by Elmer Kelton
“I’ll give you what I paid you last year, twenty-four cents a head, if you can have a crew at my place day after tomorrow, bright and early.”
Castro smiled broadly. “You bet your boots, I’ll be there.”
Charlie went on about town, hunting up cowboys. He spent the next morning getting the shearing pens patched up and ready. That afternoon he gathered up his supplies and brought the cowboys home. A couple of neighbors promised to come over and help.
There was a strange tang to the air the next morning. Charlie didn’t know what it was, but the other cowboys sensed it, too. The wind didn’t get up much that morning, and the dust stayed down. It was a welcome thing not to have to fight the sheep along because of wind. They got to the shearing pens with the first bunch of yearling ewes about nine o’clock.
“Where’s Vincente, Charlie?” one of the neighbors asked. “Thought he was going to be here, set and ready by this time.”
Worry started eating at Charlie. Vincente was usually very prompt. Maybe he’d had a little trouble down the road.
Charlie left the punchers to gather more sheep, and he headed for town. He expected to find Vincente’s ancient shearing rig broken down somewhere along the way, but he didn’t. At the capitan’s house Mrs. Castro was sweeping dirt off her pathway.
“Oh, Vincente,” she replied to his question, “he’s gone to shear for Mr. Stace. He say if you come by, to tell you he get to you tomorrow, maybe.”
Anger rose in Charlie. “But Vincente promised to shear for me today. I got the sheep up in the pens.”
Surprised, the woman shook her head. “Did Mister Stace not call you? He said he would. He offer more money.”
Doubling his fists, Charlie stalked back to his pickup, pausing to kick a rock halfway across the road. Stace again! The old skinflint never sheared anything this early. He had hired Vincente to shear a pasture or two just to balk Charlie.
The neighbor help went home. Charlie intended to keep the cowboys he had hired. Maybe Vincente would show up tomorrow.
But Archie Gamlin telephoned. “Sorry, Charlie. Old Stace’s gone and sheared, and that buyer is taking his wool. I’m afraid your sale has fallen through.”
There wasn’t anything left to do but turn the sheep out and let the cowboys go back to town. Then Charlie loaded up his feed sacks and made his daily circle over the pastures. He moved slowly, hardly seeing what he was doing. This last defeat had taken the heart out of him.
By night that strange feeling in the air was stronger. The sand hadn’t blown at all that day. Now there was a trace of dampness in the breeze, and he noticed the unusual playfulness of the horses. Far to the north, lightning flashed occasionally.
Courage crept back into Charlie’s heart. By George, it was building up to rain.
Then another thought struck him. He broke out laughing so suddenly that he scared some of the dogie lambs he was feeding.
“Old Stace may have done me a favor today,” he said gleefully to one of the lambs. “If I’d sheared today, and it comes a cold rain tonight, I’d have lost half my sheep.”
The telephone awakened Charlie a while before daylight. Sleepily lighting his lamp, he shivered in the cold breeze coming through his window. It carried the pleasant smell of rain.
The caller was one of the neighbors who had helped him the day before. “Thought you might be interested to know, Charlie. Old Stace tried to spite you yesterday, and he got his foot caught in a beartrap. He called me a few minutes ago. He’s calling everybody else around here.
“Seems he sheared his best yearling ewes. He left before the shearing was finished, and one of his men turned those sheep out in an open pasture. Now it looks like we’re in for a cold rain. Stace’s got to get them sheep to brush and rough country before the rain starts, or he’ll lose them. He’s really crying for help.”
Charlie hung up the receiver and sat down heavily. He ought to be laughing, he told himself. But he wasn’t. He still had his pride.
What better way to show it than to go to Stace’s place now, with the rest of the men? He would go there with his head high, and give his help. He would see what it did to Stace’s pride, having to accept help from the man he had spited.
* * *
Shearing had been done at the Gonzales camp on the Tolliver ranch. The sheep had been turned out into a seven-section open pasture that offered little protection. But west of the Gonzales windmills the broken country and the brush started. If they could get the freshly-shorn young ewes in there, the sheep could find protection from the cold rain. There would be losses, of course, but there would not be so many.
Fifteen or eighteen other men had gathered as dawn neared, and the darkness began slowly to lift. Unloading a saddled horse from his trailer, Charlie turned to find Stace Tolliver looking at him, puzzled and a little guilty.
“You didn’t have to come, McDermott,” Stace said.
Leisurely Charlie lighted a cigarette. “No, I didn’t have to.” He swung into the saddle and pulled away from the ranchman.
With Stace in the lead, the men spurred out at a brisk trot. The wind soon knifed its chill through Charlie’s worn mackinaw. An occasional drop of rain hit his face, and he would look up at the dark, threatening clouds. Any minute they’d have a drenching, freezing downpour.
The men kept up the stiff trot to the back of the pasture. There wasn’t any time to lose. They spread out in a line and started working back toward the Gonzales windmills.
With their wool just gone, the sheep were cold and hard to manage. The wind was no help. It was a hard fight all the way, keeping the sheep headed west while the chilling north wind howled into their sides. Charlie jumped a number of small bunches of ewes and had little luck in getting them together. He would chouse one bunch, then leave it and go to another. His horse was wearing down, and his own throat was getting raw from shouting so much. But he was doing his job. He was keeping the sheep moving.
At last, through the light mist that began filtering down, Charlie could make out the windmills straight ahead. Many bunches of sheep were coming together there and forming one big band.
The flock filed through the gate, jumping over imaginary obstacles as sheep will. The riders kept pushing; there were a few more miles to the breaks.
It was sprinkling steadily now. They had to make it, had to get those sheep scattered. If the hard rain started there would be no handling that flock—chances were the whole bunch would head straight away from the rough country.
Charlie could feel the raindrops coming faster and harder. He spurred his horse, beat on his chaps, and yelled at the top of his lungs.
At last they reached the breaks. Down in the roughs the sheep could get behind banks to keep the cold wind away from them; they could find brush to stand under to check some of the freezing rain and protect themselves.
“Scatter them,” old Stace was yelling.
When the job was done, Charlie reined up and looked around him. Relief washed over Tolliver’s formidable old face. As little use as Charlie had for him, he couldn’t help feeling a bit happy for Stace.
Presently Stace rode up beside Charlie.
“All right, McDermott,” he said grudgingly, “I guess I got to do something to pay you for your help. Supposing I tell Ernie Pope I don’t want that lease, after all.”
Charlie swallowed a bitter taste. So the old man thought he had just come to blackmail him.
“Forget it,” he said testily. “I didn’t come over here to whine for mercy.” He pulled his horse away—but not before he saw the puzzlement in Stace’s eyes.
Through the rain he could see Stace Tolliver’s black car drive up. It stopped, and someone got out. It was Mary!
She saw Charlie almost as soon as he saw her. They stood uncertainly a moment, looking at each other. Charlie swung to the ground and ran to meet her.
When at last he turned her loose, she was soaked from the rain, just as he was. But that glistening in her eyes wasn’t from raindrops.<
br />
“Mary, Mary,” he breathed, “I’ll never be angry with you again!”
“Oh, Charlie,” she cried, “why didn’t you call, or come for me?”
“But I did, many times. They always said you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“Then that was Dad’s doing, not mine,” she said. “I’ve been aching for a word from you, just a word.” Her lips brushed against his again. “But now I’m glad it turned out this way. It was big of you, Charlie, coming to help Dad after all that’s happened.”
It wasn’t bigness of heart, he knew. It was a matter of pride. Perhaps some day he would be able to tell her about that.
Some day he would be able to tell her something else he had learned here today. A man didn’t have to lose his pride just because he was forced to ask for help.
Stace was sitting on his horse in the rain, watching them. Defiantly Charlie turned toward Mary’s father.
“Well, we got your sheep to cover. Now if it’s all the same to you, I’ll be going home. I’m taking Mary home with me. If you got any objections, spill them now.”
Tolliver shrugged. “Wouldn’t do any good if I did have any, would it?”
Embarrassment and uncertainty showed on Stace’s heavy face. “Look, McDermott, I haven’t liked you so far. I can’t say I like you now. But it looks like I’m stuck with you, and I’ve got to make the best of it. I always figured that there must be something to a man who wouldn’t sell his pride. You wouldn’t that day in town, and you wouldn’t a while ago, when I offered you that lease.
“Well, I’m going to forget about that lease, just like I said. And the first time you’re in town, drop by the bank. I’ll tell Fred Purvis that he’s changed his mind about your account.”
Charlie nodded. “We might be able to talk business.”
When Tolliver rode away, Charlie turned back to Mary. The rain was pouring down, and they were both soaking wet. But they didn’t care. They had a lot of business to talk about.
THE RELUCTANT SHEPHERD
Hewey Calloway had not been to town in more than eight weeks. Now he had two months’ cowboy wages in his pocket and was riding in for a well-earned celebration. Upton City might never be the same again.
Knowing how hung over he would feel by the time he emptied his pockets, he almost dreaded it.
Sister-in-law Eve would have a lot to say afterward, but she had a lot to say about almost everything. He respected her strong opinions about responsibility, sobriety, and thrift, but he did not share them. Now past thirty and proud of maintaining his bachelorhood against contrary advice from almost everybody around him, he felt it was his right to spend his money and his off time in any way he saw fit. Even tight-fisted old rancher C. C. Tarpley understood that his employees had to vent steam occasionally. Otherwise, their work suffered, and C. C. could not stand for that.
Hewey hoped he might be lucky enough to run into old drinking compadres such as Snort Yarnell or Grady Welch. But if they weren’t there, he could holler loudly enough by himself.
He reached deep into memory, reliving rowdy adventures he had enjoyed in times past, recalling the many pleasures and glossing over the pain that inevitably followed. People like Eve kept telling him that at his age he ought to slow down and find a place to settle. But he felt not one bit older than when he had been twenty. He was going to have a good time whether anybody else liked it or not.
He was humming a shady little dancehall ditty when a distant sound first reached him. He listened intently but for a moment or two could not make out what it was. Then it came clearer. He recognized the bleating of sheep.
“Sheep!” he exclaimed, though no one could hear him except his horse. “Biscuit, old C. C.’ll bust a blood vessel.”
This was Tarpley land, and C. C. hated sheep like the devil hates holy water. Hewey did not exactly hate them; he just refused to acknowledge their existence.
He rode in the direction of the sound. Soon he saw a flock moving slowly westward, each sheep pausing to graze, then trotting to catch up. A black and white dog kept pace, its tongue lolling. When an animal paused too long, the dog ran up and nipped at it. The nearby sheep tumbled over each other in their haste to give the dog room.
A tarp-covered wagon, drawn by two mules, rolled along slowly on the upwind side, out of the dust stirred by the flock’s tiny hooves. A horseman followed the sheep, not allowing the drags to linger long in one place. The man was hunched over as if half asleep.
I’m fixing to wake him up good, Hewey thought. As a Two Cs hand, it was his job to see after C. C. Tarpley’s interests. C. C. was definitely not interested in having sheep cross his cattle range.
Hewey knew this was a tramp sheepman with no land of his own, moving across country and fattening his animals on other men’s forage. It was a common enough practice, though it was increasingly frowned upon as more and more Texas state land fell into private ownership.
Hewey had a cowboy way of assessing a man’s horse before he made any judgment about the rider. This horse was old, in bad need of being turned out to pasture. The saddle appeared to be just as old, somebody’s castoff. The bridle was patched, the reins of cotton rope instead of leather. The only thing not old was the rider. Hewey guessed him to be in his mid to late twenties.
“Hey, you,” Hewey said, “don’t you know this is private land?”
The man raised his head. Hewey knew at first glance that he was sick. His face had a gray look. The eyes were dull. In a weak voice the man said, “Thank God you’ve come along. We need help.”
“You’ll sure need help if C. C. Tarpley finds you here.”
The young sheepman pointed toward the wagon. “My little boy, he’s awful sick. I’m afraid we’ll lose him. My wife’s not much better.”
“What’s the matter with them?”
“I think we got ahold of some bad water.”
Hewey said, “I don’t know as I can be any help. I ain’t no doctor. You need to get your family to town.”
“But I can’t leave the sheep. They’re all we’ve got. They’d scatter, and the coyotes would get a lot of them.”
Hewey did some mental calculation. At the rate the sheep were traveling, it would probably take three, perhaps four days to reach Upton City. He wondered if these people had that much time.
He said, “I’ll go take a look at your wife and boy. But like I said, I ain’t no doctor.” He pushed Biscuit into a lope and overtook the wagon. A young woman held the leather reins. Like her husband, she appeared to be asleep. When she turned her gaze to Hewey, her eyes were dull, her skin sallow.
Hewey said, “He tells me you got a sick boy in that wagon.”
“Terrible sick,” she said, her voice so quiet that Hewey barely heard it.
Riding alongside, he lifted a loose corner of the tarp. Inside, on blankets, lay a boy with eyes closed. He could have been asleep, or even unconscious.
The man had followed Hewey, but the old horse was slow in catching up. He asked, “What do you think?”
“I think you’ve got some mighty sick people. You need to leave the sheep and get these folks to Doc Hankins as quick as you can.”
“I told you, the sheep are all we’ve got.”
There was a saying in cow country that the only thing dumber than a sheep was the man who owned them. This man was proving the point, Hewey thought.
He said, “Well, then, you’d better speed them up.”
“You can’t hurry sheep.”
Hewey shrugged, fresh out of arguments. “Well, when I get to town I’ll tell Doc Hankins. Maybe he can ride out in his buggy and meet you.”
He moved ahead, coughing from the dust raised by the sheep. It would take at least the first two drinks just to wash his throat clean.
Even after he had traveled half a mile, he could still hear the bleating. He could not understand the thinking of a man willing to gamble three lives on a flock of sheep. If they were his, he could easily ride off and leave them to take their chances w
ith the coyotes. Cattle did not have to be pampered and protected like that. Too bad the family did not have a herd of cows instead of a flock of helpless sheep.
He tried to think ahead to the good time he would have in town, but his mind kept drifting back to the woman and to the boy lying in the bed of the wagon. Dammit, Hewey Calloway, he thought, they’re not your responsibility. What if you’d taken a different trail to town? You never would have seen them.
But he had seen them. Now he could not shake free from the images. Cursing his luck, he turned Biscuit around and put him into a trot, back toward the sheep. The woman hardly looked up as Hewey passed the wagon. The man on horseback had dropped behind the flock again. Hewey rode up to him. “Mr. Whatever-your-name-is, hurry yourself up to that wagon. You’re goin’ to town.”
“But the sheep…”
“I’ll see after the damned sheep. Just leave me that horse and a little grub to pack on him. And see that you make them mules trot.”
“Do you know anything about handling sheep?”
“No, but I learn fast. Get goin’ before I change my mind. It’s half changed already.”
In a short time the wagon was rumbling along the trail toward town, the mules stepping high. Confused, the dog followed it a little way, then turned back toward the flock. It looked at Hewey with evident mistrust.
Hewey said, “Dog, I hope you know what you’re doin’, because I sure don’t.” He watched the wagon a minute, then turned to stare at the slowly moving flock. He thought about Upton City waiting in vain to welcome him and his wages. But here he was, stuck with a bunch of snot-nosed woollies.
Some days, he thought, I’ve got no more sense than a one-eyed jackrabbit. He reserved some of his frustration for the sheepman, who ought not to be dragging a family across this dry desert in the first place.
Biscuit had been trained to be a cow horse. He seemed bewildered by the sheep, but no more so than his owner. Watching, Hewey gradually came to see that he did not need to do much except follow, and occasionally to help the dog push stragglers along. The sheep moved westward at their own pace, like molasses in January.
