Rosa’s beans were excellent.
The coaches hurried through.
A passenger could sniff the pot
and miss it by a shoe.
She needed them to spend an hour,
to put their bags away.
The porch had chairs for fourteen guests.
The chairs stayed empty all day.
Three cowboys ate on credit there,
each famous for a feat:
Pete could rope his very echo,
Luke rode backward in his seat,
and Jasper claimed a cactus sang
whenever he drew near.
“It knows my heart,” he told the pot.
“Your heart owes meals,” said Rosa. “Here.”
She pinned a programme to the wall:
THE WONDERS OF THE WEST.
A SINGLE NIGHT OF MARVELS.
SUPPER FOR EVERY GUEST.
“Before I sell the tickets, boys,
I’ll see what you can do.”
They called this lack of confidence.
She called it half past two.
Jasper carried in a cactus
in a flour barrel, wide.
He coughed at it and hummed a note.
The cactus kept its pride.
Behind a sheet, young Marta sang
a fine and trembly air.
She liked the choir’s sheltering screen.
She couldn’t sing with people staring.
“The plant sings better out of sight,”
said Jasper. Rosa frowned.
“I’ll pay the girl. You’ll shift her screen
and keep the thorns off the ground.”
Marta peered around the sheet.
“Don’t make me take a bow.”
“Stay hidden,” Rosa said. “But sing
when Jasper tells you how.”
Luke brought in his oldest horse,
a mare called Widow Jane.
He faced her tail and rode a curve
that wobbled into a drain.
Jane stopped before he tumbled off.
Luke rubbed his swimming head.
“A daring feat!” he said at once.
“A chair,” said Rosa. “A chair instead.”
They fixed a saddle to a board
and tied a rope each end.
Luke faced away from where it moved,
and tried it with his friends.
Marta helped him mark the stops
with chalk along the floor.
“Don’t pull past this,” she warned them.
“That’s the edge, beside the door.”
Pete threw a loop against the wall
and shouted, “Hear me roar!”
No echo came. A rooster did
from somewhere past the door.
“The canyon carries better,” Pete
said, gathering his line.
“The canyon’s nineteen miles away.
Our guests,” said Rosa, “dine.”
So Luke agreed to be the voice
behind the pantry hatch.
He’d answer Pete a heartbeat late,
then shut the little latch.
Jasper would draw the board for Luke
when Luke came out to ride;
and Pete would signal Marta’s song
before he stepped inside.
Rosa heard their three rehearsals
and changed the bill that night:
AN EVENING OF OUR LOCAL TALES,
A SHOW WITH TRICKS AND LIGHT.
She bought more beans and Marta’s time
and mended Luke’s torn cuff.
They said the bill lacked grandeur.
She said it promised enough.
The show began with Jasper’s plant.
Pete gave the cue too soon;
the screen still hid the cactus—
Rosa’s broom stood where the plant was due.
Jasper shoved the barrel out
and bowed with so much haste
his shirt caught six persistent thorns
exactly at the waist.
He stood quite still for Marta’s song.
She sang a second verse.
Jasper dared not turn around.
Each bow would make it worse.
A passenger took off his hat
to hide his watering eyes.
Rosa brought a pair of shears
and cut his shirt loose at the sides.
Luke climbed aboard the saddle board,
his face toward the front.
Jasper pulled the forward rope;
Luke gave a nervous grunt.
“Observe my backward mastery!”
he shouted, moving face-first.
Pete caught the rope before the edge.
The board stopped where it should.
“You ride like I do,” said a child.
Luke said, “Extremely rare.”
He climbed off slowly, looking down,
and tested every stair.
Pete laid his rope across the rail
and boomed, “Who rules this plain?”
Luke missed his cue behind the hatch.
“My wife!” called someone’s swain.
“My wife!” Luke answered faithfully.
Pete roped a hanging pan.
The pan struck all the supper spoons
and frightened the rooster again.
Jasper ran to close the door,
his shirt in shreds behind.
Marta sang the rooster’s note.
She found she didn’t mind.
There wasn’t room to serve the beans.
The porch chairs all were full.
Luke had to fetch another bench,
which Pete helped him pull.
A woman asked for tickets
to their next night’s show as well.
“Which act?” said Rosa carefully.
“The way they nearly fell.”
Rosa paid the promised fees
and Marta first of all.
Then hung THINGS WE NEARLY MANAGED
on the boardinghouse wall.
“A lesser title,” Jasper said.
“Put my name above the rest.”
Luke asked how large his name would be.
Pete said his should go west.
Marta checked the pantry hatch
and moved her singing chair.
“If the broom’s in better voice,” she said,
“I’ll charge to let it share.”
Rosa stirred tomorrow’s beans
and let the cowboys fight.
They’d nearly done the west that day.
They’d do it again tomorrow night.
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