The Women in Pants

by Stan Himes

  At last the day came where Doc determined that Jonas had healed enough to ride home in the back of the wagon, provided Jonas agreed to run the ranch with his backside in a chair rather than on a horse. He made Jonas shake on it, though Jonas was quick to add “for the time being” to the agreement to give himself room to hedge.

  Mary, clean and fresh in her dress, drove the wagon on the trail toward home. Jonas was settled in the back, his leg straight out and braced with wooden slats. His crutches rattled beside him as he inhaled the fresh air, felt the warmth of the sun, and stretched his neck and strained his eyes to look ahead. He wanted to see those ranch hands, see some certainty in his future. If he couldn’t do the work himself, he wanted to boss somebody to feel part of the work. His curiosity boiled over.

  “You can at least tell me how many. I don’t understand why you’re so secretive.”

  “Hard to believe nobody in town said anything.”

  “Easier to believe when you consider that almost nobody’s in town,” Jonas spit. “Doc said the few there were buzzin’ about your cowhands, but he wouldn’t tell me more. Said the surprise’ll get my heart started, whatever that means. Crazy old…”

  “I only found six,” Mary said. “But they’re taking to the work real well.”

  Jonas considered the information. “Can’t drive the whole herd with six, but can move some. Enough.” He stopped straining and relaxed a bit. “You did well, Honey. I think we’re gonna be all right.”

  Seeing him at ease warmed Mary’s heart. Somehow that always made her playful spirit rise. A twinkle formed in her eyes. “Katie’s keeping a close watch on them.”

  Jonas snapped up. “What?! You left that boy-crazy girl with six cowhands?!”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “Wasn’t worried about her. Just the hands she might scare off.” Jonas had a twinkle in his eyes, too. Things were looking up.

  Before Jonas could get a glimpse of work at the ranch, he heard it.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!” came the piercing scream from Ernestine. Even with a bad leg and hip, Jonas rose in the back of the wagon. “My Lord! Hurry!” he shouted at Mary.

  “Now you just relax. It’s only the crew doin’ the branding.”

  “Branding what? That was a woman’s scream. Let’s go!”

  Instead of hurrying, Mary stopped the wagon and turned to face Jonas. “I guess I can’t put off telling you any longer. These ranch hands are… out of the ordinary.”

  “Mary, I heard a woman scream. We need to do something.”

  “It wasn’t a scream so much as… well, as a new way of doing things.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’ll be better if you just trust me and let me show you. But I promise that everything’s all right.”

  Another “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!” rose up in the wind, startling Jonas again.

  “Trust me,” said Mary before Jonas could start questioning again. She snapped the reins. “All’s fine. Different, but fine.”

  The pit in Jonas’s stomach felt anything but fine.

  Mary brought them to a stop on a ridge overlooking the herd, giving Jonas full view of the activities below. At his first sight of the women in pants, he looked on without voicing a comment, though his wince and choking swallow said a mouthful.

  The two posts he’d set in the branding area remained. Sally stood by one and I stood by the other, each of us holding ropes with lasso hoops at the end. Katie stood behind Sally and Prudence stood behind me, each of them holding onto the respective ropes as well. Ruth stood by the branding fire where the Circle B iron lay reddish-white in the coals.

  Mary watched Jonas as he absorbed the scene, what little color his face had slowly draining away. He sat bolt upright as he realized what Ernestine was about to do. For the first time, he spoke, just a whisper. “Lord help that crazy girl.”

  Ernestine stood almost nose-to-nose with a steer that looked back at her in mild curiosity. With the other women ready in their places, she performed her role. She slapped the steer in the face. The steer jerked its head in surprise, then huffed in anger. As Ernestine turned and ran, it followed its natural instincts and stormed after her. “Run, Ernestine, run!” hollered Prudence. And run she did. Ernestine made a beeline for the two posts, rushing first between us women and then straight between the posts.

  Boom! The steer pounded into the posts and as it bounced back a few inches, Sally and I looped the ropes around its long-horned head. “Pull!” shouted Ruth, and the four of us with rope duty dug in our feet and held the steer against the poles with all our might. The steer was still stronger than us and its legs were free. It jerked and kicked. We could only hold it a few seconds, but it was enough for Ruth to close in and sear its hide with the Circle B brand. Letting the angry beast go was almost as dangerous. There was no way we were gonna jump in any closer to try to unloop the ropes, so we just dropped them and dived out of the beast’s way as it rumbled off. When it calmed later, we’d get the ropes off.

  We stood there panting, checking each other for injuries. Once we’d all caught our breath and gathered up more rope, Ruth said the magic words. “Okay, Ernestine. Go slap another one.”

  Up on the ridge, Jonas was wide-eyed with horror.

  Whew, boy, I’m here to tell you that the next couple of hours were a lot tougher on me than trying to hold an angry steer. Tougher on all of us. Before Ernestine could pop another cow in the nose, Jonas bellowed from on high. “Everyone outta there! Back to the house! Now!” We looked up to see Mary pulling the wagon away, shoulders slumped, head down, with Jonas in the back. Even from a distance, we could see that his face had turned bright red—we were sure it wasn’t from embarrassment.

  By the time we got to the house, Jonas and Mary had leaped past spat and squabble and launched straight into argument. Their voices cut through the humid afternoon air like a hot knife through butter, and there were no biscuits around to soften the blow.

  “If the rustlers and Indians don’t kill you,” rang out Jonas’s voice, “the cattle’ll likely trample you to death!”

  Inside the house, Mary sat at the table, her eyes sad but her jaw clenched in fury. Jonas stood on his crutches, fuming, spewing, berating. If Mary had worries about being a leader, she was proving herself right then despite not knowing it. She took the verbal thrashing like a man.

  “Few days of wearin’ britches and ridin’ straddle don’t make you cowhands!” Jonas steamed on. “Can any of ’em shoot or rope? Can they ride fourteen hours chokin’ on dust? Cross a river?!” A wound-up man can’t keep still. Jonas forgot himself and turned to pace, stumbling as a crutch caught the corner of the table. Frustrated, he tossed the crutch across the room. “All furied up and can’t even pace!”

  He hopped to a chair, snatched it out, and lowered himself into it. All the while his hell-bent eyes were locked on Mary as if daring her to even think about helping him. Then, as is often the case in any rising fury, he made it personal. “Why you didn’t stop this loco idea is beyond me!”

  That did it. Mary was a mountain lion. She sprang to her feet and uncoiled her attack. “Because I love this ranch as much as you do! Your sweat ain’t the only sweat that helped build it!”

  Listening outside was a brutal time for us all, especially Katie. Jonas and Mary kept jabbing and thrusting and parrying, and poor Katie was sick with worry. We all were, wondering if our futures were becoming uncertain once again. But it was more than that for Katie. “Never heard Ma and Pa yell before,” she said.

  Sally put an arm around her. “They haven’t been this scared before. They’ll settle it soon.”

  I voiced the concern of the others. “I don’t want to go crawling back to my dad at the bank and my mom and her society women. What if they settle it so we aren’t going?”

  Ruth stepped toward the door with determination. “Time we settled it for ’em.”

  Jonas and Mary were at opposite ends of the table, each st
anding, hands flat on the surface, leaning in as the battle raged on.

  “There’s nothing silly about any plan to save this ranch!”

  “I ain’t questioning your intentions, just the foolish way —”

  We burst in, Ruth leading the charge. “’Kay if I speak my mind?”

  Jonas rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Never known you not to.”

  Ruth took one step toward him, stood as tall as her petite frame could go, and said, “We’re doin’ this.”

  Jonas waited for more, but Ruth simply nodded once, putting a period to her sentence. In her view, enough had been said. Jonas had other thoughts. “Well, your speech is like you, short and to the point and I appreciate that. But it don’t —”

  Finishing sentences was not a goal Jonas seemed likely to accomplish today.

  “You gonna make me spell it out?” Ruth continued. “Fine. It’s like this.” She pulled up a chair and sat at an angle to him. He sat down again as well—a great relief to his hip, which was throbbing more than his temple. “We all got our reasons, but they don’t matter much compared to this one: You and Mary and Katie are our friends and neighbors, and you need help.” She leaned in closer. “And if that ain’t as plain as the boards holdin’ your leg together, I’ll make it even plainer. Even if you say no, we’ll just take the cattle and go anyway ’cause you can’t stop us. We’ll save your ranch in spite of you. So either help or stay out of the way.” This time she put a period on her sentence by slamming her tiny fist on the table.

  All eyes were on Jonas as he considered her words. “Wasn’t short, but it was to the point.” He took a long moment to look over each one of us. We had iron in our eyes, I’m proud to say. We were determination personified. He lingered on the steely gaze of Katie, a sight he’d never expected from the dream-filled girl. The silence was oppressive. I could hear a slight wheeze in Pearl’s breathing. We all had a lot riding on Jonas’s next words, but none of us more than her. At last, Jonas turned to Mary. Decision time.

  “Have your cowhands ready to work by sunup.”

  “Woooooooooooooooooooooo!!” Ernestine probably scared the cattle with her celebration squeal, but she spoke for us all. Smiles and yelps and jumping and clapping chased away the tension that had been fog-thick just seconds before.

  Mary rose, walked around the table, and hugged her husband. Like so many disagreements in human history, all was right between the couple once the woman got her way. But I say that just for a chuckle. There was plenty more. This was a couple in love, a devoted pair if ever there was one. Their argument wasn’t built on anger but on fear. Mary feared losing the life she loved. Jonas feared for the lives of his wife and daughter. The fears hadn’t disappeared, but the commitment of two people united in both love and cause pushed the fears back. They had the hope of togetherness.

  Jonas accepted the hug with closed eyes and an open heart. As his eyes opened, though, he reverted to his stoic ways, not at all comfortable with us ladies staring at the united couple. He waved his hands to shoosh us to the door.

  “Rule number one: no cowhands in the house.”

  A while after the fact, I was able to ask Jonas what went through his mind at that moment. Before I share his answer, I need to make sure you understand just how things were. Jonas was the head of the family, the head of the household and the head of the ranch. His decisions were gospel. He was the man. If they’d ever gone to one of those fancy ballroom dances back east, the fellow who shouts out the names would have said, “Mr. Jonas Bartlett and his wife, Mrs. Jonas Bartlett.” The man was the identity, the king, the ruler. Ruth may have blustered up a speech about how we were doing this whether he was behind us or not, but there was no cold truth behind her statement. If he had said no, we were through. Like I said, it’s just the way things were. Jonas was a rare breed in that he talked over his decisions with Mary, but there was always an understanding that if he said this was how something was going to be, then that was how it was going to be. It’s a tribute to his character and his love for Mary that he never abused that authority like many men do.

  Some of the others didn’t have men or didn’t have them around to answer to at the moment, or things might have been different for all of us. Sure, some of us were clever enough to get our way. I could never lie to my father, but I’d learned to say only what was needed. So I’d told my parents that I was “going out to the Bartlett ranch to help out” because that was a lot harder for my father to find fault with than “I’m going to risk my life on an all-woman cattle drive.” Word of what we were doing had likely gotten to him by that time, and on occasion I expected to see him riding out to bring me home, but he didn’t. I consider myself blessed that he never spoke the words, “Laurie, I forbid you to go,” because that would have put me in hard place of deciding whether to defy my father or be a dutiful daughter. I had considerably more history of being dutiful and suspect I would have done what I was told.

  So not only could Jonas have ended our cattle drive with a simple no, he had every right to. The decision was his. Getting him to talk about himself was harder than holding a steer against a post, but with the right amount of prodding I was able to learn what it was that had settled the matter in his mind. It was two things, both revolving around Katie.

  He cherished that girl and he worried about her. She was a joy to be around, but she had also always been flighty in her dream-filled ways, not grounded like her mother. Seeing a new determination in her eyes had given Jonas pause, and then seeing that Katie was shoulder-to-shoulder with Pearl pushed Jonas the rest of way. They were close enough in resemblance that she could’ve been Katie’s older sister. He knew nothing of Pearl’s upbringing and history outside of where she’d been working, but at that moment it occurred to him that the primary difference between Katie and Pearl was their means of survival. Katie had a home and family to care for her. Pearl was on her own, and her only asset was her body. If the ranch was lost, Katie would still have Jonas and Mary finding some way somehow to get by, but she’d be a lot closer to risking a life like Pearl’s. A successful cattle drive ensured the success of the ranch, and the success of the ranch ensured a future for his family that removed any possibility of Katie falling into darkness for lack of means. The ranch must be saved. The risk must be taken. Decision made.

  He said he didn’t think much about Pearl at that moment, about how he’d be sending her back to the life she wanted to escape. But I don’t buy that. In that particular instant, I believe Jonas considered everything. And despite all that we would go through, I also believe now as I believed then—he made the right decision.

  Chapter 8

  I’ll try not to bore you with the activities of the next week. Suffice to say that Jonas drilled us in riding, roping, shooting and more. He probably made more speeches that week than he’d spoken in his entire life. Sometimes his words were directed at one of us, like telling Ernestine that “it’s a cattle drive, meaning that you drive cattle, not slap ’em on the nose and run.” Sometimes there were words to all of us that bordered on thankfulness. “Can’t drive many with eight of you. Maybe 250, 300 head. But that’s enough to save our ranch and get all of us a little money, so for that I’m grateful.” Then he’d cut off our smiles with one of his warnings. “But 300 head is more’n enough to run you into the ground. And you’ll sure be mighty temptin’ targets for thieves, I promise you that. No way you’ll learn enough to be ready, but you’ll learn all you can in the few days we’ve got.”

  It went on like that. Jonas giving instructions. Us trying. Jonas making speeches. It was hard work and we loved it. We were learning our roles and, of course, Jonas had a speech for each one. “Mary’ll be both trail boss and scout, out front, leading and looking ahead for water.” “Ruth and Laurie will be pointers, taking the front position on each side, with Sally and Prudence behind them at flank.” “Ernestine and Pearl’ll ride drag. It’s a dirty job, I won’t lie about it. But it’s what keeps the herd movin’.” �
�Katie will serve as wrangler, keeping the remuda of horses together.” In other words, he told us what we’d already worked out ourselves, but I believe it made him feel good.

  There were times, though, when his statements would raise our curiosity. That’s when having Prudence in the group paid an extra dividend. She hadn’t had much schooling, but somewhere in there she had learned to raise her hand and ask questions. Jonas would say something and, whoosh, up went the hand. Like the time Jonas told us to expect to spend all day in the saddle.

  “A cowboy takes pride in staying on his mount from sunup to dinner.”

  Up went the hand. “Mr. Bartlett?”

  To his credit, Jonas was endlessly patient. To Prudence’s credit, she voiced what we were all wondering. “What if I have to, um, go? Like to the privy?”

  “Fact is, Prudence, you won’t be taking in a lot of water, and most of it you’ll sweat out anyway.”

  Up went the hand. “But should the need arise, may I get off my horse?”

  “You do what you need to do. Just don’t expect privacy on the trail.”

  Up went the hand.

  By the end of the week, Jonas had turned everything over to Mary. “I’m in the way,” he said, “and I don’t mean that for sympathy. I mean that these women chose to follow you, not a fella on crutches. You lead the training just like you’ll lead the drive.” It was really the passing of the burden. The unspoken words were “our ranch is fully in your hands.” Far more important were the unspoken words that built up Mary’s confidence. Jonas’s warm eyes said, “There’s no one else I’d rather trust it to.”

  The other big transition of the week was between father and daughter. Remember Pitch? The black mustang that had thrown Jonas time and again until he’d turned it into a fine mount? He’d developed a relationship with that horse that was downright eerie in how well they communicated. If Pitch was roaming free, Jonas always knew where to find him. If Jonas wanted to turn onto a new trail, Pitch would move to it before Jonas could pull the rein. Perhaps it was because Jonas believed, unlike many a ranch hand, that breaking a horse shouldn’t involve breaking its spirit. Or perhaps they were just two souls who understood each other. Whatever the reason, there was no more powerful way for a father to tell his daughter he loved her than when Jonas said, “Katie, you ride Pitch.”