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Thalia

Page 41

by Larry McMurtry


  “Get your rope,” he said. “Maybe we can string it between the posts.”

  “I’ve seen eight wire fences that couldn’t stop a goat,” I said. “What good do you think a lariat rope would do?”

  “Okay,” he said. “You take the north hole and I’ll take the south.”

  “Take it and do what with it?” I said. “You don’t mean patch it, do you?”

  “Goddamn, Johnny,” he said. “Ain’t you got any initiation at all! Have I got to tell you ever move to make?”

  “If you mean go-ahead, I don’t guess I got any,” I said. “You whipped that out of me long ago.”

  He went trotting over to the south hole, no faster than I could walk. I guess he thought he was running. I walked on to my hole and stood there.

  “Wave your hands and yell,” he said.

  “Gid,” I said. “Why don’t you try out for the Olympics? You were really picking them up and laying them down. I’d hate to think what would happen if something got after you someplace where there wasn’t nothing to climb.”

  But he was mad enough to bite somebody, and I was the only one handy, so I shut up. We made what noise we could, and it kept the most of them from just walking right on through. But the old Chevvy had cut a pretty wide dido, and there was about thirty yards of fence between me and him. It wasn’t exactly hole, but it wasn’t no goat fence, either. Gid was yelling like the Choctaw nation, but one old billy went right on through. I thought Gid might call up an ambulance or the volunteer firemen, though. The old billy stood in the road blatting and trying to get the rest to follow him.

  “Chunk that sonofabitch,” Gid yelled. I couldn’t find nothing to throw but a clod, and I missed with it. Gid was farther up the hill, where there was more sandrock, and he begin giving the old goat hell. Only about the fourth throw he led him too much and the sandrock went sailing right on through the rear window of the pickup and rattled around in the cab.

  “Goddamn,” he said. “Of all the places you could have stopped that pickup.”

  “Of all the places you could have thrown that rock,” I said. “If it broke that bottle of screwworm dope I had sitting in the seat, I’m quitting you for good. I don’t intend to ride along smelling that stuff for the rest of my life.”

  About then the rest of the goats decided to move. They spread out and come for the fence like a covey of quail. We did our best to turn them, but there wasn’t no way, short of actually grabbing hold. I wasn’t in the mood to wrestle no Jamison Williams goat, so I stood there and tried to get a count on the ones that went through.

  Gid gave up the hardest of any man I ever saw. He grabbed a nannie and fought her around and got her turned and then let her go and grabbed an old billy. The minute he did the nannie whipped around like a bobcat and jumped the bar ditch and run down the road a ways and jumped the off bar ditch and went on through the barbed-wire fence into the brush and was gone. Gid and the old billy went to the ground. It looked like Gid was getting the worst of it, only sometimes Gid had more stubbornness to him than a billy goat. A lot more, actually. It ain’t no exaggeration to say he was the stubbornest man I ever knew, except his dad. It ain’t no miscompliment, either. He was determined that at least one goat was going to stay in Jamison’s pasture, and by god one did. We tied him with our belts, and Gid sat on him.

  Gid sure did look worn out. He looked so old all of a sudden it worried me. His hat had got mashed in the struggle and was laying off to one side; he leaned over to reach for it and the old goat hunched and over Gid went, on his face. It wasn’t particularly funny, and I reached down to help him up, but he wouldn’t move.

  “I’ll just stay down awhile,” he said. “I ain’t no good when I’m up noways. I can’t even stay on a tied-down goat.”

  I remembered the time, up on the plains, when Gid had ridden eighteen wild horses in one day. Falling off the goat was a real comedown. He sat there on the ground, wiping his skint nose on his shirt sleeve. I handed him his hat.

  “And take this handkerchief, too,” I said. “You’ll get infected wiping that nose on your shirt.”

  “Don’t give a damn if I do,” he said.

  “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” I said. “Maybe Jamison’s got those goats trained to come to a horn.”

  “Aw, you couldn’t call them up with an elephant horn,” he said.

  I never knew there was such a thing as an elephant horn, but I didn’t say so. I squatted down on my hunkers. The old billy thought he was plumb to the high and lonesome, since he’d got rid of Gid, and he went hunching along the ground on one side.

  “If I had the money, I’d just buy them goats,” Gid said. “Then we could let them go, and anybody found one would be welcome to it.”

  “We’ll get ’em a few at a time,” I said. “Jamison oughtn’t to be in no hurry.”

  Jamison was the slowest white man either of us had ever seen, and pretty near the most worthless. He kept him a little herd of sorry Mississippi cows, that he let run loose on the road in the summertime. Ever evening his old lady and his boys would have to get out and gather them up. I’ve seen them many a time, moving the herd, Jamison poking along behind in his old blue Dodge, and Judith and the boys driving the cattle down the road afoot.

  “Oh hell,” Gid said. “He’s slow, but he ain’t dumb. He’ll figure out how much to charge us for his fence. If you had just have stayed home a few more minutes, all this never this never would have happened.”

  “No, nor if you had started a few minutes sooner. Same difference. If you could drive worth a shit it wouldn’t have happened anyway. Whoever heard of a grown man letting his car get out of control that way?”

  “I have,” he said. “It happens all the time.”

  I noticed he kept rubbing his elbow, like something was wrong with it. Finally I asked him about it.

  “Why nothing’s wrong with it,” he said, and then he looked at it and winced. He rolled up his sleeve and it looked like a rattlesnake had struck him; his elbow was the size of a grapefruit. I guess the blood vessels in it had burst; it was about the color of an old inner tube.

  “That beats all,” I said. “Wrestling with a damn goat and your arm nearly knocked off. Look how black it’s getting.”

  “It’s that damn steering wheel knob,” he said. “It’s as dangerous as a snake. I seen it whipping around at me when I first lost holt of the wheel, but I thought I got out of its way. Reckon my arm’s broke.”

  I figured so. He had done broke that arm three times. One time a whirlwind blew him off the barn roof, and one time a little mean Hereford bull knocked him down. Once I think he even broke it slamming a pickup door on himself.

  “I hear a car,” I said. “I’ll flag them down and they can run you into a hospital. You better get it X-rayed. I’ll stay here and dig that pickup out.” Actually I meant to go on up to the Henrys’ and get that tractor.

  But Gid wouldn’t even get up and walk out to the road. I never seen a man turn down as much good advice as he done.

  “Let them go,” he said. “I’ll rest a minute, and help you dig.”

  “No sir,” I said. “That arm needs tending to.”

  I went out to the road. And of all the people to be coming along just then, it had to be Molly. I knowed it was her before I even seen the car; she always went in to sell her eggs on Friday. And sure enough, it was her old Ford, the only car she’d ever had. We were humiliated for sure, one wrecked and one stuck, and I just turned my back to the road. As proud and contrary as Gid was, he wouldn’t ride in with her if his jugular vein was cut.

  THE WAY she drove, I thought she might go by without seeing us. The driver’s seat on her old car was sunk in, and she had to drive with her chin way up in order to see at all. Usually she never looked to the sides of the road. Actually, I don’t know that she did see us. She may have smelled us. Anyway, she threw the skids to the Ford, and if the hill had been about one degree slicker there would have been three cars in the ditch instead of two. I
wish she had stuck it—it would have evened things up. Her and Gid was ever bit as bad a driver as one another; the only difference was that when Molly got in a tight place she slowed down, and when Gid got in one he speeded up. Anything fancy was out of their category.

  But by pure luck she got stopped all right. Gid was still sitting there, feeling of his arm, and the old billy had hunched and floundered about thirty yards away. Molly had on her sunbonnet and her blue milking overalls, and an old pair of men’s overshoes that had belonged to me at one time, so she didn’t exactly look like Lily Langtry. But she would be a good-looking woman the day she died; she always kept enough of her looks to make me remember how much she had when she had them all. She stood there in the road, taking her own good time looking the situation over. She shoved Gid’s car with her foot, to see if it would shake, and then she studied the car tracks on the hill awhile, trying to make out what happened.

  Gid couldn’t stand the wait. “Come on over here,” he said. “We ain’t ashamed to admit we had a wreck. We’ll tell you all about it.”

  But she walked off up the hill a little ways, trying to get it settled for herself.

  “Look at her,” he said. “Hog on ice. She’s too independent for her own good. Somebody needs to take Molly down a notch or two.”

  “I could spit on two fellers who’ve been trying it for forty years,” I said.

  “Yes, and I’ve accomplished it,” he said, “and I’ll accomplish it agin.”

  “I never knowed you was such an optimist,” I said.

  In a minute she came stepping across the bar ditch. She looked perfectly peaceful: it was the way she usually looked. Lots of times I’d go by her place and find her sitting at the kitchen table, looking rich as cream. Life had took different on Molly than it had on me and Gid. She rested her hands on her hips and looked down at him a minute before she said anything. She had tipped her bonnet off, and her hair was blowing around her face. It was getting a sprinkle of gray, but it was still mostly black, and as long and pretty as it had ever been.

  “Well, you sure skinned your nose,” she said. “You look like you had an accident.”

  Gid snorted.

  “Oh no, it wasn’t no accident,” I said. “We set out on purpose to see who could make the biggest idiot of himself.”

  “It’s hard to say who won,” she said, grinning at me.

  “I don’t want a word out of you,” Gid said. “As many times as I’ve pulled you out of ditches and off culverts.”

  “I know it,” she said. “I don’t claim to be a good driver. But I’m going to town after while, and what are you going to do?”

  “Sit here till my nose scabs over,” he said. “I don’t intend to walk a dripping blood.”

  “Aw, get your hook and chain,” she said. “I can pull the pickup out.”

  He had just been waiting for her to offer so he wouldn’t need to ask.

  “If you think your old hoopey can do it, we’ll sure be glad to let you try,” he said. He reached out a hand for me to pull him up, but when I took it and pulled he bellered like a bull. He had stretched out his sore arm before he thought, and I had to ease him back. Molly squatted down and rolled his sleeve back up and had a look at the elbow. He tried to wave her away with his good hand, but she paid it no mind.

  “Quit flapping that hand in my face,” she said. “You look snake-bit.” His arm was hurting so he couldn’t talk, but he held up his good arm and I got him to his feet.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “You get the chain and she can pull you out.” He wouldn’t look at Molly; he was afraid she was going to take him up to her place and doctor him awhile. And before I had time to move he went across the road to the pickup and began fishing around for the chain himself.

  Molly grinned. “He never will learn,” she said, “and I’m glad. You better go find that chain if you can. He’s liable to drop it on his foot and be down agin.”

  “I wish he would. If he had an arm and a leg out of commission, we could slow him down enough that he wouldn’t really hurt himself.”

  I went over to the pickup to see what I could do. Gid had about half the stuff under the seat slung out on the road.

  “Get out of the way,” I said. “A one-armed man ain’t got no business trying to handle a chain.”

  The chain was tricky to get out once you found it. It was between the hydraulic jack and a big pipe wrench that had got wedged in so tight a couple of years before that we couldn’t move it. I had to be awful careful about moving that jack: with the slightest excuse it would have wedged itself, and the chain would have been gone for good. Damn the man that invented pickup seats anyway: you can’t get nothing under them without skinning your knuckles, and then you can’t get it back out if you do get it in. Gid was grumbling because I’d pushed him out of the way.

  “That’s how it is,” he said. “I pay a fortune in wages, and then I’m the one gets ordered around.”

  I had managed to ease the jack past the seat brace, and I finally captured the chain. Molly came up about that time and Gid shut up like a terrapin shell.

  “I wonder where all those goats will go,” she said. “They were strung out clear back to the bridge.”

  “I hope the sonofabitches starve to death,” he said. He had given up trying to do anything and was leaning against the fender. “I hope the creek gets up tonight and drowns ever one of them. A man that would own a goat would own a hound dog—they ain’t no worse.”

  “Why, I think goats are okay,” she said. “They probably make Jamison good money.”

  They went on that way, having a nice friendly dispute to settle their nerves, and I drug out the chain. Then I gathered up all the stuff Gid had drug out and stuffed what I could of it back. I was just getting ready to hook on the chain when I seen Jamison Williams coming over the hill riding his old fat blue horse.

  “Looky yonder,” I said. “Get your checkbook ready.”

  “Damn you,” he said. “If you wasn’t so slow, we’d be in town by now.”

  “He’s riding old Blue-ass,” I said. “We could outrun him on foot.”

  Molly got tickled, but she tried not to show it.

  “Why Jamison won’t hurt you,” she said. “I’ve never seen him mad.”

  “Oh no,” Gid said. “I ain’t scared of him hurting me. It’s his ideas I’m scared of. He’ll have some crazy idea about how much that old rotted-out fence is worth to fix. You watch and see.”

  “Don’t let yourself panic,” I said. “Think up a good story to tell him. Say a hit-and-run driver knocked you through that fence.”

  “Naw,” he said, “what’s the use? Jamison’s too dumb to lie to. It’ll be all he can do to understand the truth.”

  Actually, Jamison managed that without much strain. He rode straight up to the hole and slid off old Blue-ass and came right over to Gid, sticking out his hand. Jamison was foolish about shaking hands. He tipped his hat to Molly and came and shook hands with me before he ever said a word.

  “By god, Gideon,” he said. “I see you run through my fence. These roads are slick, would you say?”

  “A little slick,” Gid said. When he was in a tight corner he got mighty scarce with his conversation.

  “Well, Gid,” Jamison said, “I wonder how long it will take you and Johnny to bring them goats back in? Judith don’t like for them goats to run loose on the road.” Which was a lie. Judith Jamison never cared. In fact, she might have been glad.

  “Depends,” Gid said. “How much are they worth to you, Jamison, by the head?”

  “Well, you know, Gid,” Jamison said, “You know how I knew them goats was out. By god, if that old one-eyed billy didn’t come right up in the yard and butt that littlest boy of mine. He butted that boy good and hard and was after the dogs.”

  “Goodness,” Molly said. “Why, they looked so gentle. You wouldn’t think they’d hurt anybody.”

  “That’s what I told my wife,” he said. “It’s too bad she can’t shoot
no better. She would shoot that good dog before she hit the goat.”

  “Probably should have used the shotgun,” Gid said. “Rifles are a little hard.”

  “Well, you know, Gid, it was the ten-gauge she used. I don’t know whether her shoulder’s broke or not. I guess the doc can X-ray it when we take the boy in. He would butt him through the garden fence.”

  “These roads are pretty slick, Jamison,” Gid said. “If I was you, I’d wait till they dried up a little before I went in. A man can get off in the ditch and wreck his car before he knows what’s happening to him.”

  “I guess forty dollars apiece for them goats,” Jamison said. “They got to be drenched if I keep them, and they ain’t due to wool till September.”

  He tipped his hat to Molly agin and went over and began to climb on old Blue-ass. I watched that, because Jamison Williams getting on a horse was a sight not many people got to see. Jamison was a little short fart; he led old Blue over to Gid’s car and got up the car so he’d have elevation and got on from there. Gid didn’t get much kick out of that performance. He was in a fairly solemn mood.

  “Forty apiece?” he said. He was trying to let on he thought that was too high.

  “Why, you could have them for that, Gid,” Jamison said. “There was eighty-six of them. If you don’t want to buy them, you and Johnny just feel free to bring them in any time and leave them in the pen. Judith and the boys can take them back to the pasture after they milk.” We found out later it was Judith’s collarbone that broke. I guess we ought to be glad she didn’t shoot one of the children.

  “We’ll get them back tomorrow,” Gid said. “And I’ll get crew out to fix your fence. Shore sorry all this happened. Send me them doctor bills.”

  “Well, Gid, such is life,” Jamison said. “By god, this rain did us good. Just leave the goats in the pen. We don’t mind helping our neighbors, me and the wife.”

  “Okay. You’ll all come to see us,” Gid said.

  “Sure, sure. Go, Blue. By god, I hope that boy’s stopped bleeding when I get home.”

 

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