“That kind of thing stops me inside. That’s one hell of a shame Mister Dixel,” Odus kicked at the ground, looking across the flat hazy land of the valley as if he could see the running herd of Arabians out there, and over them a single plane coming down low out of the sun. “That’s a damn waste. I guess we all saw some things in that last War that changed us around alot. You don’t know, but I’ve told Joey here about it, that I built the Burma-Thai railroad, of course we were all slave labor then, a few Americans, mostly British and Aussies. Those that didn’t die in that jungle from fatigue and heat did from malaria. The only reason I survived was because I worked building California highways all through the last Depression, I can tell you it got me into shape. But I saw things there in that jungle everyday that stopped me inside. It all got turned around. I guess I wasn’t any different from the rest, when I got my chance I joined in wholeheartedly in slaughtering them slanteyed Japs and Chinks whenever they so much as popped a head out of a hole, man, woman or child, made no difference, it was all yellow then. But I saw their side do it first. I saw soldiers walking along canals, they’d see a bunch of villagers bathing and swimming and they’d blow them out of the water like yellow ducks just for target practice. In the mountains I saw them come into a town, stuff all the young men into a well and toss a handgrenade in, then laugh about it The Americans and British never did that kind of thing. But anyway I saw enough there to stop me inside and to withdraw from the civilized company of men to the top of the Sierra mountains where the insights of the great Garibaldi can be seen in the clean air and a man can drink his scotch with those he likes, and those he doesn’t like, he doesn’t like. But that thing about the horses in Africa, now that’s a real waste.”
“There’s a funny end to that story Odus. When the War was over, it was when I was in Law School, I met a man who was in the Air Force and was stationed in Tangier when I was there. After I saw those Arabians gunned down I didn’t much like anybody who flew a plane in the War and I told him right out to his face, and I told him the story too. And he told me what really happened, he knew all about it. He said that North Africa had been pretty well worked over by the end of ’43, bombed and shelled. All during that time alot of Arabians got loose, and since the people had been turned into refugees they tried to capture the horses and eat them. This drove the horses far out into the barren hills, far from any people. For some reason the horses got to chasing the trains, racing them sometimes for ten miles. Well, there was always a plane sent to escort the trains against surprise attack and they were instructed to shoot down the horses, radio back the location and another train would be sent out to pick up the bodies. You see, there wasn’t much meat in that country then, and there was alot of men. The pilot I talked to asked me what the hell all of us indignant soldiers probably ate for dinner in Sfax that night. I don’t think there wouldn’t have been a man who wouldn’t have vomited out all his food if he had been told what he had stuffed in his belly for dinner that night. But I’m going to have my Arabians some day soon on my Mexico dream ranch. Maybe I’m trying to raise back up that herd I saw gunned down in Africa. I don’t really try to figure it out I’ve been going down to Mexico for five straight years now, every winter. Our winter is their summer and I get a chance to fly over the country and jeep around. I must find just the right place to build up the herd. To build up the dream.”
“Did you find it yet Mister Dixel?”
“No Odus, not yet. I almost thought I had it last winter, I really thought that was the right place. It turned out it wasn’t But I know where to look now. I’ll find it this next winter. I’ll find it and I’ll move everything down there.”
Jandy spit on the hot ground, “Maybe you will Mister Dixel. Maybe you will, and maybe you won’t. Mexico is a big place. Awful big for one man.”
Dixel scraped his fingernail across his silver bucking bronco, “Don’t you worry Jandy, I’ll get my dream.”
“Maybe,” Jandy swung around and began to walk away.
“Jandy.”
Jandy’s thin back held for a moment against the man with the silver buckle, then he turned slowly around, “What’s that Mister Dixel?”
“I want you to go up to the main cattle barn, I’ve got that four year old black cow in there again, the one the Vet came out to look at last spring. She’s all bloated, blown up like a balloon.”
“She might have a dead calf in her.”
“Well, you give her a good look. I don’t want to lose her.”
“I’ll feel her over good.”
“And Jandy,” Dixel began scraping at his bucking bronco again. “When you finish there I want you to go over to Dora’s house, then the two of you are to get the pill gun and start working your way through the herd. I want each animal to get his full dose of worm pill.”
Jandy spit on the hot ground, “When it starts gittin wet, that’s when you want to give worm pills. It’s much too early now, that’s not the way to do it.”
Dixel scraped at his bucking bronco and turned to the cab of the truck, the sun was still beating off the window and the passenger within could not be seen, then he heard a baby cry, the sound slipped out of the metal cab into the hot air and disappeared. He kept his turned back to Jandy and climbed up into the cab. He slammed the door, leaning his arm down over the large red painted AD, “You go get Dora. I want them wormed. Everyone.”
Odus handed the bucket up to him, “Don’t forget your balls Mister Dixel.”
The man looked down at Odus, thumping the red AD on the door with the flat of his hand, his face was smooth, there was not a mark on it, the flies that were thick in the air did not land on his skin. He looked quickly over at the Indian, “Birdsong, come over here.”
The Indian sat there for a moment, then he stood up in the sun, he felt the pain coming back into his leg as he walked to the man, “Yes Mister Dixel?”
“I thought I would tell you now, I know what it means to you, but this spring coming up will be the last time I’ll need you to go out over the fields and shoot rabbits. This ranch doesn’t need a rabbit boss anymore.”
“They eat alot of good pasture grass, and they dig big holes, the cattle can break their legs in those holes, you let it go long enough and a horse will break his leg in it too.”
“I don’t think you understand. I won’t need you to shoot rabbits and keep the fields clean. Those days are gone. I read in the cattlemen’s magazine where they’ve now come up with a machine that you set out and it will trap and kill rabbits. I don’t know too much about it but I talked to some ranchers in Reno who say they’ve had good luck with it in Nevada, so we’ll be getting it here soon. You can go ahead and do the spring shoot, then that’s that.” He turned the engine on and the whole cab began to shake with power, “Now you and Odus get the coils out of the back, there are some leather gloves back there too.”
The power of the engine shook off the glare of sun from the cab window and the Indian could see through it past the man to the woman sitting on the far side. There was a baby on her lap. The woman’s hair he could see, not her face.
“Birdsong,” the man thumped the red AD and gunned the power of his engine. “How many ways do I have to ask you to get those coils off the back and get to work!”
The Indian moved around to the back of the truck, he pulled the heavy leather gloves on and threw the weight of the coiled barbwire to the hot ground. The truck was released of its burden, the thick black rubber of its back wheels spun with a sudden excess of power, towering up a column of dust as it bellowed off into the blind haze down the road.
The Indian stood with the dust falling around him. Odus came to him through the dust, “He’s like a dog, all he knows is how to bark.”
“Calfshit,” Jandy spit on the hot ground. “Everytime I do any cuttin’ for Dixel he’s right on top of me for the balls. ‘Are they clean Jandy? Do they have any marks on them?’ Then he’s got to go and tell about how old man Abraham Dixel made him and his new wife watch as
he had the balls cut off a prize bull, as if he hasn’t told everyone in this valley that story at least ten times. Him and his goddam Appaloosas and his Arabians. All his dreams. Calfshit.”
“Jandy,” Odus smiled. “There’s a bottle of scotch in the glove compartment of my truck, get it and join me and Joey for a small drink. Let’s sit in the shade, just sit and look. The only thing stupid enough to be out in the midday heat is people, the animals are all too smart, they’ve found themselves the shade of a tree or a fencepost. Even these goddamned face flies are too hot to buzz.” He pulled the Indian over with him and collapsed on the sun shaded side of his truck against the high tire. Jandy came around with the full bottle of whiskey, he uncorked it and took a swift drink, hunching his thin shoulders in and shivering as the fine taste of malt cut up his nose. He handed the bottle down to the Indian and sat beside him, “What calfshit.”
The Indian tipped the bottle to his lips, as he drank the sun cutting down over the cab of the truck caught the end of the clear glass sticking up out of the shade and lit up its gold contents. The Indian stuck the bottle in Odus’ chest. Odus took it and sucked away like a baby, his old face alone, the gray of his eyebrows caught in a rut of skin halfway up his forehead. He passed the bottle back to the Indian, “Landowners. Big Landowners. That’s something Garibaldi wouldn’t have stood for, not for one second on top of one of your E-PLURIBUS-UNUM silver dollars. That Garibaldi was a goddamn Saint. He started the revolution with two men and four mules. Big Landowners. America had its chance once, everyman could have shared our wealth, but that chance was shot to death the hot night in Baton Rouge when Huey Long was assassinated. Huey Long may not have been as great as the great man who set out to free Italy, Garibaldi. But Huey Long’s all America’s ever had.”
Jandy took the bottle from the Indian and gulped another mouthful of whiskey, “Who in hell is Huey Long?”
“He was the Governor of Louisiana, the defender of all the little fish. He would have defeated Roosevelt in the election of ’36 and made the little man King, but he was shot down in the halls of his own Capitol building like a deer. It’s still like it was. Big Fish eat little fish.”
Jandy’s stone eyes stared out across the hot land before him. He spit, “Calfshit.”
Odus grabbed the bottle back from Jandy and drank the rest of the golden liquid out of the glass, “Jandy, America was built on civic pride such as yours. The politicians have spent millions convincing you they are nothing but calfshit so you won’t have nothing to do with them and they can keep on doing what they are doing.” He jammed the empty bottle into the dirt and laughed, throwing his old head back up against the rubber of the truck tire, “Wooooowhh shit, that Garibaldi was a goddamn Saint.” He pushed himself up on his old legs, unzippered his pants and pissed a straight gold line right into the hot ground, “That reminds me, you don’t have to worry about politics Jandy, you’re an artist of this world, the goddamdest, softhandedest, quickest little castrator in the whole of this valley.”
Jandy slapped his hand on the faded knee of his blue-jeans and rolled over on the hot ground with the thin shoulders tucked up under his chin, the laughter spurting from his mouth, “Look me up in the Farmers’ Almanac under FAST.”
The laughter kept coming up out of Odus so hard he could hardly zipper his pants. Then he stopped and looked at the Indian, “You know Joey, I hate that Dixel so goddamn much. He ought to be run over like a dog in the road. Come on, let’s go.” He reached down and pulled the Indian to his feet. He kicked Jandy in the side, but Jandy kept laughing. “Let’s go Jandy, me and Joey will drive you home to your truck. Hell Joey, he’s not going to stop laughing, he’s gone. You put those coils up in the back and I’ll get him into the truck.”
The Indian slipped on the leather gloves and hefted one of the wire coils up onto the pickup bed. He took hold of another and slipped under its metal weight, driving his knee into the hot ground. The gold whiskey raced in his head, flashing the sun white in his eyes. He grabbed hold of the coil again, one of its steel barbs punching through the leather of the glove into the flesh of his palm. He got the weight up high and slammed its bulk down on the bed. Odus came around and helped him lift the other three coils onto the truck. They got in the cab, wedging the laughing Jandy between their shoulders. Odus backed the truck out onto the black asphalt, then banged the gearshift down, sending the truck lurching over the road and into the side ditch. He jabbed his foot on the accelerator scattering a spray of dust up behind him as the whining engine drove the truck sideways down the ditch then thumping back up on the road. Odus grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, holding on like a captain at the wheel of a ship in a storm, his old eyes straining through the dust of the windshield at the straight asphalt dancing before him like a black snake, “You know what I hate about that Dixel, Joey!” He shouted above the pain of the engine being driven at fifty miles an hour in second gear, “What I hate is the way he treats that pretty little lady of his. There is no excuse on a man for that. Him and his Mexico dream ranch. Every winter he goes off to Mexico and leaves her, you’ve seen it. He leaves her with all four of the kids to tend to and a barn full of Appaloosas. Four straight winters now, you’ve seen. He says it’s because he don’t trust anybody else with those horses but her. Four straight winters he’s left her with those horses to shovel shit and snow.”
Jandy stopped laughing, “She don’t have to shovel shit and snow alone Odus.”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“Ben Dora!” Jandy shouted over the deafening pain of the engine.
“What the hell about Ben Dora!”
“Watch out for Chrissakes Odus! You’re going to kill us!”
Odus brought all of his weight down on the brake pedal, digging the thick black tires into the hot asphalt as the rearend of the truck slung around and skidded sideways over the road, then jolted up on two wheels, balancing its slowed bulk on the edge of collapse before slamming back against the asphalt with a loud metal clang that killed the engine.
Through the dust of the windshield Odus had a clear view of the Japanese tractor, the roar of its engine shook and swayed the high metal seat upon which the driver sat peering down impassively at the three men whose sweaty faces stared up at him through the dust clouded window of the silent pickup. The driver cut the roar of his engine, waiting until it spit out the heat of its exhaust and gave up the last shudder of dying power. He pushed the stiff straw allweather cowboy hat back on his head and dismounted from his high metal seat like a tank commander discovering a landmine. He inspected the stalled pickup, walking around and kicking each tire, letting out a short whistle each time as he raised his eyes to the heavens and nodded his head in agreement. When he had gone around the silent truck twice he leaned his arm against the open driver’s window, the deep wrinkles of his sun darkened face spreading out in a big smile, “Howdy Odus.”
“Goddamn you Frank.”
“This is ranch country, man on a tractor is always in the right of way.”
“I worked for the California Highway Department for nineteen years building these roads, I know the law.”
“What you been drinking?”
“Whiskey. And nowhere in the law does it say a rednecked rancher in a Jap tractor can …”
“Got any left?”
“No! Can drive around like a country squire …”
“I figured you would have drunk it all. I’m surprised the State would give a driver’s license to an old man like you with no teeth.”
“I’ve got teeth, you goddamned rednecked country squire using the white divider line on the road like it was a trail blazed for you and your Jap tractor.”
“Where you boys going?”
“To work.”
“I’m surprised anybody would hire the three of you. Who is it that has a job to be messed up? Joe there is such a lousy rifle shot he couldn’t hit a rabbit on a branch. Jandy is so slow when he goes to cut the balls off a calf he gets the tail instea
d. And you Odus, you’re so old you couldn’t lay a barbed wire fence up straight even if a wind storm was blowing up behind you the right way. Who would hire three incompetents like you?”
“You, you cocky bastard, when you’ve got money.”
The man tucked his straw hat down at a forward angle, “If you’re going to be that way about it I’m leaving, and just when I was about to invite you boys down to Art and Linda’s bar for a free drink.” He turned his back on the truck and walked toward his tractor, the blue seat of his jeans was worn a dull silver and glinted in the sun. He stopped, then turned around, pushing his hat up again as he came back to the truck, “That reminds me Odus, you mentioned money, you said when I’ve got the money. Well there’s all I can get if I want it.”
Rabbit Boss Page 34
