by Ralph Moody
Judy was still in her rolled-up overalls and jumper, and with her cap pulled down over her hair she looked—from the back—more like a boy than a girl. She kept her head down while I was talking, but when I asked the question she peeked nervously along the line of faces. There was no question about the decision: Gus and Lars began nodding at each other, and Doc volunteered to help with the cooking and dishwashing. Even though Paco couldn’t understand a word, he seemed to know what was going on, and his smile showed that he was all for the idea.
“All right,” I said, “now that we know who’s on the team we’d better get lined out on what we’re going to do next. Judy’s going to drive me to town for new conveyor belts and a load of groceries. Before we start, Doc, let’s go over the old header, so I can pick up whatever other parts need to be replaced, and tools for doing the job. Paco can mend harness and make check straps to replace those jockey poles, and the rest of you might see what you can do about making two decent barges out of those three old wrecks. Let’s get everything shipshape today, so we’ll be ready to tackle the job bright and early in the morning.”
By the time I’d told Paco I was going to be his new boss, and what I wanted him to do, Doc was at the header and the other four were fishing barge wheels out of the tank. Within half an hour I had a list of the new parts and tools we’d need, and Judy was waiting for me by the old Maxwell. She’d changed into her bright gingham dress, and looked as pert as a robin in the spring. She jiggled the choke wire while I turned the crank, and the old jalopy backfired as if she thought it was still the Fourth of July and she had all the firecrackers. She was still backfiring when Judy clashed her into gear, and we went streaking out of the yard. Considering the roads, Judy was a fast driver, and she talked nearly as fast as she drove. If I hadn’t already been pretty well sold on Beaver Valley as a good place to go into the cattle business, she’d have sold me long before we reached Oberlin.
Bones must have phoned the man at the Co-operative before we got there, for he was certainly co-operative. He seemed more than anxious to please me, got me everything I asked for, and reminded me of some I’d forgotten. When I fished out my checkbook he could have seen that it was brand new, but I didn’t want him to know I was writing the first check I’d ever written in my life, so I numbered it 101. And before I filled in the amount I looked up and said, “It being Sunday, I’m a little short of cash; mind if I make it out for an extra five?”
“Not a bit,” he told me. “Make it out for whatever you want; I’ve got plenty of cash on hand today.”
I didn’t want Judy to know that I didn’t have a solitary nickel, but I did want to buy her an ice-cream soda while we were in a town big enough that we could get one. She seemed willing enough to have me do it, and I’ve bought ice-cream sodas for a lot of girls I didn’t like as well.
Driving around to Cedar Bluffs on our way back to the place took us about ten miles out of our way, but we were busy enough talking that the trip didn’t seem very far. As soon as we’d pulled out of Oberlin I told Judy, “I want to set the best table anywhere around. You do the ordering, and buy enough stuff to run us all the way through harvest. One of the first things my father taught me about ranching was that the boss who sets the best table, and who feeds his horses best, is the one who has the least trouble and gets the most done.”
Judy pulled the old Maxwell over to the side of the road, fished a stubby pencil out of her handbag, and told me to write things down as she called them off to me, so we’d know just what we wanted when we reached Joe’s store. Before we reached it I thought she must be planning to set up a grocery store of our own.
“Of course,” she said, “we can’t buy enough fresh meat or eggs to go all the way through, ’cause they’d go bad on us. You can’t keep much of that kind of things without you’ve got ice or a dug well to let ’em down into. Up on the divide they’re all drilled wells, so there’s no place to keep nothing cool. But we’ll get a hind quarter of pork—off’n a good young barrow—so there’ll be fresh ham for breakfasts, and pork chops for suppers, and plenty of side meat for dinners. And I don’t reckon we’d best to get more’n ten dozen eggs to start off with, and let’s see . . . a sack of white flour—soft wheat, for biscuits—and a sack of spuds, and a sack of beans . . . do you like the pinto kind?”
“I like them to beat the band,” I told her, “but I can’t eat them if I stay on my diet. The reason I’m so skinny is that I have diabetes, so I’m supposed to eat only green vegetables and a kind of bread I won’t be able to get here, along with chicken, eggs, nuts, fish, and things like that.”
“Well, there’s bullheads in the creek,” she said, “but we won’t have no time to go fishing, leastways not till harvest’s over.”
“Canned salmon is all right,” I said, “and I’m used to it. I’ve lived on it and eggs and cabbage for the past eight months.”
“Cabbage?” she said, and jumped her foot off the gas pedal. “Why didn’t you tell me when we was in Oberlin? Joe, he don’t carry fresh stuff like that. Would sauerkraut do?”
“Sure,” I told her.
“Well, put down a case of it. Joe keeps peanuts—a whole barrel of ’em—and we got plenty of chickens to home. I’ll bring out some tomorrow. Myron wouldn’t have none on the place; said one hen would ruin more crops than a herd of cattle. Peas and beans—green ones—ought to be all right for vegetables. Put down a case of each one, and a case of hominy, and pears, and peaches, and apple sauce—it goes awful good with pork chops. Did I tell you onions? They’re mighty good in fried spuds for breakfast . . . and baking powder, and syrup . . . I can make good flapjacks.”
When we reached The Bluffs, Joe was sitting in front of his store, his chair tilted back in the shade under the canopy. Of course he’d known Judy all her life, and he recognized me as soon as we pulled up beside the hitch rail. Without tilting his chair down, he called, “Oh, so you’re the one! Reckoned there was somethin’ in the wind when Bones give you that note last night. He tells me Myron was kilt by that feisty little old mare of his. How’d she do it, tromp him?”
As we climbed out of the jalopy I told him, “I wasn’t there when it happened, so I couldn’t tell you. Would you like to get us out a load of groceries? I’ll give you a check for them.”
Joe brought his chair down with a thump, jumped to his feet, and fumbled around as he fitted a key into the door lock. With his back to us he called heartily, “Come right on in and pick out what you want. No need to pay for it now; you can leave it go till the month end. Bones, he’ll stand good for it if you don’t.”
Joe was in such a hurry that he was inside the store before Judy and I had reached the shade of the canopy. “The old boy must be kind of hungry for business,” I whispered to her.
“You can’t blame him,” she whispered back. “Any more, folks go to the Co-op over to Oberlin for their big orders—them that can pay cash. About all Joe gets is the fill-ins, and the charge-it-till-harvest-time business.”
I don’t know which one of us had the most fun; Joe in gloating over the business he was getting, Judy in doing her shopping, or I in watching them both. She bustled around the store as if she’d been the banker’s wife, and she was a sharp little trader. Whether or not she actually knew the prices at the Co-operative, she made Joe think she did. She took a can of peas down from the shelf and called, “How much you asking for these Arbuckle peas, Joe?”
“Fourteen cents,” he called back.
“You’re too dear on ’em,” she told him. “Over to the Co-op they’re twelve—six for seventy cents.”
“I could leave you have them M-H brand—right there to your left—for eleven,” he shouted back from the counter.
“Don’t want ’em,” she sang out. “We don’t aim to go hunting no jack rabbits, and them M-H’s are harder’n buckshot. How much a case for these Arbuckles?”
After a minute’s thought Joe shouted, “Bein’ it’s a big order, I’d leave you have ’em for three doll
ars.”
Judy mumbled to herself, “Six into twenty-four is four, times seventy,” then called back, “I’ll give you two-seventy-five; that’s what they’d cost over to the Co-op.”
On each item Joe met her price, and as I carried the cases out to the Maxwell I went past the counter to see that he wrote them down correctly on the bill.
It was nearly noon when we got back to the ranch, and the old Maxwell was loaded to the top rail. Doc was busy at the header, Paco was repairing harness, and the others were working on the barges. Judy turned sharply at the corner of the milking pen and drove to the back door of the house. While she gathered up a few of the smaller packages, I took the new conveyor belts and what I could carry of the spare parts and supplies, then went to see how Doc was getting along. He was on his knees, and had worn parts scattered all around him. As I came toward him he climbed to his feet and told me, “The undertaker came right after you left, and the banker took the Missis away as soon as the hearse had gone. I’d be further along with this job only we had a funeral of our own; buried what was left of that boar pork deep enough the dogs couldn’t dig it up. From the looks of that load you brought in, I guess we’ll manage to get by without it.”
“If you’re going to be the kitchen canary you might as well get started on the job by lugging the stuff in and helping Judy get some dinner ready,” I told him. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but right now I’m hungry enough to put away half of what we brought. How are they making out with the barges? Think we can get them patched up enough to last out the harvest?”
“Say, those Swedes are all right!” Doc told me. “Bet you a hat they’re carpenters by trade. Go take a look at what they’re doing with those wheels, and I’ll go wrastle up some grub.”
When I reached the barges I was sure Doc had been right in his guess. Gus and Lars had taken all twelve of the rickety old wheels apart, had sorted out the best spokes, hubs, and fellies, and had already reassembled four good solid wheels. I stopped just long enough to tell them what a fine job they were doing, then went on to Old Bill and Jaikus. Neither of them was worth a nickel as a carpenter, but they were doing the best they could, so I passed them the sacks of nails I’d brought, and told them they were doing okay, and then went on to Paco. He was doing more than okay.
Except for two sets, the harness was nothing but a collection of neglected junk, but Paco had the two worst sets put into fairly good condition. In all his life he’d probably never known anything but patched-up harness, and had learned to do more tricks with wire, a pair of pliers, and a couple of rocks than any man I’d ever known. He was as excited as a little youngster with the sack of new snaps, buckles, and rivets I’d brought from town. I stayed with him, telling him about the deal I’d made, until Doc called, “Come and get it ’fore I throw it to the coyotes!”
I hadn’t heard that old chuckwagon call since I’d been a kid in Colorado. At any other time I’d have been glad to hear it, but it seemed out of place on a day when a man had been killed. My feeling must have been evident in my voice when I called back, “We’ll be along in a few minutes.” Usually men will start on the run when the chuckwagon call is given, but no one left his work until I led the way to the wash basin at the windmill.
As always, we waited to go in together. When we reached the kitchen we found Doc and Judy as proud as peacocks, and they had reason to be. The table was spread with flour sacks for a cloth, and enough food for two dozen hungry men. There was a big platter of fresh ham steaks, another of hashed-brown potatoes, two heaping plates of biscuits, and they’d opened at least two cans of every sort of vegetable and fruit we’d bought. There weren’t bowls enough to hold all the stuff, so they’d just opened the cans of fruit and set them on as they were. The only single can they’d opened was salmon. It was standing beside a steaming hot bowl of sauerkraut, at the end of the table where Hudson had always sat.
For some reason I didn’t want to sit at that place, but there was nothing else to do, so I went around and stopped behind the chair. The table was set with three plates on each side and one on each end. Doc drew back the chair at the end opposite me, and bowed low toward Judy. Her face turned scarlet, and for a few seconds she looked confused, then she stepped forward and let Doc seat her.
No one helped himself until the platter, bowl, or coffee pot had been passed to Judy and came back to him around the table, and no one could seem to think of anything to say. To break the tension, I told Doc I’d like him to take a walk through both sections with me, so we could find which quarters were most apt to shatter and should be harvested first. I didn’t know enough about wheat to trust my own judgment, but from what Doc had told me about stacking I was sure that he knew, and that we could save Mrs. Hudson a lot of wheat by harvesting the ripest and driest first. From there on, everyone seemed at ease, and the conversation was all about the job we had ahead of us.
It was one o’clock before we left the table, then it took Doc and me about three hours to put the new parts on the header, and to rig a heavy enough counterweight on the boom that I could raise and lower the cutting head easily. After we’d finished, Judy drove us around both sections of uncut wheat. At every quarter mile we drove a tall stake, and tied a white rag to it, so we’d have markers for dividing the sections into forty-acre fields. As we went along we walked deep enough into each field to find out exactly the condition of the crop, and I drew a map to show which quarters should be harvested first. Where the land was level the kernels were already hardened, but there was still enough sap in the straw to avoid any danger of shattering for two or three weeks. On the highest rises the grain was so dry it would begin shattering within a few days, but where there were dips it could safely be left standing for nearly a month.
In the deepest draw the grain stood waist-high, the kernels were still in the milk stage, and the leaves were green. “This would make pretty good horse feed,” Doc told me. “Cut now, it would give ’em both hay and grain, but these heads are too heavy for the limber stalks. Leave it till it’s ripe, with these hot winds blowing, and most of it would go down too flat to be harvested.”
“Then let’s come and get a load of it,” I told him. “It will give me a chance to try the header out—and the horses too. I’m afraid they may have gone wilder than chicken hawks again after a day in the pasture.”
It was probably five o’clock before we got back from checking the fields, so I started the men right off to the pasture, telling them where to take positions, and to make no move that might frighten the horses. As soon as they’d gone I went to the corral for Kitten. Her sides were still streaked with dried blood from the spurring she’d had, but she seemed to be well over her fright and nervousness. There was no hurry, for it would take the crew ten or fifteen minutes to get into position, so I worked slowly with Kitten—talking to her from outside the corral before I went in. I wasn’t yet ready to try her with a saddle; first because I thought she might associate it with Hudson, and secondly because his stirrups would be three or four inches too long for me. I expected that she’d do as she had always done; make a run for the far end of the corral, but she didn’t. She stood without even laying back her ears, and let me walk straight to her. I slipped the bridle on, stroked her neck a minute or two, led her out through the gate, propped it wide open, and flipped onto her back.
After I’d watered Kitten I closed the gate at the end of the lane, and flipped onto her back again. That time she acted nervous, raised her head high, and pointed her ears sharply up the lane. I let her take her time, moving forward a few steps, stopping to sniff the air, then moving on again. When we reached the place where I’d come to relieve her of her burden that morning, she approached it dancing and trembling, shied away from the spot where the body had lain, then raced past as though a ghost had risen behind her. I’d managed to quiet her a little, but she was still trembling when I rode her into the pasture. A hundred yards or so farther on she shied again, and circled wide around a spot where the ground
was trampled.
The horse herd was at the same place Hudson and I had found it, and again raced away into the gulch as I rode into the pasture. I let Kitten lope to the north, then took her down into the bottleneck of the gulch, just as we had gone before, and again I found the herd trotting toward me on the wide grassy floor. At sight of it Kitten wanted to charge, but I held her to a jogging trot. For maybe a minute, the herd stopped and stood watching us, heads high, and ready to spook at our first quick move. When we didn’t make one, the horses trotted back the way they had come, and, with the men strung out to head them off, we had no trouble in turning them into the lane.
We waited at the end of the lane until the horses had time to reach the gate at the far end and quiet down, then cut the colts back to the pasture, let the others stop to drink at the tank, and drove them on quietly to the corral. By working slowly with them, they didn’t give us much trouble harnessing.
There was no need of using more than one barge for hauling feed, so we harnessed only eight horses, taking the three teams that had worked on the barges the previous day, along with the two heaviest colts from the header teams. I had Old Bill hitch the colts to the barge, and we put the better-broken six on the header, for I knew I’d have trouble enough in handling it for the first time, even though I had horses that wouldn’t require too much driving. Then, before we started out, I made a few turns in the yard, so as to give the horses, as well as myself, a little practice at turning corners.