Horseshoes, Cowsocks & Duckfeet

by Baxter Black

  Sneaking from her second-grade, little-girl bedroom came revenge on her hands and knees. Stealthy as a Navy Seal, down the stairs, across the rug, through the kitchen, right up under the table where I sat oblivious as Pompeii the day before Vesuvius blew.

  I was wallowing my spoon around in the bowl trying to spell Oolagah, staring at the sliding door that looked like a blank movie screen, not yet able to form a coherent thought. I grasped the bowl as a primate would, to slurp. Suddenly, rising like a Trident missile, thirty-six inches from my pursed lips, across the table appeared the most terrifying visage I had ever seen. It was accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream that would break glass.

  My mind could not compute. My “fight or flight” mechanism kicked in, the chair went over backwards, the table rose six inches off the ground, and the air was filled with flying objects, both edible and inedible.

  I crashed!

  My heart pounding, I crawled back up and peeked over the tabletop. All I saw was the back of a seven-year-old kid wearing pajamas and pigtails, swinging a stuffed rabbit. She walked back to her bedroom.

  I couldn’t see her face, but I think she was smiling.

  Gosh, I’d of loved to be there that night with those boys. I really like that last line.

  EDDIE’S BOAT RACE

  Butte, Montana, is famous for many things, not the least of which was Eddie’s Downtown Midnight Power Boat Race.

  Eddie did day work for Randy and Leroy. That summer, he helped them refinish houses. Eddie was mostly labor but he was good at it. They paid him $250 a week, and he had to borrow money on Thursday to make it to the next payday. Eddie bought a lot of beer. At six feet and 260 pounds, he could hold a lot of beer! He hadn’t had a haircut since his sister’s wedding, and his beard looked like the ground side of a bale of hay.

  Eddie had a change of heart one night. He decided to cut down on his party life. As therapy he chose to rebuild his boat. For three weeks, he’d go home every night and work on it. It was a seventeen-foot outboard, sleek-lookin’ craft, which he had sitting on sawhorses in his front yard. He stripped and sanded, varnished and patched, rubbed and polished, and tinkered. It was beginning to take shape the night he fell off the wagon.

  Leroy had his own boat up at the lake, forty miles away. About 2:00 A.M. on a balmy Friday night, Eddie suggested to Leroy they oughta take a boat ride. He was persistent.

  Finally, Leroy said, “Awright, you lunatic! I’ll take you for a boat ride!” But instead of goin’ to the lake, he drove straight to Eddie’s house. Eddie climbed in his boat. He thought it was hilarious! Leroy dropped his thirty-foot chain through the eyebolt on the prow and laced it around his trailer hitch.

  “Hit it, Leroy!” yelled Eddie. He thought it was a great joke. He thought that right up until Leroy popped the clutch and jerked the boat off the sawhorses! You could see the whites of Eddie’s eyes!

  Down through the garden they went! Tomato vines, chicken wire, and stalks of corn slapping the sides! Eddie was ducking the melons and ears of corn when they wheeled onto the empty street! Rooster tails of mud flew from behind the pickup; fruit tree branches and fence stays sailed in all directions! Eddie had a death grip on the steering wheel as the boat banked and swerved. He was stiff as a hedgerow post, and his lips were frozen in the shape of an O. With his hard hat pulled down and his cutting goggles in place, he looked like a walrus in the Indy 500!

  The boat careened at the end of the chain, throwing a shower of gravel off the port side! The city road crew had graded a long strip of gravel and left the extra piled down the middle of the street. By careful driving, Leroy was able to whip Eddie and his crumbling, shattered hull back and forth across the gravel hump.

  Splinters, aluminum siding, fiberglass, wire, cans of paint, leaves, dirt, and rocks sprayed like tornado droppings in the wake of Eddie’s speedboat! As the bottom of the boat disintegrated, it filled with gravel and ground to a stop.

  Eddie stepped from the shipwreck, shaking. He asked for a Coke and said, “Tie ’er up, boys, before she sinks!”

  I spent two months livin’ in Kansas City when I was thirty-five. I’d grown up in a small town in a county that was 65 percent Spanish-speaking and was not really aware of racial divisiveness. Kansas City at that time was still healing old wounds from the race riots. When I strolled into that blues nightclub, I had no idea I was an integration pioneer. Funny what innocent ignorance can do.

  WILLIE’S TOTAL EXPERIENCE LOUNGE

  Prejudice is a funny thing. When a city slicker or a dude comes meanderin’ into a Montana bar in Glasgow, he’s liable to get a lot of hard stares. But, I’m here to tell ya, when the shoe’s on the other foot, it can be mighty uncomfortable.

  I set out one night in Kansas City to find one of them “down-home guitar blues pickers” that I had read about in the Sunday paper. I was drivin’ around Saturday night lookin’ for Walter’s Crescendo Lounge. I had some ribs at Money’s on Prospect and asked directions. The feller told me not to go over there after dark. Then, after thinkin’ about it, he scribbled his name and phone number on a piece of paper and said, “When you git in trouble, have ’em call me.” Nice of him, I thought.

  Somehow I never found Walter’s, but at the corner of Thirty-ninth and Jackson I spied Willie’s Total Experience Lounge. I recognized the name from the paper, so I went in.

  I was dressed normal: hat, jeans, and boots. The bartender was a lady named Bert. She served me a scotch and cream soda.

  I sat at a table in front of the band. As the clientele came in, they all sat around by the walls. Kind of like they were circlin’ me. Nobody said much and they weren’t real friendly. Finally the bandleader, Freddy, came over to my table and asked me, “Hey, man, what are you doin’ here?”

  I told him I heard this was the best music in Kansas City and I came to find out!

  Well he must have thought the same thing ’cause it sure tickled him! He couldn’t do enough to make me feel at home. His sister was the waitress, and he told her to make sure my grape Nehi never went dry.

  By then, I “wuz smarter’n a tree full o’ owls, ten foot tall, and bulletproof!” But I couldn’t get nobody to dance with me! Eventually this lady named Elizabeth consented. She must have figured I wasn’t so bad after all ’cause she sat at my table and invited Louise and Wilma to join us. The four of us danced until closin’ time. It was a fine evening, and although they didn’t take to me at first, they must have decided that cowboys aren’t from outer space, just different.

  I remember that little lesson when I see a kid wearin’ a headband and sandals in a cowboy bar. I always try to give ’im the benefit of the doubt. After all, he might be friskin’ customers at the door next time I make it to Willie’s Total Experience!

  The cowboy and his dog. Tighter than two dice in a crapshooter’s hand, joined at the heart and faithful as a tapeworm. Oh, to be loved like that.

  COWDOGS

  A good cowboy should have three things: a good horse, a good dog, and ______. I left the last one blank so you could fill in your own. Some might choose a good woman, others a good banker, a job in town, a silver bit, a full can of Copenhagen, or Saturday off.

  Now, every fall when I go out to work the cows, the neighbors all show up to help. They come drivin’ up in a big Ford four-wheel-drive pickup, a deer guard on the front, mud and snow all around, a couple of spare tires tied to the stock racks, and a Handyman jack wired in the back of that hummer rattlin’ like a beer can in a fifty-gallon drum! In the back of every one of them pickups is, at least, one GOOD dog! And two pups!

  Now them dogs leap out and commence to fight with one another for two hours! You spend the rest of the day kickin’ ’em out from under yer feet or chasin’ ’em outta the gate!

  But you can’t say nothin’. Oh, no! That’s a sacred thing! You can’t criticize another man’s dog!

  Now everybody’s got a dog story. Claude had spent all mornin’ gettin’ a bull off the mountain and was easin’ ’im down toward
a trap in the meadow. Tom came drivin’ up and got out to open the corral gate. Ring leaped out of Tom’s pickup and proceeded to put the bull back up the mountain.

  Ring come trottin’ back, lolling his tongue, a satisfied look on his face. You could almost hear him sayin’, “Aren’t you proud of me, Dad?” But one look at Claude’s face, and you could hear Ring thinkin’, Uh-oh!

  Claude took Ring by the collar and proceeded to reenact the Olympic hammer throw event!

  All over cow country these dingos, blue heelers, and Border collies go by similar names—Banjo, Badger, Penny, Bingo, Blue, Dally, or Dog—but under stress most of ’em git called the same thing! It’s a term of endearment that refers to their maternal lineage!

  There’s probably a heaven for cowdogs where they can sit out on the edge of a cloud and look down at the earth. If atmospheric conditions are just right, they can cock an ear and hear some ol’ cowboy yellin’, “Go git in the pickup, you pot licker!”

  Say it ain’t so, Sweetie.

  SCORPION STRIKES AGAIN

  Dear Baxter,

  I’ve been meaning to send you a thank-you for the new book you sent at Christmas. We have it about half colored, ha, ha.

  I had it on my list of things to do today but I didn’t get a chance. Charlie got stung by a scorpion, and he’s really having a tough time metabolizing the venom. I had to be the nurse while he went through the numb and tinglies, wobbly eyes, and slobbers. In any case, it wasn’t life threatening, just inconvenient.

  We’d returned from church and lunch in town. Charlie took the Sunday paper and retired to the bathroom. I was in the laundry room when I heard a scream, really more like a duck call. When I went into the bathroom to see what was wrong, Charlie was crouched in front of the stool like an offensive lineman, trousers around his ankles, and wincing. Really wincing.

  There was one teed off scorpion doing laps in the water. As near as we can tell, Mr. Scorpion had been on the back side of the couple squares of toilet paper that hung down from the roll. Charlie didn’t see it, and it didn’t see him until it was too late.

  Since Charlie’s brother and father both swear by the idea of shocking a scorpion sting or snakebite, and tell of their personal experiences willingly, I offered to go get the cattle prod from the barn to see if it would help if we shocked him a good one.

  Charlie said he didn’t care if it would restore baldness, induce labor, or cure bog spavin in horses, he would not stand still for Hot-Shot therapy. I then offered a kinder, gentler alternative. Since cold was supposed to help a sting, I would get him a bowl of ice cubes and a tong. He could place a cube on the sting with the tongs and clinch till it melted. He didn’t go for that, either.

  Before the kids left for school the next morning, he made us promise not to tell anyone exactly where he was stung. I can tell you that it’s pretty hard, when asked that question, to keep a straight face and say, “In the bathroom.”

  Anyway, he’s doing better, but he’s developed a morbid fear of Mr. Whipple.

  Our best to your family and thanks again for the book.

  —Sweetie

  HOMELESS DOGS

  I passed a professional homeless person again today. She’s staked out a corner at an intersection off the freeway that I take to go to the airport on a regular basis. She’s a celebrity of sorts. I’ve seen at least two feature stories including her in the last year. She lives with a couple other homeless folks outside the city. They sleep in a car. According to the story, they are ex-alcoholics. But she’s at her spot almost every morning before daylight, on her corner by the stop sign. She has a cardboard sign that asks for a handout because she’s out of work and needs help and “God Bless.”

  Let me tell ya, she’s not out of work. She’s on duty on her corner regular as an insulin shot. She probably puts in more hours than the average consultant.

  Did I mention she has a dog? She always has a dog with her. On cool winter mornings, his head is peeking out from under the nondescript blanket that she herself is wrapped in.

  I used to think the dog was a ploy for sympathy. It would be a good one. Authors, movie producers, animal rights groups, and charities of all kinds have shamelessly used animals as a sympathy device.

  But hers is not an easy life. Anybody who puts in 8 to 5, six days a week, knows that some mornings the drudgery can weigh you down. However, it makes it more bearable for most of us knowing we’ve got supper, the Barcalounger, sixty-four channels, and a clean warm bed waiting after we get off work. I’m not sure what she has waiting for her when she gets off work. I guess I don’t want to think about it.

  After giving her a couple bucks the first few times I passed, I began to resent her. Go git a job. Show a little self-respect. Take some initiative, I thought.

  But I have come to the conclusion that there are people in society who just don’t fit in. Where would she ever get a job? I wouldn’t hire her. Maybe she’s emotionally unstable, mentally dysfunctional, antisocial. Whatever she is, though, she isn’t lazy. Oh, sure, maybe she goes back to her hobo camp after a hard day’s begging and gripes about the cheapskates in their new BMWs with the windows rolled up. “One guy asked if I could change a five. Can you believe it! Ah, well, another day. Think I’ll have a diet pop and prop my feet up in front of the fire. Come here, ol’ dog.”

  Of late, I no longer think the dog is a ploy. He’s probably her best friend—something, I suspect, she doesn’t have in abundance. For her, like a lot of us, her dog lends some kindness and comfort in an often unsympathetic world. The dog, in return, gets her love and protection.

  Yup, she may be homeless, but her dog isn’t.

  Norman Maclean wrote some of the most beautiful words concluding one of his stories: “All existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”1

  My apologies to Norman.

  A POND RUNS THROUGH IT

  It’s not uncommon for cattle farmers to keep livestock ponds stocked with fish. In the Midwest, bass are considered the primo catch. Penny and her husband often take their guests out to the pond, but they are more sophisticated fishermen than most. They have outgrown the crude, clunking lures, the simulated plastic worms, the ticky-tacky spinners, and the ohso-amateur refrigerated night crawlers.

  They are fly fishermen.

  Their friend John is a fly-fishing aficionado and a frequent guest. One afternoon, Penny walked with him across the pasture to the pond. They strode with the confidence of Olympic athletes. They competed, not against each other but only against themselves.

  John, the minimalist, went up the bank carrying all his tackle in his shirt pocket. Penny, the princess of preparedness, set her backpack on the ten-foot dirt edge of the half-full pond.

  She laid out everything she would need neatly along the bank: four boxes of flies, sinkers, net, forceps, suntan lotion, bottled water, energy bars, creel, combination knife and scaler, bug spray, and wire cutters. She kept her feet dry and began back-casting, laying the line, reeling and pausing, ebbing and flowing, all in perfect rhythm to the lapping of the wavelets on the shore.

  Her concentration was intruded upon by the feeling that she was not alone. She looked around to see forty curious Angus heifers looking over her fly-fishing inventory like single mothers at a yard sale. They were licking, nudging, drooling, stomping, and scattering woolies, nymphs, slug bugs, hellgrammites, sunscreen, and oatmeal raisin cookies along the beach.

  Penny tried shooing them back, but it was like trying to shoo snow off the porch. They had her surrounded and were closing in. “John! John!” she kept calling, trying to get some help.

  She was actually whacking heifers on the head with her bare hand whilst holding her rod above the milling crowd. John was steadily giving advice: “Move sideways! Stand tall! Stoop and run! Twist and shout!”

  As Penny was maneuvering, one of
the heifers stuck her head under the fishing line. It startled her! She began backing up. The line hooked on the round ear tag button on the backside. The crowd parted as Penny played the heifer like an eight-hundred-pound walleye.

  “Keep yer tip up,” encouraged John.

  The heifer ducked and dived, breached and sounded, wiggled and shook until she finally broke free. “Wow,” said John to the panting Penny, “that’s sure the big one that got away!”

  “Yeah,” said Penny, “but we mostly just catch and release.”

  The direction the tub drains depends on where you live. I prefer clockwise.

  VANISHING EAST

  I received a letter from a journalist. She included several selfpenned poems that wistfully celebrated the mountains, the big sky, and the cowboy. She said she was chronicling the vanishing West.

  Humm . . . , I thought, does that mean the East has already vanished?

  At what point did it happen, when the Indians sold Manhattan? When Kentucky became a state? When the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles?

  And how does something like “the East” vanish? Can it move to Atlanta? Get eaten by locust hordes? Or get covered up like a landfill?

  Carrying this thought forward, it is just a short philosophical step from “chronicling the vanishing West” to “saving” it. Except that the ideas rise proportionally to Preposterous, on the lunatic scale. There are those who have proposed depopulating the Great Plains from Colorado to North Dakota and establishing a buffalo common. Others who support draining Lake Powell.

  However, saving the West almost always entails eliminating any type of private enterprise, i.e., cattle, timber, mining, and fast-food franchises. According to the advocates, people should only be allowed to live in places like Flagstaff, Missoula, Aspen, and Palm Springs if they can be supplied essentials from elsewhere. Like living in Antarctica or on the moon.