Coming of Age

Miss July

Ranch work can get monotonous:  eating beans, chopping wood, mending fences, setting out salt licks, doctoring cattle, riding the river for illegal fisherman and on and on.  And then something happens that seasons the summer days like Tabasco on beans.  Bringing out the flavor and adding some of it’s own.

I was 14 and my brother was 13 when we found the Playboy magazine under our mattress in the cabin our first summer working on the ranch.  We couldn’t believe out luck.  But we were ashamed too. What were we ashamed of?   We hadn’t done anything wrong.  We didn’t know what to do with it so we just looked and looked and looked.  We figured the cowboy that worked the ranch the summer before had left it.  Why would he do that?  He wouldn’t leave his saddle or his horse.  It didn’t make any sense.  But whatever accounts for his senselessness we were grateful.

This new intrusion into our summer shaved at least two hours off of our day.  The rides were still long but they seemed shorter while we got lost in the wonder of what we would be gawking in the evening.  Before we knew it we were back at camp.

Dismount.  Take care of our horses and tack.  Chop wood.  Fill the wood box behind the stove.  Get water from the spring.  Fry the bacon.  Slice the potatoes.  Bake the biscuits.  Heat the beans.  Throw the food down our throats.  Wash and dry.  Run to the bunk house.  Get out the magazine and feel time screech to a stop.

We turned the pages very slowly.  Minutes my might go by before one of us would speak.  Mostly we just looked and looked and looked.  What else do you do?  We didn’t talk much.

“Do you want to read one of these stories?” my brother asked.

“What for?” I responded.

“I don’t know.  They’re in here for a reason I guess,” he said.

“No they’re not.”

We couldn’t imagine a better way to spend our summer.  Working as cowboys on a real cattle ranch and every evening getting to spend a few precious moments with Miss July.

One night we were playing cards at the kitchen table when I saw granddad looking at our magazine in his bedroom.  Only the kerosene lamp was lit but I could still make out the flash of the glossy pages when he turned them.  I started sweating.

“He’s lookin at it,” I spat.

“At what?”

“At Miss July.”

“What?”

“He’s lookin’ at the magazine.”

“How did He get it?”

“How should I know?”

“What’s he doing now?”

“Lookin”"

“Maybe he’s just reading one of those stories.”

“Nope.”

“You don’t know.”

“Yes I do.  His lips ain’t movin.  Besides, what does it matter?  He’s
got our magazine.”

“It matters.” 

“All that matters is now we are going to get it for havin a dirty
magazine.”

“It’s not ours.  It’s not like we went out and bought it.  As far as he
knows we have never seen it.  Just don’t say nothin.  Be dumb.”

“Don’t you call me dumb.”

“I didn’t.  I said be dumb.  I didn’t say you are dumb.  Just be dumb for
a minute.”

Directly, he came out of the bedroom with it rolled up tight in his right hand.  We went back to playing cards—playing dumb.  He never looked at us and went straight for the stove.  He picked up the lid-lifter from its hook, opened the stove and shoved Miss July into hell.  He watched for a moment, poked her with lid-lifter, poked her some more then put the lid back on the stove hung up the lid-lifter and shuffled off to bed.

We were relieved he hadn’t spoken to us, but we sure felt bad for Miss July.

 *************************************************************

Salt

I heard him banging a fire to life in the old cook stove.  The splash of kerosene and low “whump” when the match ignited the fumes.  He rattled the cover back down on the stove as the flames dance under the circle cracks.  He moved over to his chair, lit his pipe and began to moan.

The moaning got louder and louder, not because the pain is more intense but because my brother and I didn’t respond to his obvious cries for company and comfort.  We were both awake but playing dead to the world.  We knew that he wanted one of us to get up and rub Absorbing Jr. into his shoulder. 

We didn’t move.  It was a test of wills—my brothers and I.  Who can ignore the moans and groans the longest?  My brother lost the contest.  Not because of any compassion on his part, but because those moans finally were formed into a name.  I was relieved.  I wanted to sleep and be warm, but I was also disappointed that he didn’t call my name.

My brother got up and rubbed his shoulder.  It didn’t help.  The anointing liniment was about to be administered when Granddad came up with the idea of heating some table salt in a skillet on the stove.  So at 3:00 in the morning my brother stoked the fire and began to stir dry salt in a skillet like it was white gravy.

“How long do I do this?” he asked.

“Until it’s hot.”

“How will I know when its hot?”

“Touch it!” he snapped.

After a long while, my brother spread out a dish towel and poured the salt in the middle, tied up the corners making a ball and rubbed it into the pain.  It must have worked because I fell back asleep.  My brother never came back to bed.  I don’t know what they talked about or if they talked at all.

We didn’t ride the next day.  The old man was too stiff.  So we split wood and cleaned out the saddle house.  My brother and I never talked about the salt rub. 

Salt doesn’t cure everything.

******************************************************************* **********

Comfort

Sometimes I would be so lonely that I needed to be by myself.   One day I found a meadow not too far from the cow camp.  I went there to think and when I got tired of that I smoked.  I tried one of granddad’s worn down pipes and some of his Prince Albert in a can.  That wasn’t a good idea. 

As long as I had known granddad, he had smoked a pipe.  Every time he pulled air through the red glow of that cheap tobacco it reminded me of two lovers embracing.  I’m sure he loved that pipe longer than he loved any living thing.  There was much about smoking one of his old pipes that was unpleasant.  Some of it had to do with the Prince Albert in a can. This brand of tobacco was designed to get as much nicotine into the system as quick and as cheap as possible.  It did its job well.

But the other unpleasant aspect of it was that the old pipe had spent its entire existence in a mouth that had never been intimate with a toothbrush.  Granddad’s teeth looked like wet dirt when he smiled and you could see that they were worn down to the gums on both sides from years of clamping tight on that pipe.  From time to time he would carry it in the front of his mouth, but that looked silly and he couldn’t cuss from that position.  But it was the brown teeth not the Prince Albert in a can that gave me pause.

But I found a way to smoke.  I smoked tree bark.  The inner bark of a dead Aspen tree was prime smoking material.  As a tree decays chunks of the bark would break loose from the trunk and hang suspened by blond strands of fiber.  The yellowish brown strands that clung to the trunk were the best.

I would tear off a handful and rub it between my hands to soften and clean it.  Then I would roll it up into a piece of brown grocery sack, about the size of a small cigar.  It burned hot and the flame on the end would get pretty big, but it didn’t make me dizzy like that Prince Albert in a can.

I am not sure why sucking piece of grocery sack filled with tree bark felt good.  Some of it was that I felt big when I smoked.  Older.  Adult.  Some of it was that I felt a deep comfort every time I breathed that warm smoke into my lungs; it felt good having something outside myself going deep inside.

The good thing about smoking tree bark in a meadow by yourself is that you never get sick.  You just look big and you feel comfort go inside.  I remember wishing I could feel the comfort outside of the meadow.  But wouldn’t people laugh at a boy smoking tree bark with singed eyebrows no matter how good it made him feel?

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 Remember this Day

His old back was bent like a saddle blanket thrown over a rail fence.  His matches and Prince Albert tocacco stay in his front shirt pocket even with him stooped.  The horse he was trying to shoe was nervous and shifted its weight.

“Pull his head up!  He is leaning on me,” granddad snaped.

My brother tugged at the reins of the bridle and the horse leaned away from the old man.  You can tell the horse was worried about what was going on.  In fact, none of us were sure that this was a good idea.  No doubt the horse needed a new shoe, but it was hard work.  And granddad is an old man is.  Very old—even older than his years.  Muscles that once were hard as a tree stump are more like biscuit dough now.  You can see it in how his back was bending closer to the ground the longer he worked on the hoof.

“He looks like a good horse,” my dad said sitting on a fence rail.

“Good for nothing,” Granddad muttered.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I ain’t found nothing he’s good for ‘cept throwin shoes.”

He trimmed the overgrowth, cleaned out the frog, and rasped it all until it is flat.  My brother called to the horse in a low voice and lays his open hand on its neck.

“Easy boy.  Easy boy.”

My brother had a way with animals.  He seemed to understand their moods.  He knew what they are feeling and anticipated what they need.   With a gentle grace, he spoke and sometimes just stood still beside them.  That is why it was he that was holding the horse.

The old man had the opposite affect.

Granddad tossed the rasp aside and picked up the shoe to lay in on the upturned hoof.  It fit fine.  He chose six square headed, slightly bent horseshoe nails and taped the first one through the hole in the shoe and into the hoof.  It goes all the way through and because of the special bend, emerged on the outside of the hoof.  He used the claw of the hammer and twisted off the razor sharp point of the nail very quickly.

He repeated the process with the second and third nail.  Then for some reason he didn’t get the nail pointed in the right direction on the fourth nail.  When he hammered it into the hoof it traveled inward into the quick of the hoof.  The horse jerked it’s foot away from the pain and out of granddad’s grasp.  The sudden movement cut the skin on the back of the his hand.

“You ol’ bastard you!”

Before the wounded hoof hit the ground the hammer hit the horse.  The horses eyes rolled white into its head he and he started to slide sideways away from the old man.

“I’ll teach you to jerk out of my hands.”

He hit him with another blow to the belly.  My brother dropped the reins and walked into the cabin.  The horse lunged away to the far end of the corral with the old man cussing after him.

“Can you help me here?” he yelled at my dad.

Dad grabs the reins and led the horse back to the saddle house.  Then Granddad grabbed the unfinished foot and placed it between he knees again.  His brown batwing chaps flared in the breeze.  He pulled out the bad nail and started again.  The hoof was tender and the horse jerked again.  Up came the hammer—claw first—scraping out chunks of horse flesh.

“You son of a bitch!” he shouted.

With his right hand holding the bridle reins, dad’s left hand stops the hammer in mid swing.

“Get in the house,” he said firmly to granddad.

“I can do this.” he whined.

“I said get in the house where you belong.  You are done here.” Dad said with finality.

The old man stomped off, chaps flapping.  He jerked the screen door open and lunged into the cabin out of breath and at a loss as to what to do.  He paced and marked his steps with drops of blood from the torn skin on the back of his hand.

There were no more words to cuss, so he poured a cup of coffee and gulped a mouthful.  Cupping his pipe in the palm of his left hand, he hooked his thumb in the pocket of his pants and with the coffee cup at his lips and he gulps down another mouthful.  He stares out the window as my dad finished shoeing the horse.  Granddad’s shoulders eased.

My brother was sitting at the table tracing something on the plastic table covering with his finger; the old man was just holding the cup at his lips, the steam clouded one lens of his glasses.  It was quiet in the cabin except for the occasional tick of the cooling stove.

It was one of those long moments when you don’t know what will happen next but you know it will mark how you remember the day.

Finally, looking out the window and into the corral the old man said in a soft voice,

“Your dad is a good man.”

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Flying Fish

The water was so cold that when we brought our arms up with rivulets falling from elbows, our bare arms were pink.  Slowly we repositioned our bodies, hats off and hair dangling and at times dipping into the water.  My brother has a drop hanging from a strand from when he reached so far under the cut bank his face touched the stream.

Our breath rippled the slow moving stream while our horses nibbled at the grass behind us.  Horseflies swarmed and attacked the tender flanks of the horses causing their skin to shiver, their hooves to stomp and tails to swish.  The valley is shallow with firs crossing the ridgeline like ancient warriors watching a waiting for a signal to thunder down the slopes in a wild chaotic attack.  But instead the breeze blows and the boughs sigh as they wave back and forth.

The valley is dotted with bunches of gray-green sage and the yellowing blossoms of cyncrifoil.  Skunk cabbage sprout with up-turned, broad leaves out stretched like a supplicants before their god.  The little stream winds down the valley like a silver ribbon falling down a green dress.

We were face down; the toes of our boots were dug into the soft ground as anchors.  My brother tied the reins of his pony to his ankle.  The sun was warm on our backs and the water was cold on our arms.  We are supposed to be riding the river for illegal fishermen, but we hadn’t seen anyone and were bored so we decided to fish a little.

On weekends it was our job ride the Brazos River with the youngest colts; the least of the heard of cow ponies.  It is a way to spend time with the green horses and further prepare them for work as cow horses.  The colts weres jumpy and skittish.

I decided to feel under the bank and when suddenly something slimy moved and flitted away.   I yelled and jerked my hand out of the stream as if I had been bit by a beaver.

“Whats the matter with you?” my brother asked.

“I can’t help it” I said.

“They ain’t going to bite,” he said.

“I know it.  It just spooks me every time I touch one.”

“Well, they aint dangerous.”

“I know it.”

I put my hand back in the stream.  I stared at nothing trying to see in my mind what my fingers were feeling.

“Come at it from downstream,” my brother suggested

“I did.”

“Rub its belly.  He’ll think you are just another fish.”

“I know.”

“Work your way up to its gills then wrap your fingers around it, squeeze and throw it out on the bank at the same time.”

“I will.”

I dug my toes in the sod a little deeper and inched closer to the edge, I reached as far under the bank as I could.  A strand of brown hair let go of my forehead and reached for the water like a wooly worm groping from a log for some unknown but certain footing.

“I got another one!” I said through clinched teeth.  “It’s the size of a football.”

“Shshsh!  They can hear you.”

“I can’t get my hand around its gills.”

“You got to.  Just squeeze and throw it up on the bank.  Like a bear.”

So as quickly as I could, I heaved the fish out of the water and across the stream.  It was as if the fish sprouted wings and began to soar with purpose.  It twisted and glimmered and shinned as it flew.   It kept its trajectory until it came nose to nose with the nervous pony tied to the ankle of my brother.

What happened next is hard to explain.  The pony wheeled and turned on its haunches and began a gallop.  All the while the reins tied to the foot pulling him with eyes wide and fingers clawing the sod.  He was drug a few harrowing feet when his boot came off, freeing the colt to gallop off in the direction of the cabin.  Head held high and swaying from side to side, anticipating the pursuit of the predator fish—boot suspended and bobbing from the bridle.

I watched in disbelief as the colt trotted away over the brow of a hill.  I looked at my brother with eyes as wide as saucers. The fish flopped in the grass a few feet away.  I looked across the stream at my brother.

“That horse has your boot,” I said.

“I said that horse has your boot,” I repeated.

“I guess I can see that,” he snorted.

There was a long pause between us while the stream gurgled and the insects buzzed as if nothing had happened at all.

“I don’t think he’s coming back this way,” I said.

“I can see that too you idiot,” he said in an irritated voice.

“Why are you calling me an idiot?  I still got both my boots and my horse.”

“Why did you throw that stupid fish over here and hit my horse?”

“I don’t know.  It scared me I guess.  I wasn’t aiming at the horse.

“I ought to kick your butt for running my horse off like that.”

“Why?”

“Because I got no horse to ride home and only one boot.”

“Kicking my butt won’t help you get home.”

“No, but I think I would feel better about my situation.  Crap.  Now what am I going to do?”

We looked at each other for a long time.  Both of us trying not to smile.  But a smile broke out on both our faces and we started to laugh.

“How are we going to explain this to granddad?  That boot hanging from that bridle.”

“I don’t know.”

“Should we take the fish back for supper?”

“I don’t think Granddad will like that.  He’ll say that real cowboys don’t eat fish.’

‘Yeah, but we aint real cowboys.”

“That’s the truth.”

We mounted up the one horse and start back down the valley, up the trail, onto the road and back to the cow camp.

“I can’t believe you hit my horse with that fish.”

“I can’t believe you tied your foot to your horse.”

“We neither one did a real smart thing down there by that stream.”

“You think one day we will tell anyone about this?”

“I know I won’t,” said my brother.

I just smiled.

*************************************************************************

Helpmeet

Sagebrush and juniper blurred by.  Loose gravel rumbled under the churning tires of the ’63 Chevy Impala.  Riding low on soft shocks, we fairly glided down the dirt road.  A cattleguard that usually meant trouble for other vehicles, was not noticed by the heavy old green monster car.  We could have veered off across the sagebrush plains toward San Antoine mountain and never known we weren’t’ on the graded road. 

I never understood why a cowboy drove such a car.  In my mind cowboys didn’t drive cars.  Cowboys drove pickup trucks with big tires, gunracks, and cow shit splattered on the tailgate.  But we were in a low riding city car.  Floating back to the ranch like a boat heading for shore. You couldn’t spill your coffee in that car if you hit back-to-back cattlegaurds or the cows they was tryin’ to guard.  It just didn’t seem right.

Granddad sometimes would let me drive, but on this day he was driving.  To look at the mountain I had to look past him.  His small sweat-stained Stetson was cocked to one side.  He had both hands on the steering wheel.  He never drove with one hand.  When he turned the wheel he would work his hands around like he was rolling a barrel on its edge.  He was wearing a gray workshirt with pockets on both sides, with a flip spiral notebook, pen and his glasses in one pocket and a rolled up pouch of Prince Albert tobacco in the other. 

He stared at the oncoming road, but I could tell his mind on something far away.  I wondered what he is thinking about.  Where was he in his mind?  Is he 18 and remembering busting broncs back on the JW?  Was he working a crew of men combining wheat on the plains of Nebraska?  Was he patrolling in a police car in Las Animas?  Was he buffing a hardwood floor for Delta Kappa Phi in Colorado Springs?  Or was he thinking about the bull we doctored yesterday with a thousand ccs of tretromiecin?

He cleared his throat, filled his pipe and lit up. After circling the bowl with the flame like stirring a cup of coffee, he shook the flame out and put the burnt match in the open ashtray hanging from the dash.  He pulled air through the glowing bowl and slid the pipe back around to the side of his mouth, clinched his teeth tightly around the stem and started to puff. 

Blue clouds of smoke layered themselves over the steering wheel and dash of the car, making their way over to me like the Old Testament death angel.  I thought about cracking the window for relief but the draft would pull all of the smoke over to me so I decided to leave the window tight. 

Then he took his pipe our of his mouth and began to sing an old hymn,

“Tell it to Jesus, tell it to Jesus, He is a Friend that’s well known.
You have no other such a friend or brother; Tell it to Jesus alone.”

Suddenly and without warning, we hit a pothole in that old green chevy was so deep that it caused both of us to bump our heads on the roof of the car. 

“Goddamn this road! Somebody ought get out here and fill in some of these damn holes.”

 He goes back to his inner, and silent world.

I fingered the corner of an envelope that had come in the mail.  It was from my girlfriend.  I’m in love.  I think.  I’m not sure.  I’m 16.  The day before I had tried to explore the idea of love with my granddad and so after supper, while the dishwater was heating up on the cookstove, he was sitting in his chair smoking his pipe and staring out the window when I thought it a good time to ask him a question.

“What do you look for in a wife?”

I don’t know where he was in his mind but he didn’t want to come back.

“What’s that?” he says.

“What do you look for in a wife?”

Sensing this was an important question he cleared his throat and took his pipe out of his mouth and said,

“You want to find a helpmeet.”

I said, “A what?”

“A helpmeet.”

He said it like I ought to know what it meant.  It did have a King James kind of sound to it so I didn’t ask him again what with me having been raised in the church and all.  I was sure I ought to know what helpmeet was.  But I didn’t.

He thought he had helped me so he nodded his head once, like he was putting a period at the end of a sentence.

With that thought of what a Helpmeet might be lingering in my brain I was brought back to the moment when the gravel popped and pinged the wheel well in the car, I wondered if he found his helpmeet.   Was my grandmother his helpmeet?  I suddenly realized I didn’t know anything about how he met her.  Did she help him?  Did he ever get lost in his mind thinking about her?  Is that where he went when he stared out of the window at the cow camp?  Is that where he was when he drove down the road back to the ranch?  Was he remembering his helpmeet?

He must have felt my eyes on him because he glanced at me and winked.  He reached his right hand over to my leg and hooked his fingernails on the inseam of my left leg and pulled at it until it popped and asked my favorite question,

“Whose cowboy are you?”

“Granddad’s” I say.

“Yep.  And you’re a good cowboy.”

He squeezed my leg again and put his hand back on the steering wheel and his mind back on his memory.