Nop's Hope

by Donald McCaig

  A semi steamed by. Ransome blinked away from the headlight brightness. Marvin lit a cigarette and Ransome opened the door and leaned against the cab, one foot on the running board. The axe handle gleamed in the moonlight, inches from his hand.

  “You were in Texas in January,” Ransome said quietly.

  “At the Fat Stock show, you bet.”

  The axe handle felt slick and cool under Ransome’s palm. “Remember the girl?” Ransome asked.

  “Here, your turn,” Marvin pushed the bottle at him.

  Ransome said, “Why not get out of the truck.”

  “Sure thing, partner,” P.T. said, but when he opened the door he hung on it, half swung. “Whoops” he said, “don’t fly so good as I usta.”

  “The girl with the dog, remember her?”

  P.T. hung on the door, head down, and laughing. “Oh hell, I done forgot all about that girl. Remember, Marvin? I swore you like to change your shorts on that one. That dog come through that window like King Kong. Ol’ Marvin, he was gettin’ himself ready to boogie before Mr. Dog showed up.”

  “It weren’t funny at the time,” Marvin said.

  “Why don’t you get out of the truck,” Ransome said quietly.

  “Why? I seen moonlight and I seen a gravel pit and I even seen you before.” Marvin fumbled at the dash until he found the radio. It was a rap group singing and their syncopation seemed alien under the big western night.

  Ransome reached in to shut it off. “Man,” he said, “you are one ugly bastard.”

  Marvin’s face sobered. “Who you, partner? Some friend of Jack Dickerson? Get me in trouble with P.T.’s kid? You come from Texas to tell me I’m ugly? You think I don’t know that? Listen.” He punched the radio on and it resumed its blare, a howling puny mockery of all those distant blue mountains, all those diamond stars. He hollered, “Some of us, partner, are born to be ugly.” He laughed. “P.T.?”

  P.T. swung out, swung back. “Yeah, Marvin.”

  “You remember that girl, Texas, the one with the dog?”

  “Should have shot that dog,” P.T. said dreamily.

  “Dog was beautiful, P.T.”

  Suddenly Marvin jerked his door shut and pushed the button and rolled the window up. “P.T., get inside,” he yelled.

  “Who? Oh what you doing, Marvin? What you doing now?”

  Marvin grabbed P.T. by the back of the collar and dragged him into the cab and P.T. was sober enough to fight but too drunk to know who to fight so he smacked the nearest man, who happened to be Marvin, slammed his elbow into Marvin’s gut.

  “You son of a bitch,” Marvin gasped and grapped P.T.’s ears and rolled him between the seat and the dashboard. He pounded his partner on top of the head.

  P.T. was flailing away, both men were grunting and panting and Ransome stood immobile, his axe handle forgotten.

  The moon shimmered in the truck’s polished hood as it rocked from side to side. Absently, Ransome turned and hurled his axe handle at the sky. It luminesced as it flipped over before it dropped into the shadows behind the gravel pit.

  It was easy walking on the highway. Frogs chirped from the irrigation ditches and a sleepy meadow lark twittered an inquiry from the unmown verge. It was quiet back in the gravel pit, no more curses or blows.

  The truck door slammed, a bottle crashed. The motor caught on the last crank of the battery and the driver gunned the engine. Ransome kept up his steady stride.

  When the truck came onto the highway, the headlights wobbled all over the place.

  Ransome walked out into the sagebrush before the truck got near enough to see him and knelt until the drunken truck was safely by.

  That road was his alone in that moonlight and it would have been a fine time to think about the meaning of life if he’d been of a mind to.

  Twin Bridges was a cluster of lights. Sodium lights guarded garages, silent businesses, and defined the convenience store where they’d left young Bobby.

  Bobby’s red Ford was skewed across the shoulder where the cops had forced it off. Except for their smell, Marvin and P.T. were long gone. The driver’s door hung open and the headlight filaments still glowed their faint yellow glow. Ransome cut the lights and closed the door. That boy never did any harm.

  HIGHLAND COUNTY FAIR SHEEPDOG TRIAL

  September 1, Monterey, Virginia

  Judge: Tom Forrester, Aldie, Virginia

  22 Open dogs went to the post

  1. Lewis Burkeholder

  Nop

  91

  2. Ethel Conrad

  Jan

  88

  3. Ed Gebauer

  Flo

  87

  4. Kay Pine

  Molly

  84

  5. Roy Johnson

  June

  83

  LEWIS BURKEHOLDER took his blue ribbon from the judge’s hand and shook hands and said, yes, Nop had run well for an older dog. He clipped the ribbon to his shirt pocket while a couple of kids got their fill of petting Nop. Beverly was talking to her cousins. Beverly’s mother had come from Highland County, and in years past this little trial was the only one Beverly attended, catching up with her kinfolk while the dogs ran.

  The cousins, both in their sixties, marveled at the Burkeholders’ RV, said, “Isn’t it homey,” and “It’s just like a ship inside.” They congratulated Lewis and petted Nop and said, “I’ll bet that dog saves you some steps.”

  Lewis said yes indeed, indeed he did and asked Beverly if she wanted to see the rest of the fair.

  The cousins said, “Don’t let us keep you,” and “Beverly, honey, we’ll just have to get together real soon,” and “We were so upset to hear about your granddaughter. Mary wanted to come up to the funeral but I don’t see well at night and Mary doesn’t drive.”

  “It’ll be one year the twenty-seventh of this month,” Beverly said. “It seems like yesterday.”

  Beverly held Lewis’s arm as they strolled past the stock barns where the 4-H kids were grooming their animals. “Lisa would have been old enough for 4-H this year,” Beverly said.

  “Uh-huh. Look at that little fellow over there with that steer. I’m not sure who’s leading who.”

  It was afternoon and three roughnecks were repairing the mechanism of the merry-go-round. The candy corn and cotton candy booths had their shutters down, the ring toss booth was closed tight. Two elderly men worked the Ruritan burger booth, one taking orders, the other at the grill. Lewis asked Beverly would she like something and she shook her head. Lewis ordered a cheeseburger and coffee for himself.

  Beverly said, “Lewis, you might as well tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “We’re going out to Wyoming for the National Finals,” Lewis said.

  “You might be going,” Beverly replied, calmly, “but I have responsibilities. Since January Penny hasn’t bothered to call. Postcards: ‘won this trial,’ ‘Hope ran well today.’ My only daughter can’t talk about anything but her dog. You know how many times a day I think I hear the telephone ring? You go out to do chores, drive to town, I stay right near that blamed old telephone, oh, Lewis …”

  The Ruritan cook set Lewis’s cheeseburger on a square of wax paper beside the coffee, coughed politely, rearranged the catsup and mayonnaise and withdrew.

  “I thought we could go out to Wyoming, Beverly, and be with Penny. She might be the national champion, think of that!”

  “I don’t want any national champion,” Beverly said and didn’t burst into tears. “I just want my daughter back.”

  “Maybe Penny’ll come on home with us for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I already talked to Joe Maxwell. That road job he was working got finished, so he’s laid off. He’ll feed and keep an eye on the place. Preacher Shumway, I telephoned him. He thought it was a good idea you going with me, that Penny’d sure want us there supporting her. He said Miz Collins would take your Sunday school class and he’ll look in on your mother while we’re away.”

  Beverly looked him straig
ht in the eye, started to say something harsh but said, “You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

  “No,” he said, “I’m not at all sure. I think there’s a fair chance we’ll go out there and make godallmighty fools of ourselves. But I’ll feel worse if we lay around the farm like nothing’s wrong except we don’t talk much about anything important ever and our daughter never writes us or calls us on the telephone. I’d rather go out there even if we fail. I need you with me, Beverly.

  “Well then,” she said, flustered. “Well then. Imagine that, Lewis. Arizona and Wyoming in one year. You and me are getting to be quite the travelers. You know, when Mamma and Daddy had their honeymoon, they took the train to Philadelphia and that was as far as they traveled the whole of their married life.”

  At home, with just a week before they were to leave, Beverly took up her potatoes from the garden and told neighbors they could pick the late peaches because they’d be past when the Burkeholders came home. Beverly took to watching TV weather, morning and evening, to see what the temperatures were in Wyoming, and when snow symbols drifted down from Canada she packed sweaters and Lewis’s wooly hat and gloves. She told Lewis there was no reason on earth they should eat poorly away from home and filled the big drawer under the motor home bed with canned tomatoes, canned beans, applesauce, and three jars of pickalilly. She said it was a shame the motor home didn’t have a freezer so she could bring along their own meat, some hamburger and a roast or two. Lewis said that the motor home designers certainly missed a trick, that probably lots of people would like to drive across the country eating out of their own freezer.

  They got a predawn start and took the northern route, through Iowa and South Dakota. On the second day Beverly said, “Lewis it’s like driving a big truck from the comfort of your own living room.”

  They arrived at Buffalo, Wyoming, Friday afternoon and drove straight out to the trial grounds. They hadn’t said a word about Penny all morning.

  FORT COLLINS CLASSIC SHEEPDOG TRIAL

  September 5 $ 6, Fort Collins, Colorado

  Judge: Jack Knox, Butler, Missouri

  MEEKER INTERNATIONAL SHEEPDOG TRIAL

  September 12, 13, Meeker, Colorado

  Judge: Bill Berhow, Lavina, Montana

  THE WINNEBAGOS and Pace Arrows and Cherokees and Chieftains and Dodge Astrostars and Wayfarers trundled over the Rocky Mountain passes, sticking close together because the last thing you want is a breakdown in snow country, you and your four dogs.

  It was the tail end of the season that had started last January and everyone was showing the wear. One woman handler made a few calculations and announced that if she hadn’t wasted her money on sheepdog trials, she could be making payments on a pretty good car, perhaps a Subaru. That set other handlers to pen and pencil. One California handler said, “Subaru hell, I’m good for a Mercedes.”

  Handlers who’d had a good year were looking forward to the National Finals to put a cap on it. Handlers who hadn’t done so well worried openly how things were going back home, complained about feeling stretched between two places they needed to be.

  The dogs liked the cooler weather. Every week they were whisked off to a new trial where they’d meet fresh sheep, and fresh countryside and fresh difficulties. Like touring concert musicians all they cared about were their brief, ecstatic performances.

  Some of the dogs were too old for the demands, and between trials, they lay in their kennels and dreamed old dog dreams. But when they stepped onto the trial field, miraculously, their gimps and stiffness would evaporate and, exchanging glances with their handler (who was maybe going gray himself), they’d be the powerful young dog who’d set the world afire once upon a time. And handlers would look up from their programs, forget their conversations and come to admire a great dog they’d seen so many times and wouldn’t be seeing much longer.

  Penny Burkeholder’s Hope nipped a sheep at the Meeker trial but the judge didn’t call it. Either the judge was daydreaming or he was so bemused by the dog’s brilliant performance, the nip became a nonevent in his mind.

  Of course some handlers bitched about that undetected nip, said, “Some people could do no wrong.” Ransome Barlow told anyone who’d listen that “Two years is too damn young for so much heavy trialing,” and Ethel Harwood snapped, “He’s old enough to beat your dog! Only difference between Hope’s nip and Bute’s is Bute got caught at it.”

  Bute hadn’t been running at all well. Some people thought the dog had soured, others thought Ransome was handling him badly. Ransome’s new pals were the most critical.

  “Ransome ain’t been right since he came back from Montana,” one said. “Goin’ away like that broke his string.”

  Another pal said, “More likely his love life went bad. That Burkeholder gal isn’t giving ol’ Ransome the time of day.”

  The first pal said, “Man gets used to it, can’t get along without it.”

  Since neither Ransome nor Penny talked about their breech, other handlers took up the slack. Penny had bought her own pickup, a low-mileage Nissan with a camper. And she wanted her money out of the pickup she and Ransome had shared—everybody knew that. And one of Ransome’s new-found pals had been hanging around when Ransome came back when Penny lit into him before he had a chance to explain—he didn’t say word one. “That Ransome is too proud to beg,” the pal noted approvingly.

  Ransome’s silent unhappiness attracted new friends—friends who generally popped their first beer before lunch. Although these men never finished in the money themselves, they were invariably sympathetic when Ransome had a bad run. “Hell,” they’d say, “that damn judge shouldn’t have called you off. When I beat you, you know something’s wrong.”

  Bute hated these men and somebody would have been dog bit if Ransome hadn’t kept Bute locked up.

  After Meeker, Nathan Mooney and Herbert Holmes from the Handlers’ Association detoured to Sheridan, to check on preparations for the Finals. They worried that the sheep wouldn’t arrive, that the cowboys who’d promised to put them out wouldn’t show, that the judge would get ill on all this unfamiliar cuisine. (Could buffalo burgers ruin the intestinal flora of a Scottish Highlander?) They worried that the local radio stations and newspapers hadn’t given the event enough promotion. They looked up at the Bighorns towering behind the enormous flat course and Herbert asked the trial director, “How early does it snow in these parts?”

  “We’ve seen snow here on Labor Day.”

  “If it does snow, the dogs can still work but you won’t pull much of a crowd.”

  “The ten-day forecast doesn’t say anything about snow.”

  Herbert rubbed his hands. “It was pretty cold when we came through the pass.”

  The Bighorns were blue and green in the twilight. The irrigation pipes that watered the Sheridan Equestrian Center throbbed and hissed from all the water thundering through them.

  “Well,” Herbert said, and shook the trial director’s hand, “let’s hope. See you in two weeks.”

  THE BUFFALO PURINA DOG TRIAL

  September 19, 20, Buffalo Wyoming

  Judge: Bud Boudreau, Marcus, South Dakota

  PENNY’S JEANS were bunched at the waist where her belt had gathered extra cloth and her upper body was lost in a bravely checked flannel cowboy shirt. Her hair was tucked under a fawn gray western hat, shaped into the Tom Mix style.

  “I see they haven’t forgotten each other.” Lewis grinned at Hope and Nop, who were happily renewing their aquaintance.

  “Hello, Daddy. How was the drive out? I spent a couple days at Bud Boudreau’s place, working Hope on those merino sheep. Those darn things can run like a deer.”

  “You and that fellow still traveling together?”

  “Who? Ransome? No. He cut out on me.”

  “He special to you?”

  “I was beginning to think he might be, but I was mistaken. I think Hope’s going to win the Finals.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, your mother and I, we’
ll be cheering you on. She’s really looking forward to seeing you … really.”

  The eyes were sad in Penny’s pinched face. “Sure. That’d be great. Look, I got to feed Hope and I should find out about the running order. If you haven’t worked these western ewes before, you’d be wise to keep Nop well off.”

  It wasn’t bad advice as advice goes because the first day of the Buffalo trial those wild sheep ran Nop all over the course and he was out of time before he got them penned. Nop’s tongue was dragging when he came off the course. The second day he did better, though he wasn’t in the money.

  Beverly had hoped Penny could spend time with them between the Buffalo trial and the Finals, but as soon as Penny finished on Sunday, she jumped Hope into her Nissan pickup and drove away. Lewis stood in for her at the awards ceremony, accepting her green fifth-place ribbon and check.

  When Lewis handed the check to Beverly she made a face. “How does Penny manage?” she asked.

  Lewis had been standing around all day and now he itched and was tired and he sprawled in the armchair of their motor home with Nop at his feet. “Penny runs a lot of trials.” He unlaced his shoes.

  “It would be better if …,” Beverly said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Lewis said. “But she’s got her own life to lead. At least we’re here to cheer her on.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that Ransome Barlow had a good reputation? You couldn’t tell it by the bunch he’s running with.”

  “Miss Ethel said she never saw him touch a drop of whiskey until lately. Boy’s got something stuck in his craw. He up and left Penny at some trial out in Washington State and when he returned she wouldn’t have a thing to do with him. Do you think we should go home?”