The Cowboy Way Page 6

  Will looked away quickly, a flush of anger rushing to his face. In a moment he said quietly, “Well, you come over and watch the lambs any time you take a notion, Bo.”

  A tall man appeared in the alley and stopped there. Going out, Bo Magee gave him a quick, fearful glance and hurried his step. A tiny metal badge on the man’s coat winked a spot of light. Eyes narrowed in suspicion, Deputy Chuck Standefer watched the boy hurry out.

  “What’s that Magee button doing around here?”

  “He was just looking at the lambs,” Will answered.

  Standefer nodded confidently. “I’ll bet. He was casing the outfit to find out what he could pick up. That’s what I came to see you about. You keep this room locked up when there’s nobody around, Will?”

  “No,” Will said. “Who’d steal from a bunch of kids?”

  Standefer was the kind who watched every stranger as if he suspected him of stealing the county courthouse. But maybe he felt that was necessary to offset the openhanded, easy-going policy of the sheriff, John McKenna.

  The deputy said, “You better put you a lock on it. Been some feed stolen around lately. Nothing big, just a little two-bit pilfering. Big store of feed like this, though, they might haul off a truckload.”

  When Standefer left, Will finished straightening up around the barn. What he had to do, he did woodenly. He took a final look at Johnny McKenna’s lambs and wished he were already moved out.

  Will drove to the tall old sandstone courthouse that had been built in the days of domed clock towers and multiple cupolas. Climbing the stairs, he paused for a quick, nervous glance into the office of Sheriff John McKenna.

  He hadn’t seen John since the funeral. He’d tried to talk to him then but he hadn’t been able to speak, and he guessed John wouldn’t have been able to listen. For a long time, then, he had consciously avoided John.

  Will found Jeff Alley waiting in the office for him, patiently flipping through one of the college bulletins on the feeding of ensilage. Jeff was a middle-aged stock farmer with gray-shot hair and a smile warm as the stove in an old-fashioned country store. He rolled the bulletin and shoved it in the pocket of his faded shirt. “Taking this,” he said. “Take anything I can get for free, even advice.” He paused. “I still got trouble.”

  For 20 years, when the farmers or ranchers around here had troubles, they sent for Will Clayton. He usually knew the answer. And if he didn’t, he knew where to find it.

  “That milk cow you looked at,” Jeff said, “she didn’t give any milk again this morning. Not hardly enough for the old woman’s coffee. Derndest thing I ever saw. She gave a barrelful last night.”

  Will rubbed his jaw. “Beats me, Jeff,” he said. “You sure her calf’s not getting to her of a night?”

  Jeff said, “I doubt it. He’s already wrapped up in my freezer box.”

  Walking back downstairs with Jeff, Will anxiously watched the hallways, half hoping, half dreading that he would run into John McKenna.

  They got into Jeff’s pickup and drove out away from the courthouse and down through the main street of the little town. Will leaned against the door, looking out the frosty window at the stores, the houses, the people he had known so long.

  Jeff Alley’s smile was gone. “It’s not the cow I’m really worried about. It’s you. I can always get me another cow. But there ain’t another Will Clayton.”

  Will kept looking out the window, watching the street that was giving way to a graded road, the houses giving way to mesquite pasture and small-grain patches.

  Jeff said, “I hear you’re leaving. I reckon I know how you feel. But folks don’t want you to go, Will.”

  Will’s voice came tight. “You ought to walk down the street with me, Jeff. See the people looking at me, thinking about that boy. And me knowing they’re thinking it. We’ll all be better off when I’m gone from here.”

  Jeff Alley said, “I saw you looking in John McKenna’s office as we came out. You haven’t talked to him, have you?”

  Will’s fists clenched in his lap. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Then maybe it’s John you’re really worried about. Go talk to him, Will.”

  Will sharply shook his head, making it plain that he didn’t want to discuss the subject any further.

  * * *

  Jeff Alley’s farm lay just beyond the city limits. The sight of something green always lifted Will up. He felt better now, seeing the fine stand of small grain, waving its rich deep green in the morning wind, the field seeming to flow in the rhythmic pattern of gently curving terraces.

  Jeff slowed down suddenly and grunted. “Another of Vince Yancey’s heifers in my oak patch,” he said. “But I’ll let her get her belly full before I put her out. She looks as poor as a whippoorwill, poor thing. She’s starving.”

  Will could see the Yancey ranch from here, where one of the pastures bordered on Jeff Alley’s. Bare as a hardwood floor. Eternally overstocked and grazed off to a nub. Yancey was always having trouble with his sheep and cattle.

  Will checked Jeff’s milk cow, and again he couldn’t find anything wrong with her. “Whatever it is, maybe it’ll pass.”

  They started back toward the courthouse.

  “We’ll stop at the Wagonwheel and have us some coffee,” Jeff said.

  They hadn’t driven far before Will spotted a boy walking down the road toward a big brush thicket. It was Bo Magee. Will stepped out of the truck, his left foot still on the running board. “Bo,” he spoke, “I thought you went on to school.”

  The boy stopped short at the sight of him. He stood uncertainly a moment, his mouth open. Then he turned and sprinted toward the thicket.

  “Bo!” Will called after him. “Come back!”

  But the boy disappeared into the brush.

  Worriedly shaking his head, Will climbed stiffly into the pickup again. “Some boys,” he said, “you just can’t figure out.”

  “You’ve done a good job of figuring them out the last 20 years,” Jeff said. “And you’re needed as much now as you ever were. Don’t quit us, Will.”

  * * *

  The rest of the morning, and all afternoon, he spent running terrace lines for old Max Pfeiffer. But his mind wasn’t on the job. Twice he had to go back and reset some of the stakes.

  “Today you don’t look so good, Will,” Max said worriedly. “Look, we got plenty of time. Maybe you go home and rest, we do it another day, yeah?”

  “No, Max,” he said, knowing there might not be another day. “We’ll finish it.”

  And when he finished, he had made up his mind. He drove by the courthouse to leave the equipment at the office. That done, he walked back down the stairs and stopped in front of Sheriff John McKenna’s door. He stood there bracing himself, the excited rush of blood in his ears as loud as the crackling of the state police radio he could hear inside the office.

  A hundred times during the afternoon, he had planned how he would say it. Now suddenly, before he had a chance to go inside, John McKenna stepped out the door.

  The two men stared at each other in surprise, almost like strangers. Will felt his mouth go dry. His heart thumped so fast it hurt, like a band tightening around him. “John, I came to tell you—” The words stopped. Will tried, but they wouldn’t come. Then, numbly, he turned away. Head bowed, fists drawn up in knots inside his Mackinaw pockets, he walked down the corridor and into the chilly winter air.

  At home, he closed the back door behind him and turned his burning eyes toward Maude, standing over the kitchen stove. “We’re going to finish packing tonight, Maude,” he said hopelessly. “I can’t stay here another day.”

  Next morning he’d started stacking things in the borrowed truck as soon as it was light enough. Now, with the morning sun an hour high, he had the suitcase and the cardboard packing boxes ready to put on the truck. He picked up the biggest box and balanced it on his hip. Then he heard the knock on the door.

  Will eased the box down again and straightened, rubbing his hip
in an effort to work the stiffness out. He pulled the door open and stepped back in surprise. “Morning, Will,” said John McKenna.

  * * *

  Will tried to answer him but he found no words. Maude walked in, and she too stopped in surprise. Self-conscious about the handkerchief tied around her head, she pulled it off and dusted it against her apron. “Come in, John,” she said. “Get out of the cold.”

  The sheriff stopped in the middle of the bare room, his hat in his hand, and looked at the packed belongings scattered about. “It’s true, then, what I’ve heard. You’re leaving.”

  Will’s voice came back. “It seems like the best thing to do.”

  His hands suddenly were shaking. “I tried to tell you yesterday, John. I wanted to explain everything to you. But what could I say? That I’m sorry? That I wish it hadn’t happened?” He shook his head wearily. “I found out there just weren’t any words for what I wanted to say, John. So I couldn’t say anything.”

  John McKenna nodded gravely. “I know, Will. For days I’ve wanted to see you. But I haven’t known what to say. Then I saw you last night. I saw your eyes. You’ve been killing yourself for what happened to Johnny. Don’t do it, Will. I don’t blame you. Those things just happen sometimes, and there’s nothing any man on earth can do to stop them. There’s nobody to blame. Least of all you.”

  Will felt his knees giving way. He sat down heavily on a packing box.

  John McKenna said, “He was my son, Will, but he was one of your boys. You taught him things, gave him things in life that even a father couldn’t. Sure, he died young. But he died rich because of you. I’ll always remember that.”

  Will stood up again, walking slowly to the window and looking out into the morning. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.

  The sheriff said, “I came here for something else, Will. I’ve got a boy out there in my car. Manny Nixon caught him just before daylight this morning, taking a short sack of feed out of his barn. Boy’s name is Bo Magee.”

  Will nodded regretfully. “I know him.”

  “Not the first time the kid’s been in trouble,” McKenna said. “Manny was roaring mad and wanted to send him off to the reformatory. But then the boy showed us what he took the feed for—and Manny wouldn’t even press charges. Will, that boy has got him a little pen fixed up out there in a brush thicket. Used old chicken wire and stuff. Built him a shed out of scrap iron and old lumber. He’s got four baby lambs in there. They’re some of Vince Yancey’s dogies that he found starving to death along the fence by the town section.”

  The sheriff was shaking his head in admiration. “Sure, he was stealing. But he’s got too much of the makings in him to ship him off. With somebody to guide him a little, he could grow up into a real man, Will. And you’re the one can help him.”

  Will was silent a moment. “I’m leaving, John,” he said.

  The sheriff ignored that. “The boy loves livestock, and that’s what we’ll work on. If that shiftless old man of his tries to interfere, I’ll lower the boom on him. How about turning Johnny’s lambs over to him, Will? Let him finish them out and show them.”

  Will felt a warmth growing inside him. “You mean you’d let him have your son’s lambs, John?”

  The sheriff nodded. “Johnny’s gone. But that kid’s here.” He lifted his hand and placed it on Will’s shoulder. “Look, Will, we’ve lost a boy, you and me. Now we’ve got a chance to save one. You coming with me?”

  * * *

  Will looked into McKenna’s deep, friendly eyes, and the weight was gone from his shoulders for the first time in weeks. He turned back to Maude, and he managed a smile. “I’ll be back, Maude, and help you unpack.”

  He opened the door and went out with the sheriff toward the car where the boy sat waiting.

  A BAD COW MARKET

  The loudspeaker above the livestock auction ring carried the auctioneer’s chant over the clanging of steel gates and the shuffle of cattle’s hooves in the soft sand. Most of the words had no meaning, but George Dixon could hear the price being asked, and he understood that meaning all too well; these calves were not going to pay the cost of their raising.

  Sitting on a wooden bench high up toward the sale ring’s acoustical-tile ceiling, he stared glumly at the last calves of his trailerload, a couple of cutbacks the yard crew had sorted off to keep them from lowering the value of the others. If the rest had been cheap, these were being stolen. He reached to his shirt pocket for cigarettes before he remembered he had given them up, not so much for his health as to save the money.

  He jotted the price of the final calves in a shirt-pocket tallybook and reviewed what the other lots had brought. He would have to wait awhile for the bookkeeping staff to make out his check. He dreaded taking it to the production credit office for application against his loans. The PCA manager would not say much, but George could anticipate the look in his eyes; he had seen it many times the last few years as the prices for what he sold kept going down and the prices for what he had to buy kept going up.

  Damned sure takes the romance out of the ranching business, he thought sourly.

  Two thin crossbred cows came charging into the ring, eyes wide and heads high in anxiety over this unaccustomed place and the noise and the fast handling in the alleyways behind the auction barn. George stood up, glad they weren’t his. The market was no kinder to cows than it was to calves. He made his way to a set of steps, begging pardon of other ranchers who pulled their booted feet back to let him pass. They looked no happier than he felt. He walked out into the auction’s lobby and glanced at the glass behind which the office staff worked. There was no way he could rush his check. He pushed through a glass door into the restaurant, the smell of fried onions slapping him in the face like a damp, sour towel.

  Someone spoke his name. He turned toward a row of booths and saw a man of about his own age, in his early forties, his waist expansive where George’s was lean. George wore old faded jeans and a blue work shirt, and his hat looked as if it had been run over by his pickup truck. Bubba Stewart resembled an ad in a Western-wear catalog. A big platter of chicken-fried steak and French fries gave off steam in front of him.

  “Sit down, George,” Bubba invited jovially. When a man had Bubba’s wide grin and open manner, it was hard to resent him for being so damned wealthy. “I was havin’ a little bite of dinner. I’d like to buy yours and not eat by myself.”

  George had figured a cup of coffee and a piece of pie would hold him until Elizabeth fixed supper. He didn’t spend much these days on cafe chuck. “You go ahead and eat,” he said. “I’ll just settle for coffee.” He decided against the pie because he didn’t want Bubba spending that much on him. He would feel obligated to return the favor the next time. Bubba stabbed the steak with his fork. “You sellin’ today, or buyin?”

  “I’m givin’ them away,” George responded flatly.

  Bubba nodded sympathetically. “I thought last year it couldn’t get no worse. So much for my fortune-tellin’.” His smile showed his pleasure in the steak. Bubba Stewart had always drawn pleasure from life and seemed never to be struck by the arrows of outrageous fortune. “You sure ought to order one of these. It ain’t like Mama makes. It’s better.”

  George looked up as the waitress brought his coffee. “Thanks. This’ll do.” He blew across the cup.

  Bubba said, “Gettin’ tougher and tougher to stay a cowman. You thought any more about that proposition I made you?”

  George hoped his eyes did not betray how much he had been thinking about it. Maybe if Bubba thought he was not interested he would raise the ante. “That ranch has been in the family a long time. My old granddaddy bought it back in aught-nine.”

  Bubba nodded. “Mine was already here. A man could make a good livin’ then, raisin’ cows on a little spread like that. Now it’s like a life sentence to hard labor with no parole.”

  George could offer no argument.

  Bubba talked around a mouthful of steak. �
��I’ve given up worryin’ about cows. I keep a few for ornamentation, like my wife keeps a pair of peafowl, just to look at their feathers. But recreation—that’s where it’s at nowadays, George. Cater to hunters out of Dallas and Houston. Not just oilfield roughnecks, either. Go for the rich dudes that just ask where it is, and not what it costs.”

  Bubba had done well at that. In recent years he had gradually trimmed his livestock numbers and in their place had introduced exotic game animals such as black-buck antelope and sika deer that could legally be hunted the year around. He had built a large rustic hunting lodge where paying guests could rough it with comforts they didn’t even have at home. Much of the year he had people waiting in line to get in.

  George remembered that local cowboys used to snicker at Bubba because he wasn’t much of a hand with cattle and horses. He had been a disappointment to his father and grandfather. But he had been a good student in arithmetic class. Bubba said, “I’ve got an architect workin’ on a second lodge. I could use the extra huntin’ acreage your place would give me.” George had lain awake nights, thinking about it. When his restless stirring had roused Elizabeth, he had told her he was having a touch of rheumatism. In reality, it was the cattle that were giving him pain.

  He had considered trying to do in a small way what Bubba was doing in a large one, but he knew he could not. He took in a few hunters from East Texas during the fall whitetail deer season, but he could never find financing for facilities like Bubba had built. His ranch was too small. Bubba said, “I’ll raise my offer a little. You could pay off your debts and put the rest out on interest. It wouldn’t be a full livin’, but you’re sure not makin’ a livin’ now.” George moved his hands from the tabletop and down into his lap so Bubba could not see them tremble. “I don’t know. It’d have to be all right with Elizabeth. And I’d have to get approval from my brother Chester in San Antonio. Dad left the place to both of us, you know.”