurched away from her then and staggered toward a farther room, clutching at the doorframe for support. “Oh, but it pains me so!” he sobbed.
    “Oh, dear me—” Miss Pfeffer sprang after him. “Yes, you dear child, lie down, use my bed there, it’s—”
    “Oh, no ma’am, you’re too kind. Any old place on the floor will do me…” Dingus sagged into her arms.
    “But you are hurt! Here, I insist!”
    So he let himself be led to the already turned-back bed, tumbling across it. He lay on his side, with his feet over the edge. “My boots,” he sighed. “I jest ain’t got the strength to—”
    “Here, here, let me—” Miss Pfeffer set down her lamp, kneeling to the first of them. It came free easily, exposing the soggy, bloodstained sock. “Oh!” Miss Pfeffer cried. “Oh, it’s all—”
    “Yes’m. I lost considerable amounts before I got to the doc.”
    “Oh dear! Dear me!” She removed the other boot, rising to hold it in consternation. The color had drained from her long face, such color as there had been. “Your clothes. Do you think you ought to—”
    “Yes’m, I’d rest far more comfortable. Only”—Dingus blushed, lowering his eyes—“I’d take it right kindly if’n you’d leave. I can manage, I’m sure I can—”
    Miss Pfefier’s own face was averted. “But you’ll call me, if you’re too ill—”
    “Yes’m.”
    He undressed leisurely then, hearing her pace elsewhere in the house. Now and then she mumbled something. When he extinguished the lamp, calling out to her, she pranced back into the room anxiously.
    “I hope you’ll forgive the lamp being off without your permission,” Dingus started then. “But my daddy would think badly of me, if’n I were lacking my proper clothing in a lady’s presence without the light was out. Oh, my poor daddy—” Dingus commenced to sob. “Right before my very eyes, this very day, they shot him down like a dog, and I won’t never kiss his dear furrowed brow again—”
    So Miss Pfeffer hovered above him now. “You unfortunate soul. How did it happen? Will it help you to talk about it?”
    Dingus sobbed and sobbed. “It were rustlers. They took our cattle, even every last helpless little calf that my daddy toiled so hard to care for. And then they set fire to our ranch, too, that my daddy homesteaded with the sweat of his tired, lame shoulders. Oh, it were jest unbearable!”
    A hand stroked his own in commiseration. “And to think they would take up arms against someone of your age!” Miss Pfeffer shuddered. “But your mother, don’t you have a—”
    “Oh,” Dingus wailed, “don’t make me talk about my mother, please! That were too sad, I still can’t think about it without I start to weep worse’n ever!” The hand bad started to lift; Dingus clutched at it desperately. “And it’s all the more sadder here, too, because you remind me of her. Not that you’re anywheres near as old as her, but jest that you’re beautiful the same way. And kind, too, and refined. But then those dreadful Comanches come, and they dragged her out into the fields, and they bound her to four stakes in the ground, and then they—” Dingus emitted a choked gasp. “But it ain’t a fit thing to relate before a woman. It were God’s pure mercy that she died within the month. I weren’t but eleven…”
    “Dear heaven! And now you’re all alone—”
    “All alone on God’s earth, yes’m. But I’m safe here. Only—”
    “Yes, what is it?”
    “I’m so cold. All of a sudden, my wound hurts right bad, and I feel this terrible chill. I can’t hardly keep from shivering.”
    “Wait, here,