The Time It Never Rained

by Elmer Kelton

  Rounder was telling his audience: “There was this drouthed-out rancher who died and went up to the Pearly Gates. St. Peter met him outside and asked him what his name was. ‘I’m Jasper Mulligan from Pecos County,’ the rancher says. St. Peter looks him up in the book. He starts to read and says, ‘Oh my,’ and the farther he reads the worse it gets. Finally he looks up real sad and says, ‘I’m awful sorry, but with a record like this I can’t let you in these gates. I’ll have to send you down to Hell.’ The rancher shrugs his shoulders and says, ‘Well, at least that’s some improvement.”

  Yancy Pike glowered over a cup of steaming coffee he held in both hands, warming his fingers. To Charlie he grumbled, “Listen to that brother of mine. To hear him clownin’ you wouldn’t know there’s a dry spell on, that there’s men here sick from worry. Some things just ain’t to be joked about.”

  Charlie observed, “When a man’s sick with worry, a laugh or two can be good medicine. The way Rounder looks at it, the world is a big pile of barbecue and beans.”

  “He’ll stop laughin’ one of these days. You watch when he really feels the pinch. Like in the big Depression. He was off ridin’ freight trains and bummin’ around havin’ hisself a high old time. I stayed with Daddy on the ranch and worked my fool head off. And when the time come, Daddy left him as much of the ranch as he left me.”

  “Rounder was sendin’ money home when he had it, wasn’t he?”

  “But he could of been here where he belonged. We could of used him.”

  That was exactly why Rounder hadn’t stayed, Charlie had always figured. Rounder thought a lot of his brother but liked him best when he could wave at him from a distance.

  Yancy said tightly, “You just watch; he ain’t got the guts for a real pinch. He’ll fold up like a wet rag. He won’t be laughin’ then.”

  Some said Yancy was envious because it seemed Rounder could make as much money running his ranch from the hotel lobby as Yancy could by laboring from sunup to dark and then turning on the lights. Rounder ran fewer sheep, fewer cattle, but his lambs and calves always weighed more than Yancy’s at delivery time, so they grossed out much the same. Rounder said this was because he took care of his grass, but Yancy claimed it was just luck. Their ranches lay side by side, sharing fences. Yancy’s was always bare-looking and dry when Rounder’s was still half green. Anybody could see that Rounder received more rain, Yancy declared. Some dark alignment with Satan, if the truth be known.

  As the sun spilled over the tops of the live oaks to take up the chill of fall air, Tom Flagg rode in from the foot-trap, driving the horses. Charlie saddled his roan, Wander. Lupe Flores and his oldest son Manuel caught their mounts. Because Manuel was sixteen, Lupe had let him stay home from school today. But little Candelario wasn’t being allowed to make the wolf drive. Candelario watched the others saddle up. His eyes begged.

  “Mister Charlie, I don’t have to go to school today. I can make it up.”

  Charlie hated to tell him no, though he considered Candelario too young for the risk. “You’d have to go ask your mother,” he said. That was an easy way out, because Rosa would not let the children miss school for anything less than a broken leg or a funeral. She had raised hell even about Manuel.

  Candelario argued. “I’ve got better eyes than Manuel. I bet I could see those coyotes before anybody else.”

  Charlie said sympathetically, “I sure wish I’d thought about this bein’ a school day.” In truth, he had thought about it. He had purposely chosen a school day to prevent having a lot of youngsters around to worry about. “But I tell you what, Candy: if we get those coyotes, we’ll bring them home for you to see.”

  Candelario was not satisfied, but he knew this was all he was going to get. “Okay, Mister Charlie,” he murmured, turning away with his shoulders in a slump. He wouldn’t be worth a lead nickel in school today. He would sit dreamy-eyed, picturing the great ride he was missing, envisioning the horsemen chasing a coyote across the school yard just in time that he could step out and kill it with a well-aimed rock and be the hero of the day.

  Manuel stayed as much out of sight as he could, not pressing his luck.

  Charlie’s smile left him as he saw a couple of teen-age boys with shotguns in their hands. Right then he began to have an inkling that he might have bitten off a chunk too big to chew. It hadn’t crossed his mind that some kids might cut school. But here they were, their fathers friends of his. Tact had. never been one of Charlie’s better traits, but he wished he had a little more of it now. He began noticing how many other guns there were. The place bristled with them. Somehow he had not counted on it being this way. He had figured on only a few firearms, and these in the hands of coolheaded men.

  A clammy feeling sank way down to the bottom of his stomach and lay there cold as yesterday’s clabber. He remembered a time in the late ’30s that he had been called out to help on a posse that was trying to run down a pair of car thieves. They had broken jail in Rio Seco, stolen guns and set out afoot across the Page Mauldin ranch. Charlie hadn’t been half so scared of the armed fugitives as of his fellow possemen toting guns.

  He saw one of the boys break open his shotgun and shove a shell into the breech.

  Charlie warned, “I wouldn’t go loadin’ it yet, boy. Plenty of time when you see the coyote.”

  The youngster showed him a square-shouldered confidence. “You don’t need to worry about me, Mister Flagg. I been handlin’ guns since I was a kid.”

  His finger accidentally touched the trigger. Flame belched and buckshot thudded into the ground. The loosely held stock recoiled against the boy’s ribs. Horses squealed in panic, some starting to pitch. A rider caught off guard hit the ground so hard that Charlie heard the breath gust out of him. All over the place, men were grabbing at horses. Charlie’s roan jerked away, Lupe spurring after him.

  Hunched over and rubbing his bruised ribs, the boy forced a crow-eating grin. “I believe maybe I’ll just leave this thing here.”

  “That,” Charlie said firmly, “would suit me to a T.”

  Lupe brought the roan back. Charlie swung into the saddle, his legs stiff from the cold. His good humor had deserted him like a fair-weather friend. It would be the eighth wonder of the world if somebody didn’t get shot today, he thought darkly.

  “We’ll take the lamb pasture first,” he said to those close enough to hear him. “Ain’t much brush or rough country in it. It’ll give us a chance to shake down.”

  The vehicles would be the biggest problem. Lots of places in Charlie’s pastures they wouldn’t be able to move in a straight line, or couldn’t move at all. In areas of heavy brush and rock outcrops or washouts they would have to break formation and go around the best way they could find. It would be up to the horseback riders to fill in the gaps. It was the horsemen—and the airplane pilot—who would make or break a coyote drive in rough country.

  Yancy Pike had little to do with his brother Rounder except when he could use him. Now he walked up to Rounder and said, “You takin’ your pickup?” Rounder nodded. Yancy said, “If you don’t mind, then, I reckon I’ll just ride with you. I’m afraid mine won’t make it.”

  Yancy’s was the same model as Rounder’s. But why subject two pickups to the wear and tear if Rounder was going anyway?

  In the pasture Charlie started down the netwire fence, dropping off jeeps and pickups at regular intervals, spacing riders between them like teeth in a comb. On signal, the group began to move forward. Going was slow for the vehicles because they could not afford to outpace the horses. Before long the situation would probably be reversed. The group had not gone a quarter mile before one of the lower-built pickups snagged whum-m-m-p! on a high center. It took three horses and some crackling language to pull it free.

  Charlie muttered to Lupe, “Those chuckle-heads in Detroit must think we got nothin’ but paved roads out here.”

  By the time the group reached the back fence it had scared out nothing but sheep and jackrabbits. However, it h
ad a chance to warm up and begin to feel a growing excitement. A couple of drivers decided their vehicles weren’t made for this terrain. They parked them on a two-rut fence road and doubled up with other drivers still determined to go ahead.

  In the second pasture Charlie separated a couple of boys who became so wrapped up in talk that they kept straying out ahead of the bunch. This pasture was cleared with little difficulty and without finding the coyotes.

  Overhead, the flyer slowly made passes back and forth in front of the line, watching for the flash of brown that would mean a coyote had broken out of hiding.

  The third pasture would be the last until after noon. Worry nagged at Charlie. He wondered if they would actually ever jump the coyotes. While none of the men talked of leaving—they wouldn’t go until they ate the barbecue—he knew some were growing restless. All this riding without any action ...

  Halfway across the pasture Charlie heard a shout from down the line. Horns honked. A cloud of dust began to rise, horsemen and pickups rushing in. Edging toward them, Charlie could hear shouting and the brittle protest of mesquite brush as heavy vehicles plowed recklessly through it.

  Lupe came loping up, excited. “Coyote, Mister Charlie?”

  “I reckon. Everybody’s roused up.”

  The parade was sweeping toward Charlie, dust boiling in thick clouds. Shotguns boomed. He saw the little animal then, darting back and forth in front of the pursuers, dust puffing around him as the shots missed.

  Charlie pulled up in exasperation. “That’s no coyote, it’s just a damn fox. And somebody’s fixin’ to get his neck broke.”

  He heard brakes squeal as a pickup and a jeep almost sideswiped each other. Gunfire crackled. The riders bore down on Charlie, yelping happily after their elusive quarry. Charlie sat his ground. At least now maybe they would stay with him after dinner.

  The flyer came over low, the plane’s wheels almost touching the tops of the frost-denuded mesquite trees. He pulled up quickly when he saw what they were chasing.

  Charlie sent Lupe forward with orders to let the fox go.

  When the hunters returned to headquarters at noon they found that women had brought cakes, pies, and fruit salad. Charlie swore a little at sight of two washtubs filled with iced-down beer. He started to call Mary and demand to know who in the hell had ordered that. Then he saw Suds O’Barr, and he knew. No telling what a few cans of beer might do to somebody’s nervous trigger finger. But this was supposed to be a party, after a fashion. He didn’t want to throw a wet blanket over it.

  He had invited a minister out to say grace before the meal. Charlie seldom went in to hear his sermon; always too busy, seemed like. But Mary usually went, hoping to pick up enough religion that some would rub off on her reluctant spouse. Failing that, maybe she would develop enough influence Up Yonder to get him into Heaven anyway. Charlie saw the minister staring disapprovingly at him over the tubs of beer. Charlie shrugged in innocence and retreated.

  He noted that the minister in his blessing said nothing about the reason for this gathering today, to kill coyotes. He suspected the minister’s sympathies were more with the coyotes than with the men; they weren’t raiding his flock. But no matter, Charlie fed him anyway.

  The meal done, the live-oak motte looked as if a tornado had swept it. The men sat around rubbing their bellies, smoking, drinking up the last of the beer. They talked about dry weather, horses, sheep, cattle, and women, more or less in that order, though Charlie observed that Tom and the younger set tended to put women first, even ahead of horses.

  Weather warmed considerably after dinner. The afternoon sun caused most horsemen to peel their coats and tie them behind their cantles. The pickup riders rolled their windows down. They found nothing in the first pasture. They worked the second, and still no luck.

  Late in the afternoon Charlie worriedly let down a wire gate and motioned the hunters into the final pasture. By now he had lost a large percentage of the crowd. As the remaining men gathered around him he said, “We’ve cleaned this place like a fine-tooth comb. If they’re not in this pasture they’ve drifted plumb out of the country.”

  The flying hunter had had to go to town to land for a tank of gasoline. Now he had returned to finish the drive. Leisurely he worked back and forth, the rough roar of the motor causing Charlie’s roan to shy every time the plane passed over. Charlie glanced up and thought how low that contraption would have to dip for the flyer to shoot a coyote on the ground, low enough to get mesquite thorns in the gas tank. Charlie wouldn’t ride with him in that kite for all the wool in Boston.

  The line ragged out. Charlie felt the same disappointment that slumped the shoulders of the other riders. The pair of coyotes must have drifted away. Looking for fresher game, perhaps. But that probably wouldn’t be the end of it. Chances were they would come back. When a coyote developed a liking for your place, he was loyal to it. You never counted yourself rid of him until you saw him dead.

  The racket started abruptly. To Charlie’s right a horn honked. Someone shouted. A shotgun blasted and the race was on. He could see horses running, pickups and jeeps pulling in. He caught a blurred glimpse of tannish color.

  Coyote!

  It had jumped up ahead of the hunters and had tried to hit the fence. The wing men headed it off and turned it back toward the center. Now it was running like a deer, dodging in and out of the brush. The warwhoops came to Charlie as the riders pressed in. There was a gunshot, another and another.

  Motors roared. From all over the pasture, drivers floor-boarded their pickups and jeeps to be in on the kill. Autumn-hardened mesquite splintered under the impact of speeding vehicles, branches flying like chaff from wheat. Charlie heard a windshield smashed by a heavy limb, but the pickup never slowed. He heard a loud bump and saw a pickup leap into the air; then plump down hard. It was Rounder Pike’s. His brother Yancy gripped the door and seat and looked pale enough to die. Rounder was grinning like a monkey eating bananas, never missing a stroke on his cud of chewing tobacco.

  The horsemen had the coyote hemmed in—or thought they had. Some were swinging ropes, trying to get a throw. But they were casting their loops too quickly and spoiling their chances. The coyote doubled back between a horse’s legs, and the horse set in to pitching. The rider dropped a shotgun. The horse stepped on it, snapping the stock.

  The flyer circled once for a look. He couldn’t get a shot because of the riders.

  Tom Flagg and his rodeo friends Shorty and Chuck went spurring by Charlie as if he were standing still. Tom and Shorty were shaking down their ropes, building loops. Chuck carried a shotgun. Tom let out a jubilant yell and cast a quick throw as the coyote barreled past him. The loop missed and caught instead around a mesquite stump. Riding full tilt, Tom hit the end of the rope before he could pull up. The impact set the mount back on its haunches. The rope snapped. Tom slid over the gray’s shoulders and rolled in the dry grass. He jumped up, grabbed his hat, then caught the reins before the horse could break away. Tom was back in the saddle before the dust cleared.

  Now two pickups were in full chase. One was an old model with a running board. A cowboy stood on it, his right arm hooked over the rear-view mirror for a hold while he kept a two-handed death grip on a shotgun. He trained the barrel on the coyote just as the pickup lurched and a thorny mesquite limb raked him, taking half his shirt. The buckshot blasted through the front fender and blew the tire.

  The other pickup was almost upon the coyote, the driver trying to run the animal down. The coyote swerved abruptly and changed direction. The driver wheeled about in a vain effort to keep up. His front wheels dropped into a hole and stopped him dead in the path of the other pickup, which was still rolling. Brakes squealed. Men shouted. The pickups bumped with a crunch of metal and glass. The cowboy on the running board slid belly down in the dirt, the rest of his shirt strung out behind him.

  Charlie reined up and let the chase go. In disgust he slapped his felt hat against his leather chaps. He shouted; “Hel
l’s bells and damnation!”

  Tom Flagg made a quick splice. He and Shorty were still in the chase, swinging their ropes. Shorty missed. Tom’s loop went around the coyote, but the animal was through it and gone before Tom could jerk up the slack.

  Shotgun in hand, Chuck Dunn shouted excitedly, “He’s comin’ at me. I got him, boys!”

  He raised the gun and squeezed the trigger just as his horse made a jump. The muzzle flew up. Out of killing range but close enough for a burn, Shorty Magee’s mount caught the force of the pellets across the rump. The horse bawled and went straight up. Shorty squalled once, grabbed at the saddlehorn and missed it. The horse came down without him.

  Page Mauldin, old as he was, had caught the fever. He spurred after the coyote, rope in his hands.

  Charlie shouted after him, “Page, you watch yourself!” He had as well have been talking to his own roan horse. Page had reverted, for the moment at least, to his wild old cowboy days. Charlie could hear him yelling in delight, closing in on the coyote. Manuel Flores spurred after him, close behind.

  Charlie didn’t see what Page ran over, but he saw the horse spill, saw Page’s hat go sailing as if the old ranchman had thrown it. In a swirl of dust he saw the horse staggering to its feet, Page hung to the stirrup. Frightened, the horse began to run.

  Charlie swallowed, his heart almost stopping. “Oh my God!”

  But Manuel Flores was there in seconds, grabbing the loose reins, wrapping them quickly around his saddlehorn, bringing Page’s horse to a stop. Before Charlie could get there, Page had kicked his foot free of the stirrup. He lay on his right hip, propped upon his elbow. Page shook his head, looking around wildly for a moment, afraid of being kicked by the horse. But Manuel had led the animal off twelve or fifteen feet, out of the danger range.