Cooksin

by Rick Alan Rice

  Loren Minnie held up a steel triangle. "Here's the start of round one," he said, and he struck the triangle with a ballpeen hammer. It rang out in a crystal clear tone that resonated through the rafters of the old barn, and Jarvis and Billy took to fighting.

  Billy Stevens threw the first punch, grazing Jarvis with a wild, winging overhead right, that momentarily got Billy a little off balance. Jarvis ducked under it and then righted himself into a fighting stance, ready for the next salvo, which he didn't wait long for. Billy came back with a flailing left hook that didn't carry much steam, but which caught Jarvis on the cheek. He shook it off and nailed Billy with a stiff left jab, and the fight was joined.

  * * * * *

  Jarvis was always loud and bossy, showing off his authority and generally behaving as a young buck, which is what he was. He was tight with Frank Walker, who felt comfortable with that style. Frank had hired him as a kid, just out of high school, and started him out as a field hand, but Jarvis soon worked his way up to cow hand. Frank could see the kid's determination and inner toughness. Older men regarded him with respect, because at six foot three and two hundred ten pounds he was a real stud, and at eighteen years of age he'd had a flash temper.

  When Jarvis first started at Walker Ranch there was a foreman named Dave Russel, a guy in his mid-40s, who'd been with Frank for a couple years. Russel was an experienced cowboy who people genuinely liked, even though he was a bit humorless. He had happened along at a time when Frank Walker was looking for a top hand to supervise daily operations, which mostly meant husbandry to his thousand head cattle herd. Frank had previously enjoyed filling this role himself, but he was getting older and slowly starting to turn responsibilities over to those who needed them more. This was also the time just after Frank Jr.'s death, which changed old Frank in some fundamental way. He became more imperial, more distant from people, more fitting the profile of a wealthy man. He stopped doing the things he had always loved. And he grew conservative in ways in which he had never been before, accounting for his life's parts with an obsession never before observed. He chose Dave Russel as his first foreman because of his age, because he sensed that he had no drinking problem that would render him unreliable, and because he had seemed as happy to stay out of Frank's life as Frank was happy to stay out of his.

  Jarvis' rise to supremacy on Walker Ranch had come about two years into his employment. By the time of his twentieth birthday, Jarvis had become one of the better hands on the ranch and already older cowboys were deferring to him when decisions needed to be made and neither Frank Walker nor Dave Russel were around. Young Jarvis was always sure of himself and unafraid of risk, so he had some natural leadership qualities. His age and maturity, however, lagged a little behind his decision-making skills and his head swelled as he realized his own power. There was a slow evolution in the way the ranch hands behaved toward Russel as they learned they could avoid him – their boss – and get things done by going through Jarvis, who was a peer and in no position to impel them to do things they'd rather have avoided. They also knew that Jarvis had Frank Walker's ear, which was a privileged position in those days. The general speculation was that having Jarvis around probably cushioned Frank Sr.'s feeling of loss for his son. Whatever the case, only Frank Sr. would've known, and he didn't talk about it with anybody, not even Jarvis.

  Jarvis' ascendance to his position of authority was strangely organic, as if preordained. It followed an incident. A hand named Jack Spray was working under a truck, which he had jacked-up on blocks, when something happened to make the truck fall, crushing him beneath it. All the cowboys were working in the yard that day and they all heard the horrible metal crunch and the agonized screams of the man mangled by the load. They all rushed to his aid, but the first one there was young Jarvis, who got one jack started and began yelling directions to those arriving on the scene to get a second and a third under the vehicle. Dave Russel was among the last to reach the truck and when he arrived he told Jarvis and the others to stop what they were doing while he crawled under the partially elevated load to check the condition of Jack Spray. Russel was worried that the uneven way that they were jacking the truck might be injuring Spray even worse, which seemed like a reasonable concern given the way Spray cried out in agony with every plunge of the jack handle. Jarvis just pushed Russel away. "Hell with that – let's get him out of there! Then we can look at him," he said, and the others took Jarvis' advice and paid no heed to Dave Russel. Very quickly they got the weight of the truck off Jack Spray and pulled him to safety. He had broken ribs and a broken collar bone, a punctured lung and deep lacerations. His right ear was nearly torn from his head, but he was still alive. Jarvis picked him up and carried him by himself to an automobile, and he and Frank Walker drove the injured man to the Longmont Hospital. Dave Russel melted back into the crowd of cowboys, unable to do anything but watch.

  When the excitement died down, and Jack Spray was well on his way to medical treatment, Russel tried to shout out a few orders, telling people to get back to work, but already a torch had passed and he no longer seemed to carry the weight he previously had. The cowboys drifted back to their chores, but somehow everybody – even Dave

  Russel himself – could feel that things had changed. When Frank Walker returned from town he harangued Russel for allowing Jack Spray to make the mistake he had made, to nearly get himself killed. Russel got angry and quit on the spot, though most felt that he just took the opportunity to get out of what had become, for him, an untenable situation. He was a cowboy, a drifter, and so he moved on, just as he had from a dozen previous situations. A good hand, experienced at caring for herds, pulling calves, fixing fences and busting broncs, he'd find himself another spread. To him it was just another layer of tough experience added to all those already underneath. He'd survive. It didn't make him any less sober, but it didn't weight all that heavily upon him, either. In his fifth decade, Dave Russel understood that life often just happened, and there was no sense trying to figure it out or fight it.

  When Jarvis took over as foreman, he changed the whole tenor of things on Walker Ranch. Things became more bare knuckled and more macho. His youth and bravado was often annoying, but the hands treated it as something that could be dealt with. He occasionally cracked funny jokes and he was always up to mischief, so in that respect his raucous nature added something. But it also masked something else within him that wasn't so easily used to his advantage. Rage. Frank recognized it immediately and he knew just what to do with it. He turned Jarvis into a boxer.

  Jarvis and a couple of the young hands put up a makeshift ring in the barn, cushioning the floor with loose straw. They'd spar there in off hours, one by one pulling other cowboys in on the fun. Frank Walker encouraged it and even trained them in what he knew about the sport, having boxed in the army when he was a young man himself.

  Several of the boys picked it right up, and Frank even sponsored smokers on several occasions, inviting neighboring ranchers and their hands in for boxing and gambling games. He was proud to show off his spread’s recent bounty in practitioners of the "sweet science." It was rough stuff, but somehow the Walker hands' reputation for brutality served them within their community. They become singularly respected as the toughest bunch around.

  * * * * *

  After the third round, Billy Steven's face was getting a little puffy. Loren Minnie asked him at the break if he wanted to quit, but he could hear the encouragements of his supporters, and was dedicated to upholding the honor of the Lazy S. "I'm okay," he told Minnie, who then banged the triangle to start Round Four.

  Jarvis, who had a tiny trickle of blood coming from his nose, grinned at Billy, whose mouth was a mess. He was cut on the inside of his top lip and was bleeding like a stuck pig. "You sure you don't want to just admit who the better man is?" Jarvis asked.

  "Okay – I'm the better man," said Billy. "How's that?"

  Jarvis answered by firing a straight right that caught Billy over his left eye, snapping his
head back, and fortunately knocking him back out of range of Jarvis' follow-up hook, which missed him by a wide margin. The cowboys whooped and hollered, and none louder than Frank Walker, who sat among his bunch, entreating them to fight for the glory of the Walker Ranch, as if it were part of some shared vision. He held a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand, swigging from it freely, while gesticulating wildly in the air with his other.

  Billy Stevens came at Jarvis firing a wild array of ill-conceived punches, filling the air around Jarvis with clenched fists in hope of landing something, anything... A crazy upper cut caught Jarvis on the tip of his nose and for a second he went queer, as every neuron in his system seemed to go dim. His legs went gelatinous and he suddenly found himself crumbled into a heap on the floor.

  Jarvis looked at Billy, shocked. Billy was a little surprised himself, but too winded to think straight about what had happened. The Lazy S boys let out a tremendous cheer and Frank Walker looked at Jarvis like he was dog meat. Loren Minnie moved toward Jarvis to ask him if he was alright and to start the count, but before he could do any of that Jarvis suddenly straightened himself up and shook his head. His eyes seemed clear. "You okay to continue?" asked Minnie, and Jarvis answered, "He just got lucky." Billy heard the remark and blew a deep, disappointed breath.

  The two fighters circled each other with their fists up, both having now been stung with mean enough shots that they weren't anxious for more. But still, they wanted to win. It was more than the honor of their respective outfits at stake, whatever Frank Walker was promulgating. It was that both of these guys were getting to the age when they weren't going to be doing much more of this, and one of these times soon was going to be the last time either one would win or lose. And both of them wanted to carry around a win for the rest of their lives, not a loss. That's really what kept them fighting: the fact that one of these two friends was going to walk around the rest of his life knowing that he whipped the other. Neither one of these guys wanted to be that other guy.

  Billy Stevens went with what had worked before and came at Jarvis like a buzz saw, fists flying in all directions, but this time Jarvis knew what to do. He stepped back and let Billy knock himself a little out of balance, and, in the moment he took to stop swinging and reorient himself, Jarvis stepped around to his right and fired a straight lead that caught him behind his ear. Billy bent over away from Jarvis, who had flanked him, and awkwardly moved away, trying to reestablish some footing. Then he came at Jarvis once more, firing a flurry of hooks, most markedly slower than his earlier efforts, before his strength had started to fail.

  Jarvis stayed out of harm's way, he too noticing that Billy was getting tired.

  Then, just when Billy stopped firing and dropped his hands, he threw a combination of his own, first a straight right, then a left hook.

  The right caught Billy Stevens dead on the nose and the left hit him squarely on the chin. He fell to the ground flat on his back and laid there. Loren Minnie bent down over Billy and started to ask his condition, but what he saw in his eyes told him that Billy was not available for questions. "He's finished," said Minnie, anti-climactically, and a huge cheer went up from the Walker bunch, a moan from the Lazy S.

  Immediately cowboys started paying off their bets, dutifully coughing up what they’d lost fair and square, and doing it in a friendly spirit. Winning or losing money, it didn't matter to them. They weren't going to be buying anything anyway. It was the sport and the token that mattered, and there'd be other chances to win it back.

  Frank Walker, on the other hand, was seeing Jarvis' victory as another indication of the power and prestige of Walker Ranch. He immediately rushed to Jarvis side and extended his hand in victory, making a big show of it for everybody to see. Even Jarvis seemed a little embarrassed by Frank's behavior, but he smiled at Frank and made like it was honor to represent him and his spread.

  Wes Witherspoon, the owner of the Lazy S, came over to shake the winner's hands. "Good fight, Jarvis," he said. "You beat a pretty good man there."

  Frank didn't hesitate to gloat. "I guess it goes to show you, Wesley. You don't find 'em better'n what we got here on Walker Ranch. Studs, I mean. Genuine, balls hanging down to the ground, studs." Frank reeked of liquor and his words were beginning to slur.

  "Well, no tellin' why they work where they do," Witherspoon said. "It probably indicates lower intelligence."

  "That may be the case – my boys may not be too damned smart – but I tally it six wins to three tonight, Walker over Lazy S," Frank said. "I figure that says all that needs to be said about what's what in this county. Walker Ranch prevails!" He held up his bottle, prompting a cheer from the Walker Ranch.

  The cowboys started readying themselves to call it a night, having paid off their bets and rendered their congratulations, but Frank Walker wasn't about to call it quits. "I want to tell you Lazy S boys something," he said, a little unsteady on his pegs. "The reason the Walker Ranch bunch can kick the ass of any bunch in these parts is because they get instruction from – dare I say it – the best!"

  "What the hell are you talking about, Frank?" Witherspoon asked, mildly amused by Frank's intoxication. It was not a common occurrence, seeing Frank Walker inebriated in public, if you could call his own barn a public place. The other cowboys, too, looked at Frank a little afraid of having him see the looks on their faces. They had to remind themselves that Frank Walker was a respected man in the Longmont community.

  This was not one of his better nights, and seeing him this way made them feel as if they were looking in on something blasphemous.

  "What I'm saying," said Frank, "is that I taught every one've these sons-a-bitches how to kick the kind of ass they kick."

  "That's right, boss," said one of the cowboys. "We wouldn't know nothing about kickin' ass if it weren't for you. Ain't that right, boys?" he asked to those around him, and they nodded in jovial agreement. "You're the teacher," one of them mocked.

  "In fact, I'll show you right now..." Frank leaned in toward Witherspoon, who seemed to melt away from his rancid breath. "...that I not only taught these jokers everything they know – but I can still whip every last one of them."

  The cowboys looked one to the next, uncertain of what would come next, but each wishing that someone could take control of Frank and maybe just put him to bed for the night. But there was no controlling Frank Walker. He looked at the Walker crew, eyeing them one by one, until he found the one he wanted. "You! Right there! Johnny Hayes! Come out here and go a few rounds with me."

  Hayes, a nineteen year old new hire, whom Jarvis Lang had recently brought aboard, looked back at his boss, Frank, with a mixture of apprehension and respect.

  "You didn't fight tonight, did you?" Frank asked. Johnny hadn't, though he would have had he been called upon, having accepted without complaint this heavy duty that came with employment at Walker Ranch. He had sparred in the barn on several occasions, and he wasn't bad with his hands. He just didn't really like it, that's all. "No sir," he said, "I didn't fight tonight." "Well get your butt out here and go a few rounds with me."

  Wes Witherspoon was ready to call it a night and he told Frank so. "Look, Frank, I want to get a little work out of my guys tomorrow. We've got to be gettin' back to the ranch."

  "No, sir!" said Frank. "You guys are not gonna have all the fun and then run off before I get any. No sir! Now help me on with a pair of these gloves. And put some on him, too," he said, indicating Johnny Hayes. "Come on!" he urged, when Jarvis and Morrison, looked at each other, each hoping the other would somehow be able to tell Frank no. They tied gloves on Johnny and Frank.

  The Lazy S cowboys remained standing, for the most part, many having already moved toward the door, ready to call it a night. Now they watched old man Walker make a fool of himself from the secure range of a nearby exit. Walker's boys reluctantly sat back down upon their hay bales. Most of them had seen this before. They knew what Frank wanted.

  "Okay, now don't go easy on me," Frank said, hunkering
down into a fighting stance. "I don't want you thinkin' you got to go easy on the old man."

  Johnny assumed a reluctant battle pose that seemed designed to be non-provocative, but Frank immediately launched his attack, and Johnny tightened. He looked over toward Jarvis Lang, as Frank hit him with a jab, as if to ask whether or not he should fight back. Frank nailed him with another jab, and suddenly Johnny lashed out, landing two hooks to each side of Frank's rib cage. "That's good," said Frank, grinning his encouragement, and then once again snapping Johnny's head back with consecutive jabs.

  Frank had seen Jack Dempsey, the mauler from Monasses, Colorado, in his prime.

  He loved the big punchers, Joe Louis and Max Schmelling, but Billy Conn was his favorite, "a true boxer" he'd say. He emulated the boxer's style, showing what footwork he could, given the nature of the ring and his own mental condition. He moved around in a calculated effort to box his opponent in, to cut off his retreat and drive him to the ropes, where he could pulverize him with body shots. These were Frank's big weapon. He liked to hit guys where the hurt didn't necessarily show. There a guy could take a lot of abuse, and would, because nobody wants to be known as a guy who goes down from a body shot. So Frank could just keep pounding away, getting his jollies by whipping on a guy who wasn't likely to hit him back. Frank avoided anything more than jabs to the face. Employees with black eyes were hard to explain, especially if it was seen to be happening over and over.

  Johnny tried ducking Frank's shots, but it was tough going. He was surprised by Frank's accuracy and by his power. His jabs hurt like some guy's leads. His nose had gone numb, but he thought there was a trickle of blood. Frank dodged in close, moving his head from side-to-side, like a hooded cobra, tempting him to fire a shot, but he didn't dare. He looked over at Jarvis once again, almost pleading for an answer, but Jarvis just looked away. He glanced at the other Walker cowboys and noticed that many of them just looked down. Frank hit him with an upper cut, landing it squarely on his chin, but it seemed mostly to show him that he could. It only hinted at his power.