But she didn’t die. She didn’t even lie down. She just started weaving more, and her head was drooping more, and blood was coming from her nose and then from her mouth, and she was making a sort of mewling noise that I never expected to hear from a sheep.
Then Mr. M pulled the trigger again, and the revolver only clicked. He looked closer at the weapon and said, “Damn it. Outta rounds. Stay here and I’ll get more from the house”. Stay here? What did he expect I was going to do, walk home? And why stay here? To keep the ewe from mounting a counter attack? I would have much preferred to leave that barn and stand around by the chicken house until my new boss was finished playing Dr. Mengele, but it was my first day on the job and ‘stay here’ was the very first thing he had said to me, so I stayed.
Now I don’t know how old Mr. M was. Did I mention he was very old? To a fourteen year old kid he was older than dirt. I do remember that he moved very slowly. It took him what seemed to me a very long time to get back from the house. In the meantime, I stood staring at this ewe with a hole in her forehead, bobbing and mewling and drooling blood out of her mouth. Finally the old rancher came back, loading his revolver as he walked. He repositioned himself in front of the sheep, pointed and fired twice more. The old ewe slowly rolled onto her side and stopped breathing.
Mr. M put the revolver in his pocket and mumbled something to himself about loading her up in the truck later, then told me to follow and he’d put me to work.
As I followed him toward the chicken house I thought to myself that I disliked the old fart, very much.
I thought I was going to die. Not from a gunshot wound to the forehead. I was pretty sure he would miss if he tried. But by around 10 am the sun was high, the air was hot and I was driving nails through a frying pan upon which I was also kneeling. I had to wear gloves to keep my hands from blistering on the metal sheeting. My collar was turned up to keep the sun somewhat off my neck, but by the end of the day my face and ears were badly sunburned. The end of the day was around 2pm, only because he was hot and tired and had to go take care of the sheep he had murdered.
I don’t know where he took the body. I helped him hoist her into the truck bed and on the way to dump the evidence he dropped me off at home. I spent that evening guzzling water and watching TV, and went to bed exhausted at 8 pm.
The next morning at 6am I was out front with my own gloves, suntan lotion slathered all over my face neck and ears, and an old hat I had purchased for ten cents at the Salvation Army, that at least had a brim. My mother hated that hat. She threw it away once because it embarrassed her that I wore it where people could see me, but I dug it out of the trash and hid it because it looked like a hat some man must have worn around 1938 and I thought it was cool. In 1965 I think we were saying ‘neat’, not ‘cool’. Now the hat was going to come in handy.
Mr. M was no friendlier the second day. But at least he didn’t slaughter any animals and we went straight to the roof and got to work. He must have thought it was too much of a task for us two, because on the second day there were two Mexican guys already hammering nails when we got there. They either didn’t speak English or didn’t want to. But they were friendly to me and one of them shared a homemade taquito with me in exchange for half of my peanut butter sandwich.
They were fast and I got quicker through the course of the day and by 3 pm we were finished.
So I was out of a job. But I kind of liked making money, and I liked not being an “Everlast” bag for Ronny Clay, so I got a paper the next morning and started looking for more work. There was an ad looking for someone to help a woman living alone to get some chores done around her house and barn. I rode my bicycle out to her house hoping she’d hire me on the spot, and it worked.
She lived in a big old two story home with a porch that covered the entire front of the house then wrapped around and went down the side, and the whole thing was lined with windows except where her front door was, and a door going into her kitchen on the side. She wanted all those windows cleaned inside and out. She had other chores for me also; mostly small patch jobs or organizing jobs or lifting jobs; stuff an old woman finds difficult to do. By now I have forgotten most of what I did there, but the one thing I will never forget is the deer in her yard.
Just after she hired me she sent me around back to fill a bucket with water from a tap on the back of the house. I walked down her driveway and turned the corner and there, about thirty feet away, was a full grown doe, just grazing at straw the woman had brought out of the barn, and as unconcerned about my presence as if I was just another deer.
The woman stepped out onto the side porch right then, so I asked if the deer was a pet. She said the doe had been hanging out in the yard one day and was limping badly, so she put out some food and a pail of water and the deer just stayed. It had been around for about a month, said the woman, and wasn’t limping as much. Later, while I was taking my lunch break under one of her apple trees, I got up and walked slowly toward the deer. I talked softy and held out some grass I had picked up. I didn’t know if deer liked just plain grass, but it was just something to have in my hand so she’d think I was offering something. I suppose if I had been holding Mr. M’s revolver she wouldn’t have known the difference.
Anyway, she let me pet her. I loved it. But I finally had to go back to work. That job lasted about a week and a half and there wasn’t anything else for me to do so the lady gave me my last day’s pay and thanked me and I said goodbye to the deer and rode toward home.
That was July 1st. I had been busy with these jobs for a couple of weeks so the next morning, Friday, I called Lee to find out what his family was planning for the fourth. I got the message that the number I had dialed had been disconnected and thought that was strange, so I called the Lagorio residence. I was really hoping Yolanda wouldn’t answer and she didn’t. I got Betty instead. I was wondering if Yolanda was grounded from the phone also but I didn’t want to press my luck so I fought the urge to ask. I asked Betty if she had heard from Lee recently, telling her about the disconnect message, and she said Lee’s family had moved over the previous weekend.
I just stood there for a minute, not knowing what to say; not even certain I had heard correctly. Finally Betty said, “Cole, you still there?” “Oh. Yeah.” I said, stunned. “Wait. They moved? Like, out of town?”
She said, “Yep. You didn’t know they were moving?” I said that I did not and she thought that strange until I told her I had been working for people for the past couple of weeks. Then she said, “Oh, well that’s why you didn’t know. His dad got a job offer that was really good money but they wanted him to come immediately. So Lee said he just quit his job on the spot and they rented a U-Haul and packed up. Karen and I went over to his house but they were all busy packing and loading, so we only stayed a few minutes then said goodbye to Lee and left.”
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me, and I still didn’t know what to say, so I just said “Oh.” After a silent pause I think Betty figured I was hurt that Lee didn’t try to contact me, so to smooth it over she said, “Hey, it was really fast and I’m sure his mom and dad kept him busy helping them or he would have called you or something…”
I cut her off with a “Yeah, I’m sure you’re right. Hey, it’s ok. Maybe he’ll write after he gets settled.” Betty said that she and Karen had made him promise to send his new mailing address, and said they’d share it with me when they got it. I thanked her and we hung up.
I never heard from Lee Hansen again. I don’t know if he ever sent the girls his address, but if he did they didn’t give it to me. To tell you the truth, Lee had been a little aloof with me ever since the distributor cap-in-the-orchard incident. He wasn’t a confrontational kind of guy and I’m guessing that day served to cool our friendship a little. So when the last minute move came up it would have been a handy way for him to disappear from my life and not have to deal with the issue.
So Lee was gone, and oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you yet did I? Steve Hin
es was not quite the same guy after his beating. After he got home from the hospital I went to visit him. This was just a few days after school got out and I guess I just needed to test the waters, so to speak. His mom didn’t act very happy to see me, but she didn’t say much so I didn’t say much to her either. She led me to Steve’s room and when I entered he was sitting on the edge of his bed. He looked like the old Steve except that laughing light was gone from his eyes. He wasn’t overtly unfriendly toward me, but he was sullen and spent a lot of time looking at the floor instead of at me.
I asked him if he knew who attacked him. His head jerked up and he looked very intently into my eyes for such a long time I was beginning to get nervous. Then just as suddenly he shook his head and went back to staring at the carpet, and said, “No.” That was the end of my visit. He didn’t say anything more and I couldn’t think of anything more to say. So I left his room, saying “Thanks, goodbye” to his mom as I headed for the front door. She looked up when I spoke, then went back to her ironing without a word. I let myself out the front door and that was the last time I ever saw Steve Hines.
July 4th was Sunday so of course we went to church. I would have much preferred to stay home and watch Rocky and Bullwinkle and Davey and Goliath, but I was the Pastor’s kid and there were expectations. This was a conversation we had about one Sunday morning per month.
There was no youth meeting since it was the holiday weekend.
The rest of the day was spent with my parents. Nancy was going to be with Ricky at his family’s house for BBQ and fireworks, so Mom and Dad made plans to do the same with Jerry and Marsha and little Fern.
We went to their house and I spent most of the afternoon petting their Collie or throwing a ball for him. When I wasn’t doing that I was trying to avoid Fern, who had apparently decided I was her movie star boyfriend and wouldn’t shut up for five minutes.
When the BBQ was ready we all sat around a picnic table in their rear yard and ate chicken, hot dogs, potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, coleslaw and corn bread, and drank Pepsi and 7UP. Then I pet the dog some more and tried unsuccessfully to avoid Fern some more. When it finally got dark someone pulled out some sparklers and everyone lit one and did figure eights with their sparkler, and that was pretty much it. It was a lame Fourth of July, but I was never that into the whole fireworks and Sousa marches ‘thing’ anyway.
The day after that, Monday, we were all back to normal doing our routine things. Nancy was somewhere with Icky-Ricky (my new nickname for the loser), Dad was doing visitation somewhere, Mom was doing whatever it was she did around the house on Mondays, and I was running the alleys of Trinidad with Ron Clay thundering up behind.
CHAPTER 8
As I was running low on friends and was no longer doing any part time jobs, I thought I might take my .22 out in the afternoon and see if I could find a couple of rabbits to shoot for dinner. I should have gone in the morning instead of riding my bike around town. I also should have avoided being seen by the Christmas Club, but some things are unforeseeable. That’s why someone invented that word, unforeseeable.
In fact, ‘unforeseeable’ was going to be the key word of the day.
I rode up Main Street to the edge of town and turned on McHenry Mill road, which would eventually take me back into some of the residential streets where there were some portions of buckled sidewalk that made for good jumping places when on a bicycle. On my right were fences of rear yards of houses that backed up to McHenry Mill; some chain link, some made of wood and some only about half there.
On my left was a walnut orchard. I never did know who owned that particular orchard. It emptied out at the far end on some other country dirt road that remains nameless to me to this day.
Well, I looked farther up the road and a familiar red and white car was coming straight toward me. I was between the residential streets that dumped out onto McHenry, so if the Clays stopped, which they were almost certain to do since they didn’t like to let an opportunity go by for Ronny to pound on me, I would have to make a choice. I would have to jump over someone’s fence and run through their yard, or take to the orchard and hope there was some sign of civilization out the far end of it, provided I managed to outrun anyone who opted to give me chase.
The car stopped. No surprises there, but then I had to make a snap decision. I don’t know why the image of a big black mean dog chewing my right butt cheek off entered my mind at that particular moment, but enter it did and I took that as a message from some guardian angel that I was supposed to avoid trespassing in people’s back yards on that particular morning in July.
So I took a hard left into the walnut orchard as I heard a car door open and slam shut. All of a sudden pedaling became very difficult because under some fallen leaves and uncut grass the soil was still pretty churned up and also soggy from irrigation. I was in trouble.
Someone, who turned out to be Ron as I had expected, was very close behind me and I knew that within seconds I was going to be under his feet with my face in rotted walnut husks of years gone by. I hated to abandon my bike but I had no choice. I leaped off, daring a quick glance behind as I did, just in time to see Ronny Clay grab the rear fender. Then I poured it on. As usual, I was easily able to out run Ron, but I could hear the car racing on down McHenry and I knew they were going to circle around to that other road and head me off there.
I turned and angled to the right from the direction I had been taking and continued in a slow arc, knowing Ron would run a straight line and cut the distance between us. I timed his catching up with me to coincide with passing a tree, and as he veered to his right in order to grab me as I cleared the far side I did a stiff-legged dead stop, fell back and ran back in the direction of where I had dropped my bike.
Being large and less agile than I, it took Ron longer to change his direction and pick up the chase. So I gained distance from him quickly and started looking for my bicycle. Since it was down on its side and old and basically unpainted it must have blended in with the grass and dirt because I couldn’t spot it and I didn’t dare slow or turn enough to do a proper search.
I just ran for all I was worth for the roadway, angling for one of the streets heading back into town. Once I was out of the orchard and was able to get better traction, I poured it on even harder until I passed the first block, then turned right and then at half block turned left and headed up an alley. I really had no idea where I was at that point, but I knew I was at least headed in the general direction of home…
…until I looked up and saw that this particular alley didn’t go through to the next street. It dead ended at the back of some old workshop or garage or something, and I didn’t see any immediate way out. I turned back intending to take to the street, hoping Ron hadn’t seen where I went. But he had. The alley entrance was only fifteen or twenty feet away when he came around the shrubbery that bordered it and blocked my escape.
By that point I was so out of breath and weary from running, I wasn’t able to avoid his big fist when he reached out to grab my shirt. I heard a ripping sound and felt a couple of buttons snap off as my feet went out from under me and my entire body did an abrupt mid-air halt, like that dog on his leash in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Ron pulled me back by the hold he had on my collar and punched with his other fist as he did. The impact was like a hammer blow. I don’t know why my glasses didn’t break, but the temple dug itself into the side of my head just in front of my ear and I thought for sure my jaw was broken. The impact made me bite the edge of my tongue and I got that immediate iron taste in my mouth as the blood flowed down my throat.
Knowing I would never force him to release his claw hold on my shirt, I twisted hard to my left, turning and ducking at the same time while throwing my arms out over my head, effectively turning his grip into the anchor that held my shirt in place while I backed out of it.
Ron let out a surprised yelp at finding himself holding nothing but my torn shirt, and I was off and running again before he could gather
his wits and come after me.
I looked back over my left shoulder – something a person running for their life should never do – and almost let out an audible laugh when I saw that he was still holding my shirt and waving it like a flag. But the rage on his face stifled the laughter in me and I pushed on. When the end of the block came I turned right. I was thinking now of the Christmas Car. Once the older brothers realized we weren’t going to come out the far side of that orchard, they would quickly figure out that we had doubled back and they’d be racing these streets looking for me and Ron. So even though the last alley turned out to be a mistake, I knew I’d better get off the paved streets or I’d be dealing with more than Ronny. As I approached the first alley I looked in the distance and saw that it did indeed go all the way through the block, so I took it.
My air was coming in ragged gasps now and I didn’t think I could do this much longer. Fortunately for me, Ron was worse off. His large, clumpy footfalls could be heard from far behind me, still coming but losing ground quickly. When I got to the street I stopped just long enough to look in both directions to be sure the car wasn’t coming down that particular street, then ran across and reentered the alley on the other side.
About halfway down the block I turned back and saw Ron. He had stopped in the middle of the last block and was bent over, hands on his knees, still holding my shirt. I slowed to a quick walk and continued to take a winding, zigzagging route until I came out on First Street close to the house. Looking up the side street as I came up on our rear gate I could see the Christmas Car in the distance, heading in the direction of their own house I supposed. In any case, they were too far away to catch up with me now. I hopped the low gate and entered the house through the rear door.
The Everman Journal Page 5