by Max Evans
He lurched out to his pickup and took something from the glove compartment. He put it inside his coat and came in again. He stood in the doorway with the wind behind him for a minute; then he closed it. I was scared.
He walked up to the bar and said quietly, “Give everybody a drink.”
Lollypop came unstuck and went to pouring the booze as fast as he could. I knew somebody had spoken of Mona, probably just a casual mention. Nothing direct. But it had been enough for Big Boy. He hadn’t picked out any one individual; he was mad at the whole damn community.
Everybody downed their drinks and one by one they slipped out and crossed the street to the Wildcat. Big Boy didn’t look to the right or left.
“Give us another, Lollypop,” he said, thrusting his empty glass forward. The last round didn’t amount to much, for there wasn’t anybody left now but Levi, Horsethief, and myself.
I started to ask him to let me have the gun, but decided I had better just keep still and maybe he would settle down. He didn’t, though. He just went on running that whisky down.
After a while he said: “Come on, fellers, let’s see how things are on the south side of the street. Lollypop’s got a real keen place here, but I’m getting lonesome.”
We stumbled across the street, feeling the liquor between our ears. But no matter what happened, the three of us would stick with him. Big Boy led the way in. Every head turned, and Nick Barnes stood stiff and big-eyed behind the bar.
“Come in out of the wind and wet your whistles, boys,” he said, but his voice was strained.
Big Boy stood a minute and looked all around the room. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out the thirty-eight special and whammed it down on the bar.
“Drinks for the house,” he said. “All they can hold.” And out of the other pocket he pulled over $2,000. Nick got busy. It was silent except for the forlorn wind, the heavy breathing, and glasses clinking on the bar and table tops. I had been on a lot of drinking sprees in Hi Lo, but this was the first that was like a funeral without the singing.
The sun went down and the wind continued to moan around the town, pulling and tugging at the stunted trees and the buildings like a talkative ghost.
I saw Lollypop turn out his lights, lock the door, and shuffle off down the street. Shorty McCullough, from Jim Ed’s outfit, edged over by the door. Big Boy saw him in the mirror. He laid his hand over on the gun and, without moving, said, “Shorty, you didn’t finish your drink.”
Shorty hung there a minute and said, “That’s right, I didn’t,” and went back to the table.
The wind gathered in force now, drowning out the heavy breathing in the Wildcat. Big Boy had downed twice as much as anybody else; he’d been on double shots all day. He turned around with his elbows on the bar, not looking or talking at anybody in particular, but pretending to address me.
“Now, Pete,” he said, “I am one son of a bitch that can judge women. That’s why I kicked that heiress up at Two Mesa in the ass. Not many men in this world can judge women. Lots of them can judge horses as far as soundness of limb and age is concerned. A man that really knows his horses don’t have to even look at their teeth. He can tell that an old pony with holes above his eyes, a drooping lower lip, knobby knees, and a sunken butt hole is old, past the go-get-’em stage. But it takes a master to tell if a horse has got bottom. Some of the best-conformed horses in the world ain’t got bottom. They will let you down when you get in that old bind.
“Now, a feller can’t go around looking to see if a woman has got knobby knees or a sunken butt hole. Now can he? You got to be able to just sense it. A good woman is like a good horse; she’s got bottom. Now, you take this Mona Birk. There’s a beautiful woman. But that ain’t all. She’s got the same thing as Old Sorrel. Why, that old horse will go all day and half the night and still might buck you off, but when you are working cattle and the wind is trying to tear your head off and a wild cow cuts back through the brush, Old Sorrel’s right in there running, turning, working his heart out to get the job done for you.
“Now Mona—this Mona that everybody seems to be so damned interested in, is going to make me a good pardner to go along with Old Sorrel, and there ain’t no back-stabbing, gossiping bunch of yellow-bellied chickenshits going to stop me.” He turned, put the pistol and the money in his pocket, and said, “Carry the message, you bastards!” He walked out to his pickup, weaving only a little, got in, and took off down the road toward Hoover Young’s.
Everybody in the bar started breathing again, and the talk was so sudden and loud that for a moment it drowned out the shrill wailing of the wind.
Somebody said, “A man could get killed around here.”
I said to Levi G6mez, “Yeah, somebody could.”
Seventeen
During the long nights of howling wind I thought endlessly of Mona. She had not said No, but she had not said Yes either. I felt bruised and ashamed. On the other hand, if I had walked into the dance hall that night ahead of Big Boy, the situation might now be reversed. An urge to see her alone again become more irresistible each day. Somehow, the seething wind stretched my nerves until they throbbed.
I started driving into Hi Lo every day looking for her car. I waited for hours in the bars and pool hall, watching out the window for her. If I saw Big Boy’s pickup instead, I drove on to Ragoon. I just couldn’t face him right now. I let my ranch go to hell. For the first time in my life I was drinking without enjoying it. I cruised up and down the road to Jim Ed Love’s, hoping to meet her. And all the time I felt guilty as a chicken thief for what I was doing.
Then at last, when I was positive I’d go out of my head and start tearing around the country shooting people dead, I saw her car coming down the road. My heart kicked against my ribs and there was a terrible pressure in my lungs. Now I would know.
I slowed the pickup. Then I saw that Les was with her. A coldness came over me like a north wind over frozen snow. I drove on a piece, then turned around and followed them into Hi Lo.
I drove straight through town and on out to my ranch, where the wind was tearing my land apart just as the thoughts of Mona tore at my emotions. And in both cases the worst was yet to come.
There was no use ignoring it, the drought was on. The winter winds, along with the desperate grazing of the stock, had left the pastures almost barren. There had been only two or three scant snowfalls, and this moisture had been dissipated into the dust and grime of that mighty lung-less breath that eroded the features of the earth.
The cattle were thin and nervous, and so were the people that tended them. Actual losses were still light, but a heavy snow in the spring could finish them off. It was a weird paradox that nature set: if heavy snow came when the cattle were so thin and weak, they would die of the cold; if the snows failed to come and the spring rains were slow, they would die of starvation.
The people fought back, but it was almost too late. They had some good years at their backs and most of them could borrow money on their land. I myself borrowed heavily, considering the small size of my ranch. I used this money for hay hauled in from Colorado and for cottonseed cake from Texas. This kept the stock alive. But the fearful word was out that this was going to be another 1934.
By early spring I had exhausted all my credit and had only three days of hay left. Hi Lo had been forgotten for a long time. We only went in to town to get what we had to have, and then hurried back to the ceaseless hauling of hay and cake. There was so little pasture for the cattle now that they stood in little bunches, tails to the wind, and waited for the hay wagon. The pickup was their pasture now. At the sound of its motor their heads would come up and they would trot forward on weak legs, bawling.
The day after I used my last forkful of hay I entertained the notion of going on my knees to Jim Ed Love, who had stacks of hay as long as two city blocks and the money to buy ten times that much more. As I was brooding grimly about this, two trucks groaned up the hill to the house.
The driver of the
first truck stepped out and said, “You Pete West?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, where do you want this hay?”
“What do you mean?” I said. “I didn’t order any hay.” I eyed it longingly.
“Well, Big Boy Matson did,” the driver said impatiently, wanting to get his job done.
I pointed numbly to the stack lot. “Over there.”
Big Boy had saved me for the time being, and in doing so he had set his and Mona’s plans back a long distance. It must have taken two-thirds of his savings to buy that hay. The wind penetrated to the pit of my belly as I gave thanks to my friend. Without even being asked he had given what meant more to him than any herd of cattle. He was nicknamed right.
In spite of all the trouble the Hi Lo country was seeing, the annual rodeo came off as advertised. If the Russian army had been just across the Arizona border and poised to attack, Hi Lo would still have had its rodeo.
People came in from all the roadwebs to the hub of Hi Lo at this time. They came to gossip and tell their troubles to one another; Delfino Mondragon came to get drunk and raise hell; Abrahm Frink came to remind people he was mean enough to survive intact; Horsethief came to judge the show; Uncle Bob came to brag on his hounds; Big Boy and I came just to be in the middle of it all.
But this year I dreaded it. This was a bad time for Big Boy to be mixing with people. Tensions were too high. But there we were. The town was full. Hi Lo had gathered its sons back to its bosom for these two days and nights. Then it would spew them out into the desolated country again to fight their singular enemy.
The streets were lined with cars, pickups, horse trailers, and kids. The drought didn’t mean much to them; their main problem was to down as much soda pop as their bellies would hold.
Most of the younger men and women had their horses groomed and shiny, ready to ride in the parade. And then it came down the street: the rodeo cowboys and cowgirls, the old hands and the young of the land in a pageant of the past and the present and the future that now looked so doubtful. But these people had conquered the land before and would again . . . when the land wished it so. They sat their horses with pride, and the muscled animals moved down the street like a tangible expression of Big Boy’s dream: that the day of the horse would return.
We all pulled at our hats in the skin-shrinking wind, and the same wind boiled the dust of the rodeo arena, reminding us of the problems we had shed for this brief space of time.
The crowd filled the stand and the show was on. The announcer had a hard time making himself heard, but no one cared. The local folk had little to cheer about that day. I was the only one that made a decent show, and that was by a trick.
Horsethief handed me a rope just before I rode my brown into the box, a heavily waxed rope that would split the wind and go unerring where the eye and wrist ordered. The fast pros, having little control of their ropes in the wind, missed or made bad catches. I rode out and fitted the loop over my calf’s neck, got down, ran to him, threw him, and wrapped him up. The time was eighteen seconds, but it took the money. I had been slow but certain.
Big Boy’s bronc was a runaway and left him out of the money. I bucked off just before the whistle. Art Logan got his revenge on Big Boy that day by taking the money in both the saddle-bronc and bareback bronc riding.
Now, Little Boy didn’t like rodeoing much. In fact, he didn’t care much for cowboying in general. It was only at Big Boy’s urging that he entered the bull riding. He liked the pool halls of Ragoon and Hi Lo better than the grasslands. He was a throwback to some member of the family that Big Boy never mentioned. I could understand how Little Boy felt, because my main interest in the game was roping, and yet for years Big Boy had talked me into riding barebacks. About all I’d ever gotten out of it was a broken leg and a lot of bruises.
Big Boy drew a bull that hadn’t been ridden in twenty-seven tries, and he spun off into arena dirt before he ever got with it.
Then it was his brother’s turn. Big Boy was right there, helping him get the loose rope tight around the bull, giving last-minute advice and even opening the gate for him. The one-ton beast burst out, his white hide about the color of Little Boy’s face, and he went up and around, striking the ground with a pounding twist that flung Little Boy to the ground with a thud.
The bull lowered his head and started mauling him. The clown tried to distract him, but the dust was too thick and the bull ignored him. Big Boy leaped in front of the bull and whopped him between the horns, yelling, “Haaaa! You son of a bitch! Haaa!”
The bull charged him, and Big Boy jumped at the chute gate, but the bull caught him, his horns splitting around each side of his right leg, and hurled him over the fence and into the chute. As the bull turned, the clown got his attention at last and lured him away from Little Boy’s motionless body. His life had been saved and serious injury averted because he stayed limp on the ground and because Big Boy had risked his own life in that one crucial second. Little Boy was bruised, but that was all. Another five seconds and he would have been dead.
That night Big Boy and I stayed over at Levi’s. Little Boy had other things to do. Big Boy spent the night rubbing liniment on his leg while the rest of the town was out getting drunk. His leg was in pretty bad shape. The next day it was all he could do to hobble, much less straddle a horse.
I took another second in the roping and won the average. Then it was time for my bareback ride. Big Boy was right there, giving me encouragement. I had drawn a wicked little horse named Dirty Britches—the same one that had broken my leg three years ago. I wanted to back out but of course I couldn’t. I was scared. Cold scared.
“Pete West in Chute Number One,” the voice of the announcer boomed across the dusty arena.
I pulled at my hat and strolled slowly over to the chute. I knew the rules in bareback bronc riding said, Rider must be ready to ride in his turn, or be disqualified. Well, I was as ready as I would ever be.
Big Boy said: “Don’t think about the leg. This little old pony will buck you right into the money.”
I wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Maybe, I thought, the leg would never have entered my mind. But I knew I was wrong. The fear had been there for years—not just the ordinary, empty-belly feeling, but a sort of cold panic.
I looked without affection at Dirty Britches. The little black gelding was quiet there in the chute with his head down low. He didn’t look like the wickedest bucker in the Hi Lo country, but he was.
I checked the rigging that Big Boy had already buckled around Dirty Britches’ belly. Everything was set. It was up to me now.
I crawled up on the chute and straddled the little black with my boots still between the chute boards. I looked at the small band of tough leather on top of the bareback rigging—room for just one handhold.
It was a lot different from the days when I’d ridden broncs out on the range. A man could take his time then about getting a horse saddled, and he mounted when he had him tied to a snubbin’ post in a big corral. And he didn’t have all these men, women, and children watching—people who had paid good money to see him crippled or maybe killed.
I pulled my hat lower on my ears, hitched at my belt, and eased down astraddle Dirty Britches’ backbone. I slipped my left hand under the leather strap and said, “You gonna break my other leg this time, you bastard?” I grinned at Big Boy as I spoke, but I could feel the numb black fear and weakness that left me shredded as rotten rubber. If I had drawn any other horse it would have been all right, but no—I had to go and draw the one animal that really terrified me: old Dirty Britches. There’d been only one qualified ride on his bony back in the last seventeen tries, and that had been made by Art Logan, one of the best.
When I had first come off the range and started riding in little shows, I’d felt no fear, just an excitement that nothing on earth could equal. Man and horse were enemies here in the rodeo arena. The man’s job was to spur with all his strength and skill, and the horse’s job was to buck, kick,
bite, fall, anything to rid himself of his rider.
In my early rodeo days, even when I began to get smart enough to be afraid, I had picked up a fair amount of cash. And Big Boy told me about the kind of money the top boys made, and so I kept going.
Though I could hear the announcer talking, I didn’t listen. I settled my weight up as far forward on top of my left hand as possible. I felt Dirty Britches bunch under me—nine hundred pounds of leaping death.
Then the chute gate was thrown open and the show was on. The rules said—and you had to go by the rules to be in the money—Rider must hit horse with spurs high in the shoulder first jump out of the chute and then spur both ways. One hand must be held high in air. It must never touch the horse. Rider has to stay for eight seconds. The longest eight seconds in the world for the man on deck.
I noticed Dirty Britches’ scraggly little mane where it sloped down to his wicked scarred head. I knew his plan was to throw me as high in the air as possible and kick as much of me before I hit the ground as he could. I wished at this minute I was back out on my ranch doing anything—even building fence or fixing windmills. Just anything.
Sweat made my hand slippery under the strap. I felt all gray inside, and my eyes blurred so that I could see nothing but the narrow wooden chute and the black bony beast between my legs. My stomach churned. I gulped and the muscles in my throat constricted. My heart was pounding like a horseshoer’s arm, and my blood felt so thick and lumpy it wouldn’t flow. I pulled at my hat again and gave Big Boy the nod.
There it was—open space ahead. Too late to back out now. It seemed like an eternity to me, that one flashing second when Dirty Britches swung his head and neck around and left the ground. The old habit of digging the spurs into the horse’s shoulders raised my legs. I struck them there hard when Dirty Britches came down. At least I had balance. Many a good rider is thrown on the first jump, even if he does hang on for a couple more.
I felt all my weight thrown against the left arm where it was welded to the leather strap. The muscles pulled, and my elbow joint locked as far back as it could. I raked the spurs high again before we left the ground again. On the second jump my insides jarred so hard I felt a dull pain from skull to instep.