Thalia Read online

  The driver stopped the car beside the water trough, and the man riding got out. He was a short man, not as tall as I was, and he had a medical badge of some kind pinned on the front of his gabardine jacket. He came toward us holding out his hand, and looked friendly as could be.

  “I’m Jimmy Burris,” he said. “Good morning to you men. Looks like you-all need a plumber, not a vet.”

  “Oh, just a faucet clogged,” Granddad said. The vet shook hands with all three of us; he nodded for his driver to get out, but the man sat behind the wheel and made like he hadn’t noticed the nod. We all stood around a little stiff for a minute, everybody trying to think of what to say next. I wondered why the man in the car was so unsociable.

  “Well,” Granddad said finally. “I guess there’s no use in us standing here till dinner. I imagine you’ve got other things to do today, and I know good and well I have. Let’s go look at that carcass.”

  “Do we go in my vehicle or yours?” Mr. Burris asked.

  “Let’s go in mine,” Granddad said. The vet waved for his driver to kill the motor, and the man got out. He was a big surly-looking man named Thompson; he just nodded when Mr. Burris introduced us. The vet got his bag, and we left.

  For some reason, Jesse got in the pickup cab with Granddad and Mr. Burris, leaving me in the rear with Thompson. He chewed on a match, and didn’t say anything. His face was red, and full of little chicken-track blood vessels, and his eyes didn’t seem to quite match. When we got to the hard gate I was hoping he’d get out and get it, but he didn’t make a move. I got it open all right, but I had a terrible wrestle shutting it. I was afraid somebody would have to come and help me, and keep me in the doghouse all morning. I managed, but I skinned up one hand good and proper.

  “By god, you did get it,” Thompson said. “I thought you was gonna have to leave it open. Didn’t you have no Wheaties this morning?” I didn’t say a word to him.

  When we got to the heifer that morning, there was no time wasted. Lonzo was mad because we hadn’t brought him breakfast, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. Granddad walked over and stood looking down at the heifer, and the veterinary followed him.

  “There she is,” Granddad said. The heifer smelled pretty bad, and the green flies were getting what the buzzards couldn’t. Mr. Burris squatted by the heifer’s head, looking at her shrunken jaws. He pursed his lips.

  “Who cut this carcass open?” he said.

  “Newt Garrett,” Granddad said. “Was that the wrong thing to do?”

  Mr. Burris didn’t look up. “It could have been the very worst thing possible,” he said. “I’ll have to see.” He put on some rubber gloves and got a knife out of his bag. While we stood watching him, careful not to get in his light, he cut out the heifer’s tongue and put it in a bottle he had in his bag. He didn’t look nearly as cheerful as he had when he stepped out of his car that morning.

  “I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t seen it,” he said. “I’m not sure I believe it anyway. But we’ll see.” He stood up then, and faced Granddad. “Mr. Bannon, I’m afraid you may have something bad.”

  “I was kinda afraid of that myself,” Granddad said. “Reason I had you look. I couldn’t figure a heifer just dropping dead like that. Do you know for sure what it is?”

  “Well, yes and no,” the vet said. “Here, we might as well get away from this stink. I’ve got all I need. Let’s go to the shade and talk cool. I’d like to find out a few things if you’ve got time.”

  “I’ve always had more of that than anything else,” Granddad said. He didn’t seem half as worried as Mr. Burris. He walked over to the big tree and squatted on his heels by Lonzo’s bedroll. While Mr. Burris was taking off his rubber gloves, Granddad found him a little stick and began to whittle. He always did that, if he was still for two minutes. Squatting there with his brown hat pulled way down over his forehead he looked awful small and old, but awful determined. We went over and squatted too. Lonzo lay down on his quilt. Thompson stood with his arms folded, just in the edge of the shade. He acted like none of it was the least concern of his.

  “Mr. Bannon,” the vet said. “Have you by any chance bought any Mexican cattle in the last year or two? If this is the disease I think it is, it very seldom comes this far north.”

  Granddad looked up, not especially surprised. “It’s been almost three years ago,” he said. “I bought two hundred head of cows from a ranch down near Laredo. But I don’t believe that heifer yonder was out of one of those cows.”

  “Oh, that wouldn’t make any difference,” Mr. Burris said. “I was just trying to line up some possibilities in my mind. I was hoping maybe we could trace this thing down, but if it’s been that long ago I don’t guess it’s worth the trouble.” He was tapping one fist against his knee. “Mr. Bannon,” he said, “how long would it take you to get your cattle together?”

  “My cattle?” Granddad asked, surprised. “You mean the ones in this pasture, or all the ones I own? I could have this pasture here by sometime after dinner.”

  “No, I think we ought to at least look at them all,” Mr. Burris said. “We’re going to have to make an inspection, and the sooner the better.”

  “For what?” Granddad said. “Inspection for what?”

  Mr. Burris was picking at a little scab on the back of his hand. For what killed that heifer,” he said. “Mr. Bannon, I hope I’m wrong, but I’m very much afraid you’ve got the worst kind of trouble a cattleman can have. I think that heifer died of hoof-and-mouth disease. Now my opinion isn’t the final verdict, but just from the looks of things I think we better get to investigating this situation.”

  “Oh me,” Granddad said. He kept his eyes on the stick. “I never thought it would be nothing like that.”

  For a minute nobody said anything. I was thinking of Hud, of how wild he would be when he got wind of it. Hud had done everything he could to keep Granddad from buying the Laredo cattle—he hated the whole South Texas area, and especially the Mexicans that were in it. He had picked out a bunch of cows in Colorado that he claimed were a whole lot better than the ones Granddad bought, and he never let Granddad forget it.

  “I wish you’d tell me a little more about this,” Granddad said. “I’d like to know what-all we got ahead of us.”

  Mr. Burris seemed a little nervous. “That’s hard to say,” he said. “The first thing, you’ve got to send somebody out here with a can of kerosene to burn this carcass. I’d like to kick Mr. Garrett’s butt for cutting that animal open. It was the very one thing he ought not to have done. Then you-all better get your cattle together. If you could get them all where we can see them in the morning, it sure would help. We’ve got to take a lot of samples.”

  “What kind of samples?” Granddad said. He was watching the vet awful close.

  “Samples of this germ,” Mr. Burris said. “You see, there’s three kinds of this hoof-and-mouth, or anyway, three diseases that look an awful lot alike. One kind just works on cattle, and that’s what we hope you haven’t got. Another kind works on horses and cattle, and another kind on swine and a few other animals. All of them are bad enough, but of course the cattle and sheep variety is the one where there’s the most danger of an epidemic. What we’ll have to do is bring a few sheep and a horse or two and some swine and try to give them what this heifer had. We may have to infect a few of your cattle artificially; then we just have to wait and see what happens.”

  “Well, Mister Burris,” Granddad said. “Supposing it turns out to be this epidemic kind, then what? What do you do for it?”

  Mr. Burris licked his lips. “I was hoping you knew that,” he said, “so I wouldn’t have to tell you. I was thinking you’d probably read about some of the other epidemics they’ve had.”

  “Oh, I guess I have,” Granddad said slowly, his eyes on the stick he was whittling. “But it’s been several years ago. I ain’t tried to keep up. You mean they still kill cattle for things like that?”

  “If it’s
hoof-and-mouth they do,” the vet said. “They don’t have any choice. Oh, in European countries they try to stop it with a quarantine, but over here we don’t dare do that. In the last bad epidemic in the United States, if I remember correctly, the government had to kill about 77,000 cattle, plus almost that many sheep and goats, and even something like 20,000 deer. It’s a terrible thing.”

  “You mean there ain’t no vaccine?” Granddad said. “Ain’t you college fellers figured out no better method than killing, in all this time?” He sat with his knife still in his hand, waiting.

  “Mr. Bannon, we don’t make miracles at college,” the vet said. “We don’t even know for sure what causes this disease, and you nearly have to know the cause before you can find the cure.”

  “Then tell me this,” Granddad said. “How long will it take to find out just which one of these diseases killed this heifer?”

  “If we get to work tomorrow, it shouldn’t take longer than a week for the symptoms to begin to show up in the animals we infect. If they don’t show up in the horses or the swine in that length of time, then we’ll know.”

  “I see,” Granddad said. “Now suppose it is this worst kind, but suppose just a few of my cattle have got it. What then?”

  “I’m sorry,” the vet said. “One or all, it would still require the same treatment. And incidentally, while we’re making the experiment diagnosis, we’ll have to insist on a very strict quarantine. No animals of any kind ought to leave this ranch, and no new animals will be allowed to come on it. This disease spreads like a grass fire. So far as we know, we may have it on our clothes right now, or the wind may have blown some of it fifty miles away since Garrett cut that heifer open. Actually, one animal can infect a whole area. And the sad thing is, the disease itself will hardly ever kill an animal—I guess that heifer was one exception—but just let there be a hint of it and you have to kill every head of cattle that’s had any contact with it.”

  “And you’re convinced, are you?” Granddad said. “You think that’s what killed her?”

  “Yes, sir, I do,” the vet said.

  Granddad stood up and slowly knocked the dust and the mesquite shavings off his pants legs. “Well, sir,” he said, “I’ll tell you something right now. I’ll have my cattle together by tomorrow, as many of them as I can get. I’ll help you examine ’em, I’ll quarantine ’em, I’ll work with you ever way I can. But I won’t let you kill this herd, disease or no disease. I’ll fence up tight and hold the quarantine as long as you want me to, but I won’t let you drive these cattle into pits and shoot ’em, like they do in Mexico. I know, I’ve heard about it, and what’s more I’ve seen it done. And I don’t doubt an epidemic is a terrible thing. But the cattle I saw killed were sick, an’ my cattle ain’t. Oh, a few of ’em may be, but not many, and it’ll take more than a telegram from Austin to convince me they are. I don’t doubt I’m contrary and old-fashioned, and wrong about a lot of things, but I don’t intend to have my cattle shot out from under me on account of no schoolbook disease. I don’t believe in shootin’ healthy animals. There’s few enough as it is.”

  The man Thompson laughed when Granddad said that. He seemed to think it was pretty funny. Granddad turned to him, his old neck set.

  “What kind of a smart aleck are you, mister?” he said. Thompson’s laugh died off, and we all stood there uneasily. Finally Mr. Burris stood up and lifted his bag.

  “Well, I don’t think we need to talk any more about it today, one way or the other,” he said. “I hope it turns out to be one of the minor varieties myself, so we won’t ever have to talk about it any more.” But it was easy to see he didn’t think it would. Going back, Jesse rode with me and Thompson, and he got out to help me shut the hard gate.

  2.

  When we got back to the barn, Granddad went up to put in a telephone call to the hospital, to see how Grandma was getting along. He sent Jesse and me over to Hank Hutch’s place, to see if Hank could help us round the cattle. If we were going to have all the stock in the horse pasture by night, we would need a lot of help, and a fair amount of luck to boot.

  I drove, and Jesse slumped over against the door, fiddling with a package of cigarettes. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and sweat was shining under the scraggly stubble on his thin cheeks. We were halfway to Hank’s before he said a word.

  “Looks like I landed in the goddamn wrong place agin,” he said sadly. “Trouble’s my middle name.”

  “I don’t think it’ll turn out so bad,” I said. I didn’t. Granddad wouldn’t let people do anything on his ranch that he wasn’t willing to allow.

  Jesse sighed. “You got more cherry in your cheeks than I have,” he said. “Shit, I can see it building. I oughta stayed on that truck and let it haul me clear to Wyoming.”

  I turned the pickup off the highway, across the shaky wooden cattle guard, and drove up to Hank’s front door. There wasn’t a fence, and there wasn’t any yard. We saw Hank around to the side of the house, tinkering with an old tractor he’d swapped for somewhere. He waved at us, and came over. He was a tall, red-headed man, built heavy. The paint had worn off the old farmhouse where he and his family were living, and the whole place looked like it was held together with baling wire. There was a broken tricycle standing in the bare flower beds. One of its pedals lay on the porch, with a couple of cracked sawdust dolls.

  “I tell you,” Hank said, when Jesse had told him what was coming off. “I got one little piece of fixin’ to do on a well. It won’t take me fifteen minutes. You-all go on and leave me a horse in the lot. I’ll catch up with you. I’m ready to start right now.” When he wasn’t in a hurry, Hank was a lot of fun to fool around with. He turned to the house. “Mama,” he said loudly. His wife came then and stood in the door, a thin blond-headed woman with a feed-sack dishcloth in her hands. Hank’s three barefoot kids, all of them little girls, hung back behind her, too timid to show themselves while we were in the yard. “I’ll be seeing you tonight,” Hank said. “Homer’s got some work to do, so I guess I’ll eat over at the big house.” Mrs. Hutch looked like she was worn nearly out; besides the kids she had her mother to take care of. The little girls were as quick to hide as lizards.

  “You-all come in an’ have some ice tea before you go off in the hot,” she said.

  “Naw, we can’t, Mama,” Hank said. “Homer’s got about three day’s work to get done by sundown.” He started for his pickup. “I’ll go in mine,” he said. “See you fellers in the pasture.”

  As I started back up the road I could see the three little blond-headed girls standing on Hank’s front porch, watching us drive off.

  “Ain’t that a hell of a way to live?” Jesse said. “I pity that pore woman.”

  I couldn’t understand why Jesse was so depressed. It seemed like he always felt sorrier for people than they felt for themselves. I guess he was probably feeling the sorriest for himself, all the time. Hank and Janine had a pretty hard time of it, all right, but they always seemed fairly cheerful, and acted like they got along pretty good. Hank was as jolly as the next man, poor or not. But Jesse sat in his corner, silent and sulking about it, while I drove home. I turned on the radio a minute and heard “Driftwood on the River” before we came to the ranch. When we drove through the cattle guard we saw Granddad and Lonzo standing down at the lots. They had their chaps on and their horses saddled, ready to go. Jesse came out of it a little.

  “That sure is a nice pony your Granddad rides,” he said. He meant Stranger, Granddad’s pride and joy. Halmea was out in the back yard hanging out a washing—when I honked at her she dropped a couple of clothespins. I parked the pickup in the shady hallway of the barn, and we walked out into the hot dusty sunlight, to catch our horses and begin the round.

  Four

  WE SPENT THE REST OF THAT MORNING RIDING THROUGH the hot, weedy pastures, pushing the cows and calves out of the shady places where they were resting. It was after eight o’clock when we started—a bad time of the day to be working cattle, ho
t as it was—but we took it as easy as we could. Granddad had four little pastures, and one big one. His old cows had been fed all winter and were gentle as they could be; it was just a matter of finding them in the brush and throwing them together. Once we got them in bunches they were easy enough to handle. Hank Hutch caught up with us before we had the first pasture rounded, and with him helping we got along a lot faster. As we loped through the high weeds in the valley pastures the weed pollen swirled up around us and started us sneezing.

  By dinnertime we were driving the cows from the third little pasture up the hill toward the house. Our horses were lathered from the morning’s ride, and all the cattle were too hot. The little calves had their tongues out, dripping long white strings of slobber into the dust. Every minute or two the old cows would try to stop and graze. We were about as hot and droopy as the cattle, our Levi’s sweated through, and our khaki shirts looking like they’d come through a washing machine without being wrung out dry. The cattle drifted into the big horse-pasture tank, and we rode to the barn. “Let’s turn these ponies loose,” Granddad said. “We’ll start fresh this afternoon.” We pitched our saddles in the shade and watched the horses roll around, scratching their sweaty withers in the dirt.

  When we got to the house, a washpan full of cool water was sitting on the porch table, with a cake of lye soap beside it, and a handy towel. Lonzo washed up first and sat down on the concrete steps to clean his fingernails. In a minute Halmea called us in to eat.

  Granddad was slow coming up from the barn. He came in after the rest of us had already sat down at the table. “Take your time an’ eat,” he said. “You may not get another chance to rest till after dark.” He looked shaggy and solemn, and pretty tired.

  So we ate. Halmea had earned her money that morning, if she never did again. She had beans and steak and flour gravy, tomatoes and onions and lettuce and radishes from the garden, some fried okra, some hominy, hot rolls and butter, and cherry cobbler for dessert. It looked like an awful lot of food when we set down to it, but with Lonzo and Hank sitting across the table from one another it sure melted away. The rest of us ate our share, but we were just amateurs compared to them. When we were done all the bowls were empty, and the cherry cobbler was just a red stain in the bottom of a piepan. Halmea poured another round of ice tea, and we loosened our belts. Granddad got up the minute he was finished and carried his plate to the kitchen.