“Get over here, moron.”
Buster came over and stood next to him.
“Unbutton your shirt.”
“Gosh, why?”
“Just do it, numbnuts.”
Cookie stuffed two more boxes of .22s into Buster’s shirt.
“Okay, follow me. Not too fast. Stop and look at some shit like you’re shoppin’.” Buster took him literally, and on the way out, stopped to stare at some bags of steer manure. Cookie looked at him sangfroid. “¡Si no eres el idiota más idiota que he conocido!”
When the forty-five minutes were up, everyone returned to the truck that was already loaded with groceries. On the way out of town, a truck that had the logo of a contractor’s company on the door panel, pulled up beside the Dominguez’s. The person on the passenger side of the moving truck rolled down his window.
“Hey, Dominguez, the boss wants to redo the floor of the Vanadium Hotel lobby.”
“Tell them to call you at the office,” Edita said nervously. She didn’t like this kind of communicating on the highway. Dominguez ignored her.
“How many square feet?” He yelled back to the men, further aggravating her.
While this mobile business meeting was being conducted, in the back of the truck, Cookie cornered Buster.
“Let’s have ’em.”
“Have what?”
“The shells we boosted, gringo.”
“Ah put ’em back.”
“You what?”
“If ah’da kep’m that woulda been stealin’.”
Cookie wanted to throw him off the truck, but he knew he couldn’t lift him. Instead, he grabbed Buster’s cowboy hat from his head and angrily Frisbeed it into the back of the truck conducting the business conference at forty miles an hour alongside them.
“Hey…!”
His other brothers pretended not to see it, but Buster’s sisters immediately came to his defense.
“That was mean!” they both said.
“Mommy gave me that hat for cleanin’ the house.”
“So go get it, if you want it so fuckin’ bad!”
Buster looked at his hat fluttering around in the back of the adjacent pick up truck.
“Better get it now while you still have a chance,” Cookie taunted. “Chickie, chickie, bruck-bruck!”
Buster’s brow furrowed. Feebly, he tried to calculate the physics of this. Could he do it? Could he jump from the back of one moving truck to another?
“Don’t do it!” his sisters pleaded.
“Shut up, you little cunts! If he wants it so bad, let him jump for it!”
Buster did not want to see his hat ride away. He put one foot on the side of the truck and braced one hand on the top of the cab—where inside his foster parents sat, unaware.
“All right,” the passenger of the other truck said to Dominguez. “See you tomorrow at ten-thirty.” The contractor’s truck started to accelerate away.
“Don’t do it!” Buster’s sisters screamed.
Buster had already waited too long when he jumped. He missed the side of the passing truck, but managed to get his hands on the tailgate. Unfortunately, his long legs reached the road—the tips of his cowboy boots burning from the friction.
Inside the Dominguezes’ truck, Edita and Dominguez were too busy arguing to notice Buster being dragged past them.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was—what you just did? There is such a thing as a telephone, you know.”
“Shut up.”
“You have children in the truck,” she said, wanting to have the last word.
Now smoke began to billow into their windshield from the truck in front of them.
“I think he blew his rings. I better catch up and tell him.”
Dominguez sped up and as they drove through the smoke, he and Edita were able to see Buster hanging by his fingertips, his boots on fire.
“How the hell…?”
“¡Dios mío!” Edita cried.
Dominguez sped up and began honking his horn. In the meantime, Buster’s higher mammalian instinct for self-preservation overcame his fool’s insubordination and commanded all the strength of his tall, skinny frame to pull himself up. Slowly, his feet came off the pavement where the friction had already erased the points on his cowboy boots and the tips of his socks. Shaking and trembling at every juncture of muscle and tendon, Buster managed to get himself up on the rear bumper. He waited a moment to catch his breath then flipped himself over the back tailgate. Gone from view momentarily, he suddenly sprang to his feet—triumphantly waving his hat. All of this took place without the knowledge of the driver and passenger of Buster’s current vehicle—loudly singing along with Reba McEntire’s “Is There Life Out There?” on the radio.
After they recovered their wayward passenger, Dominguez pulled over and interrogated the children in the back of the truck.
“Who let him do that?”
Dominguez stood waiting for an answer. Cookie remained silent. The younger brothers cast their eyes to their laps. Finally, Dominguez looked to his little daughters. Surreptitiously, one of them pointed a teensy-weensy finger in the direction of Cookie.
“You little coc—” Dominguez said to Cookie, cutting off the obscenity.
Cookie just smirked at him. There it was—the dismissive expression of Guillermo Cantante. Dominguez balled his fist. He wanted to slam it into that insolent, fat face of his, but he could wait.
This being the Sabbath, Mrs. Dominguez prepared fish balls, boiled chicken, beef brisket served with little potato pancakes, and crepes filled with ricotta cheese and topped with applesauce. Dominguez, at his wife’s direction, was not allowed to kiln tiles on the Sabbath. In fact, the Cantantes had inculcated him with the notion that he was not to lift a finger until Sunday morning.
There were other strict observances in the Dominguez household—the most draconian being no television. Mrs. Dominguez, trying to identify the causes of Cookie’s nascent criminal pathology, had determined that television inspired violence and took the Emerson down to be sold at the This ’n’ That Shop. Instead, the children spent their typical evenings cleaning the house, reading, and doing their homework. When those tasks were completed, they were expected to work on their respective art projects.
Buster’s project had been the creation of frescoes made on the bedroom wall next to his bunk. There was no denying Buster’s eye for anatomy and composition. His subjects, always horses and cowboys, were applied to the wall in a classic seven-layer Flemish style. The problem, to Mrs. Dominguez’s chagrin, was that Buster used boogers and not paints to create these naïve masterpieces. The removal of this dried and hardened medium was impossible to achieve without the removal of the underlying paint as well. Patiently, Mrs. Dominguez redirected Buster’s artistic talent to the age-old Kasbah art form—where awl and ball peen hammer were employed to tap intricate bas-reliefs on metal plates—in Buster’s case, discarded pie tins from the Buttered Roll.
After dinner, Cookie was busy in the tool room where he had constructed a Red Grooms–like model of the Vanadium jail to the smallest detail—fabricating the steel bars for the cells from a shopping cart he boosted from the grocery store.
“Cookie Dominguez!”
It was his father bellowing. It was time to pay the piper for encouraging Buster’s truck hopping. Cookie turned off the soldering gun and stoically walked outside. His father was already standing there. He silently gestured to the kiln room, which was, in the Dominguez family, akin to “the woodshed.”
Cookie stepped into the outbuilding. Along the sides of the room were racks supporting sheets of tiles ready for boxing. But the centerpiece was the propane-fired, fifty-three-cubic-foot, front-loading Delphi kiln—the largest in the state of Colorado—capable of 2,350 degrees Fahrenheit. Without speaking, for they had been through this routin
e before, Dominguez gestured for Cookie to bend over a stack of boxes.
b
It was now Labor Day and the annual Vanadium Rodeo. The rodeo was a big deal in town. Everyone participated in some way. The girls, who weren’t riding in an event, baked pies and made lemonade for the refreshment booth, which donated its proceeds to 4H and Future Ranchers of Tomorrow. All the boys, if they didn’t want to be teased, competed in the junior rodeo events.
If there was one thing in Cookie’s life that he could point to with pride, it was his collection of blue ribbons for saddle bronc riding. He had been champion in the kids’ division five years running. While the other boys rode sheep in the kiddy events, Cookie rode the real thing—wild-eyed broncos. This year, however, he faced an unlikely competitor in his adopted brother. Buster, by the end of the summer, had reached the preternatural height of six-one, and while no one had ever shown him how to ride a horse, there was some innate quality in his undocumented DNA that gave him what they call in cowboy parlance “a leg up.” There was no other way to explain his aptitude—other than what life had taught him so far—to hang on.
In the saddle bronc riding event, Cookie drew the horse The Hell You Say. The Hell’s gimmick was to put his nose down as soon as he cleared the gate and kick his back legs straight up over his head. Most riders slid off this steep incline in the first second, but Cookie dug his spurs in hard above the horse’s shoulder and made it easily past the eight-second buzzer. Sheriff Dudival, who volunteered every year as a rodeo clown, helped him off and shooed the aggravated horse away. The Judges scored Cookie the full twenty-five points on the animal, twenty-one on the rider’s performance and a combined forty-nine other points, bringing his total to a hard-to-beat ninety-five out of one hundred. Jared Yankapeed, an older cowboy, offered Cookie a congratulatory pull of Crazy Crow bourbon—which Cookie promptly drained as he glowered in the direction of his competition. Cookie, ever the good sportsman, had only moments before, found a bumblebee and shoved it up the rectum of his adopted brother’s horse.
“Next up, from Vanadium, Colorado…let’s hear it for the orphan, Buster McCaffrey!”
Buster climbed into the chute and eased himself into the saddle of Never Inoculated. He got a good grip of the single rein attached to the halter, then nodded to the official that he was ready. The gate flew open. Suddenly Never Inoculated’s eyes widened, and his cheeks puffed out like Dizzy Gillespie doing Caravan. He sprung out on all four hooves like a deer—three spine-jarring times toward the center of the arena, then sat down and dragged his ass like a dog with worms. Then, bee-bitten, he launched straight up in the air, then came down hard on his front legs and kicked with everything he had. Buster started to lose his seat. Never recoiled off his back legs to his front, cracking Buster’s nose into his mane. Buster, nose gushing blood and on the verge of passing out, lay back on the horse’s rump. Never Inoculated recoiled off his back legs and spanked Buster on his way out of the saddle—propelling him ten feet, fifteen feet, twenty feet. Some people who were there that day insist that Buster was sent fifty feet into the air! High above the arena, Buster could see all the way to Lone Cone peak. He took a deep breath and savored the smell of Vanadium—the manure of the feedlot all the way to the diesel and oil of the salvage yard on the other side of town. And just over there was his cinder-blocked school, the First Church of Thessalonians, the back of Main Street’s Victorian façade—above that, Lame Horse Mesa. In that moment, he loved this town. The crowd gazed up at him, incredulous. There were his sisters standing by their post at the lemonade stand—afraid for him. And there was a pretty girl, about his age, all decked out in fringed rodeo regalia with blonde Annie Oakley pigtails. Why, if that wasn’t the prettiest girl he’d ever seen!
I’m going marry that gal, he thought.
But then he suddenly realized he was on his way down. Where was that horse, anyway? Oh, there he was, down there. Buster scrambled with his legs to regain his balance, adjusted his feet just so—and then to everyone’s utter astonishment, landed squarely on Never Inoculated’s saddle. The horse was so shocked, looking back at the bloody-nosed Buster, that he just stood there and peed. Then the eight-second buzzer went off.
The Judges took a good fifteen minutes to figure out exactly how to score this rodeo miracle. Had the horse done his best to vanquish the rider? Yes, since the horse actually tried to kill the rider. Did the time the rider was out of the saddle count against the clock? Yes, since the rider’s feet never touched the ground. The Judges therefore concluded that since a maneuver like Buster’s had never been done before, he was to be awarded a ninety-nine. They held back a perfect score on principle. Everyone in the Dominguez family was delighted when the blue ribbon was presented—except Cookie, of course. He would have received a second place ribbon but was disqualified for bad sportsmanship when the winners were announced. He had been seen making a defiant humping motion behind an unwitting sheep, which the judges didn’t appreciate—this being a family event. Dominguez was even more unappreciative. The ride home from the rodeo was quiet and tense.
The Dominguez boys were asleep when Dominguez came to the bunkhouse and shook Cookie awake, then left for the kiln house. Cookie sat on the edge of the bed for a long time before he stuck his feet into his slippers and went outside. Buster, pretending to be asleep, went to the window and watched as Cookie walked the seventy-five yards to the kiln house, slid open the heavy steel door and went inside—momentarily lit by the red glow of the kiln’s ignition button. After that, he couldn’t see what happened. After half an hour, Cookie returned to his bed. Buster leaned over his bunk to see him, but Cookie had the covers pulled over his head, even though it had been a very hot night. Buster thought he heard Cookie crying.
b
That was how summer ended. The sheepherders were now taking their flocks to lower elevations for winter in the Dolores Canyon, and Dominguez needed to bank enough manure for his black tiles until spring. He rented a large dump truck and set off with the whole family for a Sheep Shit Round-up. They collected sheep droppings at three of the largest outfits on Lame Horse Mesa—the Pusters’, the Stumplehorsts’, and the rim rock acres of the Morgan property, in exchange for a meager royalty for manure rights. One by one, Dominguez dropped off each of the children to shovel dung into mounds from the different sections. At the end of the day, the old man stopped by each pile, which they uploaded to the truck.
Buster’s area was defined by the Lame Horse Escarpment on one side and the Hail Mary, a defunct silver mine that had been boarded up for almost twenty years, on the other. Buster shoveled until his hands were raw with blisters. By sunset, he had gathered a dung pile ten feet high. Exhausted, he walked to the canyon rim where an outcropping of rocks formed the entrance to the Hail Mary. Ordinarily, he would have jumped at the chance to squeeze through the wooden slats of the boarded-up mine entrance and explore, but he was too tired. He laid down, instead, on the red rock mine tailings—which still held their warmth from a day in the sun. In the canyon below, the Dolores River shimmered like a hot ribbon of solder. The wind was picking up, and aromas of sage and juniper brought welcome therapy to Buster’s senses. He sat and stared at a stand of hundred-year-old firs that had somehow escaped the lumberman’s axe. In the middle of them, a dead pine leaned against a healthy young tree—perhaps its own progeny. How long, Buster wondered, would the young tree have to hold his deceased ancestor before the wind or rot set him free? Suddenly Buster heard someone whispering behind him. It was coming from the mine.
“Who’s there?” Buster said.
Now nervous to be out there by himself, he got to his feet and warily looked around, but his investigation was interrupted by the sound of a horse’s hooves approaching. A cowboy, on a paint horse, was riding his way—faster than he’d ever seen, over rocks and marmot holes, spewing curse words all the way. Just when Buster was sure he was going to be trampled, the rider yanked the reins and put the horse into a
skid—its front legs rearing up and pawing the air inches from his head. Then the cowboy jumped off and, with spurs clanking, stomped towards him.
“What the fuckin’ hell you doin’ up here?”
“Nuthin,” Buster said.
“You high-gradin’ my mine?”
“No, sir, ah ain’t,” Buster said, his mouth dry. The cowboy stared at him dubiously.
“Don’t fuck with me, boy.”
“Ah’m jes out here workin’. ”
The cowboy took a bag of tobacco out of his pocket and some rolling papers.
“Ah serpose yor one of them Messican shit shovelers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t be so fuckin’ proud ’bout it! You jes’ wanna throw in the sponge and shovel shit all yer lahf?”
“Uh, uh, uh…” Buster stammered.
“Well, shoot, Luke or give up the gun!”
“No sir. Ah ain’t gonna shovel shit all mah lahf!”
“That raht? Then what’re you fixin’ to do?”
“Ah’m a fixin’ to, uh…” Buster’s voice trailed off, realizing that he really didn’t know. The other Dominguez children, with the exception of Cookie, would quickly say that they were considering law and medicine. Buster had no such aspirations—only that he wanted no job that required staying indoors. His foster mother told him not to worry—that one day his calling would come to him. Here, standing cocky and bowlegged before him, armored in sage-lashed leather chaps, a rope, and a sweat-stained four-ply beaver hat, with a powerful, loyal beast saddled at his side impatiently pawing the ground wanting to get going—anywhere—was what he suddenly decided was all he ever wanted.
“Ah’m fixin’ to be lahk you…a cowboy.”
Improbable Fortunes Page 4