by Elmer Kelton
Reckon I ought to get acquainted, since they’re going to neighbor us from now on, he thought, braking his rattling pickup to a stop. He let the dust pass, then got out and walked to the fence. The man in the other pickup looked at him a moment as if he hoped Charlie would go away, and Charlie almost did. Finally the man slid out onto the ground and ambled over to the fence with neither hostility nor any particular friendliness. “Hello. Something I can do for you, mister?”
Charlie was taken a little by surprise. That sort of coolness was unusual in this openhanded country. He extended his rough hand through the wire fence. “Name’s Charlie Flagg. Live down yonder a piece. Thought I’d stop by and make your acquaintance.”
“Oh yes, Mister Flagg. I’ve heard the name.” The man took Charlie’s hand. He was clad in dusty khakis, a pair of heavy, high-topped walking boots and a flat-brimmed hat crusted with sweat and dirt. “I’m Joe Fentress. I manage this property for the Prairie Farm Development Company.” The man talked too fast to be a native here, but Charlie could not hazard a guess about his origins. To Charlie, anybody from outside of Texas was a foreigner more or less. Maybe an Okie wasn’t, but just about anybody else ...
Charlie said, “We used to be good friends with Emil Deutscher. Used to visit him at his house a right smart, me and my wife.”
The man looked puzzled a moment. “Deutscher?” Realization slowly came. “Oh yes, the man who formerly owned this property. It’s hard for me to remember so many, and what parcel belonged to which.”
Charlie said, “I’ll drop by the house sometime and get better acquainted.”
“I live in town, Mister Flagg.”
Charlie nodded glumly, taking that as a quiet way of saying Thanks, but no thanks. He began to wish he hadn’t stopped, but it might seem unfriendly to break off and leave so quickly. “As many farms as you’ve bought here on the Flat, I reckon this’ll be a right smart of an operation.”
Fentress shook his head. “We won’t intensify all of it. We bought up some poor land because it had cotton allotments on it. We’ll use those allotments on the best land, like this tract. The rest we’ll put in the soil bank. We can draw government money on that and help pay for the over-all purchase.”
“But you’ll have to use it to rotate the cotton around, won’t you?”
“Rotate? What for? We’ll use fertilizer to keep it producing. We can squeeze cotton out of this better land for a good many years.”
“But eventually the land’ll wear out.”
The man shrugged. “By then we’ll have amortized our investment. How do we know how long the irrigation water will hold up? We’ll take our profit while we can get it. Farming is a business, you know. Just a business, and nothing else.”
Charlie felt that nausea coming back, and he knew it wasn’t just the coffee. He remembered the times he had watched Emil Deutscher kneel here and run his hands through the soil and take up a little and squeeze it. Emil had loved this land the way he loved his God. In a sense, he had seen God and the land as one and the same.
The noise of the landplane stopped. Fentress looked over his shoulder, then backed away from the fence. “My operator seems to be having some trouble. You’ll have to excuse me, Mister Flagg.”
Charlie nodded somberly. “Sure. You just go on about your ... your business.”
He turned and walked back to the pickup with his head down, trying not to think of Emil Deutscher.
Driving into the yard, he saw a dirty gray car parked in front of the stone house. It was several years old, and the license number had a local prefix, but he didn’t recognize it. He figured someone was in the house with Mary. Then he saw a man raise up in the front seat, a beer can in his hand, and he knew. Sam “Suds” O’Barr had come to see him.
Charlie cursed under his breath. He still felt a lingering bitterness over his stop at the Deutscher place, and he sure as hell didn’t need Sam O’Barr. But there he was, and it was hard to ignore a man like Sam. Charlie slammed his pickup door twice before it caught, and he walked up to O’Barr’s car. O’Barr opened the front door and slid both feet out onto the ground, but he didn’t get up. He sat hunched, cradling the cold can in both hands.
“Hello, Charlie. Want a beer? I got plenty.”
Charlie would have taken a bet on that, sight unseen. “Never cared much for beer, Sam.”
“I got a bottle of somethin’ stronger in the glove compartment.”
“Not right now, Sam. I still got things to do.”
O’Barr looked around a minute, then tipped the can up for a couple of long swallows. “I come over to see you, Charlie.”
“Glad you did, Sam,” Charlie lied.
“I want to talk to you about that ol’ country of mine.”
“You’d just as well talk to a blind shoeshine boy. They’ve cut me off at the pockets.”
“I heard. But I also heard they’d of stayed with you if you’d been willin’ to see a thing or two their way. I was wonderin’ if by now you’ve decided to go along with them. A man can’t beat city hall.”
“I don’t reckon they’ve changed their minds. I ain’t changed mine.”
“But it’s all so unnecessary, Charlie. I mean, takin’ a little government money, that ain’t no big thing. It ain’t like you was a woman sellin’ herself on the streets.”
Charlie’s stomach began to stir; the last thing he wanted right now was to argue with a drunk. Sam O’Barr was hard enough to reach when he was more or less sober; he was half a day past that point now. “I had all this out with Big awhile back. It’s over and done. There’s no use us talkin’ about it, Sam.”
“But I figure you owe me, Charlie.”
Charlie’s jaw began to tighten. “I owe several people, but I don’t owe you nothin’.”
“Years and years I let you have the use of that ol’ country of mine. I could’ve leased it to other people many a time, but I always felt a loyalty to my old friend Charlie Flagg. Have you looked at that place lately, Charlie? Have you seen the shape your boy went and left it in?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“It’s a desert, that’s all. I can’t lease it to anybody. I’m starvin’ to death, Charlie, because I can’t lease out that land. Now I figure you owe it to me to lease it again yourself.”
“What with, Sam? I’m on my back.”
“Big’ll lend you if you’ll do right. That’s all they’ve asked of you, Charlie, is that you do right.”
Charlie felt the heat rising. His hands trembled from it, and he knew his face was going red. “Sam, you better get on back to town.”
“It was your boy’s fault. He made a desert out of that place.”
Charlie poked his big forefinger at Sam O’Barr’s chest. “Remember what I told you when that lease come up for renewal the last time? I told you the price was too high. I told you that if things went to the bad, a man’d ruin the place tryin’ to make it pay your price. I told you it’d go to desert, and you said it didn’t matter. You said you’d be dead before it come to that. Well, Sam, I’m afraid you lived too long!”
Tears were running down Sam O’Barr’s flushed cheeks. “Charlie, I feel like I got somethin’ comin’ to me.”
“So you have, Sam, but I’m a way too tired to give it to you. Get out of here before I change my mind.”
Sam was still arguing when Charlie turned his back and limped up the front steps and into the house, closing the door firmly behind him. Standing in the middle of the living room, he could see through the big windows when O’Barr finally gave up and drove away.
Mary said, “He’s been sitting out there waiting for you a couple of hours. I went out to invite him in and saw that he’d been drinking. I am not going to invite a drunken man into this house.” Her voice was defensive, as if she were heading off rebuke.
“Damn good thing you didn’t. I might’ve booted his butt down the steps.”
The anger still boiled in him; his breath was a little short. He walked into the kitchen and
fetched a bourbon bottle out of a cabinet. Pouring a stiff drink into a glass, he drank it without ice.
Mary stood in the doorway, watching with surprise and unspoken disapproval.
He said, “For my stomach. That Sam, he got my stomach goin’.” Charlie walked into the living room and sat down, but his rump prickled with impatience, and his breath didn’t come any easier. The whiskey seemed to ride along on the crest of a big wave. The house seemed overheated, all of a sudden.
“I got to go back out and get some air,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I’m goin’ to take a look at the goats.”
“You’ve already chopped for them today.”
“Well,” he exploded, “I’ll go back out and do it again. Have I got to explain every move I make around here?”
He slammed the door behind him and hobbled down the steps. He had to turn the ignition key the second time before the tired motor decided to run. He drove out of the yard and across a cattleguard into the nearest pasture, the pickup bumping and clattering along the rough two-cut road. He muttered under his breath. There was lots of things this worn-out heap needed, but what it needed most of all was a good trading.
A loud and persistent rattle began somewhere behind the dash pane, near the glove compartment. Charlie stood it as long as he could, which in his present mood was a couple of minutes. He lifted his foot from the gas pedal and kicked the metal underside of the dash. “Cut it out, goddam you!”
The rattle stopped.
He felt foolish afterward. It was futile to loose his rage against an inanimate object like the pickup; he knew that, and he wondered why he had done it. He remembered how angry he had been at Sam O’Barr, but running the incident back through in his mind he could not see that he had had any reason to let things get away with him the way they had. Another time he might even have pitied Sam; however much the man might have been to blame for his own downfall in the years past, he was far beyond any question of personal responsibility now. He was as predictable as a child, and as helpless. Looking back, Charlie saw how near he had been to hitting him. It would have been a shameful thing, like striking a schoolboy.
And Mary. I like to’ve bitten her head off for nothing. What’s got into me?
The pain started. It was dull at first, somewhere deep in his chest. In the beginning it did not bother him half so much as the shortness of his breath; his lungs felt compressed, suffering for air. Gradually the pain came sharper, and he felt another, a smaller one, in his left arm. He came to a bend in the road, and suddenly he lacked the strength in his arms to turn the wheel. The pickup jarred him severely as it jumped out of the ruts. He slammed against the wheel, losing much of the breath he did have. His head struck the top of the pickup, but his felt hat absorbed most of the blow. He managed somehow to throw the pickup out of gear and get his foot on the brake pedal. He brought the vehicle to a shuddering halt.
He leaned back, struggling for breath. The pain was sharper. Instinctively he wanted out, out into the fresh air. He leaned against the door handle, pushing it down. The door swung open, and Charlie fell out on his left shoulder. His head struck the ground, and he tasted dirt.
He lay there a little, his feet and legs still half in the pickup. He was afraid to move. Breath came slow and painfully.
He was soon aware of movement around him, and he raised his head. Standing almost within arm’s reach were half a dozen long-haired Angora goats, eying him curiously.
Charlie finished falling out of the pickup. A goat snorted, and all of them ran off with a clatter of small hoofs, then turned again to watch from a safer distance of thirty or forty feet.
Charlie realized now what was happening to him. He realized Mary wouldn’t start looking for him until dark, and then she probably couldn’t find him. He had to get up and get out of here, because if his heart didn’t kill him the chill of the night probably would.
The pressure seemed to ease a bit, once he had lain stretched out full length for a while. He pushed up onto his hands and knees. He tried to get to his feet but stumbled and went down again. Gasping, he crawled to the still-idling pickup. He pulled himself up a little at a time until he was on his legs, the upper half of his body lying on the pickup seat. He stayed that way a little, gathering strength, then got hold of the steering column and pulled himself up, gathering his legs under the wheel.
Through the pain he tried to put his mind into gear. He had driven nearly to the end of the big pasture; it was almost three miles back to the house. In his condition, three miles might be as much as three hundred.
In the back of his head, fighting its way through the pain, was the idea that Kathy Mauldin or Diego might be somewhere just beyond Warrior Hill, across the fence, feeding or burning pear.
He got the pickup into gear and let it lurch into motion. One of the goats was in the way. The vehicle bumped heavily as the wheels passed over the animal’s body. Charlie had no real control on the pickup, plunging through the brush, smashing winter-brittle mesquite. Once he hit a dry wash and almost turned over.
If it goes, I’m finished, he thought helplessly.
But the pickup righted itself and rolled on. He could do little more than loose-herd it along. He blinked, trying to focus his gaze. He could see the fence ahead. He thought he could see a vehicle, but he wasn’t sure. He laid his hand on the horn and held it there. He lifted his foot from the pedal and let the pickup coast in. He saw he was going to hit the fence, but he was powerless to stop. The fence stretched, and posts snapped. Then the pickup halted, jumping as the motor abruptly died in gear.
Over the blare of the horn he heard a shouting voice. A hand touched his arm. He turned his head and looked into the wide-eyed face of Diego Escamillo.
The next days were no more than a painful haze to him. He was conscious, now and again, of someone jabbing him with a needle. He was dimly conscious of Mary beside him for long periods, but all his efforts to communicate with her evaporated in the heavy mist that kept settling over him. Ideas formed, but he could not put them into words. Words formed, but they never left him. The notion of death came to him sometimes, but he was too befogged to analyze it or to fear. The one strong feeling that returned to him again and again was that his ranch was slipping away from him, the little he still had left. That stirred fear where the sense of death never did.
Then one day he opened his eyes and saw plainly. He made an effort to speak and found to his amazement that the words came out. The sound of his own voice startled him. He thought a while about his right hand, then got up nerve to try it, to see if he could raise it. He could. He tried his left hand and found he could control it too.
Doc Fancher held a small bottle up to the light of the hospital window and drew something into a syringe. He withdrew the needle and turned toward Charlie, who lay watching him.
“Don’t fuss at me,” Fancher said. “It’s not my fault you’re in here. Now this is going”—he jabbed the needle into Charlie’s arm—“to hurt a little. Some people would’ve died. You’re too contrary.”
“You’ll think contrary,” Charlie said, his voice weak. “How long you keepin’ me?”
“Till I decide to let you go.”
“I got work to do at the ranch.”
“That ranch is the reason you’re in here.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
“You’ve still got your life. Be thankful for small blessings.” The doctor put away the syringe. “It wasn’t much of a heart attack..It was so puny you ought to be ashamed of it.”
“Next time I’ll try to do better.”
“This one was just a warning that you need to slack off. The next one might take you like Grant took Richmond.”
“You’ve kept me so full of dope that I don’t rightly know how long you’ve had me kidnapped in here.”
“Four days, so far.”
“Four days?” Charlie started to sit up, and the doctor firmly pushed him back down. “Doc, I bet I’ve got a bunch of goats starved plumb to
death.”
“Don’t you worry about those goats. They’re in better condition than you are. Now you lie still or I’ll give you something that’ll knock you out for four more days. I’m half-tempted to do it anyway. Things are dismal enough around this place without having to listen to you bitch.”
“But my goats ...”
“God knows why, but you have friends. They’ve taken care of your stock. Why any man can get himself worked up over a bunch of goats is something I’ll never understand.”
“You would if they was yours, and they was all you had left.”
Fancher frowned. “I ran off one time to be a cowboy. My father caught me ten miles down the road, gave me the worst whipping I ever had and took me home. Luckiest day of my life.”
“Maybe not so lucky. You might of made somethin’ worthwhile out of yourself instead of jabbin’ needles into people that can’t defend theirselves.”
Fancher glowered at him. “I doubt it’ll help your disposition any, but I’ll let you have a little company. Ten minutes, is all. Ten minutes and they leave here. If I hear you raise your voice, I’ll run them out in five.”
Fancher pushed the door open and nodded at someone outside. Mary walked in. She stood halfway across the room a moment, looking at Charlie, trying to hold back her tears and then giving up the effort. She took Charlie’s hand and brought it to her breast and knelt to kiss him on the forehead.
Charlie’s throat went tight, and his eyes started burning. “Careful,” he said. “That old witch doctor’ll chase you out of here for raisin’ my temperature.”
Mary blinked rapidly and managed a poor smile. “A kiss on the forehead hasn’t raised your temperature in twenty years.”
The doctor snorted. “And unlikely ever to do it again. You’re used up, Flagg.”
Charlie looked at Mary. “We could tell him a thing or two about that.”
