The Time It Never Rained

by Elmer Kelton

  Halfway across the pen the lead ewe stopped to look around again, squatting to deposit some pills. Once more the sheep balled up behind her, and movement through the gate was halted. The riders outside yelled and swore. Charlie made some crackling comment to the effect that he would sell her to a San Antonio packer for baby food.

  One of Garcia’s shearers skirted along the fence until he got behind the ewe. He held a noise-maker, a heavy wire loop with empty tin cans strung on it like loose beads. He shouted a Spanish oath that defied translation and rattled the loop, then tossed it at the ground behind the ewe. She dashed wildly against the fence on the far side. The jam melted. In a minute all the sheep were inside the gate except one big breakaway lamb. Afoot, Lupe hemmed it in a corner, grabbed and lifted it bodily over the fence. He turned the thrashing lamb loose unceremoniously. It landed on its feet almost like a cat, dropped to one knee, then got up and trotted highheaded toward the other sheep, bleating for its mother.

  As Charlie expected, Manuel carried his crippled lamb to a small set of pine-panel pens nearby and eased it to the ground. The lamb circled the tiny enclosure limping, bleating, looking for a way out.

  When the boy came back Charlie said, “You see after that lamb soon as you have time. Be sure he’s turned back out with his mammy when we finish shearin’.”

  “I will, Mister Charlie.”

  “There’s no need in bottle-feedin’ him long’s he’s got a mammy.” Bottle-feeding or carrying grain to a bunch of whippoorwill-poor dogie lambs didn’t suit Charlie in the least. He always said fiddling with a few head that way took more time and trouble than it was worth. Sheep were all right in a bunch, but he had little use for them singly.

  He watched Manuel hunt for and find a piece of blue chalk that had been lodged under a nail on a cedar post ever since last shearing; there hadn’t been enough rain to dissolve it. Manuel worked his way through the ewes and in a few minutes spotted his quarry. He made a rush and grabbed her by a hind foot, then got hold of her head, pulling her up tightly against his legs while he made two or three chalk rings around her nose and mouth, where the shearers wouldn’t take them off with their clippers.

  How he could pick that ewe out of the bunch was a mystery to Charlie. But he would wager a fifth of Jack Daniel’s that when the shearing was over and this ewe turned with that limping lamb, they would claim each other as mother and child.

  Charlie customarily did most of his ewe culling in the fall, when it was time to wean and ship the lambs. But now while Lupe and the others pushed some of the sheep into a smaller pen close to Teofilo’s shearing machine, Charlie stood at the gate, watching closely. He grabbed ewes whose bags had fevered and spoiled; he marked their noses with blue chalk, making straight lines that would not invite confusion with the ewe Manuel had chalked. He found one broken-legged ewe and marked her too. When shearing was done and the lambs remated, Charlie would pull out these chalked ewes, put them into a trailer and haul them to the auction sale in San Angelo. He had no patience with free boarders which ate grass but didn’t pay their keep. Their lambs were either dead or dogied anyway.

  The men drove a sizable bunch of ewes into the pen where the shearing machine was roaring and popping. While the shearers stepped back under the stained tarp out of the way, Tom took off the leather chaps he had worn for protection against the clutching mesquite thorns. He flapped them and hollered. “Hu-cha! Hu-cha!” He split half the sheep onto one side of the machine, half on the other. He pulled a plank panel into place, securing it with a piece of rusty baling wire to prevent them from running back and forth from one side of the machine to the other and creating havoc during the shearing. He paused a moment with the chaps draped over one shoulder, sweat making large spots in the Western shirt under the arms and down the middle of his back. He cast a hopeful glance toward the barn.

  Charlie asked, “You lookin’ for somethin’?”

  Tom shook his head. “What would I be lookin’ for?” But Charlie saw letdown in his son’s face. Tom said loudly, over the clatter of the machine, “This ought to keep Teofilo busy awhile. We’ll go back and scout that pasture before dinner.” He moved on toward the horses, pausing to buckle the chaps around his waist and hook the snaps around his legs. Charlie saw him glance once more toward the barn, then out along the town road.

  Four shearers were stationed on each side of Teofilo’s machine, one for each of the “drops.” They walked out among the sheep, each man searching for one he wanted to start with. It was said—with justification—that if a ranchman wanted to cull his poorest-shearing sheep, he had only to follow the shearers and mark out the ones they picked to shear first. Invariably they sought the easiest, those with the shortest wool. The animal with the longest and the best wool was the hardest and the slowest to shear; therefore it was usually the last to be flopped down on the shearing board. After all, the quicker a man sheared a sheep, the more money he made. That the shearer’s convenience and the rancher’s selection program worked at cross purposes was of little concern to either man.

  As each shearer found a sheep that suited him, he grabbed it by a hind leg and dragged the animal back toward the noisy machine. The frightened sheep would struggle and pull away on the other three legs. Along the front edge of the ground-level shearing platform was a one-by-two-inch trip board, nailed down to help the shearer throw the sheep with less effort. It also helped keep dirt from being kicked onto the shearing board where it would work into the wool.

  Planting his knee on the sheep’s side, the shearer would start the clipper with its metallic shir-r-r. He would trim the fragile legs, then make the first parting of the fleece down the belly. His hands moved fast and sure in long, bold strokes.

  After all these years the skill of the Mexicans still held fascination for Charlie. There was something hypnotic in the rhythmic movement of the clippers, the quick wrist-flick at the end of each stroke that righted the combs for the next cut. Charlie liked to watch the fleece fold away from the animal’s body and expose the bright cream color of the inner wool, a sharp contrast to the dirty-gray outer tip. The legs and belly finished, the shearer would pull a greasy leather string from his waistband and tie the legs, then proceed to slice away the wool on sides and back. Nearing completion, he would signal the tie-boy. The boy would step in and begin to roll the fleece, keeping the rich, clean side outward and rolling the dirty side under where it wouldn’t show. The idea was to make a good impression on the Boston wool buyers, who, of course, knew better. When the shearer stepped away, the tie-boy would hand him a small metal disc to show that he had finished a sheep. At the end of the day each shearer would tally his “checks” with the capitán, for his pay was based on the number of sheep he turned out. A shearer who couldn’t attain speed didn’t earn enough to justify the capitán in feeding him. If he was not an in-law it would sooner or later be pointedly suggested that he try some new occupation, such as fixing flats in a Texaco filling station.

  There was not much for Charlie to do except stand around and keep an eye on the shearers. He was convinced they did a better job when the flock owner was on hand; they hacked up less wool and cut fewer sheep. Not that he ever had much difficulty with Teofilo’s men. To Teofilo, Charlie was an old and dependable client who must constantly be cultivated. When the winter was long, in-laws grasping and rations short, Charlie was one of the several ranchmen Teofilo could always approach for a renganche, more commonly called regancho, an advance on the next shearing. An old paternalism still persisted in sheep shearing, the capitán to the shearer and the rancher to the capitán.

  Charlie especially watched the tying table where the tie-boys wrapped paper twine around each fleece and pitched it up to Teofilo’s son, Chuy, the sacker. The long sacks hung suspended inside a wooden sacking frame, tall enough that the bottom of the sack was clear of the ground. The sacker simply dropped the fleeces in and packed them down tightly with his feet until the seams of the wool bag seemed ready to split.

  When a
n occasional spot of black wool showed up in a fleece, Charlie would tear that part out with his hands, dropping it into a small towsack hanging on the fence. He tried to keep that kind of sheep culled out, but a few always cropped up, a throwback to some ancient churro which had grazed the Southwestern deserts when herders still carried rifles and slept with an eye open for prowling Indians. It was a strong strain, one which many generations of more refined blood had not completely obliterated.

  Little Candelario Flores stood hungrily looking for something to do that he might join the men. When the first pen of sheep was finished, Charlie turned them into a long narrow alleyway and let some unshorn sheep in to replace them.

  He studied Candelario a moment. “Want to help me, Candy?”

  “Sure, you bet.” The boy was halfway over the fence before he finished answering. Charlie said, “Now, it’s a responsible job that I wouldn’t give to just anybody. It’s a job for a real top hand that knows how to watch out what he’s doin’.”

  “I’m a top hand, Mister Charlie.”

  “Sure. Soon’s your legs grow out a little, you’ll lay ol’ Manuel in the shade.” Charlie handed the boy a can of black medicine and a paint brush. He pointed to the freshly shorn sheep. “You just work through yonder and dab a little tecole on all the fresh cuts you can find. Then maybe me and your daddy won’t have so many screwworm cases to doctor this summer.”

  It was the first time the boy had ever been handed such an awesome responsibility. He splashed the black tecole like water, getting as much on himself as on the sheep.

  Rosa will be real put out when he gets home, Charlie thought, looking at the spotted clothes. But a boy don’t get to be a man with clean britches on.

  Charlie poured red branding paint into a coffee can and got his sheep-branding iron from inside a shed. It somewhat resembled the irons he used to burn his C Bar onto the cattle except that it was short, with a wooden handle, and it was not meant ever to be heated. Because of the wool there was no practical way to fire-brand a sheep except perhaps across the nose, something Charlie would not consider. He dipped the end of the iron into the paint, then touched it to the sheep’s backs, leaving the C Bar just above the tailbone. A year’s weathering might bleach it considerably, but it would still be legible when the sheep came back for another shearing.

  Just at noon the riders brought in a few ewes they had missed on their first sweep of the pasture. One by one the shearers began to walk away from the hot machine, pausing to quench their thirst from a water can, some splashing water over their faces from a faucet. Teofilo watched for the last shearer to finish, then cut off the machine to avoid wasting gasoline. It ran 27.9 cents a gallon. The old motor continued to smoke and crackle as the heat slowly left it.

  Candelario was tecole-spattered from head to foot, worse than Charlie had expected. He was glad he didn’t have to go over to Rosa’s house and hear what she said. He put a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You done real good, Candy. If your ol’ daddy ever gets stove up to where he can’t work, maybe I’ll let you take his place.”

  Candelario accepted that as pure fact. “I wouldn’t want my papa’s job. Maybe you can find a job for two men.”

  “Maybeso.”

  The shearers straggled out to their camp, where a gray-bearded Mexican cook was finishing dinner in Dutch ovens over an open fire. He had a pickup backed into the dark shade of green live-oak trees, a chuckbox mounted on the rear of it. There were times, working away from headquarters, when Charlie ate with the shearing crew and liked it. But a little bit of shearing-camp grub went a long way. Charlie liked chili pepper in moderation, but there was a stopping place. This old cook of Teofilo’s had never heard of it.

  Charlie waited until the riders unsaddled and turned their horses loose in the waterlot. He poured oats into a long wooden trough while the horses crowded around him. He placed Wander in a pen by himself because the roan was a tyrant and would fight the other horses away from the feed until he got all he wanted. Greed and despotism were not traits of man alone.

  By habit the men waited for Charlie to take the lead, then strung out behind him toward the houses. Lupe came first, then Diego Escamillo of the Page Mauldin ranch, then Manuel and Candelario. Tom held back, a rope in his hands. He swung the loop and picked up both of Candelario’s feet, jerking up the slack but taking care not to trip the boy and make him fall. Candelario looked back in surprise, then grinned when he saw it was not his brother who had done him in.

  Tom said, “I’m sorry, Candy. Thought you was an Appaloosa horse . . . all them spots.”

  Lupe said, “His mama will make him eat outside, like a horse.”

  Charlie winked at Lupe and said protectively, “Don’t you-all be puttin’ off on my helper. He’s workin’ for me.”

  Candelario was as pleased as when Charlie had handed him a fifty-cent piece for the tecole job.

  The Mexicans turned off toward the frame house with the swept yard. Charlie and Tom went on to the big rock house but did not go directly in, for that might have caused a minor uprising. Mary’s rules were well understood and scrupulously obeyed. Charlie walked around to a small rock house in back, where a narrow trough was full of cold running water. It flowed through here on its way from windmill to an open stock tank. August Schmidt had built this for cooling milk decades before the ranch acquired electricity. Now Mary had a refrigerator big enough to chill a grown horse, but the milk house was still a handy place to wash up and avoid confrontation with her at the door.

  Charlie flopped in his favorite living-room rocking chair where he could feel a breeze moving through the deep windows off the porch. He had never considered an air-conditioner. The thick stone walls, the high ceilings and windows almost to the floor kept the house comfortable through summer.

  Above his chair was an old framed print of a Frederic Remington painting. It showed an Indian warrior, his horse run to ground by pursuers. The lone brave stood afoot on a small knoll facing his enemies, defiant against inevitable death. Charlie had bought it and placed it there years ago because it seemed to fit the story of his own Warrior Hill as August Schmidt had told it to him.

  Mary was banging around in the kitchen, rattling cook-ware and dishes. She stepped into the dining-room doorway, rubbing her hands in an apron. “Don’t you-all get too comfortable. Dinner’s about ready.”

  A niece of August Schmidt, Mary was about ten years younger than Charlie. He had been on the sundown side of his twenties when he had met her, worrying that he might face the rest of his life as an old bachelor like so many graying cowboys he had known, sleeping cold on long winter nights in some far-off and lonely cowcamp. He had begun thinking regretfully about the pretty girls he had met and hadn’t asked. Mary was from over on the Pedernales, barely twenty then, tiny as a hummingbird and looking just as delicate.

  Charlie had had no idea how strong a hummingbird really was. After all these years it sometimes surprised and disconcerted him to see how much hard-steel strength could be wrapped up in a small package.

  She was not much larger now than when he had first met her; she had broadened a little in the hips but was never inclined toward fat. Her face showed lines, and when the light fell right it picked up silver strands in her brown hair. A pity, Charlie thought sometimes, remembering, wishing he could have put her in a picture frame and kept her just the way she was when he had married her. In temperament as well as in looks.

  In the beginning Charlie had thought Mary’s hill-country German mother had bequeathed her nothing except her considerable cooking skills. But he had gradually found there was more; Mary had her mother’s squareheaded determination and stubbornness as well.

  The big kitchen always teased Charlie with a rich aroma of baked biscuits, chili beans, cooling cake, sugar-crusted apple pie. The hell of it was that she would cook up a tableful of strong ranch staples and rich German Mehlspeisen, then talk her damnedest to keep Charlie from eating it. She never stopped guying him about his weight.
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  Mary called, “Chuck!” Charlie got up from the comfortable chair and walked heavily in to the big table. She had baked half of a fat kid. Kid goat was food for a man who worked hard—solid and filling, yet easily digested. Shearing crews preferred it to beef or mutton; it did not lie heavy on their stomachs as they went back to hard, hot labor. Mary had a platterful of brown biscuits, a bowl of fresh red chili beans and glasses of iced tea so cold the condensation was running down the sides.

  There was a small platter of French-fried potatoes, too, but when Charlie reached for them Mary quickly moved the platter next to Tom’s plate. “Charlie, you’d better leave the potatoes alone.”

  “What did you fix them for if I can’t eat them?”

  “I fixed you something else.” She pushed a bowl of turnip greens in front of him. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand to see on his plate, it was turnip greens. He growled a few words in Spanish and made up for the potatoes by eating more baked kid, biscuits, and beans. When he pushed back from the table the greens were still untouched.

  Ranch custom dictated that each man carry his own plate, glass, and utensils to the kitchen sink; this was a throwback to chuckwagon days on the open range when every wagon had a washtub into which the cowboys dropped their tinware. The cowboy who failed to do so faced corporal punishment at the unmerciful hands of an outraged cook. Scraping well-cleaned goat ribs into a big brown grocery sack, Charlie saw Tom peer intently out the window.