Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

  Barby’s forced exile from humanity came to an abrupt end exactly three months from the day we were married. I had been out on the trail for over two weeks on my second freighting trip when Long and I decided to stop by my home for a few days on our way back down to Colorado City to pick up freight. What I found at home was a woman who had had enough of the kind of living she was getting from me.

  The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back came in the form of a yearling steer that decided to use the corner of the soddy as a scratching post one morning just at daylight. Being a frightened, but brave woman, Barby steadied her nerves and let fly through the wall with the new Winchester I left her. After two good shots into the direction of the scary noise, the threatened invasion of her home was at an end. It took her a while to get her courage up to look outside, but she eventually came out to find the intruder dead from her rifle.

  I can attest to the thorough nature of her home defense, as Long and I drove up that very morning to find a crying, crazy woman sitting in the doorway, and one of my steers dead at the corner of the house. Both bullets had hit him broadside, and he had died in his tracks. Early on I had some doubts as to her mental stability, but never questioned her marksmanship.

  One might assume at the time that an up-and-coming cattleman like me ate a lot of beef, but that would be incorrect. The small herd we had was for multiplying or selling, and not eating. My rapid plans to achieve riches in agriculture could not be slowed by the needs of our palates. However, I did not stop on this occasion to consider the loss of future income and prosperity, due to the fact that I had a wife threatening to go home to her daddy. That was the same daddy who had warned her staunchly not to marry a man with so little promise as I showed. My entire attention was on said threat, and absorbing the list of complaints thrown at me by my aggrieved spouse.

  “Nathan Reynolds, I love you to death, but I’m not spending another night here alone!” Her green eyes were glistening, and her little fists were clenched at her sides.

  “I’ve gotta work, Honey.” I had found that women liked sweet little pet names, and I was hoping to smooth things over.

  “Don’t you patronize me!”

  I wasn’t sure what “patronize” meant, but I promised myself not to do it again. “I’ll try not to stay gone so long at a time.”

  “You’ll try?” Her voice raised three octaves, and I was glad her rifle wasn’t handy.

  Bless Long’s heart, he tried to help. “Mrs. Reynolds, he’s just working hard to build a home, and he’s new to this marriage stuff. You’ve gotta be a little patient with him.”

  Barby chased Long backward with a stiffened finger wagging under his nose. “Don’t you go to taking up for him, Long. There’s more to a home than just a roof. I’ve had it up to here with this pioneer stuff.” She chopped the air above her head with a wicked slice of her hand.

  Long and I were pretty tough, but she soon had both of us treed up on our wagon seats. She huffed and puffed back and forth in front of us for a while until she wore out and started crying again. I watched helplessly as she trudged to the house.

  There is nothing like an emergency to spur a good man to action. I quickly tallied up the things that bothered her—dust, chiggers, wind, noises, loneliness, vagrant cattle, etc.

  “What’s gotten into that woman?” I asked Long, truly at a loss as to what I should do.

  “You’re leaving her alone too much.” Long eyed the house cautiously as if unsure it was safe to get down from the wagon.

  “What about Fawn? You’re gone just as much as I am.”

  “She’s got her family on the reservation to keep her company when she doesn’t go with me.”

  “I’d take Barby with me from time to time, but she’s too far pregnant to be taking a beating on a wagon seat.”

  “That makes it even worse. She’s pregnant and alone.”

  “I can’t help it. I promised her I’d quit freighting as soon as we can get this ranch paying.” That was going to be a long time, considering our small herd.

  “I don’t reckon she married you for your money.”

  “If I hang around here we’re soon going to be wearing nothing but buckskins, and I don’t think she wants to live like a squaw.” The same notion hit both of us as soon as I said it.

  “We could bring Fawn to live here.” Long was already smiling.

  “That just might smooth things over at that.”

  A little feminine companionship was just what Barby needed. Both of us patted ourselves on the back for such a clever and wise solution. Neither one of us claimed to be experts where women were concerned, especially unpredictable and volatile pregnant women, but our plan seemed solid nonetheless. I could hardly wait to break the news to Barby.

  “You’re going to do what?” was all she could scream once I made her aware of the plan.

  She threatened me with far worse things than going home to her father, bodily harm among them. I was shocked that the promise of the company of a strange woman of foreign affiliation, and who spoke not one bit of the English language, should come as small comfort to her. After I was able to endure what seemed like an overly drawn-out session of wailing, biting, and gouging, she allowed me to give her a good hug. She was at least closer to her usual self once I had the steer removed and butchered that evening,

  I was determined to leave with Long that night in order to fetch his wife to Barby’s side as quickly as possible. Yet, once again, I showed my ignorance of the opposite sex, and Barby convinced me that leaving her alone one more night was out of the question. I was quick to agree that her idea was much better than mine, and waited until morning to fetch Fawn.

  We returned home two days later with Fawn and her household in tow. That household consisted of a bundle of what appeared to be various animal hides and by-products, a tepee, and three or four Cheyenne camp dogs. Barby was not so unladylike as to appear other than pleased at her female guest’s arrival, but I noticed her eyeing the dogs with a little displeasure. They were an ugly, mangy set of mongrels that were too wild to catch most of the time, but always under your feet and growling if you stepped on them. I started to offer Barby comfort by telling her of the value of Cheyenne dogs if we should suffer an unusually hard winter, but thought better of it when I considered her recent state of humor.

  A meeting of the minds was held and a site beside the house was chosen to place the tepee. I chewed on Long a little when he lounged about instead of helping his wife erect the lodge, but soon discovered that she was even bossier than my own wife. Fawn scolded me and set me off knowing that she didn’t want or need my help. I joined Long in relaxed repose in the shade of a wagon, where we smoked away half a sack of tobacco watching the proceedings.

  I was astonished by the fact that Fawn seemed happy enough for Barby to help her, and without one word between them they went about getting Fawn’s house in order. Long told me that Fawn considered it woman’s work, and a man’s job was to hunt enough to keep the family in meat. Given the time and inclination, a man could make love or war at his warrior leisure. Long was obviously proud that idle time found between such demanding duties could be spent making sure that he got plenty of rest to fortify him in his exhaustion. I admit to being shamefully envious. It’s not racism that makes me certain that Barby had not one drop of Indian blood anywhere in her pedigree

  Surprising as it may seem, pairing Barby and Fawn together worked out fine. By the time of my next return home from freighting, the two of them were getting along like sisters or something. They communicated in a mix of English, Cheyenne, and women’s intuition. I hadn’t been around them five minutes when I began to feel left out of the loop. Both of them would laugh, or exchange funny looks at times when I couldn’t even tell anything had happened.

  Apparently, the two women had had no problem communicating from the get-go, or they couldn’t have come up with the list of homemaking demands they soon presented Long and I with. It seemed they needed more flour, mor
e chickens, a shotgun for Barby to shoot quail with, two glass windows for the soddy, and a shed built for their horses. A milk cow and a butter churn would be nice when we had the money for it. You can’t believe how shocking the accumulation of a household is to a man who has lived out of his saddle and bedroll for many years.

  Barby brought an iron bed frame and feather mattress to our home as part of her dowry, and Fawn insisted that she too have one. She was a proud Cheyenne, but had to admit that the whites were on to something in that department. Not only did she want the bed, but showed Long where she had laid out a spot for a house on the side of the hill beside our home. I wondered if Long was regretting bringing his wife under the influence of a white woman.

  Being men, Long and I sought to deny these extravagant wants on the basis of budgetary concerns, but of course the girls won out in the end. Soon my soddy had two glass windows, and Fawn and Barby were serving up buttered bread and fried quail. It didn’t seem so out of place in our little cultural menagerie, but the specter of a feather bed in a tepee might seem a novelty to some.

  Apparently it was novelty enough to have half the cowboys north of the Canadian coming by to look at it.

  I was just about home one day when I met two cowboys coming down the trail from my house. They were both even younger than I, and looked a little sheepish. One of them was carrying a little cloth bundle.

  “Your wife is about the best cook I ever saw.” He held up the package as if it was evidence.

  I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down nervously. I scowled a little, maybe on purpose and maybe because I couldn’t help myself. I had my suspicions as to what had brought them to my humble abode. Two pretty women sounded like more of a draw to tourists than buttered bread, especially where cowboys were concerned.

  “Is that so?”

  “We just stopped by to meet you folks and maybe see if what we’d been hearing about that big fancy bed in a tepee was true That missus of yours is real nice. She and that Fawn loaded us down with food.”

  “We hope you don’t mind. We were real respectful,” the other of the two added.

  You’re damn right I minded.

  “Yeah, she’s quite a gal, but she can be a little nervous. She gets scared so far from town, and from time to time she’s had to shoot at sounds before she sees what she’s shooting at.”

  “Oh?” they said in unison.

  “Yeah, she shot and liked to have killed a fellow who knocked at the door a while back. Me and Fawn’s husband like to have never smoothed that over.”

  “Is that fellow she shot all right?” That Adam’s apple was wiggling around like a turkey waddle.

  “Sure, he just took a little lead. He said there weren’t any hard feelings, even though it takes a while to heal up from two .44 holes.”

  I could tell they were mulling around in their heads whether to believe me or not. “You boys come around sometime and we’ll visit again. Just be careful she sees you plain, or that you find me first.”

  Neither one of them said anything, and I was glad to see I’d given them something to think about. I waved good-bye and drove down to the soddy. Long was gone, but Fawn and Barby already had supper waiting for me. I studied the two women while they scurried around setting the table. They seemed in an especially good mood.

  “Would you say grace?” Barby asked me.

  I folded my hands but didn’t say the blessing just then. “I met a couple of fellows leaving here.”

  “Yes?” Barby was giving me a funny look.

  “They didn’t pester you, did they? They looked ornery.”

  She looked to Fawn and then back to me with the hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “No, they were real polite, and seemed like nice young men.”

  I felt like I was the butt of some inside joke, like when you’ve got a piece of food on your face without knowing it, or a booger on your nose. I tried to read Fawn, but she lowered her head and tinkered with her plate.

  “Are you going to say the blessing?” Barby asked again.

  I bowed my head and tried to get my mind on a prayer. “There aren’t any more of those cowboys coming around, are there? If word gets out that you’ll feed them they’ll eat us out of house and home.”

  Barby leaned back in her chair and a broad smile spread across her face. “Why, I think you’re a little jealous.”

  Fawn was smiling too, but looked back down when I caught her at it. I never could guess what an Indian was thinking, much less a woman.

  “I am not.”

  “You are too.” Barby giggled mischievously, and then reached out and laid her hand on mine.

  “How many cowboys are pestering you?”

  “Well, it seems there are a lot of ranches around here.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. Different ones show up from time to time, but they’ve all been nice. Why, one of them even split some cook wood for Fawn the other day.”

  “I know cowboys, and they ain’t coming around just to split firewood.”

  “They’re harmless. Word has just somehow gotten around about the bed in the tepee. Folks are just naturally curious to see it, and then we gave away a little buttered bread and plum jam.” She was still smiling, but I could tell she was losing patience with me. “Those boys don’t get any good food, not woman’s cooking.”

  “I’m just saying, you’re going to have every cowboy within fifty miles of here coming around and mooning over you two.”

  Barby looked at Fawn and then put both of her hands on her hips. “This has gone about far enough, Nathan Reynolds.” When she called me by my full name I knew I was in trouble. “It was funny at first, but you’re taking this a little too far. I’m beginning to think you don’t trust me.”

  Fawn gave an angry grunt as if to reaffirm what Barby said. She spouted out something in Cheyenne at me.

  “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

  “Big dummy.” She rose and folded her arms across the front of her buckskin dress. She gave one angry stomp of a little moccasined foot and stormed out the door.

  “Now you’ve gone and hurt Fawn’s feelings.” Barby clucked her tongue in disapproval.

  “I didn’t say anything to her. Hell, she can’t even speak our language.” I couldn’t help but feel the two of them were ganging up on me.

  “Don’t curse at the table. She speaks more English than you know.”

  “She only speaks it when she wants to.”

  “You’ve got a thing or two to learn about love and trust.” Barby followed Fawn out the door.

  I hurried after her, but she avoided my attempts to hug her, and ducked back inside. I heard the latch fall into place to lock the door right after she slammed it against my nose. I sat down against the outer wall and bided my time. Surely she would get over her mad before too long.

  It was near midnight when she finally came out and woke me. Two of Fawn’s dogs were piled up against me. They smelled, well, like dogs, and I smelled just like them after lying with them for hours. I started to pet one of them, but it growled at me and both of them walked off with their hackles standing up over their shoulders. Those damned dogs were as hard to figure as the women who gave them scraps all the time and kept them hanging around my door.

  “You can come in the house if you’ll promise to quit being so jealous,” Barby said.

  “I was just worried about you, that’s all.”

  She gave me a wry look and blocked the doorway. “Promise?”

  I had a kink in my back and a chill from the night air. “I promise.”

  She hugged my neck and kissed me. “Now come to bed and we’ll forget about it.”

  I never meant to make her mad, but I was sure I knew cowboys better than she did. I had no desire to sleep outside with the dogs, and decided I could wait to confer with Long about the whole matter when he got back. Surely two of us could put the sum of our ignorance of women together and come up with a plan to keep aw
ay all the tepee seekers and bread addicts.

  As it turned out, there was no keeping them away without getting myself in trouble with my wife for rude behavior. But I did grow a little more at ease with the whole situation. The cowboys were a bit sheepish the first time they showed up when Long and I were home. We tolerated them long enough to learn it was clear that most of them were just looking for the opportunity to eat and talk to a woman. They went out of their way to be courteous, and most of them were too bashful to make much of a nuisance of themselves.

  There were certain fringe benefits that came along with our wives’ popularity. Several times various cowboys brought large lots of flour, or other staples in exchange for the treats they ate up. They thought it a more than fair trade to exchange a fifty-pound sack of company flour for the little bit they ate when they happened by. Our home larder became bountiful.

  Another side effect of their worship and devotion to our queens of prairie biscuits and feminine conversation was the increase in my cattle herd. Not only did those cowboys help keep an eye out for our cattle to ensure their welfare on the range, but they did such a fine job that a few of our cows had twins. I had originally bought only two hundred cows and a small bunch of yearling steers. By those cowboys branding every supposed maverick with our brand, those cows had a tremendous calf crop. It was not so much to cause our outfit undue suspicion, but enough to greatly affect my books in the coming years.

  I am ashamed that I made such a feeble effort to stop what they were doing. I justified it at the time by telling myself that many of the big operators started by branding everything they could put a loop on, but that doesn’t make it any better. In short, my initial steps toward becoming a cattle baron were due in large part to a bunch of good-hearted cowboys with twisted notions of what was fair. They were lonely for the sight of a good woman, and hungry for the dietary change she offered.

  Long adjusted to the cowboys’ visits easier and quicker than I did. He was soon suggesting we should be glad they popped in now and again to look in on the safety of our wives while we were gone. I acted as if I was in agreement and finally at ease with the whole situation. However, I couldn’t help the pang of jealousy when I saw any man around my Barby.