The Hi-Lo Country

by Max Evans

  Abrahm said: “I just cain’t figger what you did wrong. Never had no trouble with them old gentle horses in my life.”

  I just let it go. After all, I was the one who was determined to get along with him.

  He went on to tell me that his system with horses was to keep them fat and then if they didn’t act right just butcher and eat them.

  ‘Yeah,” I said, gritting my teeth.

  Then I tried something else. I bought three sacks of beans from him at top market prices. If I had eaten nothing but beans for twenty-five years, there would have been plenty left over except for one thing: they were half dirt and small gravel.

  All I said about this was, “Abrahm, you didn’t do too good a cleaning job on those beans.”

  “What’s that?” he said, throwing his head back and damn near drowning me in tobacco juice. “I cain’t understand that,” he said: “I cleaned them beans personally. You must of spilled some and when you was cleaning them up got a little dirt in ’em.”

  Before I could answer he was telling me about the time he had a fight with Tom Hall over on the main drag of Hi Lo.

  “Tom accused me of having gravel in my beans. I knew it was a lie and I told him it was his crooked scales that was bothering his conscience. I whupped old Tom all over Hi Lo and never did take the chewing tobacco out of my mouth.”

  So I let that go too. I told Abrahm I was going into town, and wondered if he needed anything. Well, he needed two more plugs of tobacco and a sack of flour.

  I bought what I wanted, got Abrahm’s order, then went a step further: I bought a big sack of candy for his kids. Those kids ate that candy like a hog does slop. It made me feel kindhearted, and I thought maybe this special attention to his kids would put me in good with him. It seemed to work all right, but not half as good as the time I brought back a pint especially for him. It was getting a little expensive, having this bag of fancy candy and that pint of whisky added to my bill each trip, but I figured it was worth it to win his friendship. However, I did have to cut down on my trips to town.

  Every time I saw Abrahm it was, “When you goin’ into town again?” And when I saw one of the kids it was, ‘You goin’ into town today?”

  One day I rushed into Hi Lo to get some distemper medicine for my roping horse. I was kind of worried because it looked as if it might turn into pneumonia. I took care of Abrahm’s usual order but I forgot the dessert.

  He said, “Where’s the whisky?” all reared back, glaring at me through half-squinted eyes, and not even chewing on his tobacco, he was so outraged.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was in a tearing hurry.”

  Then the kids were all over my pickup, yelling and wanting to know where in hell their candy was. It was just too much. I had tried everything I knew to keep them happy.

  Next time I was in town I bought a pint of whisky and got a little high. I drank it all and went over to the mercantile and got Mitch Peabody to fill the bottle up with turpentine.

  I drove up to Abrahm’s, and here he came dog-trotting out and salivating freely. He removed his plug with one hand while he felt around in the seat with the other until he found the pint. Since he had missed out on my last trip, he was mighty anxious to make up for lost time. He just unscrewed the lid and turned it up. I guess he intended to swill all he could before I asked for a crack at it. It didn’t last that long, though. After about the third gurgle he kind of paused, as if struck by a serious thought, and then everything reversed course and sort of choked him. He looked at the bottle and dropped it like it was a scorpion. Then he grabbed his throat and fell down and thrashed on the ground, making strange noises.

  In the meantime the kids had advanced in force for their sack of candy. When they saw their old man bellowing and writhing about on the ground they came to a shuffling stop. Their eyes bugged more than usual.

  I said: “I think a mad dog’s bit your pa. You better get a stick and knock him on the head before he bites one of you.”

  They all broke for the house at the same time. I gave the pickup the gas and got out of there. Me and Abrahm didn’t visit one another after that.

  But he got his revenge.

  He had the scrubbiest half-breed bull I ever saw. He wouldn’t have made a good sire for a mongrel dog. Abrahm found a fence post well hidden by brush, jerked the staples out, and pulled the wires to the top. Then he started turning his bull in with my well-bred Hereford heifers. I kept running him out and he kept turning him back in.

  I finally caught the bull up near the corrals one day, penned him up, then roped him. He bucked and bellowed for a while, but finally he pulled over next to the corral fence. I got down off my horse and slipped around behind him. I gathered up a good strong piece of barbwire, wrapped it around his testicles, and tied it to a corral pole. Then I opened the gate, cut my rope from the saddle horn, and he was loose. I didn’t mind losing an almost new rope considering the good cause in which it went.

  When that bull felt the slack come in the rope, he lowered his head and jumped. Before he hit the ground he was a steer. He wasn’t much good as a breeding animal after that, but he would have made every race horse in the world look silly on a downhill run. He went out through my corral like a jet, and when he hit the fence separating me from Abrahm you could hear barbwire snapping like lightning striking tall trees. He tore right through the garden fences, flashed by the barn and streaked on out across the mesa, telling the whole world his troubles.

  Kids were climbing on top of Abrahm’s house, kids were swarming up the windmill, and Abrahm was running around in the yard waving his arms and trying to find out what the hell was going on. I wished he’d had better eyesight. However, a few days later I was glad he didn’t.

  It was almost sundown, and a coyote howled in the draw between our respective places. I kept about three running wolfhounds around for just such purposes as this. They jumped up and took off down the draw. I ran, grabbed a thirty-thirty, and made a dash myself. By the time I got where I could see what was happening, I was too winded to shoot straight. The coyote had led my hounds up on a little rocky mesa just behind Abrahm’s house. The rocks were alive with coyotes. They had deliberately set a trap for the hounds. The dogs were fighting hard, working their way back down the mesa with coyotes all over them. I emptied my gun but couldn’t shoot too close for fear of hitting the dogs. Then I heard something snap over my head. It was Abrahm shooting. Bang! Bang! Blooey! One shot dug up some of that bean gravel about six feet to my right. I hit the ground.

  Abrahm was yelling: “I’ll get them goddam coyotes! I’ll kill every damn one of ’em! Don’t you worry none, Pete!”

  I was sure glad when he ran out of shells. If he’d had enough ammunition he might have killed one of my best dogs.

  I set my empty glass down on the bar, stood up and stretched. “Big Boy, I’ve got to get my lazy ass home and get some work done for a change,” I said.

  Well, Pete, I’ll drop by and see you in a few days.”

  As I drove out of town I was still thinking of Abrahm Frink. He gave Hi Lo something to laugh about, and when people felt low, cussing him out brought them a measure of relief. Not such a bad justification for a man’s existence, at that.

  Six

  I untracked old Baldy, and mounted. I felt again to be sure the chloroform was in my chaps pocket. A week before I had roped a big dry cow and jerked her down, breaking off one horn. The old fool had turned back time after time while I was trying to change pastures with a few head.

  I had spotted her at the spring below the house the day before. She carried her head twisted oddly to one side. It meant one thing—she had worms where the horn had broken. The chloroform would take care of them.

  It was a fine day. The grass was up eight or ten inches and waving in the wind. The last few years had been good to the country—no lushly wet ones but no scorching dry ones either. It was a little too dry now, though, and if the rains didn't come soon it might get serious. However, there was eno
ugh grass to carry the country through the winter if it was a mild one. If it was rough . . . well, we'd see.

  The price of cattle was high, and everyone in the country had land stocked to capacity, draining from it every pound of beef and every possible dollar.

  The clouds were piled up halfway to the sun over the mountains to the north. Here and there webs of blue rain spurted down into the canyons, but these were only showers that fell in the highest places. I could see the prairie dogs standing, fat and full, barking and carefree. I sat with my foot up over the swells of the saddle awhile and watched them play about. Then an eagle swept down and scooped one up as the rest of them dived, chattering wildly, into their holes. Always somebody eager to ruin a good day, I thought.

  I really didn't feel that way, though, as I moved out through my cattle. The mother cows lay about so full they had hard breathing. A few grazed as if bored to death by the long grass. The calves bucked and played like the prairie dogs, watching me now and then with big deerlike eyes and white, startled faces. I made a count out of habit from the days I worked on the big outfits and you found them when and where you could. It was unnecessary here on my little place, fenced tight as it was.

  I felt my old cow horse stiffen under me; his ears were forward as he turned his head. About a mile off I spotted a rider: Big Boy. I could tell by the way he sat his saddle and wore his big old-time Western hat with the high crown pinched in on each side. The brim was at least two inches wider than the modem flat-topped cowboy hat. Big Boy's boots were old-style too—high-heeled and sloped under to hold a stirrup. I had noticed the many things he carried over into the modem West from his father. He seemed to hang onto the old ways, deliberately ignoring the new methods of modern cow ranching. I knew he was headed over to a lease held by Hoover Young to the south of me. Big Boy could have made the round in three hours in a pickup. It would take him three days horseback. But he and Hoover both believed this way. That's why they got along so well together. Besides, Hoover had the best racing quarter-horses, as well as cow ponies, in the country.

  Big Boy told me many times, especially when he was drinking heavy, “To hell with cars and trucks and airplanes and paved roads and everything else but good horses and a handsome woman."

  I knew now the singular approach to women meant one thing: Mona. When I thought of her it was hard to wave a welcoming hand and smile as if I meant it.

  He was riding Old Sorrel, and as they came closer their mutual admiration was obvious. I don't think another man alive could have handled that horse.

  “Howdy," he said.

  “Where you headed?"

  “Over to Hoover's."

  “Glad you came along. I’ve got a cow with worms in the head, and you're just the boy to help me doctor her."

  “Good, good." He was looking my herd over. “By the Lord A’mighty, Pete," he said, throwing his arms up as he always did whenever he felt strongly about something, “there's going to be one hell of a drunk in Hi Lo this fall when you ship those fat calves. Lollypop won't be able to throw you out of the bar; he’ll have to pour you out."

  “What’ll they weigh by the middle of October?" I asked.

  “They're going to go mighty close to four hundred average . . . maybe a little more," he said.

  We had a smoke and then rode out together, looking for the soreheaded cow. It felt good to have someone to work with even for just a little while. I wondered why in the dried-up world I didn't go ahead and marry Josepha and get it over with. Then I thought of Mona, and it wasn’t so hard to figure.

  We saw the sick cow standing in the shade of a scrub cedar.

  “Head or heels?" I asked.

  “Heels," he said. “You're a lot better on the head than I am."

  I eased her out into a flat while I took the leather strings from around my rope. Then I looped the hondo over the horn and pulled it tight. I shook out a loop, and Old Baldy bunched up under me, ready to go. I leaned over, and he jumped straight out in a dead run. The cow had already sensed something and was trying to head for the hills. I cut her back, and Baldy put me right up to her. I whirled the rope and let it sail. The loop reached out and curled around the cow's head neat as whisky. I jerked the slack and turned off. When the cow hit the end of the rope, she swung around half off the ground. I started dragging her toward Big Boy. He came riding by in the opposite direction and dropped a slow loop under her hind feet. She stepped in it. He jerked it tight and spurred Old Sorrel. When the slack came out of both ropes the cow was stretched out helpless between us. Damn, it was a good feeling to work things so right with someone you liked and who really knew what he was doing. I got down and walked over to her.

  I took a little wooden paddle out of my chaps pocket and scooped the worms out of the hole. Then I poured it full of chloroform. I smeared a little pine tar over the wound and we turned her loose. She ambled off, shaking her head. She might look silly with just one horn, but the worms wouldn't be bothering her any more.

  We did up our ropes and reined the horses for the house. I asked, “You gonna stay all night?”

  “What in hell you think I rode by this way for?”

  We turned our horses loose in the corral and pitched them a little hay. We walked up to the house, and I built a cedar fire in the old iron range and put the coffeepot on.

  “It's getting a little dry,” I said.

  “Yeah, it would. Jim Ed Love has got a million tons of hay put up that somebody's going to pay for with pure blood if another drought comes.”

  “Just like the old tight bastard,” I said.

  The wood was popping in the stove and the coffee started to boil. When the grounds settled a little, I poured us a big cup apiece. We rolled us a smoke and I said, “How's Mona?”— trying to make it come out easy and conversational.

  “Real keen,” he said, “except that goddam husband of hers won't hardly let her out of his sight.”

  “Can't say as I blame him,” I said, “with a rooster like you around.”

  “He ought to take better care of her then,” he said, and took his hat off and banged it on the table. “She's away too much woman for him. Hell, he ain't even a good cowboy, much less a man.”

  “He's going to shoot your ass off if he ever catches you alone with her, though.”

  “Well, Pete, it’s like my old grandaddy said after he robbed the First National: ‘They’ve got to catch you first.' Besides, she's worth the risk.”

  “Yeah, I reckon that's right,” I said.

  “Every damn thing that's any fun or at all worth while is a risk,” he went on. “Now, you take bronc riding: it's like I told that brother of mine; I said, ‘By the Lord A'mighty, feller, quit worrying about what's gonna happen to you when you hunker down a-straddle one of them broncs—think about what you’re goin to do to him! ”

  “How is Little Boy?” I asked.

  “Aw, I don't know, Pete, whether he'll ever make much of a hand or not. He thinks the old-time ways are stupid and that a man ought to punch cows in a Cadillac. Seems like he's always resented me telling him anything. These young punks know it all before they start.”

  I knew that according to his dad's will Big Boy had complete charge of the home place, but I knew too that he had turned it over to Little Boy, his mother, and a younger brother, Pat, so they could have all the income from it. He didn't feel he should spend the ranch money on the poker playing, drinking, and such-like he was used to.

  The next morning at breakfast he said, “Been getting in any roping practice lately?”

  “Naw, I've just been hanging around here the last few days, patching up fences and so on.”

  “Say,” he said, “why don't you come into town Saturday afternoon and we'll try to get up a little poker game.”

  “I'll be there,” I said.

  “We'll have us a real session,” he said, “one of the all-day all-night variety, that separates the school kids from the old- timers. Meet me over at the home place,” he said, “and we'll go o
n from there.”

  I agreed, but after he'd gone I wondered why I wasn't looking forward to it.

  Six

  I drove up to the Matson place on Saturday as arranged. Big Boys mother met me at the door.

  “Come in, Pete.”

  “How are you, Mrs. Matson?”

  “All right I guess. Getting a little dry, though, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it is,” I said, “but the cows are doing fine. Well, we had a lot of early rain.”

  “Good thing,” she said.

  Mrs. Matson was a real Western woman; her worn, strained expression showed that she had already faced all the storms of life. From now on in, she would accept everything as it came, the good and the bad, without resistance or complaint. The years had knotted her hands and stooped her shoulders, but a calm strength deep in her eyes made you feel she was indestructible, and would endure forever.

  “Big Boy’s shaving,” she said. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

  Then I noticed the old woman sitting over in the comer, Big Boy’s grandmother. I said, “Hi there, youngun.”

  She stopped playing solitaire and looked surprised, as though it was beyond belief that anyone would speak to her. “Hi there yourself, young feller,” she said, her wrinkled face collapsing in a toothless grin.

  “What are you doing,” I said pointing to the cards, “practicing up to take the boys in Hi Lo at poker?”

  “Well, son, I tell you. This solitaire isn’t much of a game, but it’s about the only one an old woman like me can play by herself.”