Leaving Cheyenne Read online

  “She’s caught now,” I said. One of her horns was broke, and her front leg stuck out sideways, about as useful as a dishrag.

  “Why can’t nothing go right?” he said. Not “Why can’t I do nothing right?” And if I had done it, it would have been “What in the goddamn hell did you mean pulling a stunt like that?”

  “One consolation,” I said. “We won’t never have to get her up agin.”

  But Gid was too blue to rag.

  “Nobody’s fault,” I said.

  “No, but I’ll get blamed,” he said. “And I’ll furnish the new cow.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Molly wouldn’t want you to do that. We were just being neighbors. Accidents happen sometimes.”

  “Mostly to me,” he said. “Let’s go. She’ll stay till we get back.”

  “She won’t be hard to track if she don’t,” I said. “Where did you lose your hat?”

  His hand flew up to his head, and he turned a shade bluer. He hadn’t missed it till then. Me and Chester sat on the hill and waited while he went and found it.

  Of course Molly was as nice as she could be about it. If it fazed her at all, it didn’t show. She had meat and beans and gravy on the table when we got there, and some roasting ears steaming in a big bowl. Sweat was dripping off the ice-tea glasses.

  “I hate to lose her,” she said. “But she was wild as a wolf anyway. I had to hobble her all the time.” She wouldn’t hear of Gid furnishing her another cow, and she wouldn’t even let us go down and kill the old hussy for her. Gid was out of the talking mood, so we ate and loaded our saddles and left. Molly was standing on her back porch tying her sunbonnet strings when we left.

  “I shore hate that,” Gid said.

  I knew he would have to get over it in his own time, so I never said nothing. Nobody could talk Gid out of feeling bad. When something happened to get his mind off things a minute he was all right, and along came one of Jamison Williams’ kids to do it. He was running right down the road.

  “My god, ain’t he running,” Gid said. “Take to the ditch, he don’t see us. Get out of his way and let him go.”

  But when he got even with us the boy stopped right quick and went to crying. He stood there in the road crying, picking one foot and then the other out of the hot sand and cooling it against his trousers leg.

  “Nelson drowned in the horse trough,” he said. “Just now.”

  We grabbed him and went. Judith was sitting in the porch rocker, rocking and crying and hugging the boy so tight he couldn’t have breathed if he had been in perfect health. “Oh St. Peter,” she said, “he’s drowned and gone.” Gid jerked the kid away from her and turned him upside down, and I ran to the back yard and kicked the rain barrel over and got it around there. Me and Gid squeezed the boy over it till about half the horse trough ran out of his mouth, and finally he came to. Gid carried him back and gave him to Judith; she was still hysterical. I don’t think she ever knew it was us that drained him; she might have thought it was St. Peter. Anyhow, we went on.

  “What a day,” he said.

  When we got to the ranch it was done too late to feed. I unloaded the twelve sacks of feed while Gid was trying to make up his mind what to do.

  “I don’t never get nothing done any more,” he said. “These old pens need rebuilding. And that damn fencing ain’t finished. Why does a man even try?”

  “I’ve often wondered,” I said.

  “Well, you damn sure don’t ever accomplish nothing if you don’t try,” he said. “Let’s sit down in the shade here a minute.”

  “Some people get rich without trying,” I said. “Look at Pearl Twass. She used to go in the bushes with just about anybody, and now she drives around in a big Chrysler and sends her kids off to fancy schools.”

  “Yeah, but that’s just rich,” he said. “That’s just diamonds on a dog’s ass.”

  “Maybe so. But Pearl don’t go in the bushes so cheap any more.”

  “Now I got to organize,” he said. “Before I go to the hospital. Wisht I never had agreed to this damn operation. No telling how long it will tie me up.”

  “I thought it was just a standard operation for kidney trouble,” I said. “Like grinding your valves.”

  “Oh it is,” he said. “But you never know. I’m pessimistic, I guess.”

  “Well, don’t worry about the ranch,” I said. “I’ve taken care of it for thirty-eight years. I won’t lay down on the job now.”

  “That’s what worries me,” he said. “How well you’ve taken care of things. That’s why nothing on this whole outfit works like it ought to.”

  “No, it’s because you’re too tight to buy good equipment,” I said.

  “Anyhow,” he said, “and be that as it may, I’m going to draw you up enough orders to last you till I get back.”

  “Glad to have them,” I said. “Then I’ll at least know what not to do.”

  He wet his pencil and went to figuring, and I whittled some. The big white thunderheads were bouncing along on the south wind like tumbleweeds and the lot was a little dusty.

  “I guess this will hold you for a while,” he said, handing me four or five pages out of the little book. “I wrote them down so you wouldn’t forget any. Don’t lose them.”

  I gave them the once-over. “The first thing I need to do is lose these here,” I said. “I ain’t got no crew of Mexicans working for me.

  “Just a few little chores,” he said.

  “I want to straighten one thing out,” I said. “When Mabel took you off on that boat trip, I had a little trouble with your brother-in-law Willy. Now if he shows up this time trying to tell me what to do, he’s liable to get his feelings hurt.” Willy was the state representative from our district, and a fat-ass politician if there ever was one. Every year he’d show up at the town baseball games, passing out little old scrawny peaches. Once he offered me one. “You ain’t too old to vote,” he said. “I will be before I vote for you,” I said. He shut up like I’d poured him full of alum.

  “I never told you about him coming out,” I said. “I didn’t see no sense in embarrassing you.”

  “Well, by god, I like that,” he said. “Willy trying to give you orders?”

  “Just trying to get me to quit,” I said. “Him and Mabel still think I’m a bad influence on you.”

  “That fat bastard,” he said. “It’s no wonder to me he’d try something like that.”

  “It ain’t to me neither,” I said. “I just wanted to tell you, so you wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up at the hospital to tell you how nasty I was to him.”

  “I wouldn’t care if you drowned him,” he said. “Damn I wish Mabel wouldn’t scheme around like that—she’s behind it. Seems like the older I get, the less I know for sure.”

  “Well, don’t lose no sleep over Willy,” I said. “I just wanted to mention it.”

  “Just don’t let him make you mad enough to quit,” he said. He was so gloomy all of a sudden; he was practically planning his own funeral.

  “I like that,” I said. “We been friends sixty-five years. You don’t think a fat-ass like Willy could run me off, do you?”

  “Course not,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  We didn’t say anything for a while.

  “Molly takes her age pretty well,” he said then, out of the blue. “I’m half a notion to quit Mabel and go live with her yet. I might have a few years’ peace. If I live over this operation, I might just do it. You don’t need to tell nobody though.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” I said, and he looked at me pretty close.

  “Would that bother you much?” he said. “If I was to move in with Molly? I hadn’t really thought about it from your angle.”

  “Why, it wouldn’t bother me a bit,” I said. “I think it would be good for both of you. Besides serving Mabel and Willy right.” The part about it not bothering me was a plain lie, and he knew it; I kept whittling on my stick and didn’t look at him.

  “I guess it would th
ough,” he said, kinda sad. “We’ve kinda split her, haven’t we? Anyhow it’s just one of my crazy ideas. I doubt she’d want to do it anyway.”

  We sat there an hour, watching it get dark, and didn’t say another word. He sure was lonesome for Molly. I was too. And neither one of us had the other fooled.

  four

  I was sure right about Willy coming. About a week after Gid went to the hospital I was out one morning doctoring some puny calves, and I seen Gid’s big Oldsmobile driving up to the lot. Willy got out and came toward me like I was the President. He was peeling off the glove on his handshaking hand.

  “Put her there, Johnny,” he said. “By god, it’s been some time.”

  “I got screwworm dope on my hands,” I said. “What can I do for you, Willy?”

  “Oh, not a thing, not a thing,” he said. “I was just in town staying with Mabel while Gid’s in such a bad way. I thought I’d run out and see if I could be any help. To tell the truth, I could use the exercise.”

  “Aw, I’ve seen worse overweight men than you,” I said. “One or two.”

  Actually he was just a fat tub of lard.

  “Well, whatever you need doing, just show me. I wasn’t raised on a dry-land farm for nothing.”

  “You wasn’t?” I said. “I thought it was being raised on nothing on a dry-land farm was what caused you to go into politics. Or was it because you couldn’t raise nothing?” I just came right out and got insulting when I talked to Willy. I didn’t have no time to fool around.

  “It’s just like Mabel says,” he said. “You don’t try to get along with people. I came all the way out here at my own expense to see if I could be of some help, and you insult my ancestry.”

  “Get off the goddamn soapbox,” I said. “There ain’t no voters around. You know damn well whose expense you come out on—Gid’s. It’s just a pity he didn’t throw away his car keys and cancel his charge accounts before he went in.”

  “Now you listen, McCloud,” he said. “My sister and I have had about enough of you.”

  “Listen yourself,” I said. “I’ve had a damn sight too much of you and your sister. Now you see this jar of screwworm dope? It’s the blackest, shittiest-smelling stuff they ever put in a bottle. Unless you want about half a bottle on the front of that white shirt of yours, you better get in that car and skedaddle.” I started around the feed trough, holding my bottle ready to throw. I would have thrown, too, if he’d opened his mouth, but he never. That’s one quick way to get rid of a politician.

  Only the next day I ran into him agin, and he had me at a disadvantage. I had just stepped out of the domino hall.

  “Well, I see you been working hard today,” he said, “looking after my sister’s interests.”

  “No, I been playing dominos all afternoon,” I said. “If it’s any of your business.”

  “Mabel’s business is my business,” he said. “And you’re working partly for her. So I guess we ought to talk.”

  “My checks are signed Gideon Fry,” I said. “He’s the one I work for.”

  “That’s why we need to talk,” he said. “Of course you haven’t seen Gideon since the operation. If you had interest enough to go see him, you’d know he won’t be in any shape to give orders for a long time.”

  “Hell, he don’t have to be in very good shape to give orders,” I said. “Besides, I’m going to see him day after tomorrow.”

  “Well he’s a very sick man,” he said. “The doctors have told him he’ll have to quit work completely. Now what do you think of that?”

  “It don’t surprise me,” I said. “They’re always telling him something like that. But he ain’t quit yet, and even if he had I wouldn’t take no orders from you or Mabel. You can take your orders and put them where the monkey put the peanut.”

  And that ended conversation number two.

  That one worried me just a little, though. On my way home that afternoon I stopped by Molly’s. She met me at the back gate.

  “I was hoping you’d come by today,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

  “You know, I talk a lot better when I’m full,” I said.

  She grinned. We had black-eyed peas and turnip greens and beef for supper. And I had about half of a custard pie and the better part of a pot of coffee.

  “I’ve got to get the weeds mowed around my barn,” she said. “I nearly stepped on a snake yesterday.”

  “One nearly stepped on me today,” I said. “He was a political snake.”

  “Willy Peters,” she said. “I was down to see Gid yesterday.”

  “I was hoping you’d been,” I said. “How was he?”

  She looked a little worried, too. “He was still a little dopey,” she said. “I never got to stay but about ten minutes.”

  “Willy said they told him to quit work,” I said.

  “Oh, they told him that ten years ago,” she said. “They just tell him that on general principles. One of the nurses told me they found some kind of little old tumor, but she didn’t know if it was malignant or not. I think Mabel was in the building somewhere, what made them run me off so quick. I hated to leave.”

  “Well, I’ll be down and see him tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe we’ll get to talk awhile. Let’s go out on the porch.”

  The chairs were done out there; we went out and sat down. It was dark and we sat quiet awhile, enjoying the south breeze. The white clouds were rolling over, and the moon was done up. I wished old Gid could have been there with us—he would have enjoyed the cool. I could just barely see Molly, rocking in the dark. I reached out and patted her hand.

  “What ever become of that old glider?” I said. “Tonight would be a nice night to swing a little.”

  “Good lord,” she said. “I gave it to some high-school kids who come out hunting scrap iron. I wish I had it back.”

  “Want to ask you something,” I said. “Just out of curiosity. Gid mentioned to me once that he was kinda thinking about leaving Mabel and moving out here with you. You’all ever decide about it?”

  Molly sighed and didn’t say anything for a while.

  “Oh, we’ve talked about it a lot, Johnny,” she said. “But we haven’t decided. Gid hates to lose little Susie. Besides, I don’t know, they may take him off to the Mayo Clinic now.”

  “I’d make a bet they don’t do that,” I said.

  “Well, I just wish he’d come on out here where he’d have a little peace,” she said. “He’s done without it all his life. I believe I could take better care of him than he’s been getting.”

  “Well, I just wondered how you felt about it,” I said.

  “I guess it will come down to whether he likes me better than he does Susie,” Molly said. “He’s got such a conscience, you know. You got to convince him something’s right or he won’t touch it. Or else you got to trick him someway.”

  “Why hell, tricking him’s twice the easiest,” I said. “I can trick him nine times an hour, but I never have been able to convince him of nothing.”

  We sat there watching the night till almost ten o’clock. The whippoorwills were calling all over the ridge.

  “Bedtime for me,” I said.

  She walked to the pickup with me and told me to tell Gid hello for her. “Glad you came by,” she said. “Come a little oftener.”

  She was standing by the running board, and I reached out and patted her shoulder. When I drove off I remembered a lot of the times when we was younger and I’d stayed the night. It wasn’t that I wasn’t welcome no more, either. We were just different. Use to we could chase around and have fun doing nearly anything. Now we both just got yawny. It seemed plain sad.

  five

  I had wonderful luck at the hospital—Mabel and Willy had already left for the day, and Gid hadn’t had no sedative. He had his bed cranked up so he could see out the window and watch the traffic. I knew the minute I seen him he wasn’t in no danger.

  “Country getting dry?” he asked. He was white as a bleached
sheet, but he didn’t seem weak. At least his voice wasn’t.

  “Some,” I said.

  “What do you mean, some?” he said. I could see he was primed for a long conversation.

  “Just some,” I said. “A rain wouldn’t do no harm, but then I’ve seen it a damn sight dryer. We had a good shower down on the River country the day you went in.”