Mornings in Two Pan

by B K Froman

  It was hard to tell the origin of the sound. Definitely to the northwest. He drove fast, fighting to keep the truck on the gravel road. It had to have been Nap. Who else would be blasting today?

  The gate was closed as he wheeled into his property turnoff. He considered ramming it. He honked, though he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe to let Nap know help was on the way? He jumped out and fumbled with the chain and padlock. He shook his head to clear it. He was thinking like a panicked man.

  He left the gate open as he drove through. A cardinal sin, but no cattle were nearby. Dirt flumed into a cloud as he stopped. No other vehicles were there.

  Clear water splashed and rippled in the creek bed. The flow was only half the usual amount, but it was running. He should be glad, but he felt dread.

  Jiggs shouted. No reply.

  He climbed boulders, grabbing brush and limbs as he scrambled up the side of the ridge. He yelled at Nap as he went, hoping snakes would run from his racket.

  There were boot prints and chunks of cut-up tree. The base of the stump was still in the creek, but part of it had been sawed away, allowing water through. The errant channel had been dammed and lined with rocks, forcing the flow into the stream bed. There were no holes, no dirt blown away from blasting.

  “Son of a monkey.” Jiggs breathed hard, bent over, his hands braced on his knees. If the explosion didn’t come from here, where could it… . He took off running again, sliding and skidding down the hill.

  He reached his pickup, pulling weed seed and branches out of his clothes as he threw open the door. Clouds of dirt trailed him as he headed for the road. Several cows had found the open gate. “Bound to happen!” He pounded the steering wheel, honking, scaring most them out of the way. Driving through, he padlocked the gate, leaving three cows standing on the road. Round up the cattle. It went on his list, in front of: Get gas. Get the tractor. Pay all bills—if he only knew what they were.

  He gunned the truck to George’s house. Nap had probably done all he could without George’s mules. Now he and the fat man had blown themselves up in one of his dynamite-laced sheds.

  As he sped down the gravel drive, Jiggs could see there were no trucks at George’s. He jabbed at the horn. The truck had honked more today than it had its entire life. Mules brayed, sassing the horn. He jumped out of the cab, shouting.

  No answer.

  He hurried onto the porch and stuck his head in the door. “Where is everybody?” The place was neat. No blood or bandages or cabinets left open. No signs of a crisis. If the sound had been an explosion, it hadn’t come from any of the sources he knew about.

  Jiggs stepped out onto the wide porch, the adrenalin draining from his body. Slowly he took off his shirt and shook out the leaves and bugs he’d collected while sliding through brush on his downhill run. He shucked his jeans, too, and sat on the steps in his underwear, examining the scrapes across his shins.

  He was tired. Now he knew what Ox felt after gearing up to fight Old Man Tower. It was as though the air had fizzled out of him. And tonight when he’d catch up to Nap, he’d… . What would he do? It wasn’t his kid’s fault. What could he do to a young man who was the victim of a dad who always thought the worst was going to happen? He’d keep his mouth shut. That’s what he’d do.

  Jiggs emptied his boots and beat his clothes against a porch pillar. They were still itchy when he put them back on. He drove back toward Starvation Creek to round up the cattle. He smiled to himself. At least one thing went right today. The panic and letting-the-cows-out would fortunately go unnoticed.

  That was before he saw the flashing red and blue lights at the gate.

  *

  Sol Meyers had blocked the road with his cruiser so the cows couldn’t get past unless they jumped the ditch. He and the Angus stood near the gate, watching Jiggs drive up. “I’ve been looking for you,” the sheriff called as soon as he got out. “Nap said you might be here. Then Maxine Greenwald reported you ‘burning rubber’ in this direction.”

  “Get to the point. What’s happened?” Jiggs had stopped growing at six foot two, but Sol had continued to seven feet. Height and weight hadn’t made any difference. They still competed and treated each other like they had in high school. “Was there an explosion?”

  “Seems so. George called it in. He’s taking Nap to the hospital right now.”

  “Ye gods and fishes, Sol! Why didn’t you say so? What’s the matter with you? How bad is it? Where are they now?” The cows gathered around the two men as though listening.

  “In route to Joseph. George said there was blood. Nap was screaming in the background, but I think he was mostly terrified of George’s driving. He kept yelling, ‘You’re gonna kill us,’ and ‘For mercy’s sake, let me drive!’”

  Jiggs pushed a cow’s black muzzle away as it nosed his arm. He never treated them like pets, but a few of the breeder cows recognized him as the-thing-that-brought-the-feed-bucket. “Was Nap cussing?”

  “Not that I heard. George was stuttering and Nap was pleading to drive himself.”

  “He’s really hurt if he’s not swearing.” Jiggs turned to leave.

  “Wait up. There’s more,” Sol called. “There’s a fire at your place.”

  “What!” Jiggs took two steps back toward the sheriff. “Is that where they set off the dynamite? My place?”

  “Musta been. I haven’t been there. George told me to call you and get folks over to help Ox. Then Nap started screaming, ‘Watch out! Watch out!’ I think George hit something. I heard a clunk. Then Nap was saying, ‘Oh God. Oh God.’ I sent a unit from Joseph to intercept them.”

  “Craphouse crickets! Did they wreck?” Jiggs unlocked and opened the gate.

  “Don’t think so. I heard George. He was praying, then I drove into a ‘no service’ area.” Sol waved his arms shooing the cattle back through.

  “How bad’s the fire?” Jiggs pushed an Angus out of his way to lock up.

  Sol gave a tight-lipped headshake. “Don’t know. What do you want to do? I’ll help where I can.”

  “I’m going to the hospital. You check on Ox. You’ll need to haul him outta there if it starts burning buildings.”

  Your Safety Gears …

  NAP’S EYES BLINKED open.

  “Hey pardner. How you feeling?” His father’s face fuzzed in front of him.

  The young man squinted. “You…haben’t call me that long time.”

  “Look who’s awake, George.”

  “Wherz George? I can’t see ’im.”

  “Lay back, don’t strain. You’ll tear your stitches. George is on the other side of the curtain. He’s your roommate.”

  “Shiiiiit. Are we all dead yet?”

  *

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jiggs.” George’s bulk was confined to a bed with an oxygen mask strapped to his face. “I hope he’s okay.”

  “He’s resting.” Jiggs glanced at his boy then moved a chair from the foot of the bed closer to George. “Start at the beginning and tell me what happened up to now,” he said quietly. “I promise I won’t interrupt or get upset. Do you have the air to do that?” George’s cheeks jiggled as he nodded.

  “I’m sorry.” George’s thick fingers clamped onto his bed sheet. “Nap came by the house. Said he needed to borrow a sandwich and the mules. Boy was he proud. You shoulda seen him. He got that creek runnin’ all by himself. He was dirty as a lumberjack, but he was pleased.”

  Jiggs nodded intently, reminding himself to keep his mouth shut. Not to push. He’d get more information that way. He’d do it now with George. He’d do it tonight with Ox. It would all work out.

  George pushed a pink bendy straw under his oxygen mask and took a sip of water. Then he hovered the thermos over his bed table as though unsure where to put it. Jiggs clenched back his impatience and watched George push magazines out of the way. The thermos finally found a spot to land. “Nap fixed a sandwich, one for me, too. Cleaned everything up when he was finished. He’s a real polite boy. He ma
y not do that at home, but he did it at my place. Anyway, we were sitting on the patio, eating and drinking lemonade, and I said, ‘You can’t handle Winston and Marlboro by yourself. It takes a man on each mule.’”

  “He didn’t believe me. In that way, he’s like all young men, more spit than shine. I told him about takin’ Marlboro and WildAss, my bull, to the back of my property. I tied ’em together and let ’em go. That bull snorted, pawed dirt, and lay down, but Marlboro stood there, his ears all laid back, bidin’ his time. He kicked that bull when it got too close. Every time there was a little slack in the rope, Marlboro took a step toward home. That’s the thing about mules. They always get home. By the time the pair walked into the corral the next day, that bull was broke. I could lead, load, and haul him anywhere. Marlboro, however, was pissed. He won’t go near cattle anymore.”

  Jiggs took a breath and tried to let it out slowly and quietly. Finally he nodded toward the next bed. “Nap?”

  “Oh yeah. Well, after hearing the mule story, Nap said he’d wait for you. Then we started talking about blowin’ stumps with dynamite. And Nap said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable doing it on a hillside. Too many things could go wrong, besides it’s illegal.’ And I had to agree. Smart boy you got there. We wouldn’t want to lose our grazing rights on BLM land. So we decided to do a round for fun on flat ground. Just a little charge.” He held his stubby fingers inches apart.

  “And when Ox was here last night, he wanted to watch if we detonated anything. He’d be disappointed if we left him out. So we moved the whole shebang over to your place.”

  Jiggs felt George’s gaze, but he didn’t look up to meet it. He was quietly gripping the sides of the hard, round-bottomed chair, and keeping his mouth shut. He gave a go-on-I’m-listening nod.

  “Ox thought it was a waste of dynamite to set it off like a firecracker. And I had to agree. It really would be a shame. So I showed Nap how to cut a window in that stump on the north edge of your pasture. I loaded the charge myself. I didn’t let Nap do anything dangerous but light the fuse.

  “That’s all he had to do. Light the fuse and run. But he didn’t run far enough. Ox and I were bellerin’ at him, ‘Run!’ He started joggin’ backwards. I guess he thought he might miss something if he turned and hightailed it. I was wavin’ him to C’mon. He was shufflin’ in reverse. Ox was yellin’, ‘Move, moron.’ Then Nap tripped flat on his butt. He was tryin’ to scramble up when the charge ignited.

  “It was an old punky stump. Chunks and debris went sky high. I heard him whoop and cheer when it blew. It all woulda been fine except for that green-wood on the edge. His yellin’ changed. ’Course we immediately drove my pickup out to him. He was big-eyed as an owl, starin’ at a shard stickin’ outta his leg. It wasn’t the blast that hit him. It was the fallout. I’m so sorry. It shoulda never happened like that.”

  Jiggs waited for the story to continue. When it didn’t, he prompted, “The trip here…”

  “Oh! Then Ox told him, ‘Don’t just lay there and bleed.’ He tied a bandana around Nap’s leg, but Nap ripped it off. They had an argument about that. It was pretty heated, but we finally got Nap loaded into my pickup.”

  “And the fire?”

  “Oh yeah. I thought Ox was going with us to the hospital, but way over at the fence line, up against the trees, smoke was curling from the ground. A charred piece musta landed there and flamed up. I dropped Ox at the barn. He said he’d take care of it.

  “I drove as fast as I could. I’m not a good driver when I speed. Especially when I was tryin’ to talk on the phone at the same time. I couldn’t give Nap the phone, though he was tryin’ to take it. I couldn’t understand half of what he was yellin’. I got hold of the sheriff. I told him to find you and to call somebody to help Ox. I panicked. Ox is probably cussin’ me about everybody comin’ to see how two old codgers started a fire, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was passin’ and swervin around cars. I hit somethin’. It was big, but I kept goin’. I got your boy here to the hospital as quick as I could. He’s gonna be okay, isn’t he?”

  Jiggs hesitated a moment, trying to keep his slow burn in check. “They’re worried about infection, but they got the hunk of wood out of his thigh. They’re watching him overnight. Thanks for getting him here. Are you gonna make it?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. When I got here, I fainted in the parking lot. Good thing I didn’t do it driving, huh? It was some trip, let me tell you. My blood pressure went through the roof. They wanna keep an eye on me, too. Did it burn much of your pasture? Is Ox mad?”

  “Don’t know yet. I don’t carry a phone. I’ll head home in a while to see. I’ll stop at your place to feed the mules. Anything else you need? Want me to call your kids?”

  “No. They won’t come unless I’m dyin’. Look, I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have turned out like this.”

  Jiggs stood. “That’s why they call them accidents. They aren’t supposed to happen. You work on getting your blood pressure down. Can I bring you anything?”

  “A sandwich would be good.”

  “Now that you mention it, I could use one. I’ll see what they have here.”

  *

  Jiggs sat in the cafeteria with his eyes closed, rubbing his forehead. He should take George his sandwich, but he didn’t want to go back. Not just yet. George was scared, but he didn’t have the goodwill to comfort him. Not yet. George should’ve known better. And Ox? What was the matter with him? How many times had he ranted, “Your safety gears are between your ears?” Usually he’d add a few cusswords. Then he would rip a new hole in Jiggs for pulling a rattlebrained stunt.

  And how many stupid things had he continued to do anyway?

  “You want some company?”

  He looked up to see Sol standing next to the table, hat in hand. Jiggs pushed a chair out with his foot. “Sit down. I was wondering how we lived this long with all the escapades we pulled.”

  “That’s the Sixty-four Dollar question.”

  “How’s my ranch?”

  “You’ve still got a place to sleep. You look like you’ve been rode hard. You doing okay?”

  “Better than George. He’s scared. I don’t know if he thinks I’m gonna throttle him, or that his heart’s gonna explode, or that he ran over somebody on the way here.”

  “He hit a chicken. Actually it was a plywood cutout of a chicken about yea-big.” Sol held his hand over his head. “It was an advertisement for home-grown eggs. He clipped a few bushes, too.”

  Jiggs snorted a chuckle. “I shouldn’t laugh. How’s Ox?”

  “It wasn’t much of a fire. A few drifts of dead leaves piled against the fence from last fall. The grass was green. It didn’t spread. Dooley Monroe got there before me.”

  “Sol. You’re still in uniform. You haven’t answered one of my questions directly. What’s going on?”

  “You’re going to ask me to tell you this again. So I’m going to start at the beginning and tell you in the right order. Okay?” Jiggs stared at him as he continued. “Ox had saddled that big blue roan of his and used him to haul a bucket with wet gunny sacks to the burn. Dooley and I grabbed them and started whipping the fire.”

  “And Ox cussed you for doing it wrong. He’s been touchier than usual.”

  “No. When the fire was out, he simply got on his horse. Without saying a word, he and the roan sauntered back toward the barn.”

  “Dad’s not much for small talk.”

  “Jiggs.” Sol leaned forward. “That horse made it about twenty feet. Ox hit the ground.”

  “What?” Jiggs straightened out of his slouch “He’s never fallen off a horse. Ol’ Blue wouldn’t misstep.”

  “I used the AED unit in my car. I shocked him several times. There was never a pulse. He was gone before he fell off.”

  “Are you saying Ox is dead? He died fighting that fire?”

  “No, it seems to me, now that I think about it, he was in pain during the fire. He watched Dooley and me put it out. When it was over, and th
e ranch was safe, he pulled himself onto his horse. That had to hurt like a son of a gun. What I’m telling you is that he died riding Ol’ Blue. I’m sure that’s the way Ox Woolsey wanted to go out.”

  Jiggs blinked. It felt like someone had trapped him under a jar. Everything was muffled. He should feel grief. He should feel something. He was sure Sol was saying something important. Words that were supposed to comfort.

  Right now all he could think about was the talks he and his dad would never have. About doing something right as a son. About Brick. About family history. About the skull. About anything. Tonight or ever. He was leaving all the things he didn’t want to deal with and riding Blue away from ‘damn people and their problems.’ That was the way Ox Woolsey chose to go out.

  Someone was clasping his shoulder. “You still with me?”

  “Tell me again, Sol. Slower this time.”

  “Three May Keep A Secret If Two Of Them Are Dead”

  —Ben Franklin

  DEATH WAS ALWAYS an aloof old thief. He liked to sneak in, take what he wanted, and then make cruel demands on the survivors. They rarely had time to sort through their thoughts; instead, they were left holding a bag of goodbyes. Decisions flew at them from all sides.

  Fortunately, Two Pan had participated in more than their share of funerals—as the census count would attest. Folks closed rank, even if they had no particular love for the deceased. Years of experience had established that Cleova Klegg would organize the death dinner. Lottie Lubach’s macaroni casserole would be delivered to the family a week later. Spooner Hunter, the artist north of town, would write an obituary so glowing, nobody would recognize Ox. Some residents asked him to write their obits now, so they could roll around in their glory before they met their Judge.

  The family was left with few tasks except selecting the venue: the Lutheran church, the Baptist church, or God’s Hollow Cemetery. Most folks went with the Lutherans. Their coffee was free, and they threw in gelatin salads for the meals.