(Circa 1956)
A man like Oberon Pratt is hard to love; maybe it's his face -- the one he brought home from the war in Korea. Imagine two bullet holes in a mask of dry bacon with a slash of barbed wire for a mouth. He didn’t keep his uniform when he came back. A cowboy when he left, a cowboy he became once again.
Stringy lean like most cowpokes, he wore a sloping ten-gallon hat that went out of fashion with silent movies. Some town folk say he needed it to hide in, which just proves they didn't know him very well. His concern was cattle, and they don't care if you're ugly enough to scare the short out of a stump.
I've known him all my life, but he's closer to his cows. He'd show up once a month, regular as the express from Santa Fe. Come to think of it, he made about as much commotion, too.
During his visits to civilization, which he limited to a handful of commercial establishments here in Greeley, Texas, he always got a room at the Excelsior Motel. It's where he kept his "city threads," an outfit he wouldn't even touch 'til he'd spent an hour or two in an Excelsior tub sheddin' trail dirt. Once he'd scoured himself, shaved, and rubbed in a capful of stinkum, he'd don his prized wardrobe: black jeans, a black shirt littered with silver buttons, black tooled boots, an inky version of his big hat, and a bright pink silk bandanna.
When Oberon Pratt -- the cowpoke's cowpoke -- stepped from his room, the world could plainly see magic had occurred. What entered the building as a wizened trail rat, exited it as a straight-backed man of means. Dressed in such ebon finery, his face no longer resembled a cured ham. No hint of the saddle tramp remained.
He even smiled.
He began each visit with one of Flo Hanney's legendary steak dinners. Flo is one of my two "aunts" and owns the Excelsior Motel. Afterwards they'd have a couple beers at the Cattleman's Castle and dance to Hank Williams on the Wurlitzer before he walked her home. She'd thank him with a peck on the cheek, then he'd tip his hat, turn, and head for Greeley's other motel.
Flo's sister, Jo, (younger by a couple minutes) ran the Paradise Motel and Supper Club, which looked a great deal like the Excelsior, but wasn't. For one thing, it didn't have a restaurant -- Jo thought the addendum made it sound classier, and she did occasionally send out for tacos and beer. The biggest difference, however, was that she rented her rooms by the hour. She knew the schedule of Oberon Pratt better than he did, and whenever he hit town she was ready for him: one room, two girls, three pints of assorted liquor, and music. Classical music. Loud, classical music.
Some folks -- mostly those who're wrong about his hat -- claimed he didn't really like that long hair stuff and just used it to piss off the other patrons of Paradise. But that ain't even close to the truth.
Two hours of Paradise is about twice what an average man can handle, but it was the norm for Oberon Pratt. I know; I've been providing security there for a long time. I'd generally walk our most famous customer back to the Excelsior, put him in bed, and turn his fancy duds over to Flo so she could have 'em cleaned. I've even been known to buff those black boots of his 'til they sparkled. Anything less wouldn't have seemed right.
Family didn't mean a whole lot to him, and he didn't have many friends, but he never forgot his own. When a Federal bank examiner fell asleep smokin' in bed and burned down three of the Excelsior's eight units, he was the one who worked weekends to rebuild 'em. When Sadie Wilkins, a waitress at the Cattleman's Castle took sick, he was the one who made sure her kids had enough to eat. He also had a heart-to-heart with old man Flaherty at the Eureka Savings and Loan about her mortgage. Who would've guessed he and Flaherty had mutual acquaintances in Paradise unknown to Mrs. Flaherty? Shortly after their meeting, Sadie received an insurance policy that covered her note while she was laid up.
'Course, there were plenty of folks who couldn't stand him. They didn't like his goin' out get-up; didn't like where and how he spent his time, and most especially didn't like the fact he didn't care what they didn't like. As a result, Oberon Pratt was a frequent, if informal, topic up and down the street the three Greeley churches shared. His indifference bothered all the preachers, but none as much as Horace DuBose, the rotund sermonizer at the Old Rugged Cross Independent Church O' God, far and away the biggest non-denominational church in the nine-county area.
Though DuBose and his wife, Beulah, were relative newcomers, their brief tenure had been marked by controversy, mostly over the design of the new sanctuary. DuBose held that only sinners kept secrets, and to prove the piety of his congregation, he convinced the building committee to adopt a sanctuary design composed mainly of glass panels and aluminum frames.
Cost over-runs and questions about the credentials of the building's designer, Beulah’s brother, had been the source of lengthy debates and outright acrimony among the congregation. So it was with great relish, once the building was completed, that DuBose focused the blinding light of his faith on Greeley's most infamous sinner.
Overnight, DuBose elevated the subject to action status, and took great pains to describe to his followers the speed with which Oberon Pratt was hurtling toward Hell. DuBose claimed something had to be done, and soon. Anyone who dressed all in black, wore a pink silk bandanna, associated with women of questionable virtue, and was named after the King of the Fairies, most likely already had connections in the realm of ever-lastin' fire.
DuBose must've shared his notes with the other preachers in town, 'cause the Fairy King reference made it into their sermons, too. By the following Tuesday, the only folks in Greeley who hadn't heard it were either dead or on vacation. DuBose timed his sermon to hit the last Sunday of the month -- a couple days before the unsuspecting cowpoke was due for his monthly scrub at the Excelsior.
Now, anyone who's spent time in Greeley knows there are basically only two kinds of people who live there--those agonizing over who would and who wouldn't be goin' to hell, and those more focused on makin' it through this life. Not only was Oberon Pratt in the latter camp, he was its most visible member. When you stick out like a bull at a bridal shower, you have to expect someone to make an issue of it, but DuBose was more devious than that. His real aim was to blow up Jo Hanney's emporium for the gentle arts. Pratt was merely the pin in his grenade. DuBose pulled it when he dispatched his wife and a contingent of the Old Rugged Cross Independent Church O' God Ladies Auxiliary to capture the notorious black party duds.
Covered dish dinners and prayer meetings are the usual province of Wednesday nights in Greeley, and that evening was no exception. DuBose strapped himself into his pulpit and commenced to lay on about the heathen the moment the first casserole came through the door.
About that time, the object of his wrath cleared the city limits. I met him as he cashed his paycheck and tried to warn him about the sermons and all the talk in town, but he was so caught up in his plans to settle in to the first of several tubs of steaming hot, lilac-scented water, he ignored me. That's when we bumped into the formidable bulk of Beulah DuBose.
She glared at me briefly before zeroing in on my companion, her face clouding as if she'd just been banned from the buffet line. "You're him, aren't you?" she said, her voice rising in a fair approximation of her husband's most dramatic appeals. "You're Oberon Pratt, King of the Sinners! Well, you mark my words: right-thinkin' folk around here will no longer stand for your evil ways. It's gonna stop tonight, y'hear?"
Pratt tipped his hat and detoured to let her by when he saw a sizable piece of hot pink silk wrapped around the fingers of her plump left hand. She swept the fabric behind her and backed away until her butt cheeks flattened out against the brick facade of the Eureka Savings and Loan.
"Come any closer and I'll scream," she said, her voice suddenly constricted.
Pratt shrugged. "Suit yerself." Then he leaned against the building to see what she had pinned between the wall and her buttocks.
"C'mon now." I tugged his arm. "We don't need trouble."
When he nodded and turned away, she took off like a rocket-propelled pillow with the pink bandanna streamin' out behind. As we watched her ponderous departure, his face hardened. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Naw," said I, "who'd have the nerve to--" I shut up when another member of the Old Rugged Cross Independent Church O' God Ladies Auxiliary sauntered by with a pair of dark denims in one hand and a black, silver-buttoned shirt in the other. Following her came yet another clutching the dark twin of his huge hat. They steamed up the street toward holy row muttering phrases like "strength in numbers" and "soldiers in the war on sin."
We waited for someone else to appear with his boots, but no one did. All the same, as we headed for the Excelsior, his breath came in a series of short angry puffs, like a penned rodeo bull just before it's given leave to kill whoever was fool enough to climb on its back. When Flo confirmed that someone had broken in and stolen his clothes, I fully expected him to blow. I just knew there'd be Pratt shrapnel carvin' up church-goers from one end of Greeley to the other. Instead, he got real quiet, and his breathing leveled out like he'd received good news instead of bad. It was the scariest damned thing I'd ever seen, and just then I wouldn't have traded places with any of those ladies, no matter what guarantees I had about the promised land.
Flo locked eyeballs with him. "If you had any sense, you'd sashay down to your room, run yourself a tub of hot water, climb in, and relax. Forget about those stupid clothes. You've been wearin' 'em so long the patches have patches."
He squinted at her a bit, then nodded his head.
I couldn't believe it.
"You get cleaned up, and we'll go shoppin'," Flo said. "I'll find you something else to wear in the meantime. Does it have to be black?"
"It'd fit my mood," he said, then turned away.
When he'd walked out of earshot, she turned toward me. "I'm going to give Jo a holler. I 'spect she's going to need you. Lord only knows what's liable to show up on her doorstep tonight. You'd best get on back over there."
Which is precisely what I did. Jo gave her girls the night off and loaned them her car so they could drive to Beaker Flats, a town marginally more interesting than Greeley, and the closest one with a movie theater.
Meanwhile, the church folk had finished their fried chicken and topped it off with a ration of righteous indignation. Reverend DuBose loosed his flock at sundown, the same as the other churches, and they coalesced into a mob intent on driving the devil clean out of Greeley. Flanked by Beulah and the rest of the Old Rugged Cross Independent Church O' God Ladies Auxiliary, Dubose pointed the way. His trembling hand aimed right through the heart of town at the Paradise Motel and Supper Club, Satan's home away from home.
Those who weren't part of the surging mass filling Greeley's main thoroughfare simply hung back and watched. Jo and I were the sole occupants of Paradise. No one else stood between us and the mob.
At first I thought their demonstration would be harmless, but as they got closer their words got louder and a whole lot meaner. Several women in the front rank carried poles with dark bundles dangling from the ends. I didn't get worried until they set 'em on fire. The odd torches worked like a starter's gun. As soon as they whumped into flame, the crowd broke into a run, screamin' and hollerin' like the devil was behind them, not cowering with us inside the motel. The torchlight reflected off the trees and buildings lending an eerie hellishness to an already frenzied scene.
About the time they torched the front of the place, I hustled Jo out the back. We ran for cover, convinced the crazed church folk would set us on fire, too. Luckily, they seemed content to focus on Paradise, which quickly became an inferno. Led by Reverend and Mrs. DuBose, banker Flaherty's wife, and the Mayor, they locked arms and formed a barricade when the volunteer firefighters arrived. Together, they all watched Paradise turn to ash.
We walked to the Excelsior in a daze, too stunned to even jump at shadows. Flo ushered us in and started checking for wounds. Jo shook her off. "Where's Pratt? I don't even want to think what might happen if they get their hands on him!"
"He's gone," Flo said. "When he realized what they were up to, he fired up that old motorcycle he keeps out in the shed and lit out of town like a banshee."
I felt an immediate sense of relief and tried to sort out our options. There didn't seem to be many. "We need a lawyer," I said.
Jo shook her head. "I'd rather have a steam roller."
The light breeze brought a faint roar. "Oh, hell," said Flo.
I went to the window to see if we'd been followed, then stepped outside for a better look. I couldn't see much, but what I heard made me smile. The twins came out and stood beside me, listening. From somewhere in the distance came the growing roar of an unmufflered Indian motorcycle accompanied by Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee," and the discordant protests from a herd of bellicose cattle.
“Where’s the music comin’ from,” I wondered, out loud.
Flo grabbed my arm. "We've got to stop him before he hurts somebody."
Jo looked like she was about to disagree, then caved in. "She's right. The people that burned my place down didn't kill anybody. Pratt might."
We took off running through town. The mob ignored us as they celebrated in the streets, but before long, some of them picked up on the same sounds we'd heard and shouted the others to silence. Soon, their voices rose again--in dismay. Though dark and cloudy, the sky wasn't the source of the thunder they heard.
On the far side of town, a cloud of reddish dust billowed over the heads of Pratt's frenzied herd as it roared down Rose Lane near the stockyard, and rumbled past the old public school. In their wake the animals left long stretches of downed fencing, several flattened street signs, a score of trampled trash cans, and most of a fairly new Nash Rambler.
Bellowing and bawling, the herd streamed past a Sherman tank on the lawn of the armory and blew right through a huge, hand-painted sign hawking the pro wrestling extravaganza set for Saturday night. Clearly unimpressed, the corn-fed juggernaut surged on, filling Main Street from curb to curb.
We reached holy row just as the leading edge of the stampede reduced a wall of crepe myrtle to a densely packed layer of mulch. Pratt, dressed in borrowed black, appeared like an avenging ninja, roaring from one side of the panicked pack to the other. He soon stood that bike up like a rearing stallion and turned the maelstrom of frightened beef straight at the double doors of the Old Rugged Cross Independent Church O' God's all-glass sanctuary.
We couldn't even hear the crowd behind us and presumed it was due to the noise from the cows as they crashed through the doors and poured into the building. A quick look back at the mute but horrified faces of the righteous gave me a feeling of satisfaction I never guessed I'd feel that night.
The dark cattleman kept up his assault on the herd, driving them relentlessly until every last cow had checked in for the service. He followed them in, idled his engine, and blocked the exit while some three hundred longhorns made themselves comfortable.
"Sacrilege!" came a strained cry from the leader of the stunned church folk. "Stop them!" DuBose screamed.
At that point, time seemed to hit one of those slow motion moments you think only happens in the movies. As if on cue, and just before the walls of the crystal feedlot reached the breaking point, the Almighty punched his thunder and lightning button.
Few things on Earth can match a west Texas thunderstorm for dramatic effect. The pyrotechnics came first: a daylight-bright blast that terrified the cows trapped within the gigantic prism. Seconds later came the prolonged report of God's howitzers which pushed the poor ruminants completely over the edge, through the transparent walls, and into the street.
The cowpoke in the doorway took his leave when the light show began. He knew when the real Master of Mayhem had stepped in. Most of the cattle made it out before the sanctuary slowly dissolved into sparkly rubble.
The crowd, meanwhile, in response to the urging of the portly pastor, had once again begun its advance. That ended the instant the herd leaders aimed their collective hysteria at downtown Greeley. Another crack of thunder got the attention of a couple hundred long horned laggards and launched them toward a rendezvous with their four-legged leaders.
Faced with a sea of horns and hooves, the mob turned and fled, Pamplona-style, overrunning the Reverend and Mrs. DuBose leaving them upended, dazed, and disillusioned in the middle of the street. The two searched for salvation among the faces of the onlookers all about, and several ardently suggested they get the hell out of the way, but neither seemed capable of movement let alone flight. So, they sat where they landed while the mass of crazed bovines bore down on them.
About that time, the subject of DuBose's carefully crafted rants blew in from a side street and turned his smoking, snarling mechanical stallion toward the stampede. Almost as an afterthought, he turned up the volume on the transistor radio duct taped to a bullhorn strapped to the seat behind him and began waving his arms. The tide of beef crested near the Eureka Savings and Loan, and by the time the stragglers caught up with the rest, the front ranks were milling around in a fruitless search for dinner.
The cowpoke never said a word to DuBose or his wife, though he did retrieve his pink bandanna. After stuffing it safely in a breast pocket, he turned down the volume and guided the herd slowly out of town.
Later that night I caught up with him at the Excelsior where he and my twin "aunts" were sharing a six-pack on the lawn by the light of the moon.
"Not much point in stayin' around here," Jo said as she handed me a frosty, longneck Lone Star. "I'm thinkin' about settin’ up shop in Nevada. You're welcome to come along."
The idea of leaving Greeley had appealed to me for some time, but I told her I'd have to think it over.
"I'm sure not staying," Flo said. "Certain elements in this town have made it unfit for livin'." She gave the cowpoke a squeeze. "What about you?"
He picked at the sad garments Flo had found for him to wear. "I 'spect it's time to get some new clothes."
Things got real quiet then, and it seemed like a good time to ask a question that'd been on my mind for some time. I took a swig of beer and faced the old cowboy square up. "Is that stuff about the King of the Fairies true? I mean, I always thought 'Oberon' had a proud sort of ring to it."
"The name don't make the man, son," he said. "It works the other way around." Then he gave me the pink bandanna and patted my shoulder. "I've gotten used to that name over the years, Junior, but if you want to go by something different, it's okay with me."
~End~