The Cowboy Way

by Elmer Kelton

  “What did he do when his dad died?”

  “He picked himself up and went his own way.”

  Clay gently laid a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  The return to the ranch after the funeral was one of the most trying ordeals of Ed’s life. He tried to find comfort in the fact that nothing physical had changed. The entrance gate, the headquarters layout, all looked the same as he drove in. Four horses stood near the barn, waiting for someone to fork hay into the steel rack. Either Tom or Ed customarily did so in the late afternoon. A Jersey milk cow stood outside the milk-pen gate, patiently awaiting the bucket of ground feed that would be poured for her as she took her place in the stanchion. All these things were the same as they had been for years and years. In these, at least, there was constancy.

  But Tom’s red dog, tail wagging, came out to meet the car. It watched Ed and Frances get out, then looked expectantly for its master. It turned away, its tail drooping in disappointment. It retreated toward the house where Tom had lived since Ed’s mother had died, and Tom had turned the larger, newer house over to Ed and Frances. Ed watched the dog and felt anew the pain of loss.

  “We’ll have to get Red used to comin’ to our house for his supper,” he said.

  Frances nodded. “It’ll take him awhile to quit missin’ Tom.”

  Ed winced. “I doubt I ever will.”

  The dog never did become accustomed to staying around the bigger house. It did not have to. Clay resigned his job at the feed mill, and he and Susan moved into Tom’s house. Though it was old and still bore much of Morgan Whitley’s imprint, as well as Tom’s, it had most of the modern conveniences that a town girl like Susan was used to.

  Clay’s being around all the time helped Ed’s adjustment to the change. Before, Ed had tried to see to it that he and Miguel did the heavier and more menial work, leaving the lighter chores for Tom. Now Clay and Miguel took on most of the heavier lifting, and Ed found himself doing more of the things that Tom had regarded as his own province. Ed resented it a little at first, though he kept his feelings to himself. It seemed they now considered him an old man who had to be sheltered. He was not old, not by a damn sight. But after a time he began to appreciate their deference. His back did not hurt as much as it used to, and he found himself able to spend more time on horseback, riding over the country the way he liked to do.

  It warmed Ed’s soul, too, to look toward the older house and see Clay’s boy Billy riding a stick horse in the front yard. It was high time, Ed thought, to find a pony so the boy could start learning to ride. Billy’s cowboy education had been neglected in town. Ed would get him a rope, too, and a plastic steer head to attach to a bale of hay so he could learn to throw a loop around the horns.

  Ed sensed that something had begun to nag at Clay. His son became subject to long periods of thoughtful silence, as if he had something on his mind that he was reluctant to voice.

  Whatever the problem was, Ed decided the time had come to bring it into the open air. One possibility had occurred to him early. “Is it Susan and that house? I know it’s old, and I guess it’s got Dad’s brand all over it. My granddad’s, too. But she’s welcome to redo it any way she wants to. It’s her house now.”

  Clay seemed surprised at the thought. “The house is fine. She loves it. We like the idea that we’re the fourth generation of Whitleys that’s lived in it, and Billy’s the fifth. It’s like they’re all still with us, that nobody’s gone.”

  Ed wished he could see it that way. Tom was gone. The root had been severed. The feeling of continuum was lost.

  “Well, if it’s not the house, what’s the trouble?”

  Clay frowned, and he took a while in bringing himself to answer. “I’ve been workin’ on an idea. I’ve been kind of shy about bringin’ it up because I don’t know how you’ll take it.”

  “Spill it, and we’ll find out.”

  “You’ve heard them talk about cell grazin’ plans, where they take a pasture and fence it up into twelve or fifteen small paddocks. They throw all their cattle onto one at a time and move them every two or three days. That way most of the ranch is restin’, and the grass has a chance to grow. It makes for a healthier range.”

  Ed could only stare at him. Clay took a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded it. Ed recognized a pencil-drawn map of the ranch. Clay placed a finger on the spot that marked the headquarters. “I’ve figured how we can divide up all our pastures with cheap electric fence and have ourselves four grazin’ cells. It’s worked on lots of other ranches.”

  “But this isn’t some other ranch.” Ed’s impatience bubbled to the top. He could imagine Morgan’s or Tom’s reaction to such a far-fetched idea. “Where did you ever come up with such a radical notion—some Aggie textbook?”

  Aggie textbook! Ed wondered for a moment how that expression had popped into his head. Then he remembered. He had heard it from Tom—more times than he wanted to recall.

  Looking deflated, Clay studied the paper. “I’ve had the idea for a long while. I knew better than to try it on Granddad, but I thought you might give it a chance.”

  “He would’ve said what I did.”

  “In the same voice, and the same words, more than likely.” Clay managed a wry smile through his disappointment. “You even look like him at a little distance. Funny, you were worried that things could never be the same with Granddad gone. But you’ve fitted right into his boots.”

  Ed pondered on what Tom had said about it being the responsibility of the young to originate fresh ideas while the old held the reins, loosening or tightening them as the need came.

  Ed compromised, as Tom often had. “Tell you what: we’ll try your idea, but we’ll go at it slow. We’ll take the northeast pasture first and see how it works out. In two or three years, if we like it, we’ll talk about doin’ the rest of the place. This is a drastic change you’re throwin’ at me.”

  “As drastic as Granddad buyin’ the first truck, or buildin’ the first trailer? Or you startin’ artificial insemination and preg-checkin’?”

  Ed stared toward the old house. Billy was in the front yard, playing with the red dog. Red had taken right up with the boy, tagging along with him as he had tagged after Tom. Ed thought about Tom, and about Morgan Whitley. The word came to him from somewhere. “Continuity.”

  Clay puzzled. “What do you mean, continuity?”

  “Just thinkin’ about somethin’ your granddad said. I’ll tell you someday, when it’s time for you to think about it.”

  YELLOW DEVIL

  It was already an old kill when Jake Howard’s three lion hounds found it. Jake clenched his teeth and futilely doubled a hard fist as he nudged aside with his boot toe the twigs, dead leaves, and bark that covered the carcass. He read the Lazy H brand on the stiffened hide of a two-year-old heifer.

  “That yellow devil of a lion again,” he muttered. The foreshoulders of the heifer were all but eaten away. The rest of the carcass had been expertly hidden, the mountain lion’s way, and left to spoil.

  Old Flop, Jake’s lead hound, was eagerly nosing around for tracks. Another hound called Rip followed him. Little Mutt, Jake’s pup in training, was sniffing at the carcass.

  Jake lifted his stubbled chin and gazed bleakly toward the Carmen Mountains, which lay across the big bend of the Rio Grande. The fall air suddenly carried a chill. He closed up his old mackinaw, fumbling absently at the place where he had pulled off a button three weeks before and never had gotten around to fixing it.

  “Give that old devil a little more time,” Jake dismally spoke his thoughts aloud, “and he’ll flat ruin me.” The lion had already killed the kid crop from Jake’s Angora goats, and some of the nannies as well. Now he was cultivating a taste for beef.

  Presently Flop opened up and started barking “lion.” Little Mutt raised his head, listening, then barreled off to follow the two older dogs.

  Jake could tell by the way Flop was picking his wa
y up the side of the canyon that the trail was cold, had probably been there a week. But there was always the chance that by following it the dogs might cut a fresher trail. He swung up into the saddle and pulled the pack mule along behind him.

  For hours the dogs struggled along with the trail, sniffing at the tops of rocks, going back and checking when the scent weakened. Finally the trail petered out for good in a heavily timbered header. Flop worked back and forth a long while before Jake reluctantly called him off.

  Lions had a knack of doubling back over their own tracks, leaving a pack of confused dogs at what seemed to be the sudden end of a trail. Almost all lions were good at this, and the Yellow Devil was a master.

  Desolately Jake shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his worn mackinaw and looked over at the ragged ridge of Big Bend mountains.

  “I’d bet my boots he went yonderway, over onto Old Man Budge’s ranch,” he said to his dogs. “And they tell me the old coot’s got a shotgun loaded with stock salt that he saves just to use on hunters.”

  The sun was edging down to where the trees on the mountains were throwing their shadows all the way across the canyon. The chill was working deeper into Jake’s bones. He would have pulled his hounds in and headed back for the lonely old rock house he lived in if Flop hadn’t struck a bear trail. It was fresh.

  A lingering anger at the lion made Jake eager to catch something—anything—to help work off his frustration. Even if he hadn’t wanted to, there wouldn’t have been much he could do about it anyhow. His dogs had gone yonder. Their deep-throated belling sent a thrill up his spine as he spurred his horse and jerked the pack mule along. There was music in those voices, and a magic that only a hound-dog man could enjoy to its fullest.

  It had been a good fall for Mexican black bears, drifting in from across the river. There were plenty of acorns and piñon nuts and berries. Jake knew this chase would make him lie out in the woods tonight. It would be too late to go back to the house. But the thought of good fresh bear meat instead of dry jerked beef munched along the trail made it seem worth the trouble.

  Soon the hounds barked “treed” up ahead of him somewhere. Pulling in, Jake saw the dogs gathered at the bottom of a tree. Up in the top sat a bear, fat and ready for winter hibernation. Jake called the dogs back. He didn’t want a wounded bear falling among his hounds and maybe ripping one open with his claws.

  One shot was plenty. Skinning the bear, Jake whistled at the fat. Properly rendered, there was no grease in the world could beat good bear oil. Jake thought of Old Man Quincy Budge, and an idea struck him.

  “They tell me there’s no better way to work on a man than through his women folks,” Jake said to inquisitive Little Mutt, who was still sniffing at the carcass. “And I think I got somethin’ here that might do the job.”

  Soon after daylight Jake picked his way up to the head of a rock-rimmed canyon and the little huddle of adobe buildings that constituted Budge’s headquarters. In an ocotillo-stalk corral stood half a dozen fine-looking horses. An old man was currying and brushing a blaze-faced sorrel. As he saw Jake dismount in front of the adobe house, he slipped the rope off the horse’s neck, patted the animal, then came walking out to intercept the hunter.

  Wood smoke curled out of the rock chimney, and the smell of it was pleasant in the sharp autumn air. Jake untied a canvas-wrapped bundle from the mule’s back.

  Old Man Quincy Budge stopped between Jake and the house and stood frowning, his feet wide apart. Budge had graying whiskers down to the collar. Jake thought idly that the old stockman would do well to curry his beard once in a while, the way he took care of his horses.

  Jake was wary, but he managed a thin smile. “Mornin’, Mr. Budge. I’m Jake Howard. I own the Lazy H.”

  He had met the old man a couple of times before, but Budge had never wasted much time trying to be friendly. He didn’t now. He grunted and eyed Jake’s dogs with open hostility.

  A plump little woman shoved her head through the door. “Well, don’t just stand there, Quincy. Invite the young man in to breakfast.”

  Budge grunted again and stood aside grudgingly. Moving past him, Jake tried to act as if he didn’t notice Budge’s animosity. Inside the kitchen, where the warmth clung to him like a wool coat, he laid down the bundle on the raw-topped plank table.

  “Killed me a bear yesterday, Miz Budge. I wasn’t far from here and thought you-all might enjoy havin’ you some bear fat to render out. Can’t beat it for good biscuits.”

  The old lady raised up both hands and chortled happily. She called, “Colleen, come in here and see what we’ve got.”

  A girl stepped into the kitchen from another room. Jake caught his breath short. She wore a loose cotton dress that almost swept the floor, and she was lithe and slender. Instinctively he reached up to his stubbled face and wished he had had some way to shave.

  “Colleen,” said Mrs. Budge, “this is Mr. Howard. Mr. Howard, our daughter.”

  Jake managed a smile and swallowed hard. Her eyes were big and fresh and brown. They studied him without shyness. Through breakfast Jake could feel the girl’s gaze touching him. It made him so nervous, he couldn’t eat but twelve flapjacks.

  When Budge finished eating, he set his empty cup down in the saucer so hard it rang. He shoved his chair back on the rough board floor.

  “Now then, Howard,” he said gruffly, “I know you didn’t come over here for no social call.” He flicked a quick glance at his daughter. “Leastwise I don’t think you did. What do you want?”

  Jake was caught off guard, but there was no use in mincing words. “That yellow devil lion has been killin’ my stock, Mr. Budge. I got a notion he comes over here when my dogs get to crowdin’ him. I’d like your permission to hunt for him on your place.”

  The old man’s heavy eyebrows knitted. His dark eyes stared levelly at Jake. “They tell me you’re more of a hunter than you are a stockman. They tell me you hunt varmints for pay, and that you furnish dogs and pack outfits to city hunters and guide them around for a fee.”

  Jake could feel the old man’s answer coming. He nodded reluctantly.

  Budge went on, his voice flat, “I’m a stockman myself. I like to work with cattle and horses. I got no patience with a man who spends his time out with guns and a pack of dogs when he ought to be home tendin’ stock.”

  Angry warmth started rising in Jake. He could have told the old man why he hunted for pay. He could have told him that he had once owned a ranch bigger than the Lazy H and had it fully stocked with cattle. Then the drouth had come, and low prices, and a man couldn’t fight them both. With what he could salvage he came up here to this smaller Lazy H with a handful of cattle, his mohair goats, and a big debt that had to be cleared up.

  Hunting for a fee or guiding city hunters were ways of doing that. They paid expenses and left the ranch profit, if there was any, to apply on his debt.

  He could have told Quincy Budge that. But stubborn anger was edging up in him, and he didn’t say anything.

  There was no compromise in Budge’s voice. “Next time you come over here, you leave them guns at home. And don’t you bring them flop-eared hounds with you no more either, or I’ll chase the whole bunch of you back over the hill.”

  Jake went off vowing he wouldn’t come back again. But for the next week or so the memory of a pair of big brown eyes stayed with him. And when he found himself in the vicinity of Budge’s one day, he tied up his dogs and spurred off down the crooked trail to the ranch house. A couple of weeks later he did it again. Luckily old Quincy wasn’t there. But Colleen was.

  * * *

  Jake was keeping close watch for the Yellow Devil to come back. So far, he and his dogs hadn’t found any sign of the lion.

  One day Doyle Short, a neighbor, rode into Jake’s Lazy H camp with his teenage son Tommy. Doyle swung down from his beat-up saddle and came walking up to Jake’s little rock house, his face etched with worry.

  “Jake,” he said, “there’s a bear been
killin’ my cattle. If you don’t get him for me, he’s goin’ to cost me half my calf crop. What do you say to puttin’ your dogs on him? It’s worth fifty dollars to me if you get him.”

  Jake grinned. A man couldn’t get rich that way, but fifty dollars would pay a lot of expenses.

  Then Doyle sprang the catch. “I thought maybe you might let Tommy here go along and help you. I figure the experience would do him good.”

  Jake tried to keep from showing his misgivings. He had worked with Tommy on a couple of roundups. The boy was a little wild yet, and given to jumping before he looked to see where he was going to land.

  Right now Tommy was sliding a rifle out of his saddle scabbard. He sighted down the barrel, straight toward Jake’s horse corral. “You and your dogs jump him out for me, Jake. I’ll shoot him right between the eyes.”

  Jake reached out and pulled down the muzzle of the rifle. “You better shove that back and leave it till you get somethin’ to use it on.”

  He tried to hint to Doyle that he could handle the job better alone, but the hint didn’t take. By afternoon he and the boy had the dogs sniffing around the bear’s latest kill. It took only a minute for Flop to open up and head out with his nose close to the ground.

  A couple of times young Tommy yelled excitedly, “I see him up there,” and started hauling out his rifle. But he was mistaken, and Jake would make him put up the rifle. The trail meandered around considerably but was becoming fresher all the time. A little before sundown the dogs were getting excited. Jake figured the bear had heard them and was on the run.

  They never came in sight of the killer. Even fat as he likely was, he was too fast for the hounds. When darkness came, Jake took out his old cow horn, called in the winded dogs, and set up camp.

  As soon as it was light enough to see again, he turned the hounds loose on the trail. Finally the scent became hot. Once more the bear had heard them and was off in a hard run.

  After a couple of hours the bear left Short’s range and crossed the deadline claimed by Old Man Quincy Budge. Jake reined up and listened to his dogs going pell-mell along the trail.