Meet Johnny Bravo
I’ve been in love with this kid, Johnny Bravo, since he rustled some goats and sold them for cabrito across the border in Mexico in my book Lawless. Lawless is one of two stories I wrote about Colton and Diego, hard-headed and difficult men who were always screwing and screwing up. Johnny Bravo was something else again, and he’s been sitting in the back of my mind, patiently waiting his turn. When I wrote his story, The Legend of the Apache Kid, he surprised me for being smarter than I remembered when I first met him at age 16. The scene below is from Lawless, when Johnny Bravo first makes his appearance.
Late afternoon in Arizona, and the light turned the landscape a strange, brilliant gold, making the tumbled sandstone and scrubby brush beautiful just for a moment. Colton was feeling the light warm his face, happy to be in this peaceful valley with Diego, who was finally in a good mood. He’d taken all the tags off Samuel’s new clothes, folded them and put them in the trailer, drank a beer and made burger patties, studied the goat in the pen and sat on the porch steps, watching Colton wrestle with the barbeque pit.
Colton nearly singed his eyebrows off with an excess of lighter fluid when he lit the charcoal, but then he sat down next to Diego on the steps, felt his warm thigh snug against his. Diego handed him a beer and they sat together in the golden afternoon light. This was good. They were okay.
“You’re the one gets happy when you go shopping, not me. You’ve been happy since you bought that monster barbeque pit.”
‘Well, we’ll see the proof in the burgers, if the pit is as good as the old man’s barbeque pits. I’ll tell you what I think. I think you bought enough new clothes for two boys. You just guessing they’re the same size?” Diego nodded, and Colton reached for his thigh, ran his hand up and down, let it rest on his knee. “Some days I wish we could just stay out here. This seems a peaceful life, but ranching is hard. A hard life. At least it was for my granddad. Seemed like things were always on the edge of disaster.”
“That’s the truth of it.” Old man Weaver was behind them on his sofa. “One bad storm, one bad infection in the herd, and your taxes for that year are gone. Long as I’ve been working this land, I never really got ahead. I think the best I can say is I wrestled it to a draw. That’s not bad, for a lifetime’s work.”
“No, it’s not.” Diego was quiet, his face thoughtful. Colton knew he had plans for his life that included doing more than wrestling his world to a draw. But what control did they really have? Maybe not as much as they thought they did, when they were young as Samuel.
“It’s worth the hard work,” Samuel said. “See how beautiful this land is, Colton?” Samuel gestured toward the mountains, where the little valley opened up. “I just want to get to know land like this. To learn it in all the seasons. To find a way to take care of it, and let it take care of me. That’s the best life, I think.”
Colton turned around and looked at Joshua, who was leaned back on his sofa, rocking a little. Joshua nodded his head. Colton could see it in his face. This boy, Samuel, he was a man like them, a man with a passion for the land.
Diego stood up, went to the barbeque pit and stared down. “How can you tell if the coals are ready?”
Colton stood up and studied the coals. “They’re ready when somebody wants to put their beer down and throw the burgers on, Big D. I would say right about now.”
Diego put the burgers on the grill, stood over them with a spatula while the smell of cooking beef spread out across the valley. Colton looked around. “Now, Samuel, this is a fine idea, but don’t get discouraged if he don’t come in tonight. We can always go look in the mine in the morning.”
Samuel shook his head. “He’s not in the mine. He’s with his horse, and he wouldn’t put the horse down there.”
“Colton.” Diego gestured with his chin. The boy was walking in from the east, leading his horse, the setting sun full on his face. He looked like something out of an old western movie, dusty jeans, long, black hair spilling over his shoulder, leading a beautiful horse the color of caramel, with a soft ivory mane.
“Joshua, this your boy?”
Joshua struggled up from the sofa, looked hard across the pasture to where the boy was walking in. “Yeah, that’s him. Where the hell’s he been?”
“The hot springs are up that way.” Samuel blushed when Colton turned and studied his face. “I just thought... that might be where I would camp out, if I had to camp somewhere on the ranch. And I did see some tracks up there. I left him a note, you know, just in case, telling him we were having burgers if he wanted to join us.”
Diego was grinning. “You did good, Samuel. Well, Mr. Weaver, he looks just like you described him.”
Johnny Bravo gave them all a nod and bypassed the group without a word, leading his horse back to the stable. Samuel walked back and joined him. Colton studied his retreating back, then turned to look at Diego. “Why do I get the feeling Samuel...”
Diego shook his head, flipped the burgers. “Leave it, Colton. Let him settle a bit first.”
“He looks Apache. You think a face like that belongs on one of those old timey photographs, those sepia-colored pictures from 1870, buckskins and Navajo saddle blankets on the horses and a boy with that proud face.”
“He’s too proud,” Joshua said. “That kind of pride just leads to trouble.”
“He’s just sixteen. He needs some work to do, settle him a bit. You think he’s a ranchman, like you?”
The old man shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t recall I ever met a dreamer knew how to do a lick of real work.”
Johnny and Samuel came back from the stables, and Johnny climbed the steps up to the porch and stood in front of Joshua, his arms crossed over his chest and his chin nearly pointing at the sky. They stared at each other for a long moment, and Colton was reminded that Joshua had known this boy since he was born.
“Go throw your stuff in the house if you want.”
“Samuel said there’s another bunk in the horse trailer. I’ll stay out there.”
“Fine. Do whatever you want.” Joshua reached for the bottle next to his foot, just came up with tropical fruit juice. “Goddamnit! Where’s my whiskey?”
Johnny turned and marched back down the porch steps. He held out his hand to Colton. “I’m Johnny Bravo. I heard you were looking for me.”
Colton shook his hand. “I’m the law, if that’s what you mean. And I was investigating a crime and your name came up.”
Johnny looked surprised at his tough voice. He looked over at Samuel, then straightened his back and faced Colton again.
Colton nodded down at him. “In the old westerns, we used to call it cattle rustling, like it was something romantic. Nowadays we call it grand theft. And if you do it again I am going to throw your sorry ass in jail. I don’t care your reason for doing it. Do you understand me, Johnny?”
“Yes.” He was speaking through clenched teeth. Colton looked over at Diego. Oh, very proud.
Johnny was holding his hand out to Diego now, obviously hoping for a warmer welcome. “I’m Diego Del Rio. I hope you’re hungry, Johnny. I put three burgers on the grill for you.”
Johnny looked over the food. “I could eat three burgers.”
Colton felt a bit irritated that he had been so worried about this kid, and he came strolling in with his horse, ready for supper. No blood, no wounds, he didn’t look tired or miserable or in any way needing to be rescued. He wasn’t even very dirty. Samuel must have been right, and Johnny was camping at the hot springs. Weaver seemed to share Colton’s feelings of irritation, and Johnny, with perfect teenage intuition, stayed very far away from them both, tucked up safely between Diego and Samuel.
Colton listened in while Diego got Johnny talking. “A film maker? That’s interesting, Johnny. What kind of films?”
“Westerns. I want to make films that tell the truth about how things are in the West. How things really are for Natives, and for Mexicans. And for the people who live on the land, like him.” He gestured toward Joshua on the porch. “It’s deadly out here, but people don’t see. And it’s been exploited so much, the minerals, the uranium. I think it’ll take a Native filmmaker to tell the truth about this place. You want to see some film?”
“I sure would.”
Diego was being so nurturing and kind, Colton made a gagging gesture, a finger down his throat. Diego ignored him. Johnny climbed up the porch steps and stopped in front of Joshua again. “Can I borrow the TV? I can hook a cable up from my video camera and show you some of the footage I’ve been shooting.”
Joshua waved a hand. “Sure, boy. You go on ahead.”
Johnny ran out to the horse trailer, got his video camera from the backpack he’d tossed in there earlier. He went up the steps and into the house, and a minute later he was back out on the porch, standing in front of Joshua. “You don’t have a TV.”
Joshua rubbed his chin. “Well, now, let me think. You know, I meant to buy a TV. I was thinking about selling a calf and buying one down at the Sears and Roebuck. But then something happened. You stole that calf, so I couldn’t sell him.”
They stared at each other for another long moment. Johnny’s cheeks were flushed red, but Colton didn’t know if it was mad or sorry. Joshua looked like he was thinking about breaking into tears, he was hurt so bad. Johnny dropped down to one knee in front of the old man. “I’m sorry I stole your cows and goats.”
“That’s all you had to say, boy. I was just waiting for you to say it like you meant it.”
“I mean it.” Johnny had his face turned a bit away, studying the dusty porch. “I bought the video camera with some of the money, and I bought some food, but I have the rest.”
“You can turn it over, then. We gonna live together, we got to have straight dealing between us, you understand? Otherwise this won’t work.”
“I’m not living with you if you’re gonna drink yourself into a stupor every night.”
“What the hell’s a stupor?” Joshua waved this away. “Never mind. I know what you mean.” He gestured toward Diego with his chin. “My doctor has got me on fruit juice.
Lawless on Kindle http://tinyurl.com/d378ulv
The Legend of the Apache Kid, coming in September from Dreamspinner Press