The Devil's Tub

by Edward Hoagland

  Spike said over his shoulder, “Fix your knives.” His hand made the start of a motion toward where a bayonet would hang. He smiled, but his lips pressured together; his hands were dandling a weight—in his mind, by God, he was carrying a gun, and a man’s-best-friend, not an idiot-stick like Zino’s.

  The rodeo arena was open-air, surrounded by stands, with a big dirt-floor shed at one end for everything to live in. As anyplace in show business, the way to the performers was through the most inconspicuous door an outsider found. It brought Spike under the stands and next to the chutes, and following the chutes he came to the shed. Airborne got fiercely bubbly, like the average sturdy sergeant about to be tested. Zino recognized the state and despite his own tenseness smiled. Spike was just alert.

  “We gotta find where the crum-bums are hiding. What should we do, yell? Maybe we’d scare them. Maybe better if they think we’re towners,” Airborne said.

  The animals looked to be out, the way they kept them. You could be used to the carnival zebras and bears and gators teed off and hyenas snapping and still not feel comfortable, seeing past a couple of grapevine-yard slats those horns which even the steers grew, horns yellow like teeth, high and thick—long so you couldn’t see both at the same time unless you stood back. Razor horns mellowed yellow. The steers were packed in the pens so crowded that the horns were like a head-high mass of thicket. Then in another pen, instead of horns there’d be the horses’ heads, goggly, watching Zino, all turned in one direction and touching each other, like a school of fish, hanging still or moving as fast as fish in unison with ups and downs and quivers.

  The bulls were by themselves and didn’t make Zino nervous; they plain made him sweat. Their pen should have burst just from the numbers in it—couldn’t have forced in a pitchfork of hay; how were they fed?—not to mention the boards being about as thick as one of their nostrils. Zino’d have circled a field a mile across that one of those bulls was in—and watched awhile to admire it—couldn’t have dreamed up a better bull in a nightmare. Not farm bulls: humped Brahmins for spirit, now standing as bulky and still as so many cannon. Twenty bulls in a pen the size of a kitchen. He dried his hands on his pants.

  Calves for roping were squeezed in a pen like frogs in a pail and hopping and making the noise for everything else. In narrow spaces between the pens, besides the hay and cowboys’ bunks, were dogs, cats, and special, privileged horses with blankets on their hinds and pails of water of their own. The shed held more animals than Zino would have expected to see spread on a whole horizon during a roundup. Right then, as soon as that, he felt sorry he had come. But Spike and the Paratroop were every bit as gutty, straight, and veteran-looking as before. They didn’t bluff.

  They kept a distance from the animals, not to excite them, and hunted for the cowboys, who were hard to find. Some were hidden in the horse pens, messing with the horses, and some were smoking in the hay asleep. Yes, asleep in the hay, smoking. These weren’t the first guys Zino’d seen smoke in their sleep but were the only sober ones who didn’t do it for a stunt and had the nerve to lay in hay. Another bunch was in the rafters of the shed with fifths of liquor, playing cards. Turned out to be the ones who at the time could walk without much pain, although their jeans were trussed against their legs for injuries. Zino and the sergeants watched them. Cowboys are really proud of two things, besides their horses and themselves—their boots and hat. And so they’re always fooling with their hat, fixing it on their head or playing with it on their knee. And whenever their feet are dangling, straddling a fence or on a rafter, they’ll kick them out, kick them back, and admire the spurs and boots from every angle. They wear dainty boots, with personality, pointed slim and form-fit curving—funny to compare beside the Trooper’s giant stomper weapons.

  Dogs let the cowboys know about the strangers, but nobody was interested. Spike had plenty of chance to look around and map his plan. There wasn’t much to see except the animals. Saddles on some sawhorses, a kerosene stove (banked in hay), and pots and dishes. Cots with Indian or khaki blankets; saddlebags, knapsacks, suitcases, little private stuff, a mirror hung on the side of a pen. When Spike had learned the land, he whistled sharply at the cowboys in the rafters and jerked his rifle hand for them to come. They didn’t stop to ask a question. Like such a thing was natural, they swung themselves around till they were hanging by their arms and dropped off down among the steers and skeedled out before they could get gored. The steers went wild. The steers thought it was raining men. The fence careened and cracked—but lasted.

  “They need some jumping lessons,” said the Troop, meaning in technique. A cowboy pounded extra slats onto the pen where it was damaged. Zino noticed earlier repairs the same.

  Spike played the situation fine. He took his time. He put his fists against his hips Commanding General-style and let the cowboys wait. Pat Patton’s pearl-sided six-guns strapped at his waist would have looked swell, and a cowboy like Earp or Doc Holiday trash.

  When the cigarettes burned near their lips, the guys asleep woke up a little. As this happened to each man, Spike jerked his rifle hand at him to come. The ones in fooling with the horses showed up of their own accord, propped on their elbows on an animal’s back. Most all the cowboys tried to make it. The guys from the rafters walked, bowlegged and teetery on those high-heel boots. Others got a stick and used the corners of their feet or hobbled on their knees, arms crooked out with pain. A few only were able to crawl on a horse for the view and put braids in its mane while they listened. That’s how to tell a rodeo cowboy from a regular one. Oh, the regular, he won’t walk like you and me. But the rodeo, most likely he won’t make it to the can without a horse. It’s the falls which do it, not the actual stock. A herd of horses couldn’t give a hogtied cowboy half a bump.

  Zino was six feet. Spike even bigger, and Airborne, if a finger shorter, was muscled tougher than a shark. They’d murdered the loggers and the apple pickers and the sheepherders and salmon fishermen through Washington—there are no rougher places than a carnival. They’d have given the cowboys a day’s work in a fight. But Spike didn’t seem to plan to. He just was there to talk.

  The animals got restless and stampy. But the cowboys were attentive, scratching their stomachs or tilting their hats around with their fingers, as they were always doing, or tinkling a spur; otherwise still and planted to listen. Spike had been practicing what to say all week, he’d been so mad, and now he had forgotten. He was confident, but he’d forgotten. Pinched his mouth and frowned. Each cowboy looked different from each other cowboy; couldn’t treat them as a crowd. That’s what bothered Zino. Each hat had its own independently airy-curvy brim, although always leveling sternly with the eyes in front, and its own variety of creases in the crown. And the necessity of hat-room made the cowboys space themselves so that each man was an island to be dealt with separately. And the faces weren’t the same. Each had elements of its own.

  Spike would do this kind of thing in the Marines, he’d said—on pass go into town and tell the locals what was what—but now the feather-tinkling spurs were all they heard. Spike couldn’t start, and Airborne couldn’t either, being out-ranked.

  Suddenly Spike grinned, squared his chest, pushed his lips against each other and his fists against his hips, pulled himself so straight he was a picture. Loud as ringing metal he began.

  “You people! Get this clear! Because your soul may still belong to God but as of now your ass is mine!” (The tone: why sure, he’d talk recruit.)

  “The shit has hit the fan. I’m going to take the swagger out of you! I’ll bring some order here. I’ll straighten you. You’ll take the course. I’m going to run you through a grinder! Each word I say is going to be your Bible. I’m your law and you’ll stand tall! When I say jump you’ll jump for me, you people, till you wee and wet your whiskers! Except you won’t have whiskers. You’ll dry-shave.”

  Knots and lumps stood in his face. He stopped and looked at Zino and at Airborne like assisting cadre, then beyond the
m to the pens of stock. The cowboys got the same expression from him as the stock.

  “I helped put up the flag on Iwo Jima that the people took the pictures of; I was on the hill. I was in on Okinawa, Bougainville. I was in the Philippines when the Japs gave in. And I know two things: Japs, they stink and you guys too. When I was going to school I hung from railroad ties when trains crossed the bridge. You couldn’t do that now, but I was having fun and goin’ to school. And I’m a better man with women.” He grinned abrasively. “And I brought in the first Dakota well, my crew that I was in, which meant the state gets rich. And I knew Tony Zale like brothers. Not many guys have done the stuff I did, not you! Cowboys are for kids! Cowboys are for children!”

  And Spike looked something fine. He’d dropped the boot-camp patter, but his tightened lips still carried fight, stamped what he was as sure as hash marks up the arm. His voice would fill a company street, and if he’d coughed he would have shouted louder. Those cowboys should at least have been set back. But no, and not insulted. They were enjoying Spike, hunched smiling on their heels like wolves sitting. They held their hats and tippy-tipped their fingers on them as if they had Spike in a jar.

  “S’pose I yell Hey Rube like show guys yell. You’d be skinned!” He grinned at Troop and Zino to share how smart it was. Nobody’s used Hey Rube in shows for twenty years, but he said that. They weren’t near hearing distance of the lot. The Trooper, he was next to Spike’s left shoulder, one pace out and one pace back, in shining battle boots, the screaming eagle on his chest.

  Zino stood where he could make a run for it. Twenty cowboys to the three of them! But cowboys weren’t the athlete he was. They’re funny, cowboys. Blind drunk every night; chain-smoke, drink themselves blind. Because they only do the stuff they do for ten or fifteen seconds—stay on a horse—they aren’t in good condition. Got no wind: never’s a need for wind. And crippled. And always thinking about something. Watching you and sitting on their heels and thinking. These ones did. His back crawled.

  Spike faced up to them, had suckled nails. “I’m from the carnival,” he said. “Which means in every town the guys who think they’re rough come down to make it rough. Everybody. Cops off-duty. And we handle them, we make it rough, we chase them through the town. I’ve always been with outfits like that. Our battalion used to trade the medics in for fightin’ troops before we’d hit the sand. Our tankers emptied the tool box throwing wrenches before they’d die. No ammo and a Jap comin’ in? Give him the butt and the steel!” he roared, so even the cowboys blinked.

  He knocked the hat off one. The guy was bald. “Skinheads!” Spike sneered. “That’s why you wear them hats!” He kicked the same guy in the foot, which made him howl. “Sorefoots! That’s why you wear them boots! ‘Cowboys!’” He spat the word. “I think they call you that because you look as dumb as cows. Huh? Answer up! Umbrella heads! Your cattle got your tongues?”

  The cowboys grinned. Their mouths and noses got real wide.

  “Slaps, open up the gate.”

  Horses poured forth like a dam had burst, in a wall of dancing crazy water—brown as water—out the gate and racing to both sides. Zino bounced as the ground shook and the mass whirled round the shed. Singling out individual broncs was scarier still. They pinwheeled, their hooves topped their heads. Zino fell down in a ball and covered his head. Then he got up to try and survive. Spike was willing to run for it now, but too late. Zino stuck beside him like any raw replacement. The horses were everywhere, plunging and thrashing and kicking each other, fiend-faced, an oncoming merry-go-round brought alive. And now old Slaps got happy-go-lucky and let out a couple of bulls, which were charging but hadn’t decided where. Spike couldn’t maneuver because of the horses. Soon as the bulls spotted him and his men it seemed that they’d be cooked.

  The cowboys didn’t bother with the bulls, only to dodge. The cowboys were after the horses. Cowboys are cripples but cowboys can move, just never how anyone else would move and most of the time they aren’t balanced steady; every few steps they’ll fall. These guys were using their hands to help. Sometimes they almost ran on their hands, skeedling next to the ground like crabs. The slender skin-colored boots seen at a distance made them look barefoot. Several men had a funny run, limping on both legs: each step was a stumble and to keep from falling they went at a run. And as much as they ran they threw their hats, stalwart, sailing hats, so big. They must have thought it wasn’t fun enough to rope the horses, because they dove and flopped and skidded, told each other wordless things and yipped and shouted at the horses, sailed and flapped and flung their hats to steer them. The hats were charmed, never crushed or tromped on; kept their gallant complex shapes, as if to wear one was to wear a helmet. Of course Zino and the sergeants didn’t care about the hats. They were trying to save their skins. But the way to live was stand right still and watch in all directions. This they did, in the middle of the tumult.

  By and by the cowboys got the horses circling. Couldn’t stop them, but they got them circling, and relaxed, dusted off their hats with careful swats or with their fingers, and began to eenie-meenie, picking out their broncs. Everybody was inside the horses’ circle except the bulls, who charged in and out. The cowboys took it slow, rolled cigarettes, listened to the hooves and breathing. Then they limped along beside the circle—a man might stop, change his mind about a horse, now go again—they stumbled along and one by one grabbed onto a horse’s head like hauling in a running catch and shinnied up as effortlessly as rolling into bed—so easy. Course it wasn’t. The horses sunfished, seesawed, wrenched around like puppets, and when the bulls got near went off their rockers.

  A cowboy scissored with his spurs to liven up a dull one. Another man was having trouble, holding to a horse’s neck, his body flat out from it like the greatest jitterbug. Got smashed against a post and really caught a case of the limps. Anybody else’s legs would have been mangled. Once a cowboy sat secure, why he’d perch on the rump of the bronc, swing his legs up on its back and ride, with it bucking, like that, hold onto the hide with his fingers.

  Mounted, the cowboys had some height. On the ground because of all their walking troubles, as well as legs bowed bad as wishbones, they seemed small. Horses became different too, more individual. Bucked tight jackknifes in a circle; or lunged roomily and straight ahead. Or the mechanical, classic, easy buckers, rhythmic as a circus horse, except the motions bigger. Affectionate horses acted happy. Complainers wagged their heads. The cowboys with horses broken fooled the bulls back into the pen.

  Spike was catching his breath. He didn’t seem to figure that these new procedures had anything to do with him. Airborne waited for his orders, Zino only wanted to be gotten out of what they’d brought him into. Spike watched everything, partly contemptuously laughing but also interested and entertained. There wasn’t a trick he missed, hands on hips, scalp-close haircut, a Marine.

  Still, some cowboys hadn’t mounted, those banged up the worst. They crawled to the top of a pen, using their elbows for hands and their knees for feet. The rest of the horses were driven past and they got on that way, like straddling the chute. Men who wanted ropes and saddles went for them, and Spike began at last to feel outnumbered, started for the door, although to look at him he was a kid being dragged away. Now suddenly he ran—the three of them—a hard determined dash which would have bowled over anybody on the ground. Riders loped in front to cut him off and squeezed in from the sides and nudged up from behind. They crowded Zino and the Trooper in so close to him that the three hugged each other. From then on Zino never knew what he was doing before it was half done. The cowboys talked a different language, heeeyah! and whooo! And partly to the horses, and what they said was swallowed in the dust and noise. Their faces didn’t seem to move, except the lazy smiles, so he never even knew who’d spoken. And he was running without stopping, the horses with their manes gone wild, and mouths, and hooves about to split his back. The dipsy lassos teased. The cowboys doing it he couldn’t even see, just occasion
ally, smiling lazy at their skill. Spike tried to slam a guy who’d been bucked off and they thought that was marvelous, as with some kind of monkey, though they wouldn’t let the cowboy make a fight; it wasn’t what they wanted.

  The posse had no boss but one guy spoke officially. “Talk is cheap.” He grinned at Spike. “You’ll live, you fellas. Don’t think we’re out to kill you. Just havin’ a little fun. Dusty up that fella’s shoes. Do what you’re told until it’s over.” Which was bullcrap because they couldn’t hear what they were told and had as much control of what they did as mice.

  To start, the cowboys put a horse on either side of Zino and a horse behind him and ran him into the arena. Only place to run was straight ahead, until the horses turned him, and if he tried to stop the horse in back would stomp him. He couldn’t fall down in the midst of the hooves, and couldn’t climb the cowboys’ stirrups because they’d whip him with their ropes. They had a race with Spike and him and Airborne—who could be got to go the fastest—although he didn’t see his pals; was lucky seeing the sky. Yes, Spike raced too.