"Frank?" Pete asked. "What's he got to do with it?"
"Oh, you know – he slings a lot of weight, and I think people figure he's got bad feelin' toward me, and they don't want to do nothin' that'd set him against 'em."
"That's too bad," Pete said, pouring the hot drink into a mug. He carried it over to Wayne and handed it to him. "That's hot," he warned. "I'd blow on it a bit. You want some saltines?"
Wayne took a sip of the chocolate and nodded. "No thanks," he said politely. "So you been outta work since partin' ways with Frank?" Pete asked, trying to understand Wayne's situation.
"Yeah, I sure have," he said. "I been stayin' in town, at the hotel, but . . . it's not workin' out very well. People are kind've nervous about havin' me around."
Pete sat down across the table, his own mug in hand, and he regarded Wayne sympathetically. "I'm just real sorry to hear about that, Wayne. It never occurred to me that people would be that way."
"I understand it," Wayne said. "It was a pretty stupid thing I done." "What are your plans? Do you plan on stayin' around here?"
Wayne kept his face close to his mug, apparently happy to let the steam rising off the hot chocolate rise up into his nostrils. "I'd like to. I don't really have no place else to go," he said, taking a sip. He swallowed and let the liquid warm his belly, enjoying the sensation, then said – "This here in Weld County, it's been the only place I've known since I come here back when I was a kid. It was in nineteen twenty-one, a long time ago."
Pete took a sip and thought for a moment. "Nineteen twenty-one," he said, trying to recall. "My God, that was a long while back now. My daughter would've just been five years old then." Pete tended to mark time by the age of his only child. "It's a different world now, I'd say. A lot has happened."
Wayne leaned forward, setting his coffee mug on the table before him, resting his weight on his elbows. "Pete, I got somethin' to say to you. It's the reason I come here."
Pete looked at Wayne with an expression that seemed open and inviting, and he settled himself in his chair.
"I want to tell you how sorry I am about what I done to your bull," Wayne said. "I can’t hardly live with it. It's caused me more pain that I've ever had at any other time in my life, and I still don't know why I did it."
"Wayne, it's okay," Pete started to say. "You don't need to . . ." but Wayne cut him off.
"No, hear me out Pete, please. I always respected you and thought you was a real fine man," Wayne continued solemnly. "I know you had some bad breaks, and I always figured that if any man deserved better, it was you. I feel mighty ashamed to have made things worse for you, and I'd do anything to set it back straight. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
Pete had a soft heart that hardly allowed him to see another person hurting without the water swelling up in his own eyes. He looked at Wayne Morrison and thought the man he was seeing was totally crushed, and he wished he could relieve him of his burden. "Thank you, Wayne," Pete said sincerely. "I never thought that what happened was anything other than a bad mistake. I ve known you a long time, and I know what kind've a person you are."
Wayne seemed to twist a little, as if the impact of Pete's forgiveness landed like a gentle sledge against some hardened place deep within his torso. "I'm not sure I would be as forgiving, if the shoe was on the other foot."
"Well, maybe someday it will be," Pete said.
"I come to see if there was a way I could make it up to you," Wayne said, re-girding himself and sitting back upright in his chair. "I don't have the money to pay back what you had in that bull, but I'd like to do what I can."
Pete looked curious at Wayne, listening to his proposition.
"I got about eleven hundred dollars in cash," Wayne said. "It's my savings and I'd like to give it to you to pay back, in part, what I took."
"No, Wayne," Pete protested. "That isn't . . ."
"Hear me out, Pete, this is important to me. I heard it said you paid five grand for that animal, so I know eleven hundred don't mean much. The thing is, I'd be willing to work off as much as I could of the rest. I know you got a yearling herd started, and Py can't be that much help to you, hurt like he is, and Jake's gone. If you had some place around here where you could bunk me – I'd sleep in the barn, if that's all you got then I'd cover my own meals and work without pay, and help you get that herd goin'.
Maybe you could even use that eleven hundred right away to get more yearlings for this winter. Stan Bixx has got some nice lookin' young Herefords to sell – and he'd give you a fair price."
Pete leaned back in his chair, considering the possibilities. "We do have a little building out back, big enough for one man," he said, conjecturing aloud.
"I do have a horse that I need to pasture, and it'd be nice to keep him corralled from time to time," Wayne said, as if he knew this was a catch. "He's a hell of a stock horse, though. He'd come in handy, and I also have my own pickup truck. And you know me, Pete – I'm a good hand."
"I know you are," Pete said, allowing his dignity. "I think it's a real fine offer, Wayne. Of course, I'd have to talk it over with my daughter, and see what she thinks of it. Py, too – I'll talk to him. We just got a little place here, and it's become kind of a family."
"I understand," Wayne said, sort of pitifully, as if it were impossible that such a unit would ever invite him in.
"I sure think it's a fine thing you're proposing, though," Pete said. "I think it's mighty honorable. Of course, we'd have to work out some kind've arrangements with the pay. I wouldn't want it to be where it felt like we was takin' advantage."
"I know you wouldn't do a guy that way," Wayne said. "I ain't worried about that."
"What do you think?" Pete asked Tory later that night, after he'd had a chance to mull it over himself for a while.
"What's Wayne Morrison like?" she asked.
"He's about like any other cowboy you'd ever know," Pete said, and then it occurred to him that there was a generation gap to cross. "By that, I mean he's a real cowboy.
He's rough, you know, a workin' man. He don't cotton much to anything other than bringin' young animals into the world, and growin' and sellin' 'em. He hates to be told what to do and he don't respect but only his betters. He ain't much for conversation and his humor's kind’ve dry, but I'd feel like you were safe if he was around here, and I had to leave for somewheres." Pete thought about it for a minute. "He'd be good for Py.
He'd be able to teach him a lot, and he's got a horse. Py's been pissin' and moanin' about gettin' a horse."
"Would this guy let Py ride?"
"I'm sure he would," Pete said. "I think right now he's open to about anything." "Well, why don't you bring him around and introduce us," Tory said. "It might just be a good thing. Besides, we could use the money . . ." "And the help," Pete added.
"And the help," Tory agreed. "Just getting eleven hundred dollars is better than having a total loss. At least you get something back."
"It might be just what we need in momentum," Pete said, knowing that their renewal efforts had lost steam of late. He talked to Py, too, about Wayne's offer, and Py had his own concerns. He had worked with Wayne at Walker Ranch for nearly a year, and the older man had never paid any attention to him. "I'm sure that wasn't nothin' personal," Pete told him. "You're a lot younger than Wayne, and he ain't really the fatherin' type. I'm sure, if you're around him regular, that you'll get along with him just fine. He'll probably be the best real cowboy you'll ever meet in your life. If you're set on bein' a cattleman, this may be your golden opportunity. Besides, he'll probably let you ride his horse."
"Wayne's got his own horse?"
Py seemed to warm to the notion of someone moving in to the little bunkhouse that had previously been occupied by Jake. He was a little disappointed to hear of Wayne Morrison's offer of eleven hundred dollars, because he had rushed back to the ranch with news of the money he now had in his name at the bank, and had imagined becoming an invested partner in the Parker operation. Now Wayne Mo
rrison had rendered an offer that was nearly double what he had to give. Still, he was happy for Pete. There was no replacing his dreams of a cow-calf operation, but at least now there would be more seed money for stockers. It would mean they could be in business, at least for a while. Pete was right about the momentum the ranch needed. Wayne and Py's stakes were going to mean a lot to everyone. Spirits were going to be lifted.
The only remaining cold front hovered around Tory, as she stayed current on the continuing investigation of Lorenz Pico’s organization, and waited for letters from Jake, who wrote to her from his temporary residence on the south side of Denver, at a federal facility for youthful offenders. He was being kept in isolation there, and under tight security, awaiting trial and his chance to offer testimony against Pico and the others. There was a federal warrant out for Pico's arrest on multiple felony charges, plus conspiracy to commit murder, but Pico had left the United States, and was in hiding somewhere in Mexico. Agents of the U.S. government were getting little cooperation from Mexican authorities, and optimism that he would be apprehended and extradited back to the states was at virtual zero. The FBI worried for Jake's safety, should he be exposed to a general prison population, so he was being kept in solitary at the youth center, without bail, pending sentencing on lesser felony charges. He had pleaded no contest at his hearing.
Tory waited anxiously for his letters, one arriving about every third day. Jake commented in them that he had never been much for writing, but his missives had started to show a certain poetic flair. I can hardly imagine how the next years will be here without you, and can hardly remember what life was like before you were there he had written in one letter. Tory kept them all, but that particular one she read over and over, and reviewed that particular line on days when she was feeling especially dour. Still, she waited for the day when one would come that carried the special words that she most wanted to hear: the ones about how things would be when Jake was out, and how then their time would be spent together. There was still time, she thought, they would still have some youth left. Marriage, even children – it was not impossible. Jake would be in his forties, and Tory would be not too far behind. She read the letters, holding on to every word, trying hard not to think about precious time, and how it was slipping by. She wondered if her father didn't hold the key. Certainly these were among his precious last years as well, and she would be with him to share them. It would pass as measured pain and eventually move out behind, as part of the great landscape of her experienced life.
The trick was to stay in the present, to be thankful for every intervening day, and to care for those that were here for which to provide. She could do that. Tory could put her suffering on hold, until a time when it could be mediated by other more balancing graces from a reunited loved one.
Py looked at her and thought he could see what she was thinking. "You miss him, don't you?" he asked.
"Yeah, I miss him," Tory said, summoning up a bluster that said it was no big deal.
"Are you gonna get married, once he's out?"
"I don't know, Py," she said, a little embarrassed by his forthrightness. "Does he ever write about it in his letters?" Py asked.
"Not really," Tory said. "You know how Jake is. He talks about things, you know, in the future."
Py wasn't satisfied. "Well, I think he'd be a fool not to come right out and ask you to marry him. I would, if I was him."
Tory blushed. "Well – thank you, Py."
"I'd be afraid if I didn't say somethin' that you'd run off with somebody else."
Py and Tory sat on the back porch, looking out into the yard, shadows growing long as the autumn sun slowly sank in the western sky. An Indian Summer had come the first week of October and lingered in a determined way through the rest of the month, and even now the late afternoons remained warm and mild. Halloween had come and gone and the trees had become largely barren of leaves, but still the year wouldn't surrender to dormant winter. It had been a watershed sort of season, which now lingered, seemingly encapsulating all it had touched in a residual glow.
"Py – look!" Tory said, suddenly tapping him on the leg and directing his attention to the tall weeds near the edge of the windrow. The black tom, which had not been seen in several days, appeared through a break in the undergrowth. He licked his lips and stood in the distance, looking over at them like a small panther at the edge of his territory.
"Go away you stupid cat!" Py said, picking up a pebble, lying next to where he sat, and tossing it in his direction to frighten him away.
"Wait!" Tory said, though the cat hardly noticed the projectile. "Why are you doing that?"
"I give up on him," Py said. "I been tryin' for weeks to get that animal to come to me. He just won't."
Tory looked out at the cat, seemingly sizing up its disposition, then she got up off the porch and walked over to the edge of the yard. She crouched down and patted her hand a couple times on the ground before her.
"It ain't no good," Py said, still sitting back on the porch.
"Come here," Tory said to the cat, who had stopped licking itself and now stood frozen near the weeds, looking at her as if he might be about to startle and run. "Come on," she beckoned, slowly scratching the ground with her fingernails.
The cat looked at her, and then glanced nervously over toward Py. It took one step in her direction, and Py leaned forward over on the porch, almost believing the cat might just keep on coming.
"Come on, boy," Tory said, scratching again at the ground.
The cat took another cautious step forward, and then looked nervously around as it left the cover of the undergrowth.
"Come on – don't be afraid," Tory said, speaking softly, kindly.
The black tom froze in its tracks for a moment, and then lowered his head and sniffed at the ground, seemingly sizing up the area between him and Tory. Apparently finding it safe, he took a few more steps forward, stopping again to sniff the terrain. "That's it, come on," Tory said. The cat again glanced nervously over at Py, and then took a few more hesitant steps forward. A bird flew across the yard, overhead, and the cat ducked down low to the ground, and watched it past, then it looked suspicious over at Py once again, and then at Tory. "Don't be afraid," Tory said, patting the ground gently, and the cat looked nervously around the yard, then it seemed to relax, to stand up a little taller, and it took several quick steps over to where Tory crouched, urging it to continue.
Py's jaw dropped. "I don't believe it," he said.
The tom pushed his chin against Tory's outstretched hand, and then walked past her, brushing the sides of her legs with his body, then turned around and repeated the process, marking her with his scent. "That's a good boy," Tory said, in mothering tones, as she gently rubbed the palm of her hand over the cat's head and down his back.
The cat continued to a figure eight in front of her, brushing her legs just as she stroked him. Then, when the cat seemed to have dropped its defenses, Tory carefully placed her hands beneath it and lifted it into her arms, cradling it to her chest like a baby. She turned around and, walking slowly, carried the cat back to the porch, where Py waited, dumbfounded.
"How in the devil did you get him to come to you?" Py said, beholding the sight in awe. Tory stood stroking the cat, which relaxed in her arms, and pushed his head against her touch, encouraging the process. "I've spent weeks tryin' to get that animal to come to me, and you walk right over there and pick it up, like it’s known you all along."
Tory smiled, as she cuddled the cat. "You know, I think the key to calling a cat is to do it when you know the cat wants to come to you," she said.
Py looked up in wonder. He guessed she probably had a point – it had, after all worked for her. It was just the knowing part that confounded him.
THE END
Author’s Note
The world that I grew up in, as a Baby Boomer born in Illinois who was raised in Nebraska, Colorado, and Kansas, was one narrated by Rex Allen, the Arizona Cowboy. It was an adult
voice, which recognized the difference between serious business and tomfoolery, and parceled out only so much time for the latter. It had a distinctly rural and masculine attitude that used a sort of patois approach to verbal speech that kept words in their proper perspective by clipping their endings and voicing them in shorthand versions. Sod busters and cow hands don’t put a lot of stock in formal presentation, favoring instead a plain-spoken honesty that uses mangled English to convey authenticity. Fancy talkers are viewed with suspicion, as there are certain verbal cues that alert listeners to honesty and others that call out a liar.
Cooksin is filled with colloquialisms. They are just the kinds of things that get writing teachers and other well-educated people upset, which has been the case since Samuel Clemens first started capturing speech with near phonetic representations in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885. In that, however, these colloquial forms precisely parallel the reasons for the existence of these speech patterns in the first place. American English, as it was spoken in the farmlands of the Western United States in the 20th Century, was an act of rebellion against the governance of outside influencers. It was the stuff used by the common man to say, “We know who you are and we will not bow to your arbitrary rule of our lives. We are going to speak with a simplicity that mirrors the truth of our values and work ethic, for it is we who are the people of the land, not you. And the land is everything.” Rural Americans have this certainty about themselves, that they are inherently more real than people from anywhere else, and they express it through their folksy manner of speech. It is the voice of a certain brand of Republican.
Cooksin was inspired by my experience as a boy, growing up the great grandson of a Nebraska homesteader, and part of a large extended family, many of whom were farmers and ranchers. I was an outsider to that, a city kid who had the privilege of spending summers visiting families who really had, on a daily basis, those experiences that I could only watch on Disney educational films, where often it was Rex Allen explaining things like seasonal changes in the environment and its effects upon the denizens of the wild. The patois of the west was intoxicating to me. I almost felt that the people who I was hearing, speaking in this drawling, understated manner, were like knights of another order; keepers of virtue within actual reach of the average man. I would notice, once I was no longer surrounded by their influence, that the rest of the world seemed populated by phonies by comparison. Cooksin is very much in homage to those people: those plain-spoken knights of the rural order.
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