The Hi-Lo Country

by Max Evans

  We talked on about cards awhile, and then she asked: “When are you and Big Boy going to find you a woman and get married? A man needs a woman around. He ain’t right with himself without one.”

  “I agree with you on that, Ma, but me and Big Boy are so particular we keep looking around for something special.”

  “That’s no way to be,” she said. “Better to find someone you can plain live with. That’s the hardest part of all.”

  Big Boy stepped out all slicked up with clean levis, a freshly ironed shirt, and about half a shine on his boots. He dusted off his old hat, lit a smoke, and listened to his grandmother lecture.

  His mother had picked up a shirt she was patching for Little Boy. I turned to her and asked, “Where are the boys?”

  “Pat went over to spend the night with the Miller kids, and Little Boy has gone to Hi Lo.”

  “What’s he doing in town this early?” Big Boy asked.

  “Playing pool, I reckon,” she said. “He’s just learned how and that’s all he can think about.”

  “Well, you tell him when he gets home he better start fixing up a few fences around here and patching up the corrals; then he can go play pool. This place is falling apart.”

  His mother sat silent and went on sewing.

  Whenever Big Boy first lighted a cigarette he always coughed for a few seconds. Maybe this was another throwback to his dad and his bullet-punctured lung.

  Grandma Matson said, “Is that a cigarette cough, Big Boy?”

  “No, mum,” he said, “that’s a whisky cough.”

  “Oh, all right then. Tobacco’s a killer.”

  As we walked out and left the two women, it struck me that both their men had died violent deaths. I heard the old woman remark, “Just like his grandad, that boy—the spittin’ image.”

  We pulled at our hats to keep the wind from taking them as we walked to the pickup.

  “Look at that yard fence,” Big Boy said. “The wires are hanging as loose as Marie’s drawers.” (Marie was an old whore in town that just about every young whelp in the Hi Lo country had lost his virginity to.) He went on about Little Boy: “That kid is running around with gnats in his face. I’m gonna have to cut the seat out of his britches so they’ll change locations.”

  Well, it didn’t take us long to get into Hi Lo, and what with the dry wind and all, there wasn’t much time lost in picking out a soft spot on Lollypop’s bar for our elbows.

  We downed a couple, and Big Boy threw his arms up in the air and said, “Come on, Pete, let’s see if the wind’s blowing as hard on the other side of the street.”

  Now, you never know in Hi Lo which bar will get the play. Today Nick Barnes’ Wild Cat Saloon was going to get it.

  Nick served us as if in no hurry to get us drunk but still fast enough to get the job done. Melvin Ball, a cowboy from over on the C-Bars, was finishing up a story to Nick.

  “Then,” he said, “she came down the street in broad daylight, mind you, her stockings tom and her dress ragged and twisted, with a twenty-dollar bill in one hand and a can of beer in the other, hollering, ‘All you lawmen stare at my tail, you low-down chicken shit bastards.’ Them’s the very words she used. How she gets by with that kind of talk I’ll never know.”

  Though Nick was trying to act interested in this yam, he had already heard everything in the world, and his one real interest was selling the stuff that made the stories so easily available.

  Big Boy looked up at all the bottles stacked behind the bar and said, “Hell of a lot of bright ideas up there.”

  “Let’s take on some,” I said. “I feel a little bit ignorant today.”

  “I don’t know why,” he said. “You’re the only one around here with a college education.”

  “One year,” I said. “College isn’t too homey a place for a worn-out cowboy. But the government paid us heroes good beer money to go.”

  “Well, Lord A’mighty, Pete, look what just blew into town!” It was old Delfino Mondragon from Sano.

  “Hey, Delfino!” Big Boy yelled. Delfino was a big kinky- headed Mexican with a sharp, mean-looking black mustache and tiny BB-shot eyes. “Come have a drink,” Big Boy called.

  “Sure, Beeg Boy,” Delfino said, hurrying in out of the wind. “What’ll it be?” Nick asked.

  “Double chot with water on the edge,” Delfino said. “Thanks, Beeg Boy. Hi, Pete.” He put a hand on each of our shoulders. “Gotta great troubles.” He downed the double and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Gotta great sorry today. My brother-in- law, she die.”

  I said, “That’s too bad, Delfino.”

  “Sure,” he said. “You know that model-A Fort I’m selling him? She no pay. Gotta great sorry in my gizzard,” he said, hitting himself in the chest.

  Delfino was not one of Hi Lo’s favorite people, but he was one of ours. The first time I had seen Delfino I was standing in this very same spot, and he had climbed out of a truck with one leg in a cast. He had walked into Nick’s on crutches. He had four or five, maybe six or seven double shots; then he said, “I gotta business to do for the boss. Sure.” He said, “Nick, I come back one, maybe three minutes. You wait.” As if Nick would leave with so good a customer loose in town.

  Then he turned and walked out of the bar without his crutches. A little later he came walking back in with a hundred-pound sack of feed under each arm. When Nick reminded him of his crutches, Delfino stopped, dropped the feed, rubbed his scarred-up head, and said, “I be damn.” Then he went to limping like a three-legged dog.

  Now, Delfino was one of the best hands in the country. He was strong as a Percheron stallion, and could do anything from working cattle to building a fine rock house, but he had what some considered a failing: when he got drunk he would crawl into whatever means of conveyance he was driving at the time, put it in reverse, and then feed it the gas till it stopped. This generally meant that he had run over or into something.

  He had paid enough in damages and fines to have bought and stocked a good cow ranch of his own. Take that broken leg, for instance. The day he’d smashed it was a memorable one to certain parties in the area.

  Delfino had been on wine and marijuana (he raised his own smokes), and when he left town in the power wagon with a load of cube cottonseed cake for his boss’s cattle he had done so in his usual manner. Reverse. He backed fast across the highway, knocked over a gas pump in front of a garage, and crashed into a telephone pole. Then he got it in forward gear and out of Hi Lo he went. By the time he got to the bridge that crosses the creek about three miles this side of Sano, half of the power wagon was running along in the barditch. The truck turned a flip, cake sacks sailed out through space, and Delfino landed face down with his head half under water in the creek.

  A rancher happened along and saw the wreck. He loaded old Delfino into the back of his pickup for dead. When he pulled into Sano he was somewhat surprised to discover Delfino sitting up and rubbing his kinky head. The road to Sano was so rough it had performed a pretty good job of artificial respiration on old Delfino.

  I took another pull at my drink and remembered the time I had gone over to Ojo to the schoolhouse to a Mexican dance with Delfino. I was the only gringo there, which was a damn good thing. These people won’t bother a gringo if he’s by himself and minds his own business. Two or three gringos gathered together, though, and the trouble starts. I thought for sure Delfino would get us both killed that night. He was on his favorite wine-and- marijuana kick again. He got to dancing so wildly that he was knocking everybody else off the floor. He didn’t mean to be rude; it was just a natural exuberance he was expressing. Some of the boys asked him to quiet down. Delfino resented this implied slur on his character and invited one of them outside, beating him to the door. The man hesitated. So Delfino says, “Two then, come on, sure, two cabrdnes.”

  Everybody stopped in his tracks. Delfino was getting more impatient.

  “Three, then!” he screamed, “Come on out, you yellow-bellies!” Then he got
desperate. “Okay, chickens, all of you come on, sure. All the chickens come. Every son-a-bitching chicken come and fight Delfino!”

  He had challenged the entire house—and no takers. It wasn’t that a few of them couldn’t have whipped him. It just wasn’t worth the risk. Besides, most of these folks liked him.

  I went on dancing, feeling more and more uneasy as I heard him screaming away outside. So I excused myself, picked up a bottle, and went out. I handed him the booze and said: “It’s all yours, Delfino. Drink up.”

  He muttered, “Chickens!” and tilted it up and swallowed about seven times. Then he fell over on his face. I got some help and we loaded him into the pickup. Afterward I went back to the dance and had a nice time.

  Well, things began to perk up in the Wild Cat. We forgot all about the poker game and just concentrated on our drinking. Every once in a while a man would have to go to the outhouse. This dry and windy errand would make him just that much more anxious to get back inside, away from the buffeting of that unseen, penetrating force.

  Ramon Sanchez, who worked on the railroad, stopped by for a drink.

  I said, “Howdy, Ram6n. What are you doing in town today?”

  “My day off,” he said. “I come to get some nails to fix the leaking roof at my casa.”

  “Well, have another drink before you go,” I said. He had a half-dozen. Then he went out to get the nails. Soon I saw him stop across the street at Lollypop’s with his sack of nails. I figured he was going to borrow a hammer.

  Then in walked Jim Ed Love, pushing his big belly ahead of him, all decorated with a gold watch chain. The diamond ring was shining on his finger like an empty whisky bottle in the sun.

  Steve Shaw, the moneylender, was with him. I felt Big Boy tense up. It hadn’t been too long since he had quit Jim Ed and told him where to stick his several hundred thousand acres, provided he could first get Steve Shaw’s nose out of the way.

  “Howdy, boys,” Jim Ed said, smiling like a man who had just swallowed a sack full of gold nuggets.

  Everybody nodded except Big Boy. He just humped over the bar.

  “Well, hello, Big Boy,” Jim Ed said. “On another drunk?” He laughed, making it sound like a joke, but you could sense the knives behind it.

  Big Boy straightened up, raised his drink and said, “Hell, no, it’s the same old drunk.”

  There was a small silence while everybody shuffled around for position. Nick ran over and shoved a flock of dimes in the jukebox, and that did the trick. We all resumed our drinking.

  Delfino had quit double shots and was on his favorite drink—muscatel. He walked over to Jim Ed and said: "I heard you need a hand for work with cows. How much you pay?”

  Jim Ed glanced at Big Boy before answering. “Whatever you think you re worth, Del.”

  Delfino snorted and rubbed the top of his corrugated head and said: “I won’t work for that. I’ll telling you. Give me hunnert dollar by the month and I’ll eat myself alone. Or give me seventy- five by the month and you eat me. You treat me right, you go to hell and I go with you; otherwise piss on you I quit.”

  Everybody laughed. Even Big Boy grinned down into his drink. Delfino said, “More wine. More whisky,” and he winked broadly at Big Boy. Justice had been served among friends.

  Ramon came back in with his sack of nails and a smile as wide as a cowboy’s loop. He walked up to me and Big Boy saying: “Too late to fix the leaking casa. It ain’t gonna rain for many a sunny day anyhow.” He opened up his sack of nails and passed them around, making everybody take a few. He said: “This is to nail down our friendships. Whoopee, let ’er rain!”

  Big Boy liked this and he threw his arms up and yelled, “Sing a song, you sons of bitches.”

  Nick Barnes gasped for breath and said: “Drink up, drink up, dammit. You didn’t come into this world to stay, you came to play.”

  Jim Ed Love and Steve Shaw got ready to leave. Jim Ed walked over to Big Boy and said, “Well, son, have a good time,” and stuck out his hand.

  Big Boy looked up and said softly: “I’m afraid to take it, Jim Ed. I never know when it’s got a knife in it.”

  I think I was the only one who heard him. The rest were too busy jawing to each other. Jim Ed got very red, turned and tromped out. Big Boy had now made another permanent enemy —this time one with money and power.

  Delfino came over and said, “Let’s us go rob a bank, run all the s.o.b.’s out of town, burn all the church down, buy a saloon, invite everybody, drink free on the house, have one hell of a big party all the time.”

  “Wait just a minute till I load my pistol,” Big Boy said.

  I went over and picked out the wildest tunes I could find on the juke and did a little jig just to get warmed up.

  Melvin Ball was talking women again. He was telling Delfino, “This Marie, she cornered me in front of the public outhouse and read me off the almanac.”

  Delfino said: “Melvin, you got a crazy in the head. All the time you give women money. Crap, me give maybe-so one dollar is plenty. She get the same satisfy as the mans. Crazy Melvin. Anyway, everybody in Hi Lo has made the love to thees woman Marie.”

  Melvin looked land of sad and said, “Well, hell, Delfino, Hi Lo ain’t such a big town.”

  Delfino shrugged and turned to Ram6n. “Gotta great sorry, Ram6n. My brother-in-law, she die. He no pay for model-A Fort. Before he die he says to me: ‘All time I walk to town. She broke the university joint. Before that I had one blowsout and ruin one tube and the spikeplugs no gotta blaze.’ That brother- in-law one no-good dead man.”

  Things were getting better all the time. A couple of sheepmen from below Sano came in with their wives and a whole herd of grown-up daughters. Everybody commenced dancing, jumping straight up and down and yelling.

  After a while Melvin started kidding Big Boy about Mona and what old Les was going to do to him. Big Boy listened for a minute without saying a word. Then Melvin poked him in the ribs and said slyly, “I can’t say as I blame you for takin’ the risk; she’s got the best-lookin’ tail in New Mexico.”

  Big Boy turned halfway around, slapped him on the side of the head, and knocked him across the room into the comer by the jukebox.

  The dancing stopped for a minute while Melvin staggered up and said: “Go right on, folks, it ain’t nothin’. I just slipped on this damn slick floor.” Everybody went back to dancing and drinking again.

  After a while I got to thinking how nice it would be if Ram6n would go home and get his violin and guitar and we could have some live music.

  I said, “Ram6n, how about some music from you?”

  “Sure,” he said, “go get my wife and my fiddle while I drink my beer.”

  “What if she don’t want to come, Ramon?” I asked.

  “Love ’er up a little, Pete; she’ll come.”

  Well, I drove out to Ramon’s place at the edge of Hi Lo. The kids were all in bed. Julia, his wife, let me in. I explained the situation and I could see she was willing to come whether I loved her up or not. I looked her over; she wasn’t bad. Thickening just a little around the middle, but pleasingly enough constructed otherwise. I put my arms around her and inhaled her powerful, cheap perfume.

  I said, “Let’s make some fudge before we go.”

  She laughed and led me over to the couch. I took hospitable old Ramon at his word.

  When we got back to the Wild Cat, a couple of the boys were fighting out in the street. I didn’t pay much attention to who it was; I just wanted to get inside out of the wind. I guess everyone else felt the same way because they fought without benefit of audience.

  Big Boy was now right out in the middle of the floor, dancing all by himself and waving his arms. Since he had started with Mona he wouldn’t even dance with another woman, much less try to bed down with one. I never could figure that. Nick turned off the jukebox, and Ram6n and Julia started playing the guitar and fiddle. I want to tell you, the cowboys, sheep men, railroad workers, loafers, and drunkards of Hi Lo
were having themselves a hell of a time.

  Big Boy picked up a chair and broke it all to pieces over the top of a table. Then he jumped up on it to dance. The table collapsed under his weight and piled up alongside the chair. He fell down flat on his back, kicking and hollering.

  Some narrow-minded bartenders might object to this sort of thing, but not Nick. He kept only cheap furniture around anyway. Besides, he was making enough profit every ten minutes to pay for the damages.

  It wasn’t long afterward that Delfino decided he was a tiger and went to snarling and trying to climb the wall. Then he ran his head through a large plate-glass window. The blood running down in his eyes from a three-inch cut in his scalp made him stop and consider.

  He said: “I make my mind now. I go home.”

  There was a terrific jam-up as everybody hit the door at the same time to get their cars and trucks out of the way before Delfino got cranked up. Motors were throbbing, gears grinding, and vehicles scattering like chickens before a hawk.

  Delfino wound her up, and backward he went. He took about six inches off one corner of the Double Duty Saloon and was gaining speed all the time until he crashed through Mitch Peabody’s henhouse. Then he changed gears with a terrible clashing and drove back through the same big hole he’d just made and hit the highway. You could hear him gaining speed as he headed south for Sano. It would take him six months to pay the damages, and Hi Lo wouldn’t see him till he had the money.

  The party was just about over. Besides, after Delfino knocked the window out the wind whooshed in and made conversation uncomfortable.

  Seven

  That party in Hi Lo held me for a while. I stayed home and worked—patching fences, repairing the barns, and hanging a new gate on the corral. Water in the spring was getting a little low from the dry spell, so I hooked up my work team to a fresno and cleaned and deepened it. The spring in my upper pasture had already gone dry, but the cows were taking care of themselves all right.

  I didn’t go into Hi Lo for about three weeks. In fact, I didn’t leave the ranch. I thought about going to see Josepha but kept putting it off.