"I don't see why we just don't get a dog, if it's a watch-dog you want," Jake asked, hollering in from the living room, where he could overhear the conversation going on in the kitchen. "I never seen a ranch that didn't have a dog," he said.
"Dad had a dog once," Tory said, "and that's probably why he'll never have another."
"What'd it do?" Py asked.
"It wasn't that it did anything," Tory said. "It's just that Dad loved that dog so that I don't think he'll ever want another one. He's pretty sentimental. I don't think he believes another dog would ever be the same."
"Your dad has got some pretty strange ideas," Jake yelled from the next room. Tory smiled and shook her head. "Yeah, I guess he does."
Py hung around the kitchen, waiting for another conversation to strike up, but when it didn't seem to be happening he wandered back outside. There he noticed Pete disappearing back into the barn, carrying a box of some kind, so he ignored his instruction to stay in the house and went out to see what Pete was doing.
"I thought I told you to stay in the house and rest," Pete said when Py ambled into the barn.
"I know, Pete," Py said. "I've been trying to do what you said, but I'm just bored to tears. I just came out here to see what you was doin'." Py noticed that Pete had been putting things into an old oily-looking wooden cabinet that was mounted on the wall at the back of the building. "What've you got in there?" he asked.
Pete looked at the cabinet, eyeing it as if it held special significance for him. "I figure we're gonna be tending some calves next spring. That is if old Cooksin's half the stud he appears to be. So, I was getting a medicine chest all put together so we'll be ready and have what we need."
"A medicine chest?" Py asked.
Pete looked at him. "Yeah, a medicine chest. Ain't you ever cared for calves before?"
Py shook his head. "No sir, I never worked nowhere where I got to take care of the animals."
"Well a fine couple of cowboys I've got the future of this place ridin' on," Pete said, his dismay being more theatrical than real. He knew Py was no cowboy.
"I'm willin' to learn," Py said, speaking right up.
Pete seemed to think about it for a second, and then said, "Well, okay, we'll have a little lesson here on the care of babies of the bovine variety." He reached down into his box and pulled out a few more cans and bottles, placing them on the shelves in the cabinet. "Let me get these things up here where they go, then I'll tell you what we use 'em for." He finished his shelf stocking, and then started doing an inventory of its contents. "This here you may recognize," he said, pulling down a glass bottle filled with thick, white liquid. "This here's Kaopectate."
"Kaopectate?" Py said. "What'd you give a calf that stuff for?"
"Well, just stay calm and I'll tell you," Pete said. "It's like with human babies. Calves often times get the shits real bad. Their stomachs – their digestive tracts – are just gettin' used to mother's milk and, once they've been weaned, to grains and that type of thing. It takes 'em awhile to adjust, but if you give 'em a shot of this stuff ever so often it'll help 'em out. Scours mostly, that's what it is. It's infection in the intestinal tract that gives 'em the diarrhea." Pete reached into the cabinet and pulled out a can. "This here'll help, too. It's electolyte. Helps replace minerals when a calf's got the scours and shits all the time."
Py seemed entranced by the notion that calves were treated in the same way human children would be. He was also happy to have Pete talking to him again without being angry, but more than anything, he was happy to be learning about something that he'd always wished to know, which was how to be a cow hand. Old Pete was showing him some basics.
"This here baking soda is also good for upset stomachs," Pete continued. "And these..." He held up a huge brown pill. "This is a scour bolus for really bad upsets. I'll show you how to get this down a calf’s throat. I got a tool. You use this right away, when the shits start, and you can usually get an animal straightened right out." Pete replaced the boluses and then took out an amber bottle. "This here is regular old iodine.
You use it for sore hoofs and scratches. Usually you can mix it, one part iodine to ten parts water, and spray it right on abrasions to disinfect 'em and toughen 'em right up. We got a little spray bottle around here somewheres, but I ain't found it yet."
"What d'ya got there, Epsom salt?" Py asked.
"That's right," Pete said. "This is just like you'd use it yourself for sore muscles or, if you're a cow, sore hoofs."
"I ain't a cow," Py said, matter of fact.
"No, but you use it the same way, just like you were a cow," Pete said. "Just dilute it in some warm water." He pointed out another amber bottle. "This here is boric acid, and you mix one-half teaspoon in with a cup of warm water to wash out mattered or watery eyes. This here's pine tar salve for fly protection and small sores. Dairy farmers use it for udders, but we don't plan on havin' no milkers around here."
"I might be able to use a little of that myself," Py said, offering a lame self-effacing humor that Pete seemed to ignore.
"This here," Pete continued, "is camphorated oil, which you might've seen me mix with motor oil to make a fly repellent. You'd usually wear some gloves – cotton's best, if we can find some – to rub this on a calf's back, belly and head, though you wouldn't want to get any in a doggie's eyes. This here is just regular aspirin, which is good for reducing fever. Same with this – it's just regular cold tablets for sniffly noses.
Works on a calf just like it would a young stud like yourself. That camphorated oil, by the way, is also good for ear mites and relieving congestion, like say if a calf gets a cold."
"You talk like calves ain't no different from humans," Py said, but again Pete was lost in his world of bovine medicine and was paying little attention. "That iodine I showed you: you also use it for a newborn's naval cord, which you just drop right inside the bottle. That thing gets pretty germy draggin' around in the manure until it falls off, so you got to be special careful with it. You can avoid a bunch of problems by keepin' up with maintenance like that. Now, right here we got our worming tablets, and I'll show you how and when to use those when the time comes." Pete showed Py a silver can, in which was a powdery substance. "This here is rotenone. You use it on calves who are getting bald spots, due to red lice. Clears it right up. Wish it worked as well for humans. I always keep a mixture of linseed oil and turpentine on hand, in case you get a calf with the bloat. That happens after they're weaned and allowed to eat wet, green grass. In fact, for future reference you might be warned not to turn a calf out in wet grass first thing in the morning. Usually you want to keep 'em on grain and hay in the early part of the day, until the sun's had time to dry things out. Then you can let 'em out. Once again, you save yourself a lot of problems and a lot of work by gettin' things done right up front." Pete nosed around to see what else was there in the cabinet. "Let's see, here's some cod liver oil, for vitamin deficiencies. We won't have those to worry about, with all the green hay around here. We'll get some antibiotic ointment so we can treat pinkeye, and I'll show you how to work that when the time comes. And this here's a regular old antihistamine, which we can put in a vaporizer here in the barn. Treatin' a calf with a head-cold ain't no different than treatin' a kid with the same thing."
Py was grinning, though it was tough to tell it given the condition of his face. "I never had nobody to teach me about his stuff before," he told Pete.
"Well, if you can keep yourself out of fist-fights, I believe we can turn you into a real cowboy," said Pete, replacing the items he had taken out of the medicine cabinet. "Maybe we'll start you as a calf boy and you can sort of grow into the job with 'em."
"That sounds fine to me," said Py. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes. I always wanted to be a cowboy."
* * * * *
"Where's Py?"
Jake ached everywhere, but as much as it hurt to move it hurt worse having to be around Tory all day, knowing that there was something he needed to tell
her before she found out about it from somebody else. Something terrible. So he'd dragged himself from the couch and now leaned against the door jamb to the kitchen. Though the ice he'd been holding against his bruises all morning had helped reduce the swelling around his eyes, but he still looked wrecked.
Tory had just taken a seat at the kitchen table, where she nibbled on a piece of bread while reading a book that looked like one of the library variety. It was clothbound with gilded-edged pages. She feigned looking up, acknowledging him but never taking her eyes off her reading. "He's out in the barn with dad," she said.
Jake couldn't help feeling ignored. There were no questions about how he might be feeling now, nothing said about his bruises looking better. He stood leaning against the door like a lost boy, adrift in a world of indifference.
"What are you reading?" he finally asked, realizing that if he didn't keep the conversation going, nobody would.
Tory stopped reading and looked thoughtful for a moment, then made a statement. "It's the greatest book I've ever read," she said.
Jake gave her a look that mocked the importance of her declaration. "What's it about?" he asked.
"It's about a boy named Eugene, and his family. It's by a very talented man named Thomas Wolfe. He's dead now," she said, somehow imbedding implications of tragedy within her report. She seemed to Jake to be in some kind of a trance, like whatever this guy Wolfe had written had knocked her a little off her nut.
"I don't mean to take you away from what you're
Tory seemed to pull herself out of her fugue state without too much irritation, though it took her a moment. The airy expression slowly evaporated from her face, and then she was back real again, asking "What is it?"
Jake looked nervously out the kitchen window, checking to see if Py or Pete were still out of sight. They were. He looked at Tory and choked down a spit, which didn't come easily. "This is going to be kind of hard," he said.
Tory noticed the way he squirmed, but was careful not to show it.
"I told Pete something that I think I need to tell you, too," Jake said. "It's about what Frank Walker told him when he was here the other day."
She remembered very well Frank's parting shot, hollering out something about "working with a criminal." She knew it had been aimed at Jake, but she had heard the story about the money Jake had taken from Walker's desk, and like Py she had assumed it was a reference to that. She had no idea about Jake's previous troubles, though she was prepared for surprises where Jake's past was concerned. Anybody who was that eager to avoid talking about his history had something there that bothered him. She never thought Jake was any different.
"Frank told Pete about some trouble I got in over in Kansas." Jake put his hands in his jeans pockets and let his shoulder's sag. He looked down at the floor. It was a posture designed to deflect incrimination, the con in him knowing that most people – most good people – would not violate someone whom they believed to be vulnerable. Jake didn't even know he was doing it, and would have hated himself if he had. His deceits had worked their way so deeply into his being that they now infected his personality. Whether it was a curse on him, or a saving grace, he had lost the ability to see himself.
"What kind of trouble?"
"There was a rancher over there in Council Grove who got robbed." Jake looked at Tory and said, "I was working for him at the time." Then he quickly looked away, glancing out the window toward the barn, checking to see if their privacy was in jeopardy. He for sure did not want to have this conversation within earshot of Py. Some folks had a right to know. He wanted to preserve Py's innocence, owing as he was to its power. Py was the one person in his life who regarded him with unconditional respect – something Jake couldn't afford to lose.
"How did it involve you?" Tory was stolid, careful with her choice of words and tone of voice.
Jake felt an anxious tug in his chest, the same way he felt it every time he came to this "Y" in his story. What he wanted Tory to know was that he had excised himself from every wrong thing he had done in the past, every bad association and mistaken solution. What he wrestled with admitting was that it was not over, that those pernicious elements that made him deny himself were all still in place, still haunting him like a wraith, reminding him of what lie ahead. The best he could think to do was to lie. The alternative was empowering that vengeful spirit to obliterate his hopes for reformation.
"I was investigated ..." Jake took a deep breath, allowing himself a moment to think. "The Sheriff there was talking to seasonal workers. I'd been hired by this guy to help with his winter feeding and spring roundup. He had a big stocker operation."
Tory cocked one eyebrow. "So...what came of it?"
Jake repositioned himself, trying to find a more comfortable posture, but it was hopeless. "Nothing," he said. "There wasn't nothin' that could have. It's just that, they got to lookin' into my..." Jake got shifty-eyed for a moment, which did not escape Tory's notice. "...into my police record."
"Police record?"
Jake took a deep breath and blew it out, so that his cheeks puffed when he did.
His whole act was slipping a little. He seemed to not realize how guilty he was beginning to look. He took another deep breath, and once again glanced out the window. "I...uh..." He moved away from the door jam and started pacing around the kitchen.
"What is it, Jake?" Tory asked. "I've never seen you act this way."
"It's not easy tellin' you this," he answered. "This is a part of my life I just want to have behind me. I didn't want you to ever know about it, but I guess Frank Walker's made that impossible. I've got to tell you. There's no other way."
Tory couldn't stand it any longer, the way he was torturing himself. Whatever he had to say, she was going to be able to handle it. Didn't he know that? "Jake, quit being so nervous and tell me what you've got to tell me," she said forcefully.
Jake went over to the kitchen sink and leaned against it, looking out the window, his back to her. Then he turned and leaned against the counter. "I told you I was in the army. Well, I spent three years and nine months of my enlistment time in federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. Transporting stolen government property. I did the time and then got a dishonorable discharge."
Tory raised her eyebrows briefly, enough to indicate that the communication carried some punch. A prison sentence, dishonorable discharge, stealing from a government at war... How much bad news could a person pack into a single admission? They weren't the credentials she might have hoped for from someone who might possibly give her children.
Jake continued. "I've been involved with some bad people and I got no excuse for myself. I made the mistake of lettin' 'em get to me and that's nobody's fault but my own. I did some foolish things, and I paid for it."
"So that's what Frank Walker was talking about?" Tory asked. "Did he tell my father?"
"I told Pete," Jake said. "I didn't want him finding out from somebody other'n me. It's the same reason I'm telling you."
Tory furled her eyebrows, looking serious. "So what's it mean? Are you in any trouble?"
"No, I'm not in trouble," Jake said, as if the notion was now inconceivable. "It's just that, the law is still investigating that case, and as long as they are they'll be a chance that they'll want to talk to me again. The thing is, it doesn't need to be a problem for anyone – or at least it didn't, until Frank Walker stuck his damned nose in the whole thing. I wish I'd never worked for the guy. He's goin' to be the bane of my existence."
"Why would it be a problem now?" Tory asked, "Especially if you've got nothing to hide? It's not something either Dad or me are goin' to hold against you."
"What about people in town?" "What about them?" Tory asked.
"What'll they think of me after Frank Walker gets through spreadin' the word about me?"
Tory squinted and shook her head. "Not everybody
in Longmont listens to what Frank Walker has to say. Besides, you can't control what people think anyway.
The ones who will get to know you, they'll f01m their own opinions, and you'll do okay." She looked seriously at Jake, focusing on his pupils, where he would likely give himself away with a lie. "The question I have is, what were you planning to do? Were you planning to never tell me about any of this?"
"I was hoping I wouldn't have to," Jake admitted.
"You were just going to carry it around with you, hoping that somehow it would just stay unknown? That must've been quite a burden?"
"It still is," Jake said.
Tory seemed to just sit and think for a while – what seemed to Jake to be an uncomfortably long while. He didn't want her mulling over this too long: not if it was going to mean that in examining the whole thing she somehow started to find his part unpardonable. He felt that could happen.
"So what do you think?" he asked.
"I don't think you've got enough faith in people," she said.
CHAPTER 22 – Heavy Baggage
Jarvis had not given a lot of thought to marriage, at least not until recently. He had given a lot of thought to women – in fact, nearly all he had – but it was the kind of thought that had more to do with him than them. But marriage... That carried heavy baggage.
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