Cooksin

by Rick Alan Rice

  Somebody yelled, "He's up!" and a cheer went up from the cowboys. Py looked at them, but he couldn't stop his eyes from rolling around in his head, and he couldn't get his bearings. He took one step and fell clumsily to his knees. Trying to get back up, he reeled into another of the cowboys, who pushed him back upright. Then as he turned, still trying to find the truck, he found himself watching Jarvis' oncoming fist, which exploded on his nose with a horrible crunching sound, sending blood flying in all directions as Py pitched backward onto the ground.

  "Prop him back up," Jarvis said. "You got to learn how to take a punch, son. All you can do is practice."

  Unbeknownst to Jarvis and his crew; Jake appeared around the corner of the feed store just as the last punch was landed. He saw the way Py was knocked into the dirt, and he saw one of the cowboys, starting to stand him back up again for another salvo.

  "Leave him be!" Jake yelled, moving toward them. He noticed a two-by-four inch board lying on the loading dock and picked it up as he passed by. "Put him down," he said, and the cowboy moved away from Py, who now lay unconscious on the ground.

  "He started it, Jake," Jarvis said, but Jake didn't want to hear anything about it. He came after him, hitting him across the side with the board before Jarvis had time to protect himself. Jarvis howled with pain and bent over sideways at the waist. Jake swung the board wildly at the other cowboys, warning them back, and they took the clue, breaking in separate directions. Jake then dropped the board and began pummeling the largely defenseless Jarvis Lang, raining blows onto his arms and body as Jarvis pulled his neck down into his shoulders and attempted to weather the storm.

  Jake's attack seemed more punitive than deadly, more designed to humiliate than destroy. "What the hell do you think you're doin'?" he taunted as he delivered his volley. "You got a problem?" Jarvis was so crippled by the blow from the board that all he could do was sniffle and blink away the water that filled his eyes.

  Jake suddenly stopped his pugilism and he pushed the helpless foreman over toward the raised, concrete loading dock, more than once propelling him toward the block until finally he thrust him into it. For a split moment, Jarvis riled at the harsh treatment, and in that moment Jake nailed him with a shot to the face. "What are you tryin' to prove?" Jake asked, and he raised his fist to hit Jarvis again when, suddenly, out of the blue, he felt a blow on the side of his own face that hit him like a jackhammer.

  Jake, knocked off balance, staggered away from the punch, but looked back to see who it was who hit him. It was Frank Walker.

  Frank came over the top with a right hand that caught Jake on the forehead and knocked him on the seat of his pants.

  No longer having to tense himself in defense, Jarvis Lang crumbled to a squatting position against the loading block, still holding his side.

  Jake scrambled to his feet and ran headlong into Frank, and the two of them landed intertwined in the dirt, and then rolled apart. Jake came up swinging and caught Frank on the chin, but it didn't seem to hurt him. Frank fired two quick jabs and snapped Jake's head back with both.

  Jake thought for a moment to look for the two-by-four. He noticed that Py had regained consciousness and was trying to get up to his knees. Walker came toward him and hit him with another quick, jabbing shot, and an odd thought crossed Jake's mind: old Frank was showing off his technique. It seemed so...civilized, the way he delivered his shots. Jake didn't stay charmed for long, however, suddenly clubbing Frank with an overhand right, clumsy compared to what Frank was throwing.

  Seeing what was happening, the cowboys re-gathered and one of them reached out to restrain Jake, who answered his affront with a left to the throat. But Jake was beginning to sense that he was now in trouble. The pack had a true leader. He recognized that his best hope was to concentrate his efforts on Frank, thinking maybe deposing him would save his neck. But Frank was through playing. He threw a straight right that came at Jake like a telephone post, landing with such impact that it rattled his vertebrae. Jake staggered back, braced to retaliate with a shot of his own, but was quickly nailed with a second shot as dangerous as the first.

  Jake sprawled backwards in the dust. He saw big Frank, moving forward, looking like Colossus striding above him. He started to get up onto his elbows, but then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell unconscious to the ground.

  "Hell of a shot, boss," said the one of the cowboys, as Frank Walker suddenly bent over and began sucking oxygen. He had seemed fine during the fight, but now his face went beet red, and white foam appeared in the corners of his mouth. "You sure kicked some ass there, Frank," said another of his crew. "Yeah sir," said another, "I think old Jake picked on the wrong guy. He's gonna feel real bad about this tomorrow."

  "Pick him up and put him in his truck," Frank said, hardly able to get out the words. He looked over toward Py. "Can he drive?"

  The cowboys looked at each other, finding the same humor in the question. "Put him behind the wheel and get them the hell out of here," Frank said.

  CHAPTER 21 – Sympathy Pains

  "Oh my God..."

  Jake realized how unhappy he was to be awake the instant it happened. It hurt, everything: his swollen cheek, his blackened eyes, the laceration on the back of his head, which Tory had covered with a gauze, taping it in place as best she could, which meant affixing it to his ears.

  Jake tugged at the tape job. "What the hell is this?"

  "That's your medical treatment, now leave it alone," said Tory unsympathetically.

  He lay back and realized he was in Tory's bedroom, lying on her bed. This was territory that had previously been off-limits to him, and for a moment he looked around, taking in the sweetness of the place. There were frilly pillow cases and sheets, delicate flowered wallpaper, and lace table covers protecting nicely polished antique furnishings. And there was a smell about the bed clothes, a light, fragrant perfume. It was a far cry from his bunk, out under the mildewed Elms. Jake felt too mean to be here.

  The more he came to consciousness the more his head began to throb. He touched his left eye and quickly pulled his hand away, a shot of pain clenching his teeth so they made a whistling sound as he inhaled. "Ouch..." What he touched felt like a huge blister, ready to pop, but it was the flesh around his eyeball, a black and blue vesicle filled with bad blood and pus.

  Tory reached over and put his hands down at his sides. "Don't touch!" she scolded.

  Jake squinted at her, only beginning to realize that his right eye was just about as bad as his left. He felt as if he were looking in on the world through a mail drop. "I hurt all over," Jake said. "How did I get back here?"

  "Py drove you," she answered. Then added, none too warmly – "He's in his room lying on his bed – about in the same shape you are."

  Jake shook his head. "Did he tell you what happened?"

  "He said you guys got into it with Walker Ranch." Tory tried to look disapproving, but she allowed herself a moment of warmth. "He said a bunch of guys jumped him at the feed store, and that you came to his rescue."

  She grinned in a way that made Jake think she found the story dubious. "Well, don’t it look like I came to somebody's rescue?" he asked, a little defensive. "I didn't do this to myself, for Christ’s sake."

  She giggled under her breath. "I guess rescuing people just isn't your line of work.”

  "What was that?" Jake asked, piqued. "What was that you said?"

  "Oh, nothing. Just lie back and relax. I'll get you some aspirin. I'm sure you're going to need it."

  "I already need it," Jake said miserably.

  Tory left the room for a moment and Jake took advantage of her departure to put his legs over the side of the bed and struggle to his feet. It was amazing to him. Even his back and his legs ached. And his hands throbbed at the knuckles, scraped raw and stung with abrasions. Tory was right – a knight in shining armor he was not. He felt more like a whipping boy, a designated fall guy.

  Jake got slowly to his feet and walked over to the windo
w. He could see Pete in the distance, on the other side of the barn, herding his stock away from the yard. Tory walked back in, carrying pain killers and a glass of water.

  "What's Pete doing?" Jake asked. "What are you doing up?"

  "I'm fine." Jake reached for the aspirin and the water. "Just give me that and I'll be okay." Tory handed him what he wanted and he quickly downed four aspirins and the full glass of water. Then he looked back out the window again, curious about Pete. "What's he up to?"

  "He's moving the cattle away from the house," Tory said. "He says he wants to have the trap available for Jess Willingham's brood cows."

  "Did they work something out?" Jake asked. He behaved as might a ready guy, but looked comically unfit to enter the fray. "I'd better get out there and help him get ready."

  "You'll do no such thing," Tory said, sounding authoritative. "Besides, I don't think he wants to be around either Py or you. He's a little upset this morning."

  Jake looked worried. "Pete's mad?" "He's a little angry."

  Jake stammered a bit. "Well, I hope he understands that we weren't responsible for the trouble with the Walkers. Ask Py, he'll tell you. Hell, he knows better'n anybody. I wasn't even there when it started." Jake stopped and shook his head. "Christ, I can't even whip a sixty year old man."

  Tory made a face Jake didn't see, quietly tickled by Jake's self-excoriation. "Some might ask, what are you and a sixty year old man doing fighting, like a couple school boys?"

  Jake turned and looked at her, exasperated. "That wasn't school boy stuff that was goin' on over at the feed and grain. I thought they were gonna kill poor Py."

  "I thought they were too." Neither Jake nor Tory had noticed Py, standing at the door, listening in on their conversation. He looked like a war wounded.

  "Holy shit!" said Jake, when he saw him. "You're a mess! Are you okay?"

  Py's eyes were swelled nearly shut, about like Jake's, and his nose had clearly been broken. He had a raccoon-like mask of bruises that ran from cheekbone to cheekbone, crossing the bridge of his swollen nose with a putrid greenish-purple that was painful to look at. "I'm fine," he said. "How about you? You don't look any too good yourself."

  "I'll survive," said Jake. He winced, looking at Py's condition. "Did your nose get busted?"

  "Dad put it back into place for him when he got you back here yesterday afternoon," explained Tory. "It was pretty terrible."

  "Hurt like hell," Py said.

  Pete had seen a few broken noses in his time, but the mess Jarvis Lang had made of Py’s was the worst. He wrenched it back into position and heard the cartilage moan like an old rusted hinge as he did so. Py let out a pretty good scream and then passed out, so that Pete and Tory had to carry him to his bed. Jake had walked from the pickup to the house, though he didn't really seem to be awake, or consciously aware of what he was doing. Tory knew she was going to have to do some nursing, so rather than trying to lead him out to the bunk she steered him to the nearest empty bed. That's how Jake had ended up in her room. Tory spent the night on the sofa.

  "I sure want to thank you for what you did," Py said humbly, speaking to Jake. "It was Jarvis Lang who started it. It wasn't for no good reason at all."

  "You mean he just came up and started hitting you?" Tory asked, appalled to think such could be the case.

  Py stammered a little, trying to explain. "Well, no, not exactly..." "Well what was it then?" Tory pressed.

  Py angled his head up so he could see her between his bruises. He spoke softly, as if sharing a secret. "It was over your dad," he said. "Jarvis was pickin' on me, tryin' to start a fight. I just tried to walk away, but he followed me out to the truck – he and all the others. That's when he said somethin' about Pete..."

  "What'd he say?" Jake asked, apparently ready to be pissed by whatever might have come out of Lang's mouth.

  "He called Pete a drunk." Py reported the slight with a wounded solemnity usually reserved for insults to mothers and heads of state. His very tone indicated how indicting to him was Jarvis Lang's reproach. It had been the final straw. It had demanded defense of honor.

  At that moment all three heard the back screen door shut as Pete entered the kitchen. He tossed his hat onto the counter and then went to the ice box for a glass of lemonade Tory had promised she'd have waiting for him, then he plopped himself down at the kitchen table.

  "Did you find your lemonade all right?" Tory asked, entering the room, and then noticed that he had. Jake and Py followed along behind her like nervous juveniles hiding behind their mother's dress.

  Pete nodded that he had found his refreshment just fine, but looked with reprehension at Jake and Py. Especially Jake.

  "G'mornin' Pete," said Jake, and Py added, "Morning'." It had been a while since either one of them had faced a scolding father and the rust showed. They were defenseless. Their guilt was undeniable.

  Pete watched the two of them as they took their places at the breakfast table, examining their injuries as they seated themselves. "Looks like you boys lost," he said flatly, as if he didn't care.

  "Wasn't a fair fight," Jake said, but he avoided Pete's eyes, seemingly knowing that his defense was lame.

  "How'd this happen, Py?" Pete asked.

  Py tilted his head just enough that he could glance at Tory, who was at the kitchen sink with her back turned to the conversation. "Well..." He searched briefly for the words that would soften the incident. "It was Frank Walker's foreman, Jarvis Lang. He started it."

  "How's that?" Pete asked. He cocked an eyebrow toward Py, but also kept notice of Jake, just to see how he was acting.

  "He's always pickin' on me, tryin' to push me into a fight," Py said. "I was just in the feed store, placin' our order, when he came in with the rest of his bunch. And he just wanted to start somethin'. You can ask Arky Dickerson."

  "Bull crap!" Pete barked, sharply enough that it startled the other three. He then lowered his voice to its typical resonance, but his disapproval still registered. "Are you telling me that you let yourself be suckered into a street fight? Now just how does that happen?"

  Py looked hurt, even through his swollen mask. "It was what he said, Pete." "What'd he say?" Pete asked, as if nothing could explain being so damned stupid.

  Py glanced again at Tory, who cast a regardant look. Then at Jake, who was no help at all and seemed to wish himself invisible. "Well..." Py scanned his feeble imagination for a lie. "...he said that Parker Ranch was a wet dream and that if we thought we were gonna get it up and runnin' then we were just beatin' off."

  Tory dropped the plate she had been washing into the sink, and Jake leaned back in his seat so he could get a good look at Py.

  Pete was flabbergasted. "A wet dream! He said that?"

  "Yes he did, sir," Py said, honest as Abraham Lincoln, sensing that his sincerity had worked.

  "And that's when..." Pete fished.

  "That's when I popped the son of a bitch right on the nose!" Py blurted.

  "Py!" Tory said, shocked more by his language than his deception, which she sort of appreciated.

  Jake looked at Pete to see how this fabrication was going down. It seemed to be working. Pete fidgeted in his chair, seemingly shot-through with his own sudden desire to throttle Jarvis Lang. "Well the butt-hole had it coming, then," he said, as much to himself as the others.

  Py, too, saw that it was working, so he eagerly continued. "I hit him a good one, Pete, but there was a bunch of 'em – too many for one guy – and that's when Jake come along." Py gave his head an earnest nod. "Good thing he did, too, 'cause I thought they were gonna kill me."

  Pete cocked a hairy eye at Jake, as if he found the heroism unlikely. "Is that right, Jake? Is that how it happened?"

  Jake shook his head. "Every word of it is true," he said, dumb and honest.

  Tory could hardly believe her ears as she stood listening to the story, but she saw that it seemed to be going down well with her dad, so she stayed quiet. "Well," Pete said, "I guess I see how y
ou two could get yourself into something like this, but I don’t like it. Especially out of you, Jake. You’re a grown man and I wouldn't expect it of you. You're supposed to make sure things like this don't happen."

  Jake nodded in agreement, accepting the responsibility, but Py came to his defense. "I swear, Pete, it wasn't Jake's doin'. In fact, if he hadn't come along..."

  Pete banged a clinched fist on the table and everybody shut right up. "Enough!" he said. "All I've got to say is that I won't have this on this ranch, you hear me? We've got a lot of work to do and this just sets us back."

  "I'm okay, Pete," Jake started to say, but Pete stopped him. "The hell you are!" he said. "You might have a goddamned concussion, for all I know. I want you to lay low around the house today, see how it goes. I ain't gonna have you out there workin' cows and then all the sudden pitch flat-out into the shit. And that goes for you too, Py. You boys just cool it for today. There's nothin' goin' on I can't handle myself."

  * * * * *

  Py and Jake did as Pete instructed and stayed behind in the house after breakfast, when Pete went back out to the barn, disappearing inside to do God knows what. In the house, Py and Jake sat around the living room, mostly perusing the books and magazines that Tory had been bringing into the house of late. It was a covert plan on her part to educate her boys, to expand their sense of the larger world, and to give them something more interesting to talk about than cars and trucks, which was their usual fare. She sensed that it was a default conversation, that they cared little for the subject themselves, but needed something to fill the dead time and had no other reliable alternatives. Maybe something would fall out of the pages of Time. Or maybe the National Geographic.

  Certainly there must be something the ignorant galoots could find to fascinate themselves with, something that she could take an interest in listening to.

  Py did as best he could with the regimen, thumbing a Parade, a Saturday Evening Post, but after a while he became bored and began wandering around the house. He went into the kitchen, where Tory was preparing a casserole for the oven, and made small talk with her for a while, but soon enough he sensed that he was in the way. He went out on the back porch, hoping to see the stray tom out in the weeds, thinking he may provide some diversion, but he was nowhere to be found. He shooed Pete's pigs away from some table scraps he had left out for the cat, and then came back inside to inquire as to why Pete kept two pigs in the first place. "He just likes 'em," said Tory. "Until recently they've been all that was left of the old place." Py couldn't quite understand. "I can see why you keep the chickens. You get something from them," he said, referring to their eggs. "But pigs? You think Pete would ever slaughter 'em?" he asked, and Tory shook her head, indicating the pigs had carte blanche to just live out their days being pigs. Py finally concluded for himself that they were pretty good watch dogs, given the racket they raised every time someone drove into the yard.