Pecos Valley Revival

by Alice Duncan

He prayed so long and so hard, I was thoroughly sick of him before he finally intoned the last sonorous “Amen” that I’d started praying for myself. I probably sound like a thoroughly sinful young woman, but I’m not, really. I go to church. I believe in God. I try to love my neighbor as I do myself, even though I find that somewhat difficult, as you can probably tell. I sing in the choir, for pity’s sake. Anyhow, a swelling chorus of “Amens” from the spectators followed the rev’s amen. It’s my theory that people were so glad he’d shut up, they said the word out of a sense of relief.

  Whatever the emotions of the crowd, Mr. Gunderson took to the platform again and announced the first event, which, as I mentioned before, was calf roping.

  Most of the guys who were performing that evening had been born nearby and had known each other for a number of years and were friendly with each other. The only one of the gang who didn’t quite fit in was Kenny Sawyer, the cowboy Myrtle and I had watched from the store window of Blue’s Dry Goods. Kenny had been born in Rosedale, too, and his mother and sister still lived in town, but from there on, he differed from his fellow cowboys. For one thing, he was a little over six feet tall and handsome as sin. He knew it, too; and whereas most of the cowboys I knew were humble fellows, Kenny was quite full of himself.

  He was darned good, though, at everything he did. He was a great roper, a wonderful rider, and he could stick to the meanest bull God ever invented. If he was inclined to take himself seriously, and if he swaggered a little too much, and if he wasn’t precisely a man’s man, it didn’t seem to bother any of the women in town. He collected females the way spilled honey collected ants, and this in spite of the fact that he and Sarah Molina were supposed to be engaged to be married. He was kind of a wanderer, if you know what I mean.

  Kenny and Phil were generally the best of the cowboys in most of the events held in our annual rodeo. Kenny had beat Phil in overall points for the past two years, but Phil was older and bigger now than he’d been then. Phil had just turned twenty-one, and he’d completely lost any babyishness he’d once had. He was good-looking too, but he wasn’t spectacular like Kenny was. Kenny could have been a movie star; he was that handsome. And he wasn’t at all shy, as Phil could sometimes be. He even flirted with me sometimes, even though he knew Phil was sweet on me—had once been sweet on me, anyhow. Or maybe he flirted with me because he thought Phil was sweet on me. That possibility wouldn’t have surprised me. I didn’t like Kenny a whole lot.

  However, he sure could rope a calf, which didn’t merely entail work on the cowboy’s part. The cowboy had to have a horse that he’d trained especially for the purpose. Both Kenny and Phil were wonderful with horses, and both had trained their mounts themselves. It was exciting to watch Phil work with his horse and his cattle, even when he was only doing his regular job on his father’s ranch. I’m sure the same could be said of Kenny, but I only saw him a few times a year, when he came to town.

  A lot of work had gone into fixing the Gundersons’ pasture so that the rodeo could take place. Chutes had been built to hold the broncos before they were let loose to rattle the cowboys’ bones, and runs were made to be used by the calves, bulls and steers as they were shooed into the pasture. The calves and the cowboys entered the pasture through the run, the cowboys chasing the calves—one at a time, naturally, so the different events could be timed by Mr. Gunderson and a couple of the other ranch owners, using big stopwatches. Sometimes they had to confer with each other. I guess they added all the times up and divided by three in order to come up with the cowboy’s official time. As I said, rodeo wasn’t very formal in those days.

  And I sure don’t know all the rules of the various events, but I do know that in calf roping, a calf would be set to run into the pasture, and a couple of seconds later a cowboy would chase after it on his horse. He’d have to rope the calf, then leap off his horse, run to the calf, catch it and flank it, and then tie at least three of its legs together with what Phil told me was a “pigging string,” which was another name for a small rope, and which he carried in his teeth. I guess every profession has its own argot. Anyhow, when the cowboy was through tying up the calf’s legs, he’d throw his hands in air as a signal to the judges that he’d finished the job. Then he’d remount his horse and let the rope go slack. If the calf kicked free of the rope in a certain number of seconds, the tie was considered invalid. It was a lot of work to do in a short space of time, and it took a lot of strength, skill, and a great horse. The horse was very important, because it not only had to respond to every tiny cue the cowboy gave it, both with his knees and his hands, but after the calf had been roped the horse had to stand there, perfectly still while the cowboy worked with the calf. If the horse wasn’t perfectly trained, all of the cowboy’s careful efforts would be ruined.

  Phil and Kenny both had all of the attributes necessary to perform the task, but that evening Kenny beat Phil by something like a tenth of a second. I’d have felt sorrier for Phil if I hadn’t been mad at him. Still, he was a gentleman about it and shook Kenny’s hand. Kenny, smirking, slapped Phil on the back and said something I could tell Phil didn’t like much. But Phil really is a gentleman, and he didn’t react by more than a tightening of his lips.

  Then something happened that made me smirk inside, even though I knew it was mean of me. Esther Strickland, the woman who had been treating Phil as if he were her own personal box of candy, started fawning over Kenny Sawyer.

  Oh, all right, she didn’t actually fawn over him. But she came over and shook his hand, tilting her head back shyly and smiling up at him as if she thought he was the most thrilling thing to come along in a month of Sundays. She looked gorgeous and appealing and sweet and charming. Kind of like Mary Pickford, actually. She had that same air of innocent beauty about her.

  Have I mentioned recently that I hated her?

  Phil, looking a little lonely, wandered off. Kenny, with Esther hanging on him instead of Phil for a change, got ready for the steer wrestling, which was next. Phil wasn’t entered in that event, and I wondered if he’d bother to look up little old me, or if he was going to lick his wounds somewhere else.

  Sometimes I worry about perhaps being a trifle too catty. But not often.

  Anyway, I’d wronged poor Phil. Right after the steer wrestling began, darned if he didn’t show up at my section of the fence.

  “Hey, Annabelle.”

  I turned, and he was standing right there behind me, smiling his self-deprecating smile, and holding a glass of lemonade (rodeoing is thirsty work). “Hey, Phil. Wanna sit here?” I scooted over closer to Myrtle and patted the fence beside me. “Good event for you.”

  He shrugged. “I lost anyway.”

  “Pooh. You came in second by a hair. Anyhow, it’s supposed to be all in fun.”

  He climbed up, slung his long legs over the top rung of the fence, and settled in, leaning against my cottonwood (it was a big tree). “Tell that to Kenny Sawyer,” he muttered darkly.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s a swell-headed dummy.”

  Phil said, “Hmm,” and resumed slurping his lemonade.

  “Hey, Phil,” said Myrtle, leaning over and looking around me so she could smile at Phil. “You did a great job with the calf. Your horse was perfect, and you almost won.”

  “Hey, Myrtle. Thanks.” He squinted at her skirt but didn’t say anything. Then he greeted my sisters, both of whom liked Phil and expected me to marry him someday. Everybody expected me to marry him someday. Even me, until recently.

  “Good meeting last night at the revival tent, wasn’t it?” Myrtle asked him.

  Phil nodded. “Reverend Strickland is a great speaker.” He nudged me with his elbow. “You ought to come to a meeting with us, Annabelle. You’d be impressed. I don’t think they’ll be in town much longer.”

  Thank God for that, said I to myself. To Phil, I said, “Hmm.”

  And then I heard my name again. It sounded kind of snuffly this time. “Annabelle?”

  I tur
ned once more, and spotted Sarah Molina, the woman who was, ostensibly, Kenny Sawyer’s ladylove, although you wouldn’t necessarily know it from the way Kenny behaved around other women. “Hey, Sarah.” Although the lighting wasn’t the best, I saw that she’d been crying. “What’s the matter?”

  She sniffled again. “Oh . . . nothing.”

  That was clearly a lie, as Sarah was obviously in distress. Because I like Sarah and am a nice person in spite of my occasional lapses, I gestured for Phil to move over a little and let me get down. Playing the gent again—as I said before, he really is a gentleman (I don’t think he can help it)—Phil slid down from the fence and helped me lower myself to the ground, even though I didn’t really need his help. Nevertheless, because I’d learned my lesson in coquetry from a mistress of the art, I smiled and said, “Thanks, Phil.”

  “Sure.”

  I took Sarah’s arm and led her a foot or two away from the fence. “Now, Sarah, I can tell something’s wrong. Please tell me what it is. You’ve been crying. Whatever’s wrong, I’m sorry you feel bad.”

  She made a gesture of helplessness. “Oh, it’s . . . it’s nothing. Really.” She was lying through her teeth. If ever there was a miserable person in the world, that person was Sarah Molina.

  “Nuts.”

  She heaved a huge sigh. As I said before, I like Sarah. However, the girl lived life as if it were a drama being staged for general humanity’s benefit, and she was kind of extreme in her emotions. If she was happy, the whole world knew it, and if she was sad, she was sure to make as many people be sad with her as she could. Since I had a hunch she was unhappy this time because of a certain blonde evangelist, however, I had more sympathy for her than was usually the case when Sarah believed that she’d been wronged by another person.

  “Come on, Sarah, tell me. I hate to see you like this.”

  She sniffled some more and then came out with it. “Oh, Annabelle! It’s that girl! That preacher’s sister! She’s trying to steal Kenny from me!” And she burst into tears.

  I put my arms around her and glanced over her shaking shoulders to Phil, who stood there looking uncomfortable and clearly not knowing what to do. Men. They’re totally useless most of the time. I mean, Phil was always opening doors for girls when they could open them for themselves and helping them down from fences when they didn’t need help, but when he saw a girl in true distress, all he could do was stand there and look uncomfortable.

  Turning my attention back to my sobbing companion, I said soothingly, “I’m sure it’s nothing, Sarah. But I do know what you mean.” I didn’t look at Phil that time. I took a deep breath, said a silent prayer that God would forgive me for my next words, and went on, “Although I must say that, from what I’ve seen and for such a religious person, Esther Strickland shows every symptom of being a hussy.”

  That made Sarah cry harder, but I think she sobbed, “Yes!” It was sort of hard to tell since her tears were getting in the way of her speech.

  Phil stiffened a trifle. “Miss Strickland is a good Christian lady, Miss Molina. I’m sure she doesn’t have designs on Kenny.”

  I said, “Hmm.”

  Sarah continued to cry. I was getting a little tired of the waterworks by that time, but I was irked at Phil because he was so darned naïve, so I tried not to show my impatience. I only patted Sarah’s back and muttered comforting sounds.

  After watching us for a minute or two, Phil shuffled, shrugged again, and said, “I’d better get back to the chutes. Gotta help put the steers in the pens.”

  “Very well,” I said in a voice that meant a lot more than that, if Phil could read the undertones—which he probably couldn’t, being a man and all. What those undertones meant was that, for all her supposedly chaste ways, I thought Miss Esther Strickland was a conniving harpy who stole other girls’ male friends for fun, and that sort of behavior didn’t seem very godly to me.

  Mind you, I had no proof of this bad behavior on Miss Strickland’s part. And I had to admit that if she was a conniving harpy, she put on a magnificent show of innocence. However, I was hurting internally, and I didn’t allow common sense or charity to cloud—or clear—my vision.

  It probably didn’t matter anyway, since I’m sure Phil didn’t understand the full significance of my underlying meaning. He strode off, drooping a little. I guess he was smarting some over losing to Kenny, although I don’t think he had anything to feel bad about. He’d done a great job and was better than all the other entrants except Kenny. I guess that salve to the pride only works when you’re the one who didn’t lose.

  Anyhow, what he should have been drooping about was his habit of hanging out with Miss Esther—the man-stealer—Strickland and making me, Annabelle Blue—his intended bride, even if he hadn’t asked and I hadn’t answered—feel bad.

  Chapter Three

  Eventually Sarah stopped crying, thank heaven, and wandered off to make somebody else miserable. I got back on the fence in time to see the steer wrestlers at work.

  The event was pretty exciting, although I’m not sure why anybody would want to do it competitively. I mean, when you’re a cowboy, you occasionally have to wrestle a steer to the ground in order to brand it or medicate it or whatever else people need to do to steers. But steers are big and they have horns and, while horns make okay handles if you absolutely have to handle them, they scare me. Maybe my attitude reflects the fact that I grew up in a dry-goods store and not on a ranch, although I don’t think so. Why would anyone want to wrestle a steer unless he or she had to?

  Right before Kenny Sawyer was supposed to show us how well equipped he was to wrestle his steer; I heard my name spoken yet again. I guess when you live in a small community, you pretty much know everybody, but I wasn’t at all sure why everyone in town seemed to want to talk to me that particular evening. Not only that, but I wish they’d stop doing so. Even though I don’t much like steers, I wanted to see the competition. Nevertheless, I turned with a cheery smile to see who sought my attention this time.

  My cheer suffered a slight dent when I saw Hazel Fish standing there beside the fence, grinning up at me. Hazel Fish was the nosiest person I knew and the worst gossip in town. Her grin conveyed titillation, too, which probably meant that she’d seen Phil with Esther and wanted to needle me about losing my man to a conniving revivalist. Only, naturally, she wouldn’t come right out and say that’s what she was doing. She’d coat her barbs in sugar, rather like Esther Strickland had done hers. Only Hazel was much more obvious than Esther Strickland. I don’t know which one of the women I detested more at that moment in time.

  Just what I needed.

  “H’lo, Hazel,” I said unenthusiastically.

  Hazel didn’t wait to be invited but climbed up to sit next to me on the fence where Phil had been. Naturally, she wore trousers. Any female with a brain in her head was wearing trousers that evening, except Myrtle. And Esther Strickland. But Esther Strickland didn’t have to climb any fences since a row of folding chairs had been set up near the platform for the preacher and his entourage. As if they were royalty or something. I did not approve.

  “Hey, Annabelle. Is Phil in the steer wrestling?”

  “No. He didn’t enter this event.”

  “Where is he, then? He’s usually with you, isn’t he?”

  See what I mean? Hazel Fish was a little cat. “He has to work on the chutes whether he’s competing or not, Hazel. It takes a lot of men to get the animals in and out of the pens, you know, and his family is hosting the whole rodeo.”

  “Of course. I just wondered. You see, I think I just saw him and Miss Strickland together a minute ago. She’s so pretty.” Hazel sighed meaningfully. “I’m sure all the men want to be around her.”

  What I wanted was to push her off the fence. Instead, I said, “Hmm.”

  Leaning over, Hazel glanced at my sisters, who were chatting together on the other side of Myrtle. Lowering her voice, she said, “Did you see Mr. MacDougall and that Contreras woman? They lo
oked mighty cozy together. I wonder what’s going on there.”

  Even though I’d noticed and wondered the exact same things not an hour earlier, it irked me that Hazel was talking like a gossipy old hen about a member of my family. I could just imagine her brewing up rumors to spread—and she would spread them, too. Hazel had no discretion when it came to perceived scandals. Therefore, since I didn’t want my family’s name dragged through the mud by this vicious scandalmonger, I turned and frowned at her, deciding not to let her get away with spreading any tittle-tattle this time. “And exactly what do you mean by that, Hazel Fish? Are you implying that there’s something—”

  Hazel wasn’t accustomed to people boldly questioning her gossipy spitefulness. She backed down instantly. “Heavens, no! Why, I never thought anything about it, Annabelle. I mean, they were only . . . talking.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “Like heck you didn’t,” I snapped, wanting her to perceive that I wasn’t going to allow her to get away with any of her darned implications and innuendoes.

  “No, really,” she said. It sounded as if she were pleading with me. Hazel loved to spread idle rumors, but she’d never admit it.

  I stared at her hard for almost a minute. She seemed to wither at my scorn. “It’s a darned good thing, Hazel Fish.”

  Lifting her chin in a feeble effort at defiance, Hazel said, “You’re awfully touchy tonight, Annabelle Blue. I wonder why that is.”

  “I don’t like gossips,” I snarled. Even I, who am not particularly noted for my tact, don’t generally call a spade a spade in so direct a manner. But I was angry, darn it. And Hazel Fish was a pain in the neck.

  “Well!”

  I sniffed, turned back to watch the show, and Hazel descended from the fence. I guess she’d decided to peddle her malice elsewhere. Good thing, too. If she’d started in on me about Phil and the preacher’s sister again with me feeling the way I did then, I really might have shoved her off the fence. Preferably in the path of an unwrestled steer.