The Hi-Lo Country

by Max Evans

  Then Dirty Britches snorted and whirled straight back toward the chute. I felt the momentum carry me almost over his right side. I had to contract the muscles in my right arm to keep from using it to regain balance. There was nothing out in front now but a whipping blur of black mane.

  Dirty Britches turned back down the arena, and each time he hit his hoofs sunk deep into the dirt. The dust boiled up around us. My head snapped back and my hat jerked off like a missile. I clamped my knees, but my heels worked back and forth from the horse’s neck to his flanks. The music of the spurs could be heard all over the arena—by everybody but me.

  Then I felt it coming: the long jump and the wrenching back motion that had lost more riders than any other land. My whole body snapped like a whip, and I yelled an old cowboy yell into the wind. Old Dirty Britches had put out all he had.

  I rode loose and free now, with perfect balance, and every jar was more ecstasy than pain. Just as I sank the roweled steel in his shoulders again, hard, I heard the whistle that signaled the end of the eight seconds.

  Before the two pickup men could get there to lift me to safety, I jumped off.

  Big Boy came out to meet me, limping to beat hell, almost dragging his bruised leg.

  “That’s the way, feller!” he crowed. “That’s the kind of ride I’ve been waiting for you to make!”

  I couldn’t tell him just then, but I was through. That ride had been my swan song. I’d never mount another bareback bronc as long as I lived, and nobody, not even Big Boy Matson, could talk me into it.

  Eighteen

  I was surprised and none too happy later when Big Boy said,

  “Come on, lets go to the dance.”

  Levi had bought himself a jug and was already halfway to the bottom of it. He said, “I’m ready.” Whereupon he stuck a three-foot length of half-inch chain in his hip pocket.

  “What are you doing that for?” I asked.

  ‘Those bastards that stomped my head in the gravel will be there, and I’m not taking any chances.”

  I looked at Big Boy favoring his bruised leg; it was stiff and hurting him bad. “You can’t dance on that leg.”

  “I can watch,” he said.

  With Levi half drunk and Big Boy half crippled, we were in no shape for trouble. And I knew we’d have it if we went to the dance at the high-school gym. But we went.

  The place was full. It wasn’t a real big gymnasium, but just the same it took about all the people in the Hi Lo country to fill it.

  I looked around right away to see if Mona was there. Much as I wanted her to be there, I was relieved she wasn’t. If our luck held, we might dodge trouble yet. The music was getting faster and the dancers were getting drunker and Levi Gomez was getting wound up. About eight inches of chain was hanging out of his hip pocket, and as he swung his girl it whipped around like a cutting horse’s tail.

  Then Josepha came in with her father. I swallowed, and the heat crawled up under my ears, I felt so guilty. They walked right by where Big Boy and I stood against the wall. There was nothing for me to do but ask her to dance. Her dad was so nice to me it hurt.

  She moved in close, and it seemed as if the music slowed. By the time we had circled the floor once, her warmth thawed me out so I could speak.

  “How’ve you been?”

  “Oh, all right, I guess,” she said. T sort of hoped you’d come by and get me for the dance.” She raised her head and looked me straight in the eye.

  “I meant to, but Big Boy got hurt and I didn’t think we’d come at all. Then too, you know how the weather’s been. I didn’t figure you’d want to make the drive up from Sano.” I knew just how lame this sounded and I knew she wasn’t fooled by it.

  Then what I had prayed both for and against happened. Mona walked in. She stepped out on the floor followed by her husband and a half-dozen JL cowhands. I saw the look of surprise on her face when she spotted Big Boy. She must have figured his leg would keep him away.

  I had stopped in my tracks, and Josepha said, “Come on; you can dance with her next.”

  I didn’t say anything else to her except a short “thanks” when I delivered her back to her seat. Then I went over and stood by Big Boy. That strange cold feeling I’d had earlier that day when I crawled aboard Dirty Britches was back on me.

  Les was dancing with Mona, not looking one way or the other. Big Boy just stood with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, and watched. There was no particular expression on his face. Contrasted with the bronze of the others, his was like a white shadow.

  The crowd was limbering up, and a few of the boys were beginning to yip when the music got to swinging. The other hands took turns dancing with Mona. She was obviously going to be on her feet all evening.

  I turned to Big Boy and said, “Why don’t we go on down to Lollypop’s and get a drink?”

  “There’s a pint in the pickup,” he said, his dark, marble blue eyes never leaving Mona.

  I looked at her too, and the same old hollowed-out feeling took charge of my chest. Goddam her, I thought. Maybe under all that softness, control, and courage, she is a bitch. A sharp, scheming, small-minded bitch. I didn’t really know her. I had no

  good reason to feel this stabbing desire. If she could cheat on Les, she would probably cheat on the next man. I thought of the old Spanish proverb, Dios que nos ayude con los serios. (God help us with the quiet ones.) But I knew I was wrong. She’d be faithful if the man was Big Boy.

  I saw her leave the JL bunch and go to the powder room around the other side of the gym. Suddenly Big Boy limped out across the dance floor, straining forward with his one good leg. He shouldered through the dancers, clearing a path almost roughly. He couldn’t have attracted more attention if he’d been riding a brahma bull.

  He intercepted Mona. She stopped, and they talked quietly a moment. She glanced across the room at her group. Then, making up her mind, she moved into Big Boy’s arms. Even with his dragging gait, it was the most obvious thing in the world that they fitted together like a well-thrown loop around a calf’s neck. That part of my heart that belonged to Mona and that part of my conscience that was beholden to Big Boy hurt. I hurt all over.

  Little Boy came and stood next to me. “God A’mighty,” he said, sounding like an echo of his brother, “he’s going to get himself killed, sure as hell.”

  My nerves started twitching and my breath hung in my chest. Crazy son of a bitch, I thought. He was just asking for it this time. It had to come sooner or later, but right now he was in no shape for a showdown. I looked around to see what help we could count on. The only friend I spotted was Horsethief Willy, and he was all the way across the gym telling somebody a long-winded yarn. Delfino Mondragon was dancing and raising hell, so drunk he’d be useless. Not much in the way of friendly troops.

  It was a long set. By the time it ended, Big Boy was some twenty feet from the JL crowd. Levi was almost in front of them, and Little Boy and I were about halfway in between.

  I was watching Les when the music stopped, and I saw him reach under his shirt. I knew he was coming up with a gun, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his face. Hate was stamped on it like a skin graft. Then I heard somebody yell. It was Levi. “Big Boy! Look out!” And his arm came up with the chain and then down in a vicious arc. The gun went off just as the chain struck it, and the bullet went into the floor. Twenty tons of dynamite exploding wouldn’t have caused as much reaction as the sound of that forty-four caliber pistol. Everybody froze, heads up, eyes staring. The gun smacked against the floor and skidded out in front of me. As I picked it up I realized I hadn’t made a move to stop Les, nor had Little Boy.

  Had I wanted someone to do my killing for me? How in the name of blazing hell can a man like, almost love, another man and still want him dead—all for a woman he knew so little . . . so very, very little? But one thing was a deadly certainty: she had a hold on me that was stronger than my friendship for my best friend.

  Then the full realization of wha
t had happened hit Big Boy, and with a roar he charged. The JL boys moved in, and a lot of others with them. Men were hurled aside the way a mad dog strews a flock of sheep; the dark, terrible rage of Big Boy Matson smashed them apart like boxwood.

  I fired the gun in the air till it was empty, then jumped into the middle of the crush. I cleared a small path with the butt of the gun, and felt bone crunch under the steel.

  The injured leg was forgotten now as Big Boy knocked teeth from jawbones and opened the flesh of cheekbones. His mighty shoulders and arms worked with the crude and terrible power of a Neanderthal man. Then numberless arms closed around us and smothered us. I was down, and I absorbed a lot of boot leather in my ribs and the side of my head.

  Unaccountably, the pressure eased off. I looked up and saw Levi swinging his chain in a swishing arc. Each circuit was wider and more lethal than the last. Everybody cringed away from the hissing steel snake until a wide circle opened. Big Boy stood alone, his chest heaving, his shirt torn, blood streaming into his eyes, but there was a joy in his violence. He reached down and grabbed Les Birk, just as he had struggled to his knees, and gave him a smashing blow on the side of his face. Les’ head snapped sideways, and Big Boy raised his arm and bunched his muscles for the final blow that would break his neck. Then a cry split the whole of the building, and Mona was clinging to Big Boy’s upraised arm.

  “No! No!”

  I could feel the joints crunch and the muscles reverse themselves all over Big Boy’s body. He looked at Mona for a long moment, and then let her husband drop to the floor, where he sagged limply, bent into a V at the middle. Then Big Boy’s leg collapsed and he went down on his one good knee.

  There was a small timid surge from the enemy, but it died as Levi rattled his chain. I got Big Boy on his feet and his heavy arm over my back. Levi helped us toward the exit. The crowd fell back, making a wide path for us.

  As we passed Little Boy, where he had stood pale and unmoving during the whole thing, Big Boy said, “Where were you when the fan got hit?”

  Little Boy looked down at the floor but stood his ground.

  I led my friend out into the searing wind.

  Nineteen

  Well, the day finally came when the four of us met alone. Thinking back on it, I can’t recall exactly how it happened, but that day is as clear in my mind as fair weather.

  We met in a little draw at the edge of a deep canyon several miles out of Hi Lo. No matter how you looked at it, the get-together was a hell of a risk. If Les Birk were suspicious enough to follow Mona, our picnic would turn into a pitched battle, and a lot of blood would mix in the sand.

  Mona brought potato salad and deviled eggs, Josepha fried chicken and a chocolate cake. Big Boy and I furnished the beer and whisky. It was nice down there, almost out of the wind. I say “almost” because you could never completely escape it. But we actually found a little patch of grass, and we spread the blanket and the food on it.

  We ate. We drank. We talked.

  “That’s a lovely dress, Mona,” Josepha said. “Did you make it?”

  “Yes. Yes, I made it.”

  I wondered why in hell Mona had worn a dress at all out here in the hills. Josepha had on a pair of jeans and a boy’s shirt, but she still looked plenty feminine.

  “I like to sew,” said Josepha, “but I’m not very good at it.”

  “It takes a lot of time for everything,” Mona said, placing a hand in Big Boy’s and, oddly enough, looking at me with the same softness that had shaken me that day in the motel room.

  I took a big swig of Old Crow.

  Big Boy said: “Don’t be so goddam greedy with that whisky. Here, let me at it before it spoils.” He tilted it up.

  “How are the kids?” Josepha asked.

  Mona looked at her quickly, then said without much expression, “Like all kids, I guess.”

  It wasn’t much of an answer. I realized later that Josepha was making her move. There was a reason behind everything she said, and every word was directed at me. At the time, though, I was blind as a night owl at high noon.

  The girls drank beer while Big Boy and I downed one whole fifth and started on another. The sun was warm. The wind hummed above us. Mona was getting relaxed, and started sharing the bottle with us. Josepha stuck to her beer.

  Then Mona looked at me and said, “Well, Pete, when are you two going to get married?” She didn’t even glance at Josepha.

  It kind of knocked me back on my haunches and I stuttered, “I—I—don’t know. Maybe she wouldn’t have me.”

  “Oh, I think she would,” Mona said, and there was no missing the unspoken words: but would you have her? I glanced at Josepha and was embarrassed for her. But then I figured, what the hell, it was just the whisky. Josepha didn’t say anything, just sat straight and smiled.

  Big Boy passed the bottle again and said, “I tell you what, one of these days before too long we’ll have a double wedding and we’ll enlist a whole damn regiment of Apache warriors to sing and dance for us.”

  “We’ll more than likely need them for protection,” Mona said. I felt pretty healthy all of a sudden, so I jumped up, pulled Josepha to her feet, and yelled: “Come on, Big Boy, sing me an Apache song. We’re going to dance right now.”

  He waved the bottle in the air, and sang. It was an Indian song all right, but I don’t have any idea what tribe might have understood it.

  Josepha pitched right in, and we leaped and whooped and were having a fine time. Then the whisky began to take over. I stumbled and grabbed Josepha, and we both went down laughing. I rolled over on her and kissed her, hard.

  She whispered, “No, not here. Please. Later.”

  I lay beside her, getting my breath back, my eyes closed. The sun in my face, the earth beneath me, and Josepha at my side ... it was nice.

  Big Boy was quiet now. I turned my head a little to see what they were doing. I shouldn’t have done it. A man’s whole destiny can be determined by a little action like that.

  Big Boy was lying across Mona with his head buried in the nape of her neck. Her dress rode high up on her naked thighs. All the old desire and pain crashed back through my body. I strained my body hard against the ground to keep from yelling. It was only my own heart pounding against the earth, but it seemed for a moment I could feel a heartbeat a thousand miles deep pounding against the tough crust of the world.

  Josepha sat up suddenly and looked down at me.

  I turned over and said, like a numskulled idiot, “Hi.”

  “Pete,” she said, pulling at me, “it’s almost dark. Let’s go see Meesa, the witch.”

  “What?”

  “Come on. Please. It will be fun.”

  “Well, I don’t want to know my future. I can just barely handle the present. But,” I said, “if you want, I’m ready. Hey, Big Boy,” I yelled, not turning around. “Josepha wants us to have our fortunes told. Want to come along?”

  “Hell, yes,” Big Boy said, “I’ve got some bad medicine I want made for some bad fellers. Lord A’mighty, Mona, maybe we can get that husband of yours dissolved and just wash him down the Rio Grande into Mexico.”

  “A fine idea,” she said, straightening her hair and smoothing her dress. I had to look.

  Mona took Big Boy in her car, and Josepha and I followed in my pickup. By the time we’d worked our way back to the Sano road, it was dark. I was glad. We were all pretty drunk, except Josepha.

  “Here, have a little,” I said, handing her the bottle. She took a light pull from it, more to please me than anything else.

  “Pete,” she said, “there’s something I have to know right now.” “What’s that, honey?”

  “Are you in love with Mona?”

  She would never know what happened to my insides, but I managed to glance at her and say: “What do you mean by that? She’s Big Boy’s woman.”

  “You didn’t answer the question,” she said. Her black eyes were full on me, straight and unblinking.

  “To tell you
the truth, I don’t even really know her,” I said. “I only see her once or twice a year at dances and maybe a few times when she drives into town.”

  She waited a minute, then said: “If you won’t answer me, Pete, I’m going to be forced to tell you something. You can think I’m vicious, cheap, whatever you like, but I love you and I might as well come out with it all. I’ve waited a long time for you—all of you. Now I have to know one way or the other. Mona is nothing but a cheap ex-prostitute and the biggest phony in the Hi Lo country.”

  I nearly hit her, but I caught myself and said: “What the hell. Are you jealous of her? Are you?”

  “You’re damn right I am,” she said. “Where you’re concerned. Now listen to me, Pete. Remember when I asked her if she made her own dresses?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, she doesn’t. That’s a lie—a small lie but a lie all the same. She told me over a year ago where she bought that dress in Ragoon. And another thing: did you notice how she spoke about her kids? She doesn’t even love them.”

  “Oh, come off it, for God’s sake!”

  “Don’t you see she’s a phony? Big Boy thinks she’ll make him a wife that will sew and cook and take care of kids and wash and iron and make him a home. Hell, she’s after him because he’s a lucky gambler and will own a good cow ranch some day. And if something goes wrong, she’s keeping you on the string for second choice,” she went on.

  I shoved the neck of the bottle in my mouth before I said something I didn’t want to.

  “Listen, Pete; now listen carefully. I had this woman checked out through friends in Ragoon who have friends in Denver. She was a call girl in Denver. That’s where Les Birk met her. He convinced her he was a wealthy rancher and she married him, and before she found out any different she was pregnant and that was that. Now she wants out, and you and Big Boy are two possible solutions. She’s had more men than a dog has ticks. Oh, you stupid, horny cowboys.” She was breathing hard. “Well,” she said, “give me a drink now. I’ve said all I’ll ever say about her, and you’re the only one who has heard it. I don’t care about Big Boy. They might make it just fine. That’s their business. But if I’m going to lose, I at least want you to know the truth about the woman that wins.”