by Elmer Kelton
Charlie swung heavily to the ground and found Diego Escamillo had beaten him there. Diego bent down over his employer, his black eyes wide with concern. “I’m all right,” Page said. He was feeling foolish and showed it. “Dammit, Charlie, did I do that?”
“You sure as hell did. I thought for a minute you was one of them kids.”
“I reckon I got carried away. But I like to’ve caught him.”
“And like to’ve killed yourself. If it hadn’t of been for Manuel, you’d of had your tail in a crack.”
Page turned his eyes to Diego. “Get me up from here. Let’s see if there’s anything broke.”
Diego carefully helped him to his feet. Page took two or three short, cautious steps. He was shaken but otherwise all right.
Charlie said, “Hell of a note, the richest man in Rio Seco brought down by a coyote.”
Page Mauldin jerked his chin at Manuel, and Manuel brought him his horse. Diego tried to help Page back into the saddle, but Page impatiently waved him away. He mounted stiffly and slow, reaching down to pat the nervous animal on the shoulder. “Be gentle now,” he said quietly to the horse. “Wasn’t your fault, it was mine.” Page turned then to young Manuel.
“Boy, I owe you.”
Manuel shrugged, self-conscious at the attention. “It was easy.”
“Not from where I was. I’ll pay you, boy.”
“You don’t owe me nothin’, Mister Mauldin.”
“You got a horse of your own, muchacho?”
Manuel glanced at Charlie. He had the exclusive use of a couple, but they really belonged to Charlie; everything on the ranch did. “No, sir.”
“You’ll have one. I’ll give you a colt to raise and break for yourself.”
Manuel glanced again at Charlie, his eyes asking if it was all right. Charlie said, “Page, I’ll hold you to that. He could use a good horse.”
In the dust and confusion the coyote would have been lost had it not been for the flyer. He got the animal lined out, swooped down like an eagle after a baby lamb and sent it rolling with a single shot.
Charlie rode up to the red-faced Chuck Dunn and pointed with his chin. “You better take that gun and go finish the coyote off.” But Chuck had lost interest in shooting. Charlie went ahead and gave the animal a coup de grâce with his own .12-gauge.
Charlie sat at the supper table with Mary, munching leftover kid from the noon barbecue, eagerly looking at the variety of pies and cakes brought by the women who had spent the day here. He knew he had better eat his fill tonight, for Mary would give them all to the Flores family to prevent his having the pleasure of them. Tomorrow there would be nothing for him but turnip greens.
He had used some salty language in the heat of frustration this afternoon, but now he chuckled as the memories came back to him in the comfort and quiet of the kitchen. Mary demanded, “You going to tell me, Charlie Flagg, or are you going to sit there and laugh to yourself all night?”
Charlie shook his head. He doubted it would be funny to her, but he told the whole story the best he could. Only a time or two did he catch the flicker of humor in her eyes. He said, “It was worse than the wreck of the old 97. Most of them took it in good humor, though, except Shorty Magee. He was lookin’ for somebody to fight. Tom had to leave the bunch and take him to town.”
“You never did see anything of the second coyote?”
“Not a hair. The one we got was the bitch. I reckon that old dog-wolf has strayed out of the country.”
“Without his mate? That doesn’t sound natural to me. Anytime you find a female, there’s usually a male nearby.”
Charlie took that to cover more than just the coyotes; he took it for pride in her sex. He shrugged. “Comes a time a man just has to get away to himself.”
Mary was not impressed. “I’ll bet you just missed him.”
“Not hardly. The way we screened them pastures, not even a jackrabbit could’ve got by without us seein’ him.”
She said indulgently, “Maybe you’re overrating yourselves.”
“No-siree. I tell you, we didn’t miss a thing.”
The telephone rang. Charlie set down his coffee cup and walked stiffly over to answer it. It was still the same old crank-up wall set August Schmidt had turned over to him years ago. “Hello!” He always shouted as if he were afraid the phone wouldn’t work and he wanted them to hear him anyway. “Who is this? ... Oh, hello, Tom ... What’s that? Doctor’s just got through workin’ on Shorty? I didn’t know Shorty caught any of that buckshot ... Oh, I see.”
He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and explained to Mary, “Wasn’t buckshot, it was prickly pear thorns. When Shorty fell off, he landed square in the pear.”
He turned back to the telephone. “What’s that you say? You just saw Rounder Pike?” Charlie’s eyes widened a bit. “No! That old liar is just hoorawin’ you ... What? He really did? ... They really did?”
His face gradually fell. He pursed his lips, then drew them back against his teeth, sneaking a quick look at Mary and turning sheepishly away. Charlie finally shrugged. “Okay, son, that’s the way it goes sometimes. You can’t win them all.”
He put the receiver on the wishbone hook and gave the handle a quick turn to signal Central he was through.
Mary waited for him to volunteer the information, but he didn’t. She said, “You’d just as well tell me. I’ll find out anyway.”
Reluctantly Charlie told her, “Couple of wetback Mexicans walked up to Rounder’s ranchhouse a little while ago, hungry and awful scared. Seems they was crossin’ our west pasture afoot this afternoon. All of a sudden those pickups and jeeps were comin’ right at them, and men on horseback and that airplane overhead. They thought every border patrolman in Texas was after them. They took to the brush and hid. Our drive went right over them. They could’ve raised up their heads and spit on a man. The drive went right on by, but them wetbacks just laid there scared to death.
“And then that old dog-wolf got up out of the same brush and came a-limpin’ by them sassy as you please!”
Chapter Six
PAGE MAULDIN DIDN’T FORGET HIS PROMISE TO MANuel about giving him a colt. He phoned Charlie one day at noon and told him to bring the boy over after school. Page had a penful of colts up for working; Manuel could take his pick.
Charlie was waiting when Manuel and the other Flores youngsters got home. “We’ll go hook the trailer to my green pickup,” he told him. Manuel ran to the barn so fast that by the time Charlie got there in his limping gait, the trailer was already hitched up and the pickup motor was running, ready to go. Charlie pointed out that the Flores family cow had not been milked yet.
Lupe smiled warmly at the eagerness in his son’s face. “You go on with him, Mister Charlie. I’ll milk tonight.”
Charlie had always had an eye for horses; he spotted the colts in the pen while he was still two hundred yards away. He drove by Page’s rambling old frame house, pulling up beside the corral. Manuel slid out and scrambled up on the fence to look down upon the colts.
Page Mauldin walked out of the saddle shed, followed by Diego and Kathy. Charlie frowned as he saw the girl. She was dressed like a hard-working boy in an old blue work shirt, faded jeans, and a pair of old run-over boots. Capping it all was a cowboy hat that looked as if horses had run over it. Knowing Kathy, Charlie would bet they probably had.
If Mary saw her, she would go out through the roof, Charlie thought.
Page Mauldin shook hands with Charlie and then walked up beneath Manuel, who was most of the way up the fence, bracing his legs against the planks, splintered where horses had chewed on them. “Muchacho, you a pretty good judge of horseflesh?”
Manuel shrugged. “I don’t know ... not real good, I guess.”
“You can have your pick out of that pen. Whichever one suits you the best.”
Charlie had no intention of climbing that fence when he didn’t have to. His bad leg didn’t need that. He leaned against the boards and peered bet
ween them, studying the colts with a practiced eye. In a minute he thought he had located the best pony in the pen, a bay.
Manuel asked, “What do you think, Mister Charlie?”
Charlie wanted to help him, but on the other hand he didn’t want to put his oar in. The boy needed to learn to take his own responsibility. Charlie sidestepped. “There’s a bunch of good ones, muchacho.”
“That’s the trouble; there’s too many good ones.”
Charlie glanced at Page to see if the old rancher was going to make some suggestion. But Mauldin just stood there, smiling.
Kathy climbed up on the fence beside Manuel. “How about lettin’ me pick him for you?”
Manuel studied her dubiously. “I don’t know ...”
“I’ve been watchin’ these colts ever since they were foaled. I bet you I can place them in one-two-three order, just like a horse show.”
Page said, “Now, girl, you let him alone. You let him pick for himself.”
Charlie gave Page a moment’s study, wondering if the ranchman hoped Manuel wouldn’t pick the best colt in the pen. Rich men were like that most of the time—tight.
Manuel looked at the horses, then at Kathy, then back at the horses. He said cautiously, “Which one do you think is the best?”
Kathy didn’t hesitate. “That bay yonder.”
Manuel observed the colt closely. Charlie suspected the boy hadn’t really looked at him before; he had been confused by having to choose from so many. Manuel said, “Funny, that’s the same one I’d about decided to pick.”
Kathy said, “Then you picked real good.”
Diego Escamillo glanced at Page, and the rancher nodded. Diego climbed over the fence, rope in his hand, and dropped down inside the corral. He shook out a horse loop, moved carefully toward the colts, swung the rope in a quick figure eight and caught the bay around the neck. Kathy and Manuel jumped down inside the corral and trotted up to Diego. The colt reared back a little against the rope and rolled its nose in alarm. But in a minute the boy and girl both had their arms around its neck and were talking to it as if it were a pet dog.
Diego stood holding the rope and smiling at the two youngsters. He had no family of his own, except his mother who kept house for Page. Long years ago Diego had married a frail little Spanish girl from Del Rio. When time came for the first baby to arrive, he had set out with her for town and had hopelessly stuck his car in a deep hole of mud miles from the ranchhouse, miles from town. The baby had been born right there in the car, a little girl who took a few halting breaths and died. The mother survived it only a couple of days. Diego had never had the heart to marry again. He had helped raise Kathy, watching over her like a mother hen in the absence of a father who was always on the go.
Page ruefully shook his head. “I didn’t count on him pickin’ the best colt I’ve raised on this ranch in the last two years.”
Charlie grinned. “Then you oughtn’t to’ve had that colt in the pen. You know these Mexican boys ... they got an eye for good horses.”
“Wasn’t the boy, it was the girl. My own daughter, she done me in.”
“If you’d trained her in the kitchen where she belongs, she wouldn’t of done it.”
Winter’s first norther swept raw and mean out of a clear sky that almost purpled, then turned a dirty brown as the wind howled in. Dust—choking, eye-burning dust—melded sky and horizon line so that Charlie could not tell where one ended and one began. Christmas came and went, but few clouds ever did. The winter rodeo season moved into full swing and Tom Flagg was gone too. He never asked any more; he just went.
As each dry norther came, Charlie marked the date of it on the big feed-store calendar in the kitchen, the one with the picture of the fine whitefaced cows in tall green grass, obviously made a long way from Texas. The only moisture he recorded was a couple of light showers that gave him the taste but none of the substance, and one sleet storm he didn’t want at all.
This morning he left the warmth of the big kitchen to step out onto the porch. He turned up the collar of his coat against the frigid blast of a new dry norther and shoved his cold-chapped hands into the flannel-lined pockets. He limped in the direction of the barn, blinking at the bite of the dust. Chunky Lupe Flores had been watching for him; he angled across to join Charlie, shivering a little and glancing toward the dust pall that lay crescent-shaped in the north.
“Muy frío,” Lupe said. (“Mighty cold.”)
Charlie nodded. “Seems like once these northers set a dry pattern, they just won’t change.”
Lupe made an effort at a joke. “The time old Noah built his Ark, we don’t get but a quarter-inch here at Rio Seco.”
Charlie had laughed at that joke when he was ten years old. He only grunted now. “If this was meant to be a desert, the Lord would’ve stocked it with camels.”
Lupe stood to one side and made hand signals while Charlie backed the green pickup toward the open barn door. Charlie had done this so much lately he felt he could back into place without even looking behind him. The two men walked into the barn where tall stacks of sacked feed lined each wall. Charlie grabbed the string-tied ears of a sack; Lupe grasped the bottom corners. Together they swung the sack and let it slide across the bed of the pickup, slamming against the steel headache rack that protected the cab. They worked in rhythm, but after a few sacks both men grunted heavily from the exertion. When Charlie had counted ten he waved quit and leaned against a stack to catch his breath. He rubbed his shoulder. Damn rheumatism was bothering him a little there, and in his weak leg as well. The norther, he thought; he was getting to be a better weather prophet than the Weather Bureau. Loading these hundred-pound sacks didn’t help, either.
“Wish Tom was here. I’d let him handle this little chore.”
“Me and you, Mister Charlie, we’re gettin’ too old.”
“Speak for yourself; don’t go tryin’ to make an old man out of me. I can work as hard as I ever did; I just don’t like it as much as I used to. That’s what I got a husky son for, if he wasn’t always off rodeoin’.”
“And winnin’,” Lupe pointed out with a smile. He was as proud of Tom’s rodeo success as Charlie was, for Lupe had helped teach him.
Charlie admitted, “Maybe he’s the smart one. Anything beats haulin’ feed to a bunch of bawlin’ cows and bleatin’ old nellies. Just wisht he was home a little more, is all.”
The load of feed weighed down heavily on the pickup’s springs as they drove into the pasture. Charlie had started feeding earlier than usual this winter. He had been disappointed in his calves’ weaning weights last fall, and the prices hadn’t been as good as they needed to be for the cost he had put into the cattle. Seemed that in a good year the calves always came up too heavy to suit the buyers and were penalized for being overweight. In a dry year the buyers perversely sought after heavy calves and docked the light ones. It was a hard game to win. At any rate Charlie had put his cattle on feed ahead of schedule to be sure the cows gave milk enough not to stunt their calves from the start. Sheep being better rustlers on short range, he had not intended to feed them at all except for a short spell before lambing time, to build up the milk. But the grass was poor and dry with scant life in it, so all his ewes were on feed before Christmas.
Seeing a little band of sheep, Charlie wheeled the pickup off the two-rut road and bounced out across the pasture toward them. A few cattle came trotting in, their hoofs raising dust in bare spots where the grass was supposed to be. Charlie tried to feed each pasture at as nearly the same hour every day as he could; Nature gave animals a strong sense of time. After a while the livestock knew when to be waiting, and where.
Charlie stopped, idling the engine while Lupe climbed into the bed of the pickup and cut the string on a sack. Then, as Charlie slowly drove in a broad circle, Lupe balanced the sack over the tailgate and dribbled cubes out onto the ground.
A contrary old cow slung her head, belligerently horning all the others out of the way despite the fact that t
here was a long line of feed and plenty for all. Cows lower down on the pecking order yielded her room and went back to eating. The sheep flocked around indiscriminately, mixing with the cattle, eagerly picking up the small cubes. They would not let any go to waste; they would nose out any the cattle’s hoofs pressed into the dirt.
Lupe crawled into the pickup cab again, the cold wind drawing a chilling breath through as he held the door open. Slamming it, he twisted his shoulders to look out the rear window.
“You know somethin’, Mister Charlie? It makes me feel good to see stock eat.”
“Me too, if I’m not havin’ to pay for it. But every time we haul out a pickup load of feed, that’s forty dollars shot to hell.”
As they approached each bunch of cattle or sheep, Charlie would pause long enough to look at them all, to assess their condition. Occasionally he would lean out the window and call to Lupe: “Let’s feed this bunch a little more; appears they’re goin’ downhill a mite.” Or again: “Taper off a shade; these are doin’ fine.”
In almost every string of sheep he saw some older ewes he wished he had sold last fall when the market was still decent. It wouldn’t do to ship them now, for the midwinter market was draggy; nobody bought ewes in the wintertime except the packers. Last fall Charlie had decided to hold his older ewes and gamble that it would rain. So many people were selling their flocks short, he figured a good rain would mean a spirited demand by people trying to restock. The man who plugged along and kept his ewes stood a nice chance to turn a profit. But now he could see that a fair percentage of his older ewes weren’t going to lamb at all. There hadn’t been enough green feed last fall to bring them into heat, and all they had received from the bucks was companionship. If Charlie was not careful he might put more feed into them than their wool next spring would pay for, and not have lambs to sell either. A poker player was not half the gambler that a man in the ranch business was.
