by Robert Greer
I dropped my spoon onto my bowl, and, except for the loud clank, there was hushed silence at the table. Finally my mom said, “So you started working your way west.”
“Did just that,” said Spoon. “Decided I needed to track down the person who’d supposedly left my uncle and me heir on that land. All I had to go on was that my great-grandfather had been in the army right after the Civil War, that he was stationed out west, and that he married an Indian woman. You pretty much know things from there.”
Looking like someone who’d just bared his soul, Spoon said, “I can pack on outta here if need be. Don’t do good folks like you a whole lotta good havin’ an ex-con workin’ for ’em.”
“I decide who works for me,” my dad said.
Spoon nodded, then looked at my mom as if he expected her to add her yea or nay. She simply offered him a supportive smile and said, “There’s more pie in the kitchen if anybody wants some.”
When everyone turned to look at me, I said, “If it had been Willow Creek caught up in a landgrab like that, I just might’ve killed that Mr. McCabe.”
My mom’s eyes widened in horror, but my dad simply nodded in agreement.
We finished our meal, draining a freshly brewed pot of hazelnut coffee. After finishing his second cup, Spoon looked at me and said in a quizzical voice that seemed to rise from deep in his gut, “Sheriff Woodson was pretty raw in his approach today, wouldn’t you say, TJ?”
“Sure would.”
“And wouldn’t you say he seemed to know an awful lot about me that I sure as blazes never told him?”
“Yeah.”
Spoon set his coffee cup aside and stared at me thoughtfully. “So where on earth do you think he got his inside dope? More important, and I shoulda asked him this when he was busy grillin’ me, how’d he know we’d be in town today, much less exactly where to find us?”
“I guess he saw our pickup. Hard to miss the Triangle Long Bar brand.”
“Possible. But that woulda had him spendin’ a lot of time cruisin’ around lookin’ for our vehicle.” Spoon eyed my dad. “Whatta you think, Bill?”
My dad swallowed hard, as if something were lodged in his throat. “I’d say he had a little prior knowledge you were comin’. A lot of folks claim that badge of Cain Woodson’s can sometimes be for sale.”
“That’d be my take too,” said Spoon, nodding in agreement.
“But to whom?” asked my mom.
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,
Mrs. D.,” said Spoon. “Any of you seen anybody suspicious lurkin’ around the ranch or had the feelin’ that somebody’s watchin’ our comin’s and goin’s?”
“Not me,” I said quickly.
“Nothing,” Mom and Dad said in near unison.
In a strangely omniscient voice, Spoon said, “Well, keep your eyes out. Sooner or later they’ll pop up.”
“You think we’re under surveillance?” my mom asked with disbelief.
“Yep.”
“Why?”
We all eyed my mom, aware of the answer, and although she’d been the one to ask the question, she no doubt knew the answer as well. The muscles in her forehead tightened. My dad simply looked angry as, with both elbows planted firmly on the table, Spoon whispered, “Coal.”
Nine
Two days after Spoon’s confessional supper, word spread throughout the valley that Rulon and Beatrice Demaster had sold out to Acota. In truth, they’d simply leased Acota the rights to strip-mine their nine thousand acres for a period of fifteen years. Long regarded by many valley old-timers as interlopers, the reclusive husband-and-wife team had now become pariahs.
A few of our valley’s smaller ranchers, however, viewed the Demasters’ lease agreement as a blessing that had the potential to blow a windfall their way. No matter your persuasion, the deal Acota had struck with the Demasters had the potential to ultimately pit neighbor against neighbor.
Rumor spread that Acota, now that it had its foot in the door, planned to refuse to negotiate with any landowner who couldn’t guarantee it at least a section to mine, which meant that the half dozen or so ranchers with less than 640 acres to throw in the pot would be left out in the cold. Three ranches, including ours, appeared to be pots of coal-rich gold.
The Demasters didn’t show up at the hastily called meeting at Willard Johnson’s ranch the evening after word leaked out that Acota was concentrating on cementing deals with the three largest remaining ranches in the valley, but everyone else was there. Dale Turpin, a widower whose family had ranched in our valley for over a hundred years, was talking to everyone in his high-pitched, squeaky voice and wearing his trademark checkerboard shirt and baggy overalls. The Cundiffs, Ralph and Maxine, hardworking, slightly paranoid, salt-of-the-earth types who scratched out a living on two thousand acres and who I considered had the most to gain, showed up fifteen minutes late for the meeting, looking harried and nervous as hell. A dozen other people representing six other valley ranches were also there, but it was Turpin, the Cundiffs, Willard Johnson, and my family who had control of the show.
My mom, always at ease in a crowd, chatted amiably with everyone while my dad and I stood off to the side and Spoon mingled much like my mom. In the year since he’d come to Willow Creek, he’d become a fixture in our valley. He’d helped everyone at the gathering in some way at one time or another, from pulling frostbitten Ralph Cundiff’s stranded pickup out of a snowbank in subzero weather to helping dig out Willard Johnson’s frozen water line. Behind his back and on the strength of his uncanny ability to remedy a bad situation, generally before anyone else could even appreciate it, some people had taken to calling Spoon the black Houdini.
In the days following our encounter with Sheriff Woodson outside the Hardin courthouse, word had leaked out that Spoon had had troubles back in his home state of Ohio and that he’d spent time in prison for assaulting a man who’d tried to snooker him out of his land. Just about everyone had supported Spoon’s actions, arguing that although Spoon had probably chosen the wrong response at the time, the other man had probably had it coming.
As I watched Spoon in animated conversation with Willard Johnson, he looked comfortably at home. Willard, stoop shouldered, balding, and not as clear eyed as he’d once been, was nonetheless as fit as any sixty-one-year-old I’d ever known. As folks milled around in the half-acre patch of Kentucky bluegrass next to Willard’s century-old territorial-style house, chatting leisurely and drinking lemonade and beer, I had the uneasy feeling that the evening might not end so serenely.
Willard initiated the proceedings a few minutes later by slamming his sunburned right hand down on one of three collapsible picnic tables dotting the yard and announcing, “Might as well get this bus a-movin’.” He slipped a piece of chaw, the rough-cut kind that he always seemed to have nestled between his lower lip and gums, from one side of his mouth to the other. “No need for beatin’ ’round the bush. Everyone knows why we’re here, and I’ll tell you flat out that some of us larger producers are up against it.”
“We’re all up against it,” squeaked Dale Turpin. “Unequal shares of trouble doesn’t mean there’s no trouble there.”
My mom nodded in agreement, aware that although Dale’s potential loss of the use of his land, disruption of his cattle operation, and scarring of his pristine, perpetually green, subirrigated four thousand acres couldn’t equal Willard Johnson’s loss, proportionately and aesthetically their losses would likely be the same.
“Didn’t mean to disrespect you there, Turp,” said Willard.
“No harm, no foul,” Dale said. “Let’s get on with it.”
“Okay. Bottom line in all that’s happened around here over the past week comes down to whether we’re gonna unite to keep those money-grubbin’ earth turners from Acota outta our valley or not. We’ve all heard from ’em at one time or another. Postcards, letters, phone calls, even some personal visits.” Willard eyed my folks, who were seated across the table from him. �
��And uninvited ones at that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know all that, Willard. But whether we like it or not, thanks to the Demasters, they’re in here now,” said Tommy Lotus, a less-than-five-
hundred-acre operator who was slouched in his seat at the head of the table closest to Willard.
“Tommy’s right,” Maxine Cundiff chimed in. “In spite of how they got into our shorts, and regardless of whether the Demasters opened the floodgates, what we need here, goddamnit, is a solution.” She punctuated the remark with her own hand slap on the table.
I’d never much cared for the Cundiffs, Maxine in particular. Maybe it was because she drank and cursed, rolled her own cigarettes, and never failed to interrupt people’s conversations. Or maybe it was because for some reason she’d always seemed jealous of my mom. Nonetheless, her take on the situation was hard to dispute. Most heads in the audience began nodding as my folks both leaned forward in their seats, but not every head, and certainly not Spoon’s. He and I had remained standing next to an old ninety-weight oil drum Willard used for burning trash. Resting my forearm on the lip of the drum, I realized that if things weren’t handled right, we’d be in for a long, disruptive evening. My dad must have recognized the same thing because he spoke up immediately.
“Let’s slow down here a second and make sure everyone’s on the same page,” he said, rising from his chair. “Acota has money to offer—bank vaults full of it, in fact. There’s no debatin’ that. And no matter the size of our individual operations, there’s also no debatin’ that we could all use an infusion of cash. But what binds us together,” he said, eyeing Maxine as if he weren’t quite certain she’d believe him, “is our desire to keep Acota from turning this valley into a string of strip-mining pits, a concentration camp of dust and fumes.”
“Strong rhetoric for someone with the fuckin’ most to gain,” said Maxine, watching her husband’s head hinge back and forth in agreement. “What could you Darleys possibly resent about Acota descendin’ on us except maybe havin’ to wait a little longer for your money?”
My dad, as quick with words as Maxine, gritted his teeth to control his tongue and his temper. Assessing looks on the faces of the rest of the ranchers assembled, he said, “What I’m holdin’ out for, Maxine, is a way to preserve my way of life. A way of life I love and one I damn sure don’t intend to let go.”
Whenever my dad punctuated his sentences with words like damn or hell, I knew his frustration level had reached its limit. Eyeing my mom and then Spoon, who were equally aware of the idiosyncrasy and who both looked worried, I hoped Maxine was finished with her needling.
When Thurston Lyle, a thin-haired weasel of a man who decades earlier had lost most of the fingers of his left hand to the teeth of a hay baler, chimed in, saying, “Maxine’s got a point,” it was clear that the smaller landowners were lining up to temper the voices of the larger ones. Thurston went on in his perpetually hoarse three-packs-a-day voice, amid mumbling and whispers at the three tables, “I say we create somethin’ like a co-op, pool our resources equivalent to what we got to gain, and push back against them Acota mothers. Don’t mean I’m givin’ up my right to act as an individual, though, and—”
My mom interrupted, “Sorry to cut you off, Thurston, but I’ve got a problem with your stance. I’m not at all in favor of us sticking together until somebody decides to run off on their own, and that sounds like what you’re proposing. Seems like, using your model, we’d be pooling our resources to fight off the wolves while letting anybody defect whenever they felt like it. No, I don’t like your take on things one bit.”
“You got a better one? Spit it out,” said Thurston.
“I do. One that can be looked at and thought through by someone who knows more about these things than us. I say we adopt a co-op plan, more or less, just like you said, but only if we get ourselves a lawyer and have him look into all our legal options. Meanwhile, everybody contributes to our legal costs equally. That should take care of people running out on their own.”
I wasn’t certain how people would respond to my mom’s suggestion, but Willard Johnson quickly offered up his point of view.
“Marva’s right, and I don’t mind payin’ my share of the freight as long as I get my money’s worth,” he boomed. “Me and my kin been tendin’ this land for over a hundred years. And believe me, I understand what makes it happy and what turns it sour. You can be certain that them bastards from Acota don’t know a damn thing about me or my land.” Willard’s eyes slowly met those of everyone at the three tables. His eyes narrowed, and his lower lip began to quiver. “I’d kill over this land. No question about it.” He slammed a fist into his right palm. “Got nothin’ more to say on the issue.”
Willard’s pronouncement triggered a silence that lasted until my dad asked, “So, who gets the lawyer?”
“Why not you, Bill?” Maxine Cundiff said, eager as always to drop the heavy lifting on someone else’s shoulders. “You’re the one here with the most legal contacts.”
“No problem,” said my dad. “If everyone here agrees, I’ll be happy to deal with the issue.” He smiled and adjusted his Stetson as if to say, Touché. “That way we get us an agreement hammered out that doesn’t allow for any self-servin’ loopholes.”
Only afterward, on the ride home, when my mom pointed out that the sooner the coalition had a lawyer, the sooner Maxine could gain insight into what might benefit her and Ralph the most, did I fully appreciate that the Cundiffs, more than anyone else because of the size of their place, would enjoy the benefit of possibly playing both ends against the middle.
“Fine by me,” Maxine said, eyeing her husband and sounding uncustomarily embarrassed. “I’m for lettin’ Bill line up the legal side of things. Can I get a show of like-thinkin’ hands?”
Hands at all three tables quickly went up.
“Looks like it’s your baby, Bill,” Willard Johnson said, flashing my dad a glad-it ain’t-me kind of grin.
Dad’s response was a noticeably reluctant “Okay.”
“Who you thinkin’ about usin’ to represent us?” asked Willard.
“Ricky Peterson, more than likely.”
“Good.” Willard looked pleased. “We can use somebody with both criminal and corporate shenanigans expertise.”
When Willard glanced briefly in Spoon’s direction, I had the strangest sense that for some reason they were momentarily connected. When Willard added, “’Cause like I said earlier, I’ll kill over this here land,” I knew
they were.
Fifteen minutes later everyone had said their good-byes, leaving only Spoon and my folks and I to walk slowly through a field of dew-covered timothy hay and clover back to our pickup. Spoon stopped to look up at the moon. “Always looks like a perfect white pearl up there in the center of the sky when it’s full on a crystal-clear night like this, don’t it?”
“Sure does,” I said as we all stopped.
My parents nodded in agreement.
“You can barely make out its flaws,” Spoon added. “Can’t see the craters or the mountains. And there’s almost nothin’ to suggest the old girl’s taken tens of thousands of meteor hits. She’s a lot like most people, I suspect. Get far enough away from ’em and somehow you just don’t see their flaws, especially when you’re focusin’ in on somethin’ in common. But it’s wise to never forget about them flaws, no matter how rosy the picture might get, wouldn’t you say?”
My mom and dad glanced knowingly at one another without saying a word as, now a few steps ahead of everyone else, I jogged for the pickup, aware that Spoon’s words were not only timely, but right on the mark.
Ten
By midmorning the next day, the winds had kicked up and the sky had become a thin, milky white veneer of lenticular clouds. It was on that morning that I first saw the horseman in gray. At least that was my initial name for him. He appeared about thirty yards away from me as I sat on horseback on the edge of the angling quarter-
mile
length of section fence that separated our ranch from Willard Johnson’s. I was protected from his view by a twenty-foot-high rock outcropping. At the point where I spotted him, the fence angled straight just before dead-dropping down a steep dry wash with a thin granular overburden of soil that disguised a subsurface layer of pink feldspar, mica, and clear-as-glass quartz. My dad liked to point out that that particular part of the ranch was made up of a kind of historic land that was geologically identical to the ground west of Laramie in which the Union Pacific rail bed had been laid.
But on this day, I knew my dad wasn’t contemplating history. He’d spent most of the early morning in his cramped cedar-paneled office calculating the out-of-pocket dollars he expected each member of what he was now calling the Willow Creek Ranchers Coalition to have to shell out for legal advice and representation. He’d arrived at a figure before I’d left to ride fence, and although it wasn’t a perfect picture of expenses, or at the moment an equally shared expense for every coalition member, I’d heard him tell my mom it was the best he could come up with.
A little later I’d taken off on horseback to the east. Spoon had left a little earlier on a similar mission, mending fences and checking for strays in more hilly country to the west. I was half a mile away from our house when I saw my dad’s pickup head down the road toward Billings. I suspected that his problem of arriving at a fair financial equation was related to the fact that the coal burden on the individual ranch lands in the valley wasn’t all that equal. But when push came to shove, I suspected he could get people to modify their thinking. He’d done so himself, after all, when it came to Spoon, and although he’d inherited a job he didn’t necessarily want, I expected that his stick-to-itiveness would see him through.