Cowboys and Indians

By: Jeffrey M. Valentine 

We were playing Cowboys and Indians with a frayed piece of rope we had found. He wrapped the rope around itself, tied it off to make a lasso, and tried to throw it over me as if he were a cowboy trying to catch an Indian. I figured that the true cowboys of the Old West must have caught all the most dangerous Indians in just the same way.

When he finally tired of chasing me, he wrapped the lasso around the fence post and started using it as a swing. I begged him for a turn, but he told me that I was too little, and that I should go work on my rock collection.

I came back after I stopped crying. I turned to see him rocking back and forth in the rope. I saw that he had learned a new trick: how to swing using just his neck.

It was then that I noticed the silence. I thought about asking him if anything was wrong, but decided against it. He knew how to swing. Besides, he hadn’t let me have my turn. Angrily, I busied myself with my rock collection and tried not to let him see that I had been crying.    

A wild scream broke the silence. I turned to see Grandma clawing desperately at the rope. She barely made a mark in it before Papa ran out and sliced through it with his pocket knife.

They spent a few busy minutes over him, pushing on his chest and kissing him in a strangely desperate way.

Then, in unison, they turned and looked at me with wide, suspicious eyes.

But my face was clean.

They couldn’t tell I had been crying.