A Tale Out of Luck by Willie Nelson, Mike Blakely Page A

captain. As they all came closer together, near the bronc-busting pen, Skeeter heard one of the buffalo soldiers, a corporal, speak up.
    “Hey, whitey!”
    At first Skeeter thought the corporal must have been taunting Jay Blue, then he saw that other soldiers were backing away, clearing the ground between the mustanger and the corporal.
    A hawk cried, making Skeeter glance at the sky. There was nothing in that sky but the raptor and one lonely cloud.
    “Are you talkin’ to me?” said the growling voice of the mysterious Jubal Hayes.
    “You’re the whitest son of a bitch here, ain’t you?”
    “First Sergeant,” Major Quitman warned.
    “I’ll break it up, sir.” Polk quickened his pace.
    Jubal drew a blade—a bowie knife that came from a belt scabbard. “Alright, this is how we’ll do it.”
    The smirk on the corporal’s face dropped from view. “I ain’t got no knife.”
    “Then use your sharp tongue.”
    “Fists,” suggested the corporal, a hint of a plea in his voice.
    “Alright.” Jubal threw his knife, sticking it in a corral post between two buffalo soldiers. Sunlight glinted on the blade until that one lonely cloud in the sky floated in front of the sun, casting its shadow on the knot of men at the bronc pen, softening everything with kindly shadows. Major Quitman and First Sergeant Polk were now trotting toward the scene.
    Suddenly, Jubal pulled his scarf down and tossed his battered felt hat aside. Skeeter’s eyes bulged. Jubal Hayes was like nothing he had ever seen or heard of. His facial features were similar in form to those of the buffalo soldiers, but his skin was of a hue so pale that blue blood vessels could be seen running just under the surface of his powdery white flesh. And he wore spectacles like the ones Major Quitman had worn in his office, except that the lenses to Jubal’s glasses were dark as a colored bottle. His hair had the shaggy texture of the great buffalo—like that of the buffalo soldiers around him, except that Jubal’s hair was golden! And, unlike the soldiers, who kept their hair trimmed short, Jubal had let his go do whatever it wanted to do, and it had matted together in places and formed snakelike protuberances, mossy appendages, and comet-tail projections.
    The corporal kept his fists in front of him.
    Now Jubal Hayes pulled his tinted glasses off, dropping them in the dirt, revealing one last unusual feature. The light gray color of his eyes was such that a person could only look
through
them, instead of into them. And as Jubal Hayes made a glance his way, Skeeter thought he saw the eyes actually turn red for a brief instant.
    “Only thing is,” said Jubal Hayes to his would-be opponent, “you better watch out. It’s
catchin’
. If I touch you, you’ll end up lookin’ just like me.” He made a rush toward the corporal, who screamed and ran away like a frightened child.
    “Mr. Hayes!” scolded the major, finally arriving, out of breath, at the scene of the confrontation. “First Sergeant, catch that corporal!”
    “Yes, sir!”
    Jubal Hayes began laughing, until that one cloud in the sky moved away from the sun, and then he shrank under it like a slug under a handful of salt thrown down by a mean little kid. He ran for his hat and pulled his scarf up. He scrambled for his shaded glasses, blowing the dirt from the lenses before he returned them to his face. But when he turned to collect his knife from the corral post, he found that Jay Blue had already retrieved it and was offering it to him.
    “Here you are, Mr. Hayes.”
    “Give me that!” Jubal Hayes looked so insulted that Skeeter thought he was going to cut Jay Blue’s throat with that shiny blade, but Jay Blue did not appear to be afraid.
    Skeeter stood gawking, fifteen paces away, where he had been compelled to stop. What was Jay Blue doing with that strange man’s knife? The man said it was catching, for heaven’s sake.
Why did we even come here? Oh, when is this bastard of a day ever