Hewey had rather have taken a whipping with a wet rope than face the reception he knew he would get from Eve. It would be colder than a witch’s kiss. He put it off as long as he could, taking the horses to the barn, unsaddling, pouring out oats. Cotton came from the house to see his brother and his uncle. Hewey found no cheer in his nephew’s face. The bruise was almost black.
“How’s your daddy?”
Cotton shrugged, eyes downcast.
“How’s your mother takin’ it?”
Cotton took a long breath and slowly expelled it. “You’ll just have to go see for yourself.”
“You-all make it all the way with that stinkin’ automobile, or did you have to swap for a wagon?”
“We got in before dark. Fixed three flat tires. Only had motor trouble once, and I got that cured in about half an hour.”
“You did? How about that banker?”
“He don’t know much about engines.” Cotton looked up. “Uncle Hewey, he offered me a job. Said I could work for him, drivin’ and takin’ care of his machine.”
Hewey pondered that. He couldn’t think of any job he would personally like less. But Cotton had a right to his own view. “You take him up on it?”
“I can’t, with all that’s facin’ us here now. But I wisht I could. In San Angelo I could take some more schoolin’ while I worked. He told me I could.”
“Maybe things’ll work out, son.”
Cotton looked at the ground again, a catch in his voice. “There ain’t nothin’ to work out around here. Not anymore.” Cotton walked on down toward the barn. Tommy turned and followed him in silent understanding. They quarreled on occasion, but at a time like this they were brothers.
Hewey took a long look at the house, then started toward it. He glanced back once, wishing the boys would follow him. But they were at the barn, and there they intended to stay. He took that for a bad omen.
He thought he had prepared himself for anything, but the look in Eve’s face was worse than the wildest stretch of his imagination. She met him at the front screen, blocking his entrance. In her eyes was a cold fury, almost hatred.
“Hewey Calloway, you’ll not set foot in this house!”
Stung, he moved back down from the step and stared at her from the ground. He felt as if he might choke. “Eve, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry! You’re always sorry. But sorry doesn’t fix anything. You blunder around like a bull in a china shop, you ruin other people’s lives, and then you think all you have to do is say you’re sorry? Well, it’s not good enough.
“You hurt other people and don’t even know it. You have no idea how that good woman cried after you when you left. And Walter! For years you’ve tried to lure him away from this place to wander around with you willy-nilly over the country. You’ve tried to tell him this farm wasn’t good enough for him, that he ought to leave it. Well, you’ve finally succeeded in takin’ care of that, Hewey Calloway. You’ve just lost us this place!”
“Eve, I didn’t mean…”
“He’s laid up here now, helpless as a child. You think those two boys and me can make enough money to pay off Fat Gervin and C. C. Tarpley? They’ll come and take us this fall, lock, stock and barrel. Everything we’ve worked so hard for, suffered for … it’ll be gone. And it’s all your doin’, Hewey. But of course you won’t be here to see it. You’ll be off to Timbuktu or some such of a place.”
She came down the step, pointing her finger into his face. He backed away some more. She declared, “I ought to shoot you, Hewey. No jury would convict me, and I don’t think even God would care. If you don’t get on your horse and leave here now, I swear I’ll do it!”
Words had left him. Shame brought fire to his cheeks. He couldn’t even bring himself to look into those furious eyes. She had every right to take a whip to him, and maybe even a gun.
“Eve, I…” Hell, there wasn’t any use. He backed off a few more steps, then walked toward the barn with his head down. He stopped once and turned, but she towered in front of the door like some avenging angel, her eyes ablaze.
Biscuit hadn’t finished his feed, but Hewey pulled him off and left the rest of it for that burro which had no name. He bridled and saddled the horse, his lips pinched hard against his teeth.
Tommy stared with wide eyes. “What did she say?”
Cotton touched his brother’s arm and shook his head. As Hewey swung into the saddle, Cotton broke his silence. “We’re goin’ to lose this place, Uncle Hewey.”
Hewey’s throat was tight. He knew if he tried to say anything he would break down like a child. He didn’t want to do that here, not in front of the boys. He might later, but it would be where nobody could see him. He gave the boys a tentative wave of his hand and touched spurs to Biscuit. Reluctantly, for he was leaving good feed, Biscuit moved into a trot. Hewey headed him in the general direction of the Lawdermilk place. But he drew off a little to one side, skirting around the lower end of the field. There, green leaves rustling in the wind, was the crop of redtop cane which was Walter’s hole card toward paying off what he owed the bank this year. Standing outside the fence, trying to reach across to the feed but unable to stretch their necks that far, were three of the yearling cattle also intended to pay part of the obligation.
That much, he knew, the boys and Eve could somehow handle. But it wouldn’t be enough. Walter had counted on breaking horses and mules for pay to finish out the balance. Laid up the rest of the summer, he had no chance to do that. Eve was right. All Fat and C. C. had to do now was wait. A nice juicy plum was about to fall into their laps.
And Hewey Calloway was the one who had shaken the tree.
He reined up and turned in the saddle, looking back down toward the house. It wasn’t much, just a box-and-strip, hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But dammit, it was home. He remembered the work he had done, helping Walter nail the thing together out of fresh green lumber. He looked at the shed and the corrals and remembered his part in building those. He regarded the chinaberry trees and let his mind go back to the day he had dug the holes to transplant them.
A lot of his own life would go when the place fell to the bank.
When! Not if, but when. It struck him that he was taking it as a foregone conclusion. And by God it wasn’t! There was still time, and there was still a chance.
“Biscuit,” he declared, “before C. C. adds this place to his ranch he’s goin’ to know he’s seen him a horse race!”
He reined the brown around and touched him none too gently with the spurs. He put him into a lope that ate up the ground in a hurry. Biscuit started to turn in at the gate where the feed was, but Hewey held firm to the rein and took him right up to the front of the house. He saw the two boys at the barn look at him in surprise and climb up onto the fence to watch.
He slid Biscuit to a stop and stepped down as if he were back in the San Angelo arena. He strode up to the step and pushed through the screen door. Eve, standing at the stove, turned to look at him, first in astonishment, then in rekindling anger.
“Eve,” Hewey declared, “everything you said was right. The worst of it wasn’t half bad enough. But this place ain’t lost yet, and by God it ain’t goin’ to be. You can go ahead and cuss me all you want to, but I’m stayin’. I put Walter where he is, so now I’m here to take his place. We’re goin’ to make that crop. We’re goin’ to raise the money, and we’re goin’ to pay the bank!”
Her face was flushed with anger, and her eyes crackled. But this time it was Eve who couldn’t bring up the words to say.
Hewey pointed to the rifle on the wall. “If you’re goin’ to shoot me, go ahead and do it now or forget about it.”
The words came to her then, mostly a repetition of what she had been saying before, though this time her voice was on the verge of breaking.
From a bedroom came Walter’s voice. “Eve…”
She heard, but she went on with the invectives. Walter’s voice was stronger this time, and commanding. “Eve, goddammit, shut up!”
That shocked her into silence.
Hewey said, “I’ll sleep out in the shed. If you don’t want to feed me, that’s all right; I’ll cook for myself, out yonder. If you don’t want to look at me, that’s all right too. I’ll stay out of your sight as much as I can. But I’m here, Eve. And right here I’ll stay!”
Tears trailed one another down her cheeks. She looked at him awhile, gazed at the floor, then raised her chin and looked at him again. She squared her shoulders, cleared her throat and wiped her eyes on her long, faded sleeve. In a quiet, half-breaking voice she said, “You’d better go unsaddle your horse and then wash up. Tell the boys, too. Supper’ll be ready directly.”
He slept little that night. He rolled out his blankets in the shed and lay on the floor, his eyes wide open in the darkness. In his frustration and anger he lashed out at various people in his mind: at Snort Yarnell for starting the escapade that had led to trouble; at Fox and his three hired toughs for breaking Walter’s leg; at Walter himself for mixing into a fight that was not his own. He made these rounds a dozen times, but each time at the end of it he had to come back to himself and accept, for a little while, the blame upon his own shoulders. He could have said no to Snort and ended the whole fiasco before it started. But he had joined into it with whole heart and empty head. No matter how he rationalized it—and he tried—the ultimate fault was his own.
So was the ultimate responsibility for salvaging whatever was possible out of a deplorable situation.
He might have dozed a little, or he might not. He was smoking cigarettes and staring at the ceiling of the shed when the first light came. His stomach hurt as if a cold lump of pure lead lay in the bottom of it. His eyes were as blurry as if he had been on a three-day drunk. He got up and rolled another cigarette, which seemed only to burn his tongue. He rolled his blankets and trudged toward the house when he saw smoke rising from the chimney. Eve was in the kitchen. They exchanged a quick glance apiece, but neither had any words. It was just as well, he thought. If she had any they wouldn’t be pleasant to listen to. They would be a repetition of the ones he had used against himself all night.
He poured a cup of coffee and started out the door with it.
She said in a rough voice that told him she hadn’t slept either, “I’ll have breakfast ready directly.”
“Ain’t hungry. I need to go and look things over.”
He saddled Biscuit and set out on a round, surveying his problem. He found it worse than he had anticipated. The frequent rains had been good for the growth of the feed Walter and the boys had planted, but they had also been healthy for the weeds that were always trying to take over. Normally, in this region where rainfall was usually light, a farmer could raise a crop of feed without the weeds getting bad enough to cultivate, provided he planted on good clean ground. Walter had no cultivator; those cost money, and he owned nothing he could do without.
He did own some good strong hoes, and he had a couple of boys who knew how to swing them, whether they enjoyed the work or not. It was going to be a mean job to get ahead of the weeds and stay ahead. It might take a mean man to push the boys and keep their noses to the grindstone. Hewey could have been a straw boss or even a foreman on several ranch jobs if he had been willing to take it upon himself to supervise other men and get the maximum work out of them. That kind of drive had never been part of his make-up. He had always preferred to stick to cowboy wages and keep his friends.
He grimaced, surveying the start the weeds had made. The boys were likely to be calling him something stronger than Uncle Hewey by the time this crop was made. The thought made his stomach hurt worse.
* * *
His relationship with Eve was not true peace, not by a long way. At best it was a cold and silent truce. But at least it was silent, except for her accusing eyes. For the next two or three days Hewey made it a point not to look into them more than he had to. He never went into the house except to eat, and he wasn’t eating much.
Alvin Lawdermilk always had horses and mules that needed breaking. Hewey set the boys to hoeing the feed, then rode over to Alvin’s and made a deal on price to bring a string of animals to the place and break them here rather than at Alvin’s. The facilities were not nearly so good, but the convenience of having them here counted for a lot.
In the first days he needed someone to help him catch and hackamore and tie and saddle them. He alternated between Cotton and Tommy until he decided Tommy was somewhat better at it. Cotton’s inclinations ran to the mechanical. When he was through with Tommy each morning he sent him on out to join Cotton at the field. Twice a day Hewey put the broncs through their paces. At other times he went out to help the boys or he rode among Walter’s cattle looking for cases of screwworms that needed treatment.
He had a raw mule snubbed to a post and was bringing up a wagon with a tame mule hitched to it when he saw a buggy coming at a brisk pace on the road from town. The boys’ black dog always barked at Hewey every time he rode up, but he didn’t bark at the buggy. He trotted out to meet it, tail wagging.
Hewey knew the occupants by the way the vehicle listed badly to one side from the poorly balanced weight. They were C. C. Tarpley, whippoorwill-poor, and Fat Gervin, packing fifty extra pounds of pure hog lard. C. C. was driving; he never trusted that to Fat. He almost hubbed Hewey’s wagon as he came up alongside it and stopped.
C. C. stared at Hewey in surprise. Fat didn’t look at him at all.
“Howdy, Hewey,” the old rancher said, his voice pleasant enough. “Thought you’d be in Mexico by now, or Canada, or some other damn place.”
Hewey shook his head. “None of them, C. C. This is home.”
“Maybe you’re takin’ a step toward reformation after all. Or maybe it’s just age. Always seemed to me like age has reformed more people than religion.”
“Speakin’ from personal experience, C. C.?”
“I ain’t reformed. I’ve just turned some of my romantic responsibilities over to a younger generation.” He glanced at his silent, simmering son-in-law. Hewey read between the lines that the old man knew things Fat had as soon he hadn’t found out.
C. C.’s gaze shifted toward the house. “Mighty sorry to hear about Walter’s hard luck. How’s he comin’ along?”
“He ain’t chasin’ any rabbits.”
The old man frowned. “I come out to see about that. You know I—the bank, that is—has got a lien on this here property. I was countin’ on the obligation bein’ met this fall. Now I can see that it won’t be. I thought I better—we better—be gettin’ a man over here to see after our interests. There’s a crop out yonder we can’t let ruin, and there’s cattle that need carin’ for, and…”
“It ain’t your interests yet, C. C. That obligation is goin’ to be met.”
The old man didn’t seem to hear him. He went on talking about the things that needed doing.
Hewey said again, “We’ll meet that obligation.”
The rancher blinked. “We? You said we?”
“Me. Eve. Them two boys. Us.”
C. C. had to suppress a smile. “Now, Hewey, me and you have known each other longer than either one of us wants to talk about. You may think right this minute that you’re goin’ to stick, but I know better. One mornin’ you’ll see a rainbow and go ridin’ off after it. You can’t anymore stay here than you can flap your arms and fly.”
Hewey squared his shoulders. “I’m stayin’, C. C.”
Fat Gervin had been staring at the black dog, skewering him with an evil gaze. The black dog looked back and cheerfully wagged its tail, assuming friendship where none was offered. Fat turned to Hewey and put in an unsought opinion. “You won’t stay here three weeks.”
Hewey glared at him. C. C. turned and cut his son-in-law short with a hard glance that made him shrivel, if a fat man can. When men were talking, boys didn’t stick their bill in. C. C. said, “You won’t stay here three weeks. You’ll never see a bundle of cane cut or a yearlin’ delivered.”
“I’ll be here.”
C. C.’s smile turned hard. “If you’re still here this fall, I’ll kiss your ass.”
Hewey said, “I’d rather have Fat do it, if it’s all the same to you.”
Fat showed a flash of anger, then his eyes turned little and gloating. Hewey shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from doubling his fists. Tarpley was a greedy old man with narrow ways, but at least he was open and basically honest about it, after his fashion. Something about Fat Gervin reminded Hewey of a coyote, sneaking around looking for a way in when a man wasn’t watching.
The old man started to flip the reins, then thought of something. “Almost forgot, Hewey. We get the San Angelo Standard at the bank every week. Thought you’d get a kick out of the article about you and Snort.” He pitched Hewey the newspaper. The buggy rolled. C. C. called back, “You won’t stay three weeks.”
The dog trotted after the buggy, wagging its tail as if imploring them to stay. Dumb dog, Hewey thought, doesn’t know who his friends are.
Resentment glowed as he watched the buggy retreat. But resentment presently took a back seat to curiosity. He unfolded the newspaper, searching. He found the story on an inside page, circled by a pencil mark.
Disappointment touched him. It was the first time he had ever read his name in a newspaper. Seeing it misspelled shook his faith.
The festive spirit engendered by the big steer-roping contest here extended a bit further than many of its jovial participants expected, with the net result that one man took home a broken leg as his prize, and a local sport spent a night as a guest in the county hotel, later enriching the public coffers at the kindly suggestion of the judge.
The set-to was initiated when two lads of the limber loop took affront at the automobile-herding activities of one J. Fox, a member of this city’s sporting community. Having done none too well in the afternoon’s hemp-twirling contests, these daring cowboys headed and heeled the automobile belonging to said Fox. When that gentleman complained vigorously about their prowess with the lasso, one of these knights of the range proceeded to hog-tie him in the fashion normally restricted to the beeves.
This fun-loving cowboy was, according to public record, one Hugh Colloway of Upton City, that fledgling metropolis to our west. The other was the redoubtable Snort Yarnell, late of San Antonio and any other point you might choose to name.
This was by all accounts a crowd-pleasing affair, roundly cheered, and the two lads acquired many admiring new friends by their feat. However, it did not please the said Mr. Fox, who according to officials sought redress in the form of blood. He hired three husky and fearless fellows of our nocturnal society to exact the payment.
In the course of their attentions to Mr. Colloway they bestirred the wrath of his brother, whose name we were unable to discover, with the result that he attempted the rescue of his kinsman. In the ensuing unpleasantness his leg was broken.
The authorities were sent for and calm restored. The three hired revengers have remembered urgent business in other climes. Mr. Fox spent a restful night as a guest of Sheriff J. S. McConnell and paid his compliments next morning, along with fifty dollars and costs to the court on a charge of malicious mischief. He also is said to be considering a removal of his business ventures, whatever they may be, in the very near future.
The cowboys have retired back to the range to consider adding one more event to the next steer-roping contest here, namely car-roping.
Eve came out of the house and worked her way down to the front of the barn, where Hewey had resumed his activity with the wagon and the bronc mule. She stood back out of the way, for she knew the havoc a raw mule could create. When Hewey volunteered no information she asked, “What did C. C. want?”
Hewey didn’t look her in the eye. “He came to take over.”
“He’s a little premature, isn’t he?”
Hewey thought premature was something having to do with babies. Eve rephrased the question.
He said, “That’s the view I taken of the matter. I told him this place still belongs to the Calloway family.”
“The Walter Calloway family,” she stressed firmly.
“And it’ll stay that way. I gave you my word, Eve.”
She turned and walked back toward the house, her shoulders drooped. Hewey watched her, his face furrowed. She had all but given up already. If her loss of hope became contagious, he was going to have a hard time pushing the boys enough to get the job done.
But he would do it. By God, he would do it!
He turned back to the mule, which was fighting as he attempted to bring it into the traces. Gentleness had always been his way with horses and mules. But he slapped the mule alongside the head with the flat of his hand. “Settle down, damn you! You’ll work whether it pleases you or not!”
West Texas was never an easy, benevolent land. For whatever it yielded up, it exacted a price. The most common price was drouth, which put to severe test the endurance of those settlers who dared accept its challenge. In the uncommon years when rain was plentiful—as it had been this year of Aught Six—the tariff was imposed in other ways. There were the weeds which sprang up and thrived, robbing the crops upon which the homesteaders’ toenail hold was based. And there were the insects, which seemed to explode by the millions after a rain. In particular there was the screwworm, which brought death of a slow and agonizing kind to animals wild and domestic.
The screwworm fly thrived in warm and humid weather. It was attracted to any scrape or cut that brought warm blood to the surface. This could be a man-made wound such as a castration cut or a peeling brand. It could be accidental, from running against a rough tree or a barbed-wire fence, or horn gouges incurred in fighting. It could be natural. In newly born calves the flies attacked the bleeding navel and set death’s time clock to work in the very same place where the umbilical cord had given life. The flies laid their eggs, which soon expanded into a wriggling white mass of flesh-eating screw-shaped worms that gorged themselves and drew more flies and grew in numbers until death put an end to the animal’s torment.
Every cowboy carried worm medicine, usually in an old cut-off boot top tied to his saddle. In this stained and odoriferous makeshift case would be two bottles or cans, one of chloroform for killing the worms in the wound, the other of cresylic ointment to smear on afterward as a healer and fly repellent. It was a bloody, smelly, unpleasant chore and a constant one, for every day that an animal went untreated made crippling or death a greater probability.
Each morning early, Hewey went through a self-imposed quota of work with bronc mules and horses. That done, he set out a-horseback to ride over the Calloways’ eight sections—eight square miles—watching for screwworm cases. If he saw a cow lying down while the others were grazing, he took that as suspicious. If he saw one retreat into the occasional mottes of heavy brush, he rode in after her, for an afflicted animal usually seeks solitude and shade. He made it a point to ride up close for a thorough look at every small calf, for these were the most vulnerable, the quickest to die in bewilderment and pain. Much more often than he would have liked, he found screw-worm cases that needed doctoring. It was one of the heaviest infestation years in his experience. Every time he found one, he knew the graveling feeling that he was probably overlooking another, somewhere nearby. Moreover, when he doctored a case today that was no assurance he was through with the animal. A raw wound could reinfect swiftly despite the cresylic ointment.
It was hot, sweaty, exhausting work, for usually he had the boys assigned to the fields, and he had to do this job alone, roping the infected animals and doctoring them where he found them. It gave him an opportunity to ride some of the Lawdermilk broncs that had advanced to the point of some cow-work schooling. On the other hand, roping was difficult on a bronc because it always took time for the animal to get over its fear of the lariat. Caught in any bind, it was likely to pitch, or at least to run away, perhaps dragging a caught calf at the end of the rope. It was a dangerous job, but Hewey knew it was necessary. He would need every dollar he could earn, from Alvin or from anyone else.
Often this search for worms gave him no chance to come in at noon and eat. He had missed many a meal in his time, and he did not mourn. But some days he seemed not to have the stamina he had always taken for granted. Times he came in from a screwworm hunt and faced another working-out of broncs in the late afternoon with little energy or enthusiasm.
The fields were a critical problem. Hewey rode a sorrel bronc by the field one morning and saw the boys working close together, evidently talking, moving somewhat slowly through the cane. Hewey swung down, tied the hackamore rein to a fence post and strode purposefully through the open gate. It seemed the weeds were growing faster than the boys could get around to them.
He walked up to Tommy and grabbed the hoe out of his hands. Curtly he said, “Damn weeds are goin’ to grow right up your pants leg if you don’t work faster than that!” He chopped fifteen or twenty with a flare of anger he couldn’t rightly explain, and he did it rapidly. “There! That’s the way you chop weeds. You don’t love them to death, you whack them down. And you don’t take all day about it!”
Tommy stared at him in surprise and dismay. A few feet away, Cotton was chopping, but his eyes were on Hewey. “Another thing,” Hewey said, “you, boys been talkin’ instead of workin’. Cotton, you get yourself on down yonder, way down yonder. I want you where you can’t even holler at each other, much less talk.” He pointed, and Cotton quickly moved to comply. Hewey thrust the hoe at Tommy. “Take it now, and see if you can earn your keep instead of leanin’ on the hoe.”
He got on the bronc, using the spurs when it seemed a little reluctant to go north the way he wanted it to. He looked back once and saw the boys bent over, working in earnest.
That night was another of his sleepless ones. Lying on his back, he listened to the night birds out in the mesquites and up in the chinaberries. He heard a coyote, or maybe it was half a dozen, setting up music somewhere toward the field. He listened to horses nosing around in empty feed troughs they had cleaned up hours earlier.
Over and over in his mind he went back through the way he had jumped on the boys. He kept seeing their surprise, their hurt faces.
That’s not me, he thought miserably. That’s not the way I am.
But he knew that if a similar situation and similar stress were to come up again, he would probably act the same.
Eventually he dropped off into fitful sleep, only to be confronted by C. C. Tarpley and Fat Gervin. He opened his eyes and found himself in a cold sweat, the faces still clear in his mind. Fully awake, he began picturing Walter and Eve and the boys leaving this place, Walter lying in the back of a wagon, helpless, the family’s few belongings piled on either side of him, Eve and the boys crying. Over to one side, in that buggy, would sit Fat and C. C., watching in smug satisfaction as the plum fell off of the tree and into their laps. Walter, if lucky, would wind up working for C. C. again on patched-britches pay, and Eve would again be cooking for Two Cs cowboys and getting no pay at all.
He hammered his fist on the floor. It’s not goin’ to happen! I ain’t goin’ to let it happen!
But the nightmare played itself over and over in his mind. He made the rest of the night on Bull Durham cigarettes. The nightmare was still playing when he pushed to his feet and walked to the shed door to stare out into the cool, damp dawn.
That morning he rode by the mill which bore his name and heard it squeaking when he was still a hundred yards away. He growled, remembering that he had told the boys to be sure they greased it. Eclipse mills needed a greasing at least once a week. Twice was better.
He found and doctored several cases of screw-worms, reluctantly turning the cattle loose because there was nothing else he could do with them, knowing half would probably have to be doctored again. By the sun, and by the gnawing of his belly, he knew it was well into afternoon when he rode by the field to see what kind of job the boys were doing against the weeds. He did not find them there.
He looked up at the sun and took another guess as to the time. Knowing boys and their hunger, he doubted they had just now gone to eat. They should have had dinner an hour or two ago and been back out here hoeing down the weeds that kept springing up anew, threatening to outgrow the feed.
His shoulders ached from the work and the loss of sleep on that hard shed floor. He was hungry yet felt no particular pleasure at the thought of stopping to eat. There just weren’t enough hours in a day, and those two boys were wasting the ones they had. Resentment smoldered in him. He knew it was a childish feeling, but it persisted in spite of his efforts to put it down.
Dammit, he thought, I can’t do it all by myself.
Approaching the barn, he heard hammering and reined the bronc toward the sound. Under the shade of the lean-to he found Cotton hammering some lumber and pieces of steel together. Tommy stood behind him, looking on.
Hewey’s anger slipped out of his grasp. “Boys, them weeds out yonder are gettin’ ahead of you again. You better quit this shade and go back to work.”
Cotton said, “The hoes are too slow, Uncle Hewey. We’re fallin’ behind. What we need is a go-devil or some other kind of a cultivator.”
“There ain’t money for such as that.”
“I’m experimentin’, Uncle Hewey. I think I can take some scrap and make us somethin’ that’ll do the job without costin’ us a dollar.”
Hewey’s eyes narrowed. “When you say experiment, what you mean is that you don’t know if it’ll work or not.”
Cotton looked at him, catching the implied criticism. “I think it might.”
“And again, it might not. But I know what will work, and that’s elbow grease and a good sharp hoe. If you feel like you’ve got to experiment, do it at night when you can’t see to use that hoe. Right now, you two drag your butts back out to that field and get busy!”
Reluctantly Cotton laid down the tools and the lumber and the steel sweeps he had been handling. He didn’t look Hewey in the eye but started toward his horse. Tommy quickly followed his brother’s action.
The pet burro tagged along after Tommy. The boy turned and walked back into the shed. He came out in a minute with a bucket partly full of oats.
Hewey demanded, “What you doin’ with that feed?”
“The burro is hungry.”
“Those oats are worth money. That burro ain’t been workin’ for his keep, so he doesn’t get any oats. Save those for the workin’ stock. Turn him out in the grass; let him hunt for his feed.”
He turned away, but he heard Tommy softly calling the burro, trying to get it to come to the gate. “Here, Hewey. Come on, Hewey.”
Hewey stopped and looked back. “I didn’t think that burro had a name.”
“He’s always had a name,” Tommy replied resentfully. “But I didn’t used to think it fitted him.”
Eve, tired and harried, turned from the stove as Hewey entered the house. She wiped her hands on her apron, more out of nervousness than of need. “I put some dinner on the back of the stove for you, but I don’t know what it’ll taste like; it’s been there too long.”
“It don’t matter. I ain’t hungry anyway.”
“Hungry or not, you’ve got to take nourishment, or I’ll have you laid out in there with Walter.”
“I’ll just take a biscuit and a piece of meat. I got to be gettin’ after them broncs.”
Eve slipped the apron from around her waist and slapped it smartly across the corner of the table. “I said you’ll eat, and by God you’ll eat!”
Surprised, Hewey pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “First time I can remember you ever bein’ so concerned about my welfare.”
“First time I ever had to be,” she replied curtly.
After he had eaten he walked into the bedroom where Walter lay with his leg propped. “How you doin’, little brother?”
“Terrible. I wisht I was up takin’ care of things.”
“Well, you ain’t, and you won’t be for a while. So you just lay back and let me take care of the work and the worry.” Hewey started to leave. Walter called him back. “Hewey, the boys have been a little downcast lately. You sure you’re not ridin’ them too hard?”
“No harder than I have to.”
“They’re just boys. I wisht you’d go easy on them.”
“Fat and C. C. won’t go easy on them. They’ll throw them off of this place the same way they’ll throw you and Eve off. I’ll go easy on them boys when we’ve finished our job.”
Hewey rode broncs the rest of the afternoon. After supper he went back to ride one more before dark. He took it on a good circle, tiring it mercilessly to work out any inclination toward pitching. As he returned at dusk he heard hammering again at the shed. He unsaddled the bronc and staked him where he had been before. Then he walked to the lean-to.
Cotton was again working on his contraption. Tommy was again watching interestedly from just out of his brother’s way.
Hewey could feel the boys’ uneasiness. He studied Cotton’s design, trying to figure out how the boy intended it to work. “You really think that contraption will cut weeds?”
“I think it will.”
Hewey watched a little longer, then walked into the shed and got a kerosene lantern he had been using. He lighted it, carried it outside and hung it from a nail up under the lean-to roof.
“Then you’d better have some light. You boys’ll put your eyes out tryin’ to work in the dark.”
* * *
Spring always rode straight-backed and proud, with the ease of a woman who has spent much of her life on a sidesaddle. Her paint horse was gentle enough, but it was no lazy pet. She demanded a standard of performance from him and got it. Riding along, Hewey was looking at her rather than at the landscape. He had seen this part of the country a hundred times. The wide flats, the low hills didn’t change. But Spring seemed fresher and younger and prettier every time he saw her. Perhaps, in part, it was the contrast between her and Eve which made it so. This summer was being extremely hard on Eve.
Spring pointed. Excitement crept into her voice. “Yonder it is, the Barcroft place.”
Hewey pulled his gaze away from her and turned to face forward. Somehow, what he saw did not bring a rush of excitement to him. He saw a three-strand barbed-wire fence, reasonably tight, with a wire gate where the wagon road went through. He had always suspected these treacherous wire gates were designed to keep the womenfolks at home; a lot of women couldn’t open one without tearing a dress or half breaking a jaw on the discarded wooden hames invariably used as a boomer to pull the wire tight.
Two or three hundred yards beyond the gate stood—or sat, or maybe crouched—the small box-and-strip house the settler named Barcroft had built to live up to the requirements of the Texas homestead law. He had not expected it to last forever, but it had had to last at least three years to satisfy the state. From here Hewey would casually guess that it might still have another three years left, if the wind didn’t get too strong.
In front of the house stood two small and lonely looking chinaberry trees. “I always liked trees,” Spring said, pleased.
“I’m partial to them myself,” Hewey agreed. He wished he saw some.
He got down and opened the gate, pulling it back and letting it lie loosely on the ground because there were no cattle here to get out. If any got in, they were probably welcome to the grass.
Spring said, “To begin with, it has a good stout outside fence.”
Hewey swung back onto Biscuit and looked behind him. He had never decided when he went through a fence if he had the feeling of going in or going out. Something about a fence seemed always to choke him a little, to cut off the flow of air like shutting a door into a room. “At least I won’t have to build one,” he said.
Riding to the house, Spring spotted the small bachelor garden and talked about how easy it would be to expand it to family size. She pointed farther west. “There’s a nice little field over yonder. You could expand it a little every year until it was a good-sized farm. You’d hardly even miss the grass.”
Hewey nodded, making a show of agreement. From here he could almost see across the whole claim. C. C. Tarpley had horse traps bigger than this.
Spring said, “Since he’s moved out already, I don’t think Mr. Barcroft would mind us going inside.” That was her way of inviting him to help her down from the saddle. As he did, she touched her lips softly to his cheek, catching him by surprise. “There.” She smiled. “I did it to you before you could do it to me.”
“I’m keepin’ track. I always like to square up my accounts sooner or later.”
“Anytime you want to.”
The wanting boiled up in him, and he knew a wicked impulse to rush her into the house and then see just how much she was willing to abide. But as they walked through the door together and he looked at the place, the wanting ebbed out of him. It was all in one room, and not much of it, kitchen, bedroom, the whole thing. The walls had been covered with old newspapers instead of wallpaper, mainly to keep the cold air from blowing through the siding and the blowing dust from filtering in quite so badly. A small stove was the only piece of furniture; it had been left only because one leg was broken off. Ashes lay black and cold on the floor.
“It would need some brightening up,” Spring admitted. The house had dampened her spirit a little too, but only for a few minutes. Soon they were back outside again, and she was stepping off rough plans for a yard fence, a flower bed.
Hewey stood slump-shouldered and tried not to let his feelings show in his face. He looked around in silence and thought of a time he had once spent in jail.
* * *
They rode back to Walter’s place together because Hewey had promised Eve he would bring Spring home for Sunday supper. The women went into the house together, talking about the Barcroft place. Hewey walked to the barn, looking around at all the improvements Walter and Eve and the boys had wrought here. He tried in his mind to transplant them to the Barcroft place to see if it could be bettered.
Before long he was back at what he enjoyed most, looking over the broncs staked out to teach them respect for the rope. He picked a sorrel which had developed considerable tolerance for the saddle. Talking softly, he walked up to the doubting bronc, holding his hand out in front of him. The horse pulled to the end of the rope, then leaned back on its haunches. Relentlessly Hewey moved his hand up the rope to the hackamore, then up the side of the horse’s head and back out onto his neck. He talked gently all the while. The pony trembled a little but gradually relaxed and let up on the tension of the rope.
The tenderness Hewey had never felt free to express to a woman, he had always felt free and easy in expressing to animals, especially horses. He spoke to the bronc as if it were a child, an advanced child. “Whoa, son, see there, I ain’t fixin’ to hurt you. Just wantin’ to love on you a little. You’re a pretty one. Goin’ to make somebody a damn good cow horse, if I’m any judge. Like to have you myself, only I got all I can afford.”
He rubbed on the pony’s neck, gradually letting his hand move down to the shoulder. The skin would ripple a little, a showing of fear. Hewey would back off, but then he would return, and when the ripple didn’t show he would go farther. It occurred to him finally that in a way he was substituting the horse for Spring Renfro. He didn’t know whether to laugh at himself or be ashamed.
He had been so wrapped up in the pony that he had not noticed the approach of a horseman. The man swung down from a blue roan and peered at Hewey through the corral fence.
“Well, Hewey, I see you ain’t lost your touch. I don’t know which you’re the best at, handlin’ horses or ropin’ automobiles.”
Hewey saw the gold tooth shine in a grin that stretched as wide as a singletree. The heaviness lifted from his shoulders. He trotted eagerly toward the fence with his right hand shoved way out. “Snort Yarnell, I wouldn’t of thought about you for a dollar and a half.”
“I ain’t offerin’. I ain’t got a dollar and a half.”
They shook hands through the fence. About that time Eve came out onto the front step and hollered, “Supper!”
She saw the blue roan horse, and she saw Snort. Even at the distance, Hewey could tell that she sagged a little. She said something, and Spring Renfro came out. The women stood together, watching the two men walk up from the barn, slapping each other on the back.
Snort removed his old greasy hat and bowed slightly to the women. “Howdy, Eve. You’re always a sight to my sore old eyes.” He shifted his attention to Spring Renfro. “Well, I’ll swun. I’ll just bet you’re the pretty schoolteacher that’s turned Hewey’s head.”
Spring was too embarrassed to know what to say. She stammered something to the effect that Hewey hadn’t turned his head very much.
Eve asked, “You’ll have supper with us, won’t you, Snort?” Her eyes were saying she hoped he wouldn’t.
Snort didn’t seem to read eyes very well. “I’d be much obliged.”
Eve would be hospitable if it killed everybody. A little stiffly she pointed to the washstand. “You-all can wash up over there.” The words were directed at both men, but they were meant especially for Snort.
Snort visited a little with Walter in the bedroom, then came out to the table. He visited very little with anybody for a while then; he was too busy eating woman’s cooking. For a man who had no interest in permanent alliances, he always made top hand at the table any time he was privileged to eat in a woman’s house.
When Snort seemed to be tapering off on his third helping of everything on the table, Hewey said, “You headin’ anyplace special?”
Snort nodded, going after the cobbler pie. “On my way out to the KC outfit in the Davis Mountains. Goin’ to pick up some horses and take them back to Old Man Dotson on the Middle Concho. Thought if you didn’t have anything to do you’d like to go with me.”
Eve spilled half a cup of coffee.
Hewey rubbed his tired shoulders. He thought of unbroken broncs and wormy cattle and weedy fields. And of the Barcroft place. Travel seemed a grand idea.
He happened to look across the table at Spring and catch the sudden concern in her eyes.
Snort said, “I’ll bet you never been out to that place, have you, Hewey?”
“Not right there, no.”
“You ought to see it. It’s all mountains and canyons and wide pretty valleys with clear blue creeks runnin’ down through them. If the Lord was to ever get heaven overstocked and start lookin’ for a place to branch out, He couldn’t do no better than them Davis Mountains. They’re a feast to the eyes and the soul. I wisht you’d come and go with me.”
Hewey remembered the times he had seen the fear in Eve’s eyes when he was telling Walter about some place he had been, urging him to get away from here awhile and go somewhere with him.
Spring’s eyes had that look now.
He took a long, silent sip of the coffee and tried to keep his growing disappointment from showing. “No, Snort, I got more work here than I can see around. I reckon I’ll have to let you go on without me.”