by Elmer Kelton
“You been lookin’ for somethin’ all mornin’,” he challenged.
“Been expectin’ some company.” Tom turned with relief in his face. “It’s drivin’ up right now.”
Charlie growled. Last thing a man needed at shearing time was a lot of company. He saw a pickup stop in front of the white picket fence, the dust drifting past it and spreading across the yard. He saw a two-horse trailer with just one horse in it. That alone was enough to make him suspicious.
Tom stepped onto the porch and waved. “You-all get out and come in!” Two young cowboys slammed the pickup doors and stopped to stretch their arms and legs. They had evidently traveled some distance. Saddles and suitcases were piled in the bed of the pickup. They hadn’t come out of a sheep pen, that much was plain. They wore rodeo clothes, bright shirts, and new Levi’s tucked into fancy-stitched Leddy boots.
High on the hog, Charlie thought darkly, looking at them. When he was their age and working for cowboy wages, he could not afford to dress like that. Now he could afford it and no longer had the inclination.
Eagerness lighted Tom’s face. “Dad, I reckon you know the boys, Shorty Magee and Chuck Dunn.”
Still suspicious but bound by the tradition of hospitality, Charlie thrust out his hand. “I’ve won a dollar or two, bettin’ on you boys at the ropin’s.”
“Lost a little too, I expect,” grinned Shorty Magee. He was as his name implied: short, heavy-set but strong as a little brown bear. When he went down the rope to flank a calf, the calf had as well give up and lie down; it didn’t have a chance.
Shorty said, “You’d win a right smart more bettin’ on Tom.”
Chuck Dunn was six feet tall and wouldn’t weigh a hundred and twenty pounds soaked in salt water. They made a contrasty pair, these two, the long and short of it. Chuck said, “Pleased to meet you, Mister Flagg.” They looked out toward the corrals, where the sheep still bleated as much as when first brought in. “Looks like you’re smack in the middle of shearin’. Tom didn’t tell us . . .”
Tom broke in quickly, “You-all had dinner? There’s aplenty left.”
“Sure is,” said Charlie. “You-all like turnip greens?”
Shorty said, “We et in town. Tom, you ready to go?”
Charlie’s suspicions were confirmed. He looked severely at Tom. “Go? Go where?”
Uneasily Tom shifted his feet. “Look, Dad, I got a chance to make a killin’. There’s a rodeo over in the hill country, and a bunch of the boys has matched me in a ropin’ against ol’ Gordy Hansel. They got a good pot raised.”
In deference to the company Charlie tried to cover his irritation. “Dammit, Tom, if it was some other day . . . but we got shearin’ to do. Shearin’ time, a man can’t run off someplace to a rodeo. He’s got to stay home and attend to business.”
“But this is business to me. I can pick up several hundred easy.”
Even if you did, Charlie thought, you wouldn’t get home with any of it. “I’ve seen Gordy rope. Flies don’t light on him.”
“He’s had five thumbs on each hand lately. I’ll beat him.”
“Some people must not think so or they wouldn’t of put up money on him.”
“Ain’t my fault they don’t know better. Dad, it’s been set up for two weeks.”
Stiffly, Charlie said, “You ought to’ve told me.”
“I meant to, only you had this shearin’ date, and . . .” He frowned. “Look, Dad, you won’t miss me. You got all the sheep up that Teofilo can shear the rest of the day. All I’m doin’ is sittin’ around on a horse anyway. I can find somebody in town who’ll do that for me for eight dollars a day and I’ll pay him myself.”
Charlie was about to turn him down when Mary started in. “Tom, you’ve got to learn that when there’s work to be done around here, that comes first. Your father’s not going to let you go, and that’s all there is to it.” A touch of German accent always came out when she was provoked.
Her intervention rubbed Charlie the wrong way. Damn woman, always trying to tell me what to do.
Perversely Charlie said, “All right, just this once. But don’t you pull this again.”
Mary turned away, anger sharp in her eyes. It bothered him little. He didn’t try to analyze how his annoyance at Tom so easily transferred to Mary and left Tom clear. Charlie could never remain angry at Tom very long; that anger slipped through his fingers like dry sand. Tom was too much a copy of Charlie himself; he knew what he could do, and he never looked behind him. No doubt or hesitation. Charlie said, “We’ll make do. But don’t you forget that this ranch is the main thing we got to think about. Me and you’ll be pardners in it someday.”
Tom breathed easier. “Just what I was thinkin’ myself. I got to get all my runnin’ done and my pile made. Plenty of time later to be stuck on the ranch when I’m too old to do anything else.”
Charlie growled. He knew where that put him.
Tom was back from his room in three minutes wearing clean clothes and carrying his black metal suitcase. Plainly enough, he had already had it packed. He leaned way down to kiss his mother’s cheek. “Bye, Mom. I’ll bring you a pretty.”
Mary didn’t look at Tom; she looked at Charlie, and her eyes told him he was going to hear more about this later, when no one else was around. Inwardly Charlie began bracing himself. She said tightly, “Don’t you boys drive .too fast or get into any trouble.”
Charlie walked out on the front porch with Shorty Magee and Chuck Dunn. Brow furrowed, he asked, “You right sure he’ll beat Gordy?”
“He could beat Gordy with a cotton rope,” Shorty answered confidently.
Charlie glanced through the open door to be sure Mary wasn’t watching. He pulled out his wallet and slipped a ten-dollar bill into Shorty’s hand. “If any of that Hansel bettin’ money comes floatin’ around, cover this much of it for me.”
The boys walked to the barn to get Tom’s roping horse and his saddle. Manuel came out of the Flores house and trotted down to the barn to catch up. Since he had been able to walk he had been tagging along in Tom’s footsteps, watching, trying to learn to do everything Tom did. He was good, but he would never be as good with a rope as Tom was. That was fine with Charlie; one hot-shot roper at a time was all this ranch needed anyway.
Candelario came out moments later, running hard. He wore fresh clothes without the tecole spots. Charlie would have to get along without Candelario’s help in the crowding alley this afternoon; Rosa’s message was loud and clear.
Presently the three cowboys came back to the house, leading Tom’s gray roping horse, Prairie Dog, saddled and ready for business. Manuel and Candelario walked along beside Tom, Manuel taking long strides and Candelario trotting to stay up. Tom opened the trailer gate; the gray stepped up onto the wooden floor like an old trouper.
Something occurred to Charlie, and he walked down to the trailer as Tom tied the reins and closed the gate. “Seems to me I heard you tell Bess Winfield on the phone that you was takin’ her to a dance.”
Tom snapped his fingers. “Plumb forgot. How about you callin’ her for me and tellin’ her I can’t go? Tell her I’ll bring her a pretty.”
“That’s no job to put off on your ol’ daddy. You tell her.”
Tom double-checked the latch. “Well, when I don’t show up, she’ll know I ain’t comin’.”
“One of these days you’ll come home and find out she didn’t wait.”
Tom smiled. “When I tell them to wait, they wait.”
Charlie shook his head. Boy, have you got a lot to learn!
The three drove away in a hurry, leaving a trail of dust thick as a Gulf Coast fog.
Mary set in on Charlie. “You don’t know those boys; you don’t know if they’re reckless drivers or not. You don’t know but what they’ll be in the ditch before they get twenty miles.”
Charlie gave her no rise, and she went on. “Tom is twenty-two years old, but he’s not a man yet. He won’t be a man till he learns to be responsible.�
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Charlie didn’t look at her or argue with her. He pulled his hat down tight and walked to the shearing pens.
Chapter Three
THE WORKING CREW SADDLED FRESH HORSES AND RODE into a new pasture to gather sheep for the next day’s shearing. Those sheep would spend the night in a small fifty-acre enclosure known as a “trap.” Its grass was purposely conserved for such overnight grazing or for a handful of hospital animals. Charlie remained in the pens, chalking out cull sheep to be sold, watching the putting-up of the wool.
When the riders returned at midafternoon to crowd their sheep through the trap gate, Manuel pulled away and rode toward the pens. Charlie sensed that the boy wanted to talk to him. He tilted a large metal can, poured ice water into the wide lid and handed it across the netwire fence. “Dry?”
“Awful dry,” Manuel said, dismounting to take the water. He drank thirstily, pausing to slosh some around in his mouth and wash the dust down. He wiped his face on a half-rolled sleeve, leaving a streak where dust had turned to mud.
Charlie thought idly that he never used to see old-time cowboys roll their sleeves up. They believed in buttoning the sun out. But this was a new generation.
“Mister Charlie,” Manuel said, “I rode up on three wetbacks hidin’ out yonder in the brush.”
“There’s wetbacks passin’ through here all the time.”
“These sure do look hungry.”
“Why don’t they come on in? Ain’t nobody goin’ to hurt them.”
“Too many people here. They’re scared of the border patrol. Asked me if I thought you might have a few days’ work for them. I told them you don’t hardly ever hire a wetback.”
Charlie nodded. “Once the border patrol catches you givin’ them work, they’ll rag you from then on. I got enough problems to put up with; I don’t need the border patrol.”
“That’s what I told them.” Manuel’s eyes were concerned. “They’re still awful hungry.”
Charlie stared at the boy, irritated by his persistence. “You’re the damnedest kid I ever saw to be pickin’ up dogies all the time!”
Manuel ducked his head. Charlie was instantly remorseful for having spoken sharply. He considered a moment and said, “But hell, it shows there’s a streak of kindness in you, muchacho, and kindness is one thing this world is short of. Think you could find them again?”
Manuel straightened. “They’re right yonder.” He pointed to a mesquite thicket.
“Tell them to come in and see me. I don’t want nobody to leave this place hungry, Mexican or white.” He put his hand on top of Manuel’s old hat and affectionately pressed the crown down flat against the boy’s head. “You doggoned dogie-hunter!”
Manuel smiled. “Thank you, Mister Charlie.” He pulled the horse around and rode away faster than he had come.
Soon Charlie saw three men moving timidly toward the shearing pens from the cover of the brush. He watched, frowning, finally climbing over the fence to wait for them.
For generations the Mexican people on both sides of the Rio Grande had moved freely back and forth across the river to work and to live. International boundaries were fiction to them. They considered everything south of the Nueces River their own open and natural range. In recent times the United States government had tried to close the border. But old habits of a slow-changing people are not altered overnight by words on paper—words many could not even read.
These were from across the river; a man who knew Mexicans could tell that as far as he could see them. They carried the wetback’s typical cloth satchels with colored stripes, and Charlie could see that the satchels were empty. If they had any food when they came across the river, it was long gone. Many came with no food at all, certain that as soon as they reached the north side of the Rio they would be in a bountiful land of milk and honey where no man was ever hungry, no pocket ever empty. These men’s clothing had been patched until little was left for patches to cling to. Two wore leather huaraches which covered nothing more than the crusted soles of their brown feet. One wore an old pair of worn-out brogan shoes not as good, even, as the huaraches. A little in the lead came an old man with gray-salted hair and heavy gray mustache. The others were younger, one only fourteen or fifteen. A father and two sons, Charlie judged. Pity stirred him, and he knew why Manuel had been so touched. The old man was more than merely hungry. By his eyes, Charlie knew he was sick.
Thank God, he thought, I was born north of the river.
The old man removed his tattered straw hat, bowed stiffly as peones in Mexico had done for untold generations, and spoke in border Spanish: “Mi patrón, we are much indebted.”
They were always courtly, no matter how bleak the circumstances. It was a trait of the humblest.
Charlie extended a pack of cigarettes to the old man. Mumbling his gracias, the viejo took a cigarette and passed the rest to the oldest son. The youngest came last, as was considered proper. He removed a cigarette and held the pack while Charlie lighted the old-timer’s smoke, then the eldest son’s. Charlie struck a fresh match for the boy, but the youngster shook his head and handed the pack to Charlie. He glanced at his father and put the cigarette in his shirt pocket. “I save it for later, patrón.”
Keeping it for his father, Charlie knew. He started to put the pack back into his pocket, reconsidered and gave it to the old man. “Keep it,” he said in gringo Spanish. “I have more.”
The viejo thanked him again. He drew upon the cigarette with a deep and terrible hunger. He closed his eyes, losing himself in the luxury of the moment. He told his story then. To Charlie it was an old one he had heard a hundred times, always the same except for minor individual variations. They had come upon evil days in the country south of Ciudad Acuna, the Mexican said sadly. For a long while now the good Dios had not chosen to send rain down on the state of Coahuila, and in truth, nowhere else along the border. The fields had fallen barren. Buckets dropped in the wells came up with mud, and finally only sand. The people’s own little lands knew only poverty, and their patrón—hard hit like the rest—had work now for no more than a few. The old man and his sons, as so many thousands like them, had come to “the other side” to find employment, to send money home to buy food and clothing for those of their family who must stay behind—the women, the little children.
“We do not beg, señor, or ask you to give us something we do not earn. We ask for a chance to work. We are hard workers, my sons and I.”
Charlie rubbed the palms of his hands on his dirty khakis. There were so many of these people, so damn many of them, and always so hungry . . . He glanced into the old man’s muddy eyes and looked away. For a moment he felt a twinge of guilt that these people were hungry and he was not, and then a brief resentment against them for arousing that guilt. Both passed quickly, the guilt and the resentment. “I am sorry, amigo. You know the laws of my country. You swam the river without papers, and it is prohibited that I hire you. Like you, I believe this law is unjust, but no matter, it is still the law. If the chotas catch you they will take you back across the river and make you walk home hungry. If they catch you here, they will also be angry with me.”
“Señor, they can hurt us but little, for we are already hungry. And we do not intend to be caught.”
“No one escapes the chotas forever. They have eyes that see in the dark. They will find you.”
The old man’s face began to fall. He repeated desperately, “We do not beg. We ask only to work.”
Charlie shook his head. “I have no work for you. But you will not leave here hungry. Follow me.”
He thought at first about taking them to Teofilo’s camp. But except for the goat kids Charlie had furnished, the food there was Teofilo’s. Garcia had bought and paid for it. Texas-born Mexicans—themselves often only one generation away from the river—often harbored resentment against the wetbacks. Despite their blood ties they considered them interlopers, a threat to their own jobs and security.
“We have food left at the big
house. I will take you to la madama. She will feed you and give you food to carry along. Then you had better be on your way. If the chotas hear we are shearing today, they will probably come out to look us over. You will not wish to be here.”
The old man said gratefully, “These are hard times that we must come to you this way. If ever the fates turn around, we shall do the same someday for you.”
I hope to God not, Charlie thought.
He escorted them to the house and called Mary. He saw the pity in her eyes, and he tried to cover his own. Gruffly he said, “Some dogies Manuel found. Feed them.” He glanced at the town road, looking for dust which might mean a border patrol car. The three Mexicans sat in the shade of the big live-oak trees and began to wolf down what was left of Mary’s baked kid. Charlie was gratified when the young one took a big helping of the turnip greens. I hope he eats them all.
He thought about the apple pie from which Mary had given Tom a slice, then put the rest back up in the cabinet. Charlie had thought he would slip a slice of that tonight when she wasn’t looking. He knew now it would probably go to the Mexicans along with everything else. She was generous to everyone but him.
He waited until Mary was in the house before he allowed his voice to soften. “When you are through, I would advise that you go on north. Perhaps you will find work farther away from the border.”
“Buena suerte, patrón. May the dry time never fall upon you.”
In the hurry of the hot and dusty shearing pens, Charlie’s mind soon drifted away from the three Mexicans. He heard nothing over the din of bleating sheep, the clattering protest of the cranky old shearing machine that seemed to have a malevolent will of its own. He stood at the tying table, critically examining a breaky fleece, result of a sheep that had sickened sometime last winter, leaving a weak spot at that point of growth in the fiber. He was grumbling to himself, knowing he must sack this fleece apart from the good ones or risk its being found by a sharp-eyed wool buyer who then might dock his entire clip; they were always looking for an excuse to trim a man, he thought.