Big Bend

by Bill Roorbach

  “There,” said Enzio.

  “I never counted cattle,” Owen said, conquering himself. “What do I do?”

  “One, two, three,” said Enzio, no particular expression.

  Owen felt himself being hazed, and grinned. “But beyond that?”

  “You seek our brand in the places I showed you on the map and count, real careful. Take time if they are thick. Count brands, not heads, and come in when you got five hundred and ten. Count any dead, too. Maybe write down other brands you see. Flake, he know where to go. He been out there. Map is some help. Go in the places I showed you and find our girls and count, that’s all. Any late calves, count them, too, and tell us where to go get ’em. Shouldn’t be more than about ten, fifteen, something like this. You’re on Forest Service land after the creek, so you’ll see other stock than ours. Count brands, not heads. That’s all. Takes maybe a week if they are close. Nine, ten days if they are far. Keep your landmarks. And just loop around and count. You don’t find Bar Double Zero brands? Not enough of them? Trouble. You hurry back then. But don’t ask Flake to go above a trot. He real slow. Plenty water this time of year. You catch fish? Burn the bones and all the waste. Not many bears seen here. But.” And he shrugged.

  Enzio helped Owen up onto Flake and pointed out a dry double-track trail that led into the soft foothills of the jagged mountains ahead. “The trout fish make good breakfast, you’ll see,” Enzio said. Then he smiled warmly. “I was fixin’ to go myself.”

  Not so much as lunch in the farmhouse.

  Flake strode into the hills up the trail, Mare-Rhea following nicely on her tether, and all Owen had to accomplish was to be comfortable on Flake’s broad back. He held the reins loosely and rode, anger welling up in him uncontrollably. He hated his Uncle Dick for saying nothing about what an asshole Dr. Clark would be and what tasks they’d send him out on without the least preparation, and he was mad at Enzio for that cryptic smile, and mad at his mother for having the idea of coming here in the first place so he could “find himself,” dumb stupid woman, and especially mad at Nancy, his girl, who was at this moment settling into her apartment in London, beginning her year abroad and the rest of her life without him, all broken up over him when he’d told her—how often?—not to get too involved. Pure irritation, all of them.

  Owen rode into the hills, out of the dry grassland and into the tree zone, finally, and there he stopped Flake easily, just a touch of the reins and a soft word from his mouth. He climbed down, dropped his pants in a hurry, and shat a mess, such were his bowels from the road food and the strain of coming here, and now this riding into the mountains with no training, only Enzio’s instructions and the doctor’s doubtful gaze, shat a mess holding Flake’s tether, worried the two horses would decide to turn and leave him here. He’d never be able to hold on to the tether, not ever, if Flake made the decision to turn and run.

  But Flake didn’t. So Owen increased the risk, but Flake stood patiently with his tether loose on the ground while Owen, pants down around his shins and workboots, searched the saddlebags for toilet paper, which he found (relieved—who knew what that creepy Enzio thought necessary?).

  Up into the dry hills Flake followed the trail, a methodical walk just a little faster than Owen might have done on his own two feet, and slower up the hills, but never a rest, just a plodding, pleasant pace up into the afternoon, the wind blowing, the sky pure blue, the ponderosa pines reddish in the bark and tall and smelling in the air like oranges, almost, or something Owen couldn’t quite name. His guts settled down and he began to think things were going to be as expected, just more on his own than expected. He thought of his cigarettes. If the trip were nine days, that meant only three cigarettes a day. This would be a strain after his usual two packs daily, but a welcome strain; he had been meaning to slow down or even quit. Pot, too. He’d smoke less of that. Keep his wits about him. And he’d have no opportunity to drink any beer for nine days. All good, he thought, and swallowed resolutely.

  He rode three hours at Flake’s pace, ten miles at best, and came to a good-sized stream, what Enzio called a creek. There Owen decided the time had come for dinner, and after dinner the time to sit still. Plenty of light left was the best way to set up camp. He let the horses drink, then tied them with slack to a pair of aspens in what looked like good grass.

  In the first saddlebag he found a big bag of rice, four huge potatoes, nine cans of beans, two cans of fruit cocktail, a bag of carrots, a bag of sugar, a can of coffee, four cans Spam (was how Enzio would say it), large bag of oats, like that, nothing wonderful. Plenty matches (a cowboy would say). Also a large pot and a small pot and a cast-iron frying pan, all well used. In the other saddlebag, a bedroll made of four wool blankets and a big piece of oiled canvas tarp, tied tight. He wished for his girl. He wished for Nancy so she could see how tough he was. Rough and tumble. But there was no one.

  He spent an hour collecting wood, wanted to have a good high stack for the dark of night, now that he thought about it, nice dry pine branches, which were in good supply. He made a ring of stones tall on the wind side, built a teepee fire, lit it with one match, one touch, his pride from camping days with the Boy Scouts. Someone to see that accomplishment, someone along on this trip—that would be cool. Nancy always talked about his knowing how to do so much, gave him these compliments when others could hear. He watched the fire, built it up, let it burn down while he scooped water from the river with the bigger pot, worried about sparks getting in the wind: dry around here. The filled pot he put beside the fire on flat rocks.

  Oh, for someone to see him. The cute freckled girl from that gas station in Idaho. He thought of her a long time while the water worked up to a boil. She’d liked him. Kind of young. He thought of his girl Nancy in London. They’d split up, really. He should make it official. Write her. Onward and upward, as Coach Riley said. Love ’em and leave ’em.

  Owen untied the fly rod and built it and studied it and pulled the silk line through the guides and just wished it were a regular fishing rod so he could use it. He really should have asked Enzio if there were a regular fishing rod. He pictured Uncle Dick casting a fly rod (casting, casting), had watched when he was little, knew the basic gestures of the sport. He tied a convincing, feathery bug to the thin end of the line, brought the contraption to the river, dropped the bug in without any fancy casting, paid out line and let the water pull at it. There was fun in this, but nothing could be so hopeless. He tried a few flicks of the whole line, thought he could learn to do what his uncle did—smooth, long, falling, gentle casts, the fly landing like a living insect.

  He flicked the line and let the fake insect drift. Of course nothing happened. It was just him standing there. Only him. He could smoke a little reefer about now, why not? From his pocket he produced half a joint and matches, fired up. He puffed just twice, nervous still in the vast and overwhelming new surroundings. Count cattle!

  His ears burned and in a rush like a warm creek flowing over him came the pot. The actual creek moved by, millions of molecules in a crowd, passing him. The orange smell of the ponderosas, like a certain cereal from childhood? He thought to ask Nancy what she thought the smell reminded her of, but of course she wasn’t there. She was in London. He’d said no to London and to that intense way of being with her this year, and he’d pretty much broken it off with her, and he’d done it for a stupid reason: he had the idea he would meet other girls and maybe find just the girl he felt he was looking for, a girl who looked like Florence Johannsen, his first high-school sweetheart, Florence who smelled good like these trees (was that it?), and whom he’d touched inside her pants memorably with his fingers just once. And who’d dumped him for Parker Wright, football hero. Love ’em and leave ’em. Coach Riley was an idiot.

  The creek was so clear he could see every stone and every wink of mica. It flowed here through boulders and made pools and splashed and gurgled noisily, soothingly. And then there was Pelkie, Liz Pelkingham, with whom he’d kissed two hours unbroke
n once, they thinking they would beat the world record but not even close (Lizzie looked it up: two days and six hours). He was never in love with Pelkie, though, not like Florence. And then Mary Carter, who was Catholic and always talked about how that was very difficult for them, but Mary was very willing, as his mother would say, and they fucked in her family rec room pretty much daily for nine months till he had to go away for college. But she was full of guilt and had crying jags for a week each month during which she hated him and screamed at him, especially if he said anything about how it might be her hormones and not really him.

  And then suddenly at college there was no one. Lots of phone calls to Mary till she got a boyfriend named McGrath. And if Owen admitted it, he had felt pretty bad, heartbroken even, and remorseful for his feeling that she just wasn’t right for him, that there was a better girl out there. And now the same feeling about Nancy. He’d have to really think about that hard. What made him cast after girls who ignored him and reject girls who loved him?

  His line hit a snag and he pulled gently to free it, then harder, worried he’d lose the fly at the end and maybe some of the line so that Enzio would think less of him. But abruptly it came free and he reeled in till it snagged again. Then a fish jumped downstream, startling him: he had a fish and not a snag. It fought his pulling, but came in easily enough. Only one foot long, it was, with red spots and dark spots, brownish and bronze on the top half, pale on the bottom half, alive and beyond gorgeous. He got hold of its tail and whacked it on a rock headfirst, remembering the motion but not the remorse from his youth, but the remorse passed and with a handful of rice and a can of beans the fish made a hell of a supper, flaky and pink, and sweet as the creek. He thanked the fish for feeding him as he had read that Indians thanked their meals, gave it that much respect.

  For someone to see him now! Nancy. The marijuana was a bad idea, kind of a strong batch: after being high and happy for a while, now he quailed and quaked. He burned the fish head and bones and guts thoroughly till they were entirely gone and burned the frying pan clean because of the possibility of bears. And then there was nothing to do but go to sleep.

  When he unrolled his bedding, he found a nice surprise, which probably Enzio had packed for himself and forgotten: a quart bottle of Ten-High whiskey. This Owen opened and sipped till he was no longer nervous and sang songs and stared at the fire and wished he’d never said those stupid things to Nancy. He did love her. Oh, God, he really did. He wondered what would be happening if she were right here, the two of them lying out on the bedroll—two bedrolls—watching the stars and she would climb on top of him the way she liked to do and so forth, till his masturbating was done and he fell asleep.

  When he woke it wasn’t yet morning. The constant Montana wind had died to nothing. He lay in a misery of worries under the stars, deep stars in vast space that assumed no familiar relationships (no Big Dipper, no Orion, no crosses or boxes or lions or snakes), only stars by billions receding from him at huge speeds (as he’d learned in Astronomy 210). The horses were as still as trees on their feet in the cold air, just their breathing to say they were alive, and something scrabbling in the brush behind the spot he’d cleared to lie on, and something hard sticking into his back. London was such a big city, with cars on the wrong side and queues for everything and funny apartments with heaters you had to pay coins into. Nancy had been so reserved talking to him—their one phone call—not cold but more like brave, having been hurt by him and having resolved to let him go. And he’d talked so briefly to her and wanted to get off the phone and pretended to himself he didn’t care about her. Why? For this? This was the ridiculous adventure he’d planned for himself! Alone in the dark with a rock at his kidney! The cheerful fantasy of his hours driving here was all gone. Goodly doctor takes tough boy under his wing, boy amazes everyone with his toughness. And that out on the high plains he’d meet a cowgirl who’d beckon him to her warm hut and always love him and never be cross with him or judgmental and never expect too much and not talk constantly and not want to talk baby talk ever and want to have sex always, except when he didn’t, and have an ass like Jane D’Arms’s and boobs like Melanie Fulton’s and longer legs (definitely her own beautiful shaved legs tanned dark except starkly white where they met) and the face of, say, Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago, maybe mixed with Brigitte Bardot’s face in a postcard he once carried around for two weeks, and of course something of Florence J. And pubic hair tidy blonde. And the sensibility and sanity of himself. And want to drink whiskey and smoke plenty of pot and screw. His fantasy went.

  Now he only wanted Nancy, and on her terms, terms that would have included asking a lot more questions and preparing better for life, like, say, this trip and this job and this cattle-counting adventure. He’d turn back in the morning, ride to the ranch house, demand to be taught. He wouldn’t be hazed like this! He’d go back in the morning.

  The stars receded faster. Some blinked. But there was the Big Dipper. He’d only been looking the wrong way. The combination of whiskey and pot had dried him out pretty badly and he knew a list of things he didn’t have: aspirin, for starters. Anything at all you’d vaguely think of as for breakfast. A pillow (and not this sweatshirt rolled up). Band-Aids, if you got a cut.

  A big crash in the forest behind him stopped everything, his heart, his breath. But the horses were still, not a move from them. They slept on their feet, these Montana horses. He wasn’t as tough as all that. He hated to be alone. He hadn’t thought of it this way—unhappy and crazy. He tried to get the happier vision back: a man on his own, rugged and individual, unfettered by convention and conformity and provincialism (great evils he’d learned about in his hardest elective to date: The Modern Novel). If Madame Bovary were here he’d gentle her sweetly.

  He climbed out of his bedding and stood in the cold air and felt himself brutally alone. He didn’t even have a watch, but he felt the stars hadn’t moved at all. There was no faint pink in the east, which he knew was the direction he’d come from. There was no leftover pink in the west, as there had been when he’d lain himself down. He found the whiskey and drank some, pull by pull, standing there in his pants with no shoes and no socks and no shirt, and pretty soon felt brave again and clearer in his vision: a man alone on the great western plains. He laughed with this vision and laughed at the scared half of himself and at Madame Bovary, who let those fuckers make her feel bad about being what she wanted. The snow was general over Ireland. Was a line he liked from some other book.

  He found his pot and rolled a fresh bone and held it a long while. Steve and Mark would be in awe of him right now. He’d tell the story to them later and leave out the middle-of-the-night stuff, except waking to drink whiskey whenever he felt like it. He sparked a match and Flake stepped away, surprised awake. And then Flake gave Owen that warm horse stare, pressing away from the light of the match, pressing against the flank of Mare-Rhea. Such a good horse Flake was, with so little to worry him, as content one place as the next.

  Owen would tell the story to Nancy and she’d be very concerned and fond and fascinated, especially if he left out the whiskey. In the middle of the night I thought of you. He’d say. He puffed a little of the pot and shivered and put the joint out carefully and got back in his bedding. He was up an hour then, maybe two, smoking cigarettes, half of one of his precious packs, but fuck it, he’d go back to the ranch house in the morning. He thought over all the same thoughts and returned more and more frequently to a vague, anxious fear and his resolution to go back to the ranch house in the morning.

  The first cattle he came across lifted his spirits. Mid-afternoon and his hangover was forgotten. He’d drunk about two gallons of water and just baked the whiskey out of him riding Flake in the sun. How he’d managed to drink that much in the middle of the night was what he wanted to know. A new problem: the pulling of the hairs on the backs of his thighs as he rode in the worn saddle had advanced into a kind of bunching of the skin—he was getting blisters from the rubbing on his jea
ns, and supposedly five or seven or more days riding to go. He’d ripped up a T-shirt and made padding of it inside his jeans. The other worries were at the back of things, mostly how and when he was going to get to call Nancy and apologize to her and ask her forgiveness and love and fly to England, fuck the Bar Double Zero and Dr. Clark.

  The ladies, as Enzio had called them, were in a long, dry canyon that opened out prettily into a flat field of stones and grasses and prickly pear cactus that fell into a charmed creek lined with cotton-wood trees. Owen had let Flake pick the route at every place the cow path divided, and Flake had been right. Owen felt the big horse and he were becoming a team. He’d ridden on despite the night’s resolution largely because of Flake, who had no interest in turning back, but wanted to count cows, would only walk north and west. Fifty-seven in this place, plus two late calves (Owen heard himself reporting the late calves when the time came, using just the language of Enzio). He counted three times, let Flake take him through the creek and up the hill to where four more ladies were standing, staring. All the brands were Double Bar Zero.

  The horses drank at length while Owen fished the long stub of last night’s last joint out of his bag of pot and put the bag back in his shirt pocket, just kind of let the joint hang off his lip while he consulted the topographical map. No problem there. Flake had walked them to the first corner Enzio had pointed to. The creek marked the boundary of federal land. The peak to the west was Goshen Mountain. He’d traveled some twenty miles. About ninety or a hundred to go, if he did Enzio’s loop correctly. He gauged the distance by the map scale, knuckle by knuckle, twice. Maybe he was overestimating. Now, due west. He’d kept the view of Goshen Mountain as his landmark, realized now his loop would take him clear around that undistinguished reddish peak. So always he’d know where he was, and when once again he saw the blue-striped cliffs he’d know he was almost done.