by Max Evans
Jim Ed Love had called his forces together. His own machinery had cut a road into Hi Lo, and within a couple of hours an army regiment in Colorado had started the forward motion of Operation Hay Lift, while the county and state bulldozers, road graders, and snowplows fought the drifts. Gradually, one by one, the ranchers were freed. The army flew in hay subsidized by the government and dropped it to the isolated, starving cattle. It cost more than it saved, but the ranchers felt that at least they had not been deserted.
Mitch Peabody extended credit, and his wife even kept her teats off the scales for a while. The bank in Ragoon lowered interest rates. After the government had declared Hi Lo a disaster area, Federal funds on long term pay-out were made available to the ranchers for restocking. It would take all the time they had been allotted for full recovery, and then some.
Abrahm Frink, who had butchered what few cattle he had anyway, just sat around and blamed the storm itself on the government. He said that it was a plot and that the politicians had hired Tinker Grits to make this storm with his rain machine so they could show how generous they were with the army airplanes paid for by the citizens. All this would be good publicity, he figured, and garner a lot of votes next election.
A couple of days after the storm Uncle Bob saddled his hunting horse and called his dogs. In the deep drifts the long-legged hounds caught and killed six cattle-gorged coyotes. It was one of the best days of his entire life.
It was too bad that Hoover hadn’t made it to see Jim Ed Love’s bulldozer plow right up into his yard and then open a path to his grave.
I felt pretty bad about that, but Big Boy told me: “Hell, he lived more good lives than a city full of deacons. This is the way he would have liked it. He died fighting for his land and his cattle.”
Maybe because I had quit, maybe because of Hoover, maybe because of Mona, maybe because of my guilt around Big Boy, I don’t know, but anyway I left Hi Lo. I decided to go south and take a job on a ranch near Santa Fe. Before I left I stopped in Sano to get Josepha. Suddenly I knew I wanted her and needed her very much. All my doubts had gone with the storm.
Sano was the lonesomest place I ever saw. The snow lay frozen in the shade of the buildings, and only one car was parked on the street. I walked into the store, and her father shook hands with me. He asked about Hoover, and I told him the news and we hashed over different ranchers’ losses.
Finally I asked, “Where’s Josepha?”
He paused a minute, then said, “Didn’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“About a week before the storm she left on her honeymoon.”
“Honeymoon?” I said vacantly.
“Yeah, she married a boy from Ragoon. They’re going to live in Los Angeles. He’s got a good job out there in an aircraft factory.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. I told him goodbye and stepped outside. The wind had died for a minute. It was very cold.
Twenty-Two
I liked my new job, but it took some time for the years at Hi Lo to begin to dim. There were five hands besides myself and the cook. The food was good and there was always plenty of it. I started getting acquainted with the neighboring ranchers and their cowboys, but you don’t get to know men in five months unless you are thrown into extreme situations with them.
About half the Two-Bars outfit was in rough country and had to be worked horseback. The balance was down on the flats and could be covered in a day with a pickup truck.
I had heard through people who had kin in the Hi Lo country that the spring rains had been plentiful and the grass was coming on.
I spent many hours trying to forget a lot of things and many more trying to remember everything. A lot of pictures crowded my mind: the night Big Boy whipped half a dance floor with only a little help from Levi and me; the evening in the desert with Josepha; the drought and the brief but deadly blizzard. And Mona. She was the most vivid of all.
Some of the ranches around us had already started spring roundup and branding. The foreman told us to get our gear ready to begin the following week. I suppose this started me thinking more and more about Big Boy. We had made so many brandings, rodeos, and drunks together that a whole chain of memories ran through my head.
I decided to write him a letter. I told him about the kind of outfit I was on, what kind of horses they had, the grub, the pay, the whole works. I told him about the country dance at a neighbor’s when I had held a skinny gal so close I thought she was standing behind me, and a lot of other meaningless stuff. I finished the letter by asking about Mona. Then I wondered if that was why I had written.
I had already crawled into the pickup to take the letter into town when the foreman came out of the main house and yelled, “Pete! Long distance!”
I got out and walked over to the big frame house, trying to guess who in the hell could be calling me.
The operator said, “One moment, sir, and I’ll get you a better connection.”
It wasn’t much of an improvement; this was a privately repaired line and was always bad.
I finally heard, “Pete, can you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Levi.”
“Why howdy, Levi. How the hell are you, boy?”
“Pete—” He hesitated a minute.
“Yeah?”
“Big Boy was shot and killed yesterday.”
It was strange how calm I was. Levi said they were burying him the next afternoon at two o’clock. Then the connection went bad. I yelled into the phone, trying to reestablish contact, but it was no use.
I hung up and stood a minute without moving. Big Boy dead. I’d lived with the idea a long time, but even so I couldn’t take it in. It was as hard to accept as the idea of the sun not coming up every morning.
I made arrangements with my boss and took off for Hi Lo. I had sworn never to return, but now I wanted to go back and get whoever was responsible for Big Boy’s death. That would probably mean Les. Maybe even Mona.
It was a long drive, and by the time I got to Ragoon it was late at night. I was drained emotionally by then, feeling all hollowed out, like a rotten log. I decided to stay in Ragoon and go on to Hi Lo the next day. I could make it for the funeral and do what I had to do before sunset. Somehow I didn’t want to spend a night in Hi Lo. I couldn’t really say why.
The next day I took my time, not admitting it but secretly hoping I would be late for the funeral service. I didn’t figure Levi would go either. I was right. He was leaning in the door of his shack, waiting for me as I drove up.
As usual, he didn’t greet me with any formal hello but simply pointed to a chair. He poured us both a cup of coffee, and we sat down across the table from each other. Through the window we could see the crowd gathering at the church a couple of blocks away.
“Who did it?” I asked, feeling the blood drain away from my face.
“Little Boy,” he said.
“Little Boy?” I was prepared for anything but that. “Little Boy? Well, God A’mighty. How?”
So he told me about it.
“You know that Little Boy never did measure up in Big Boy’s eyes. He wasn’t much of a cowboy and didn’t even take any real interest in the ranch. He spent most of his time in Hi Lo and Ragoon playing pool and such. Fact is, he didn’t seem to be a Matson at all. It wasn’t his fault, Pete; it’s just the way he was made. Big Boy was like his pa and his grandpa. You know, old-time, roughhouse bastards that just plunged into everything with guts and muscle. Well, thinking back on it, Big Boy gave his brother a pretty rough time, trying to knock him into something he just wasn’t meant to be. About a month ago Big Boy was telling me how sore he was when he found out his brother hadn’t even made an effort to get out to the ranch when the blizzard struck. He just stayed here in town, drinking and playing pool. The old woman and the youngest brother had it all alone. They lost pretty heavy. In fact, figuring it on a percentage basis, they lost heavier than almost anybody around. Big Boy just naturally blamed it all on hi
s brother. He told me, “Levi, I’d knock that boy’s brains out if I knew where to hit him.’ ”
“That sounds just like him,” I said. “But God A’mighty, Levi, remember the Hi Lo rodeo last year, when Big Boy just flat-ass risked his life for him?”
“I know,” Levi said, “but I always guessed that Little Boy held that against him. His big brother was everything in the world that Little Boy could never be.”
“How did it happen?”
“Well, Big Boy went home to help with the spring branding the other day. Since you left he’d taken over Hoover’s outfit and had got himself an interest in it. It seems that Big Boy had cussed Little Boy out at the branding, saying he couldn’t rope and never was in the right place at the right time. Which was all true enough. Then the day of the killing Little Boy had walked off, saying he was going to town. Big Boy followed him and told him to look at the yard fences. They were all down and full of weeds and the barns needed fixing and the corrals repairing and, by God, Little Boy wasn’t going anywhere until this outfit was put back in shape like it had always been.”
We could hear the singing up at the church: it was the Marine Hymn. I had completely forgotten that Big Boy had once been a Marine. He had been so much else.
“Well,” Levi went on, “Little Boy told him he wasn’t his boss and he would do as he damn pleased. It must have taken all the nerve he had to face Big Boy and say that. Anyway, he claimed Big Boy hit him then and knocked him up against the car and picked up a board and made for him. Little Boy must have been scared right down to his socks. He ran around the other side of the car, jerked the door open, and pulled a thirty-eight out of the glove compartment. The way he and his mother told it, Big Boy came around the fender with the board raised in front of him. Little Boy pulled the trigger, and the first shot went through Big Boy’s elbow and chest at the same time. He kept coming. Little Boy pulled the trigger as fast as he could, and on the fourth shot Big Boy spun around and went down on his face. The fifth and last shot went between his shoulder blades.”
I sat a long time without saying anything. They were bringing Big Boy out of the church now, and the car engines were beginning to start.
“There’s just one thing wrong, Levi,” I said finally. “Big Boy wouldn’t have used a board. You know he wouldn’t. How could the whole family swear to a lie like that!”
“Listen, Pete,” Levi said, “whether it’s true or not, his ma had to do it.”
“Why?”
“Well, look at it this way. Her whole life had been lived on the thin edge of tragedy. Her father-in-law and her husband and now her son had all died violently, from gunshots. What did you expect her to do—throw her next oldest into the gas chamber?”
I thought a minute, then nodded. I don’t know when I ever felt so tired.
The hearse was turning down the main street of Hi Lo now, and the wind was rising, whipping the little flags tied to it.
I got up and said, “Well, I guess I’ll go on up the hill, Levi. Want to come?”
He poured himself another cup of coffee and rubbed his hands along the back of one of his cedar statues. “No, I’ll go afterward,” he said.
I started to ask about Mona, but something kept me from it.
I waited until all the other cars were on their way, then followed along behind. It took a long time, it seemed to me, for everybody to wind up the hill and unload.
Jim Ed Love was there. I saw him give his condolences to Mrs. Matson. I knew it was all hypocrisy, but maybe she didn’t know the difference. The Felders were there. Young Martin couldn’t keep the relief out of his face.
The old-time cowhands Big Boy had worked with, loved, and understood gathered in a group apart with their big hats off. They stood stiff-jointed from all the blizzards, droughts, bucking horses, trail drives, and hell raising of their younger days. There weren’t many like them left.
There were a few others that truly grieved, such as Uncle Bob and Tinker Grits, but all in all, the rest seemed anxious to get it over with and call it quits. I was one of those. I had been the last to climb the hill and I was the first to leave.
I drove back down to Hi Lo intending to drop by and visit with Levi again. But I just didn’t belong here any more, so I turned right down the highway. Then it hit me—Mona hadn’t been there. I would have bet anything in the world that nothing could have stopped her. I found out later that on that very day she had given birth to Big Boy’s only son.
About five miles out of Hi Lo I noticed my letter to Big Boy lying on the seat beside me. I pulled off to the side of the road. I got out and took the letter with me. Then I tore it into little pieces. The wind caught them one by one and sent them dancing across the rolling hills of Hi Lo.
The End
A Sample Chapter from Super Bull and Other True Escapades
Super Bull
There are all kinds of bulls in the world, that's for sure— Angus, Brangus, Charolais, Jerseys, but Super Bull was a Hereford—and if Jimmy Bason, cowboy and rancher, had known about this particular one, he probably wouldn't have bought the S Bar S outfit. This bull would give him more trouble than a street full of terrorists and drive him as crazy as a bee-stung bear.
The Bason's land starts just west of the historical little mining and cattle village of Hillsboro, in southwestern New Mexico, and goes all the way to the top of the Black Range Mountains. When Jimmy bought the ranch in 1962, it was the S Bar S, but his brand was F Cross and he intended for every animal on his spread to carry that marking.
He started riding and looking for strays. He soon found a bunch of wild Hereford cows and calves enjoying the springtime grass in South Percha Canyon. A few of the cows and all the calves were unbranded. This had to be changed.
Jimmy went for help to three absolutely top-notch mountain cowboys, Joe Wiegel, and Mac and Bill Nunn. They brought with them their best rock horses. These animals could run a cow up a tree and back down a badger hole. And would they ever need them, because South Percha Canyon ranges from seven-to-ten thousand timbered feet in altitude and is as close to straight up and down as they come and still have a rock roll instead of drop.
In three days of hard riding and skilled tracking, they'd gathered seventeen head. They all agreed that there was at least one waspy old cow and her bull calf left. Jimmy knew that these good hands had work and responsibilities of their own, so he thanked them and said they could go on about their business. It wouldn't be any problem at all for him and his grulla horse, Billy Bob, to finish up.
Well, that old S Bar S cow was a smart one. She turned back on her tracks and over. She'd run up and down the nearly sheer slopes in a zig-zag manner and then cut back and hide like a mountain lion in thick, brushy patches. The bull calf followed right along, making the same moves as his mother.
Jimmy and Billy Bob wore down after about four days, and as embarrassing as it was, Jimmy called on Rob Cox, another hellacious cowboy from the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces, to come give him a hand.
Two running, plunging days went by. No cow. No calf. Tired cowboys. Tired horses. Rob had other ducks to race, so Jimmy was once more left alone to face the rugged wilderness.
In this rough country he had to work by sign instead of sight. He looked for freshly overturned rocks and broken brush, but mainly he trailed by tracks and by the squirts and drops of green, mostly digested grass that falls behind a running critter. The way it splashes points out the direction she's going.
This vast land of steep slopes is covered densely with pines, spruces, and all kinds of brush and rocks and is some of the roughest terrain in America. To emphasize how wild it is, the great Indian leaders, Geronimo and Chief Victorio, chose it as their last stronghold after thousands of soldiers had pursued them for years.
South Percha Canyon stretches along Highway 90 for six miles, and along this whole distance there were only four trails dropped down from the road. Jimmy finally got the old cow and calf headed up one of these trails. He could tell by the fr
eshly steaming, green droppings that he was right on 'em. Then he saw them top out and vanish on the winding highway. He topped out himself, and the green sign told him which way they'd turned. He had to get her before she reached one of the other trails. Billy Bob charged right down the pavement while Jimmy shook out his loop. He knew he could only catch one of the two, so when he pulled in roping range, he decided to take the cow. He figured the calf would hang around hunting for its mother. He threw the loop. He caught. Billy Bob set up, sliding his hind legs under and screwing his tail in the pavement. If he hadn't been a top rock horse, there would have been a hell of a wreck. The cow was jerked down hard right on the yellow line knocking enough breath out of her to turn a windmill for thirty minutes.
Jimmy bailed off with his piggin string to sideline her— that is, tie two feet together on the same side so she could move around and easily get her breath, but couldn't get away. He had slipped the loop of the piggin string on one foot when she found some lost wind and really started kicking and bawling. A tour bus full of Japanese had stopped on the highway and about fifty excited, camera-toting Orientals were circling around jabbering, scuffling, pushing, and trying to take pictures. Here it was—the wild and wooly West in action right before their shining, dark eyes.
The old cow didn't like one human being much less a whole highway full of folks making more noise than a tenth class reunion. Billy Bob was boogered by all the racket, but kept the rope tight anyway. Jimmy was being kicked, butted and generally abused by the crazed cow. The more Jimmy yelled at the Japanese, the closer they came with the cameras, smiling, pointing, snapping pictures like they were recording the Resurrection itself. At last Jimmy got the attention of the bus driver and screamed at him to get these photographic maniacs out of his way so he could finish his job. The driver finally waved and pushed the crowd back. Jimmy tied the cow. The bus moved out with many smiling faces mashed against the windows.