Leaving Cheyenne Read online

  DEAR JONATHAN:

  I know you love that name so much I thought I would just use it on you.

  Well, how was the winter up there? I guess you have got a family of half-breed kids by now, or did that deal ever turn out? Let me know, I am sure curious.

  I guess the big news down here is about Molly’s old man. He drunk lye last month and died, it was awful hard on Molly but I think she is over the worst of it now. She is getting sweeter all the time, and I mean it, I think I am going to get her in the notion of marrying me one of these days, then when you come back you will really know what you’ve missed. But I guess you will bring your Indian sweetheart home, so you won’t mind too much.

  Eddie is acting sorrier than ever, I may have to fight him yet.

  Well, I wish you would come home, we could sure put you to work, we might even give you a raise. Our steers wintered good but the calf crop is pretty puny. If we don’t get some rain the grass will all play out by June.

  I guess that’s all the news I know of. If you see Old Man Grinsom, say hello for me and ask him if he thinks I can ride or not. I have got a new sorrel horse by the way, he can foxtrot like nobody’s business but he ain’t no cowhorse yet. He’s just a four-year-old though. I give thirty-five dollars for him.

  Write me sometime and send me the news from New Mexico.

  Your friend,

  GID

  I guess old Johnny must have been sitting at the table with his pencil licked when he got my letter, because I got one from him in less than a week’s time.

  DEAR GID:

  I would use the rest of your name too, but I ain’t the kind that has to get even with ever mean trick that’s played on me.

  Well, this is the life for me, and I don’t mean maybe. This place I’m at is the rancho grandy for sure, there ain’t no damn mesquite to get in your way, but I do kinda wish it had a few more windbreaks in it. It like to blown us all away in Feb. and March, them was just fall breezes you got when you was up here. Jelly, she made a big wool bandanna to keep my neck warm.

  Jelly ain’t her real name, but that’s what the boss called her so I use it too. He wasn’t kidding when he said she was pretty. Boy I never would have made it through the winter without her.

  Well, tell Molly I’m awful sorry about her trouble. I’m just sorry for her, I ain’t gonna miss the old bastard personally, are you? I wish I had been there though.

  If you do fight Eddie, don’t let him get the first lick. Get the first one yourself, with a two-by-four if one’s handy.

  I ain’t losing no sleep over you and her getting married, I know she ain’t that far gone.

  We had quite a bit of snow in early March, never had much before that. It’s all the moisture we’ve had. This here ain’t a very big ranch, really, and it’s a good thing because there’s just me to take care of it. The coyotes have got six calves so far, I even seen one Lobo but didn’t get a shot at him. There ain’t a decent horse on the place.

  Well, write me agin. I like to hear the news. I may come home one of these days if I don’t get lost in the sandstorms. Tell Molly I’ll be seeing her.

  Your friend,

  JOHNNY

  sixteen

  We had a good rain in early February, and it looked like that would be the last we’d ever have. We never had a sprinkle in March, and by the middle of April the pastures were looking like they usually looked in July. It never helped Dad’s disposition, or mine either. We had to feed the cattle, and it was such hard, hot work Dad just couldn’t do it. Between the dry weather and Dad being sick, I wasn’t in a very good humor.

  One morning I run into Eddie. I was down in the River pasture, feeding. The cattle could hear me well enough, but it was hot and they didn’t want to come to the wagon. I hollered around for an hour and only got sixty-five or seventy. I was just about to go ahead and feed them when three damn floppy-eared turd hounds come loping up through the brush, barking like hell. The cattle took off in about ten different directions. I got down and chunked the dogs and went on and got most of the cattle back together agin, and I’ll be damned if the dogs didn’t come up and run them off agin. My horse was tied to the back of the wagon, so I got on him and took my rope down and went after some dogs. I didn’t rope them, but I whipped the shit out of two of them. The other one was too much of a dodger. When I was trotting back to the wagon, coiling my rope, I seen Eddie slouching across the flat. I might have known they was his dogs; nobody but him had time to run hounds that time of year. He had on an old khaki jumper and some patched pants and some roughnecking boots and looked like he hadn’t seen a razor in about ten days. Both of us were mad.

  But I didn’t start off unfriendly. “Howdy, Ed,” I said.

  “Goddammit, Fry, that ain’t no way to treat dogs,” he said. “No telling where they are now. I been looking for them all morning, and now I got it to do over agin.”

  “I’d been after these cattle they run off a good while, myself,” I said. “I guess the dogs will come home when they get hungry, won’t they?”

  “But maybe I don’t want them home,” he said. “I might want to hunt some more.”

  “Listen here,” I said. “I don’t give a plugged nickel what you want, if you’re asking me. But what I want is for you and them dogs to get out of this pasture. And the next time they scare off cattle of mine they ain’t gonna get off so easy. Next time they’re gonna get the shit drug out of them.”

  “I’m a notion to whip your butt, right now,” he said.

  I got off my horse.

  “Have at it,” I said. “I hope you brought your lunch. You may need it before you’re through.”

  “Aw, hell no,” he said. “Then I’d have to carry you to the hospital. But let me tell you, you got one coming. Write it down in your little book.”

  “Don’t wait till I get too old,” I said.

  “Another thing,” he said. “Stay the hell away from my wife. I don’t even want to see you on her place.”

  “Stay away from your what?” I said.

  “My wife!” he said. “Just leave her the hell alone.”

  It was like lightning had hit me, only not fast lightning but a real slow bolt that slid all the way down me. By the time it got to my feet I was plumb numb. I couldn’t have said boo.

  “Why, you look surprised,” he said. “I guess that shows you, now don’t it. You and your long-legged buddy, too. Hell, we been married three weeks, and she’s a real dilly. Me and her we really take after one another. I never had a woman so crazy about me.

  “Well, ain’t you gonna congratulate me?” He winked and grinned.

  I got back on my horse and went on back to the wagon, and he went off after his dogs. A good many of the cattle had come back, and I fed them.

  That afternoon I went out with the posthole diggers and the wire stretchers, but I didn’t do no fencing. I went down to the far tank and sat under a big shade tree, watching the mockingbirds and the kildeers fly around. There were a lot of bubbles on top of the water; I should have fished. I just couldn’t understand Molly doing it. I wouldn’t have cared if lightning had struck me. There didn’t seem no reason left to work or nothing. I got to wondering if I would ever see her agin, and I couldn’t think what I’d say if I did. There wasn’t no clouds to look at, just water and sky, so I watched the water awhile and then I watched the sky. I didn’t do much thinking; I just sat there feeling tight and sick. About sundown I rode home. Dad noticed there wasn’t no dirt on my diggers, but he was tired too, and he never said nothing about it. We had cold steak and cold potatoes for supper, and I made the coffee too weak. It wasn’t such a good supper.

  seventeen

  It looked like the world was going completely to pot. Dad was getting worse instead of better, and three or four days after I found out about Molly I got another letter from Johnny.

  DEAR GID:

  Well, I’ve got so much time to kill now, I thought I would write you agin. I have been in a real scrape, it’s what
I get for riding sorry horses, I ought to know better. I was off riding line and my horse buggered at a damn skunk and off I went, only I got caught in my rope and he drug me about half a mile. I guess I am the most skinned-up person you ever saw. Besides, my hip was broke, and I was about ten miles from home; it was a pretty hard crawl, I tell you for sure, I was out lost all one night. If it had been cold the coyotes would have ate me by now.

  Jelly she got me into town and now they got me cemented up so I can’t turn over. It’s pretty tiresome, so don’t ever break no hips if you can help it.

  The horse come in, so I ain’t lost the saddle.

  These doctors are no-count, they give me a lot of trouble. I guess it will be June before I’m worth anything agin.

  Wish you was up here, we could play some cards and talk over old times. Write me when you get time and let me know all about Molly and your dad and what’s happening down that way. I ain’t had much news lately.

  Your friend,

  JOHNNY

  So he wasn’t having no luck, either. I didn’t know what to write him, all the news was so bad. I wished I could have gone up and stayed with him like he done with me, but it just couldn’t be managed. Finally I wrote him a note.

  DEAR JOHNNY:

  We are all sorry to hear about your trouble, that’s a cowboy’s life. I would come and stay, only Dad’s pretty sick now and there ain’t nobody but me to run the ranch.

  Molly has married Eddie, I guess that’s the end of that. I haven’t seen her. He is too sorry to talk about.

  We haven’t had no rain, either.

  I wish you would come on home when you get well, we could sure use a good hand.

  Your friend,

  GID

  Dad was looking low. I would have given anything to talk to Molly about it, but the times when I could talk to her were over and gone. I did go in and see Mabel Peters a time or two. She was a nice old girl, but she wasn’t much help. She was after me to marry her, and I was half a mind to. I didn’t see how I could be no worse off than I was. At least we’d have somebody to do the cooking and the housework. I wanted to hire somebody, but Dad wouldn’t let me.

  “Hell no,” he said. “A hired woman would get the best of me in no time. We’ll just get along by ourselves.”

  One day me and him drove a little bunch of cattle down to the League pasture. On the way back we stopped on the Ridge and talked and rested awhile. It was a pretty day. The mesquite was leafed out, and everything smelled like spring. Dad had got down to pull up a devil’s claw, and said he didn’t feel like getting back up right then; we sat under a post oak and talked. I had got where I liked to talk to Dad; it taken me a long time. From where we were sitting we could look off west and see halfway across the county, to the little ridges above Onion Creek, where Dad’s land ended.

  “I got a good ranch,” he said. “That’s one thing that cheers me up. The best land in the county.”

  He was right, I guess. To me it didn’t seem like much consolation.

  “The nice thing is that I’m a damn sight nearer worn out than this country. I’d hate to get old in a worn-out country.”

  “You ain’t worn out,” I said. “You’re just damn pessimistic. If you’d stay in the hospital awhile, you’d get well.”

  He didn’t say nothing for a minute.

  “Well, it’s too bad she married him,” he said, looking across the country. “She’ll make a good one. But just let me tell you something, son, a woman’s love is like the morning dew, it’s just as apt to settle on a horse turd as it is on a rose. So you better just get over it.”

  “Aw, I ain’t hurt much,” I said. “Why in the world did she want to marry a bastard like that? It just don’t figure.”

  “Well, she’s got a lot of sense when it comes to taking care of herself,” he said. “A lot more than you have. She’ll make it.”

  “Why, she ain’t got no sense, when it comes to taking care of herself,” I said.

  Sitting on the ground, you could smell the spring coming right up through the grass and into the breeze. It was sad Dad felt so awful at such a pretty time of year.

  “It’s my fault you don’t have more,” he said. “You’ve always had me to give you orders. I never put you on your own enough. She’s been on her own since she could walk.

  “But there’s no use in you sitting on your butt sulking,” he said. “Sulking never made a dime nor kept a friend.”

  “We better get on home,” I said.

  By the time we got to the barn it was late evening, and the last of the sun was shining on the weathervanes above the barn. Dad was tired. He drank some buttermilk and went to bed. He had seemed a little bit worried about me.

  “Anyhow you’re stubborn,” he said. “Stubbornness will get a feller through a lot of mean places.”

  The next morning he never woke me up, and there was a note lying on the table when I come down.

  DEAR GID:

  Miserable night. There’s no profit in putting up with this.

  I think I’ll go out on the hill and turn my horses free, or did you ever know that song? It’s an old one.

  Take good care of the ranch, it’s a dilly, and don’t trust ever damn fool that comes up the road. Always work outside when you can, it’s the healthiest thing.

  Tell Miss Molly I appreciated her coming and helping us, just tell her much obliged until she is better paid.

  Well, this is the longest letter I’ve written in ten years, it is too long. Be sure and get that windmill fixed, I guess you had better put in some new sucker rod.

  YOUR DAD

  The rifle wasn’t in the closet, so I knew that was that, and I sat down and held my head. I wisht old Johnny had been there, or Molly, but they wasn’t. Directly I went outside and turned off the windmill and went on down to the barn and hitched the wagon and put the wagon sheet in it and headed off across the hill. He was right on the west side; he had on a clean khaki shirt and Levis and had taken his hat off and was laying on his back on the grass. Once I seen him I wasn’t so scared, for some reason. He just looked natural, like Dad, and comfortable. I put him in the wagon and took him up to the house and laid him on the couch in the living room and got a counterpane to cover him with. It was worse in that cool darkish dusty old living room than it had been out in the sunshine. I hated to be the one to start treating Dad like a dead person. It was a long time before he seemed dead to me. For three months after that I would wonder in the morning why he hadn’t come to wake me up.

  I guess Dad had been better known than I thought; there was a big funeral and a lot of talk about what a pioneer he had been. It never done him much good, or me either. The worst of it all was seeing Molly. After I went into town to the undertaker a lot of people came out to visit me and bring stuff to eat. Molly, she came too, and brought a cake, and it was so awkward I got a headache from it. I knew she was remembering when her dad died and wishing she could really help me, but she couldn’t. All those people were there trying to cheer me up, and it just made me bluer. Every once in a while I would see Molly looking at me from across the room, and she would be crying and looking so sad I wished I could have gone over and hugged her and told her it was okay. Finally I did talk to her just a minute.

  “Molly,” I said. “One of the last things Dad did was tell me to thank you for helping us last winter. He sure appreciated it.”

  “I hope you’ll come and see me sometime, Gid,” she said. “When all of this is over.” Right after that she left. I seen her at the funeral, but just at a distance. Eddie was even there. I guess old Johnny was the only one that wasn’t. I wrote him a card and told him a little about it, but he never answered. In September, after he was back, we had a kind of little funeral ourselves: we took Dad’s old white saddlehorse that he called Snowman out on the hill and let him loose in the pasture; nobody ever rode him agin. We left Dad’s saddle hanging in the harness shed. Sometimes when I’m doing the chores early in the mornings, I wonder if Dad and that o
ld pony aren’t still out there, maybe, slipping around through the misty pastures and checking up on the new calves.

  eighteen

  One afternoon about ten days after Dad died I decided I ought to look over the ranch. Of course I had been over every inch of it a hundred times, but it had been Dad’s ranch then, and not mine. It was a nice sunny day, with a few white clouds in the sky, and not too hot; the week Dad killed himself we had a two-inch rain—it was just his luck to miss it—and the country looked wonderful. We had lots of grass, and the weeds weren’t too bad yet. Dad had about ten thousand acres; he had had the whole county to pick from, and he picked careful. There was a creek to the southeast and a creek to the northwest, and the River down the middle, so if there was water anywhere in the country, we had it. And of course he had built good tanks. I saddled old Denver and started off east, through the Dale pasture and rode down our east fence plumb to the southeast corner; then I cut back across Westfork and rode west between it and the River, winding through the brush till I got nearly to the west side and then turned north and rode up on the hill in the south pasture and rested awhile. The whole south end of our land was brushy, mesquite and post oak mixed; the farther north you went, the more mesquite and the less post oak. Dad said when he first saw the country there wasn’t a mesquite tree anywhere, or a prickly pear. Then I crossed the River and rode northwest till I hit Onion Creek, and turned and came back south east agin along the top of Idiot Ridge. There wasn’t no mesquite on the Ridge; it hadn’t got that far north. The north end of our land was still prairie, but you could look south off the Ridge and see the brush coming. Our headquarters sits southeast of the Ridge, on a long hill. Finally I rode back through the League pasture to the barn and turned old Denver loose. I sat on the lot fence awhile, resting and thinking. It was about an hour before sundown, and I didn’t much want to go up to the house, since there wasn’t nobody there. At least the milkpen calves were a little company.