Free The Brave Cowboy by Edward Abbey Page A

to think could still imagine himself at the vortex of an activity, however meaningless.
    The young man with the one arm still had not moved but sat slumped in his chair as if dead; under the big hat his face seemed tense, listening, but the eyes were not open. The whisky bottle was empty, with the fingers of his one hand curled tightly around its neck.
    When the light and flies had passed above the breast and reach the neck and shoulders of the nude in the painting, the young man opened his eyes and looked at Jack Burns. Burns felt the weight of that look and set his schooner down on the table, gently. As he turned his head to face the one-armed man the other inverted his grip on the neck of the bottle, brought it back behind his ear and threw it, spinning, at the cowboy’s head. Burns ducked, and the bottle smashed to pieces against the adobe wall behind him.
    At first nobody stood up. And nobody said anything; the jukebox ran down a record into oblivion and then there was a short spell of silence. Nobody got up; the cowboy sat where he was, relaxed and a little drunk, staring with no more than a polite interest at the man who had thrown the bottle at him.
    When the jukebox had stopped its howling and the room became silent, Burns spoke: “Why’d you throw that bottle at me,
cuate?
Never seen you before in my life.” He tossed a handful of peanuts into his mouth, dropped the bag on the floor and waited for a reply. The one-armed man stared bitterly at him and said nothing. “How about it?” Burns said, a bit more loudly.
    The one-armed man did not answer, and did not move. Burns glanced once around the room at the silent men, the alert faces and hands. He swallowed his mouthful of chewed peanuts, took a sip from his beer, and waited without visible anxiety for something tangible to happen again.
    This time the one-armed man threw his glass; Burnsjerked his head aside and the glass bounced off his shoulder and slid and rolled across the wooden floor.
    “Now looky here, friend,” Burns said, “you sure you got the right man? We ain’t even been properly introduced.” He sat up more formally in his chair.
    The young man with one arm stood up, saying nothing, and walked toward the cowboy. His eyes were half open now, a pair of yellow slots, and his lips moved and twisted though no words came through. He came close to Burns, standing above him; he reached up, took off his hat and swung with it at Burns’ face. The cowboy flung himself backwards, his chair going over and sliding out from under, leaving him sprawled on his back on the floor.
    The one-armed man stood looking down at him, a sick grin on his face, his eyes gleaming with derision and triumph, his one fist clenched. He started to talk: “Whatsamatter, cowboy, you afraid to fight? You afraid of a one-armed man?”
    Burns raised himself to his elbows and looked up at the man. His face had gone cold, expressionless, his eyes were bleak and suddenly sober. But he said: “I don’t want to fight you
cuate.
I’m a peaceable fella, don’t like to fight.” He started to get up and the one-armed man kicked his legs, and he fell flat on the floor again.
    The one-armed man looked down at him, grinning. “Can’t stand up, cowboy? Whatsamatter with you? Like a little baby.”
    Quickly Burns rolled away and over, and when the revolution was completed he was standing on his feet, erect and ready; the one-armed man, who had moved to trip him again, stopped in surprise. “All right,” Burns said; “now what were you sayin?”
    The one-armed man hesitated, no longer grinning. Then he said: “I ain’t afraid of you, cowboy. I don’t give a damn how big you are or how many arms you got.”
    Burns said: “Fella, you’d be a lot better off if you’dstop worryin about that one arm. If you ain’t satisfied with one arm you oughta get it chopped off.”
    The one-armed man spluttered after a reply: “You mind your own goddamn business. I lost my arm at Okinawa.