Leaning back against the front fender of the ranch pickup truck, Matt Cooper absently fumbled with his horsehead watch fob and watched the door of the doctor’s office with a patience that came from spending a lifetime in the saddle.
He wished old Foster Harbison had let him go along when he went in to the doctor. But Foster was a proud old West Texas ranchman who seemed to feel that there was something disgraceful about letting the infirmities of age creep up on him.
Presently the door opened, and Foster Harbison moved out onto the front steps. Matt started to step forward, then stopped abruptly. His heart dropped as he studied the dark lines of despair in Foster’s kind old face. Matt knew what the doctor’s verdict had been.
Without a word, Harbison ambled slowly over to the pickup and got in, his head down. Matt felt a catch in his throat. Sliding behind the steering wheel, he wanted to ask Foster how much time the doctor had given him. But he didn’t.
“Any place you want to go?”
Foster shook his grey head sadly. “I just want to go home, Matt.”
Matt started the motor and backed out of the parking place, hoping Harbison wouldn’t see the mist in his eyes. But Harbison wasn’t looking anyway. He still had his head down.
Matt felt an ache deep within him. It just didn’t seem right that Foster might go. For thirty years Matt had been Foster’s foreman. They had worked together, eaten together, suffered together, raised their kids together. No stranger would have been able to tell which one was boss.
Now Matt realized his own age as if for the first time, and the jolt of it was like a kick in the stomach. He was as old as Foster. It could have been his own heart as easily as Foster’s. And if Foster went, might it be long before Matt went, too?
He tried to shake these thoughts from his mind. He remembered something he had seen when he went to pick up the ranch’s new power cattle sprayer. Now he made a detour off the main road leading out of town. No use letting Foster see young Wade Harbison’s car parked in front of that Lone Star honkytonk.
As an excuse for making the detour, Matt pointed to a new house on the right-hand side of the street. “There’s Bill Scott’s new home that he’s built so his kids can be close to school.”
Some of the despair left Foster’s face, and a hint of a smile showed there. “Good kids, Bill’s are.”
Then the sadness came back. Presently he began to talk. “I wouldn’t mind going so much, Matt, if I knew I had a son like Bill’s that was going to take up the ranch right where I left off. But Wade…”
Harbison was silent a moment. “I had hopes that when Wade got back from the war he’d marry your daughter Molly, and that I’d have me some grandchildren to sit on my lap and tell stories to before I finally—had to go. It looked for quite a while like it was going to work out that way. Then something happened. I don’t know what came over him.”
Harbison sat there gripping his hands together until the knuckles were white. “If I had it all to live over again, Matt, I wouldn’t settle for one son. I’d have me four, or maybe five. You know, it wasn’t till the day they brought me the telegram that Wade was missing in action—it wasn’t till then that I realized I just had one son.
“God was with me then, and He brought my son back. But it seems like He’s looking the other direction now. In a way it’s almost like Wade was missing again.”
Matt swallowed down the catch in his throat. “Wade’s going to be all right, Foster. The way I see it, it’s just that the war took him so young. It robbed him of those wild years me and you had just before we got to be men. Now he’s kind of making up for them. Something’ll happen one of these days, like it did to us, and he’ll get his feet on the ground.”
Foster nodded. “Maybe so. I hope it won’t be too long.”
Matt’s daughter Molly was waiting for him at the front door after he let Foster out and had the cowboys help him unload the power sprayer from the pickup. Matt’s heart warmed at the sight of her. Standing there in a crisp new cotton dress, she looked as fresh as a new calf on a spring morning. But despite her smile, he could see worry behind her dark blue eyes.
“I could tell by Foster’s look that the doctor’s report wasn’t good,” she said.
Matt looked down at his box-toed boots. “The doctor says he’s got a chance only if he’ll sit back and take it easy, and has nothing to worry him. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of time, and not too much time at that.”
Molly’s eyes were suddenly clouded. “He would sit back, if only Wade would take hold and run the ranch. But like it is, Foster’ll work and worry himself to death. I’ve got a notion to tell Wade just what I think.”
Matt lifted his hands in alarm. “No, Molly, you can’t. Foster made me promise not to tell Wade. If Wade’s going to reform, it’s got to be because he wants to. It can’t be just because his dad is sick.”
Anger darkened Molly’s cheeks, and Matt saw a hint of tears in her eyes as she turned away from him. He watched her a long moment, gathering courage for what he was to say.
“We’ve got to bring Wade back to his senses, Molly. For Foster’s sake, we’ve got to. And I think you can do more than anybody.”
Slowly she turned back around to face him. “Why me?”
Matt gripped his knuckles nervously. “You’re still in love with him, Molly.”
She started. The tears welled up, and she leaned back against a chair, her head bowed a little.
“I guess a blind burro could see that,” she admitted, the hurt plain in her voice, “but what am I supposed to do, throw myself at him and tell him I’m his if he’ll settle down and quit acting like a half-grown kid?”
Matt shook his head. “Not exactly like that. But it was you that broke off your engagement after he had thrown one too many wild parties with that rodeo gang of his. Maybe if you’d just kind of let him know you still feel the same way about him that you used to, he’ll finally break down and ask you to give him another chance. He’s three years older now. If you love Foster, you’ve got to try, Molly.”
She nodded. “All right, Dad. We’ll see.”
All the rest of the afternoon Matt kept glancing at the road that led in from town, hoping to see the trail of dust that would mean Wade’s car. But when suppertime drew near, there was still no sign of the boy.
Since Matt’s wife had died, Molly did most of the cooking for the small Harbison ranch crew. Foster always came over to the Coopers’ house to eat. Molly would set out a plate for Wade, too. But the last three years he was seldom around.
Just as the cowboys settled down to eat, Wade’s car pulled to a stop outside, an empty horse trailer rattling behind it. The two punchers glanced out the window at him, then at Foster. They looked down at their plates as Wade strode gaily in and let the screen door slam behind him.
Matt studied the young man a moment. No one could ever deny that Wade was a handsome lad, the kind that nice old ladies always wanted to introduce their daughters to. Nor did he lack ability.
He could ride just about the saltiest ranch bronc that might be led out to him. If he didn’t ride the first time, he would keep getting back on till he finally did ride. Throwing a rope was just as natural to him as throwing a baseball. And he could judge the value of a cow just about as well as his old daddy could.
For the first time in Matt didn’t know how long, Molly smiled at Wade. “Better late than never,” she said. “I was about to use your plate to feed the dog in.”
Wade stopped and stared at her as if he couldn’t believe it. He finally grinned. “Now, you wouldn’t want to poison a dog, would you?”
All through the meal, Matt saw Wade stealing puzzled glances at Molly. A wild hope rose in the foreman. Maybe Wade, too, felt the way he had used to.
After supper Wade hung around the dining table, struggling hard to find new topics of conversation with Matt while he actually kept stealing glimpses of Molly. Matt went out on the front porch alone and sat down to smoke his pipe. Presently he glanced back through a window and saw Wade helping Molly with the dishes.
A warm new satisfaction spread through Matt. By dogies, it looked like it might work.
After a while Wade came out and strode toward the barn. Matt knocked the ashes out of his pipe and followed him.
“We’ve got three pastures of calves to brand, Wade,” Matt said. “According to the almanac, the signs’ll be right in a couple of days. Kind of hoped you’d want to be here to help.”
Wade shook his head. “Looks like you’ve forgotten about the rodeo coming to town, Matt. You couldn’t hire any extra help. And as for me, I’ve already promised some of the boys I’d be around for the roping events.”
Matt choked down the disappointment. “Seems like there’s always a rodeo or a matched roping or some doggone thing someplace when we’ve got work to do here,” he said pointedly.
He saw a sign of irritation rise in Wade’s face. “I’m sorry it’s that way, Matt.”
The boy turned to go, then stopped a moment. “I asked Molly to go to the rodeo dance with me the last night of the show. She said she would. That all right with you?”
Matt grunted. All the disappointment hadn’t left him. “Sure, Wade. It’s all right with me.”
Next morning Wade ate breakfast with the rest of the crew and followed the cowboys out to the barn. Maybe he would make the morning ride, Matt thought. Old Foster hobbled out to the barn with them, and Matt noticed him glancing hopefully at the boy.
In the corral Matt shook out a horse loop in his rope. “What do you want to ride this morning, Wade?”
Wade shook his head. “Afraid I haven’t got time to go along this morning, Matt. Got to work on my rig and get it ready for the rodeo.”
Matt gripped the rope tightly. He glanced at Foster and saw disappointment wash across the wrinkled face. Foster hesitated a minute, then said, “Catch me old Packrat. I’m going along.”
Matt hefted his rope doubtfully. “Don’t you think maybe you ought to stay around close for a while, Foster? You got to have rest.”
Foster shook his head irritably. “There’s been mighty few days since I’ve had this outfit that one of the Harbisons hasn’t been along to help. And that policy ain’t going to change as long as I’m able to see a cow.”
Matt purposely missed the first loop, hoping Wade would speak up and go instead of his dad. As he recoiled his rope he looked around and saw Wade already on his way to the barn. Anger rippled through the foreman. He caught Packrat clean the second throw.
His anger came back over him when the crew returned to the ranch for dinner. Another car was parked at Wade’s trailer out by the barn. Matt could see two cowpunchers standing in the shade by the barn’s front steps, watching Wade re-lace his stirrup leathers.
There wasn’t any mistaking the men’s Hollywood cowboy clothes. Cecil Bragg and Ed Gordon, Matt thought, spitting at fence post in disgust. They had come just the right time to mooch a free meal from Molly.
Matt gave them a curt nod as he walked up. Bragg eyed him warily, and Gordon slowly retreated around beside Wade.
“Just came out to see if Wade was ready for the rodeo, Mister Matt,” Gordon said as if he thought an explanation was necessary.
Matt said nothing. There was a long uneasy moment, and even Wade, concentrating on his saddle, seemed to sense it. Finally Gordon resumed talking to Wade.
“Like I was saying, Wade, we could have us a real good time if we was to go on the rodeo circuit the rest of the summer. We could go to Arizona and Colorado and Wyoming—all them places like that. Just have us a good time.”
A tension built up in Matt as he watched Wade studying his saddle, his brow knitted. Wade couldn’t leave the country now, not with his dad in such bad shape. He just couldn’t.
Presently Wade shook his head. “Aw Ed, I wouldn’t feel right about leaving here for so long. Why don’t you all just go ahead?”
Gordon objected vigorously. “We couldn’t go without you, Wade.”
Matt grunted. “Bet your life you couldn’t. Who’d pay your bills?”
Wade looked up irritably. “I don’t know why you’ve always got to insult my friends, Matt.”
Matt felt his anger getting away with him, and he tried to hold it in.
“You’d find out just how good friends they were if you ever went broke.”
Wade stood up, his eyes narrowed. “When I was a kid, Matt, you told me to never let anybody else pick my cows for me, or pick my friends.”
Matt swallowed. “You’ve gotten to where you’re a lot better at picking cows than you are at picking friends, Wade!”
He turned and tromped toward the house, fighting at the anger that surged within him.
Matt didn’t try to get much work done while the rodeo was on. He turned the cowhands loose to go to the show. Matt himself didn’t go until the last afternoon. The way he figured it, he had lived enough rodeo right out on the range the last forty-odd years.
Home again, Matt found Molly in a brand new dress, making pirouettes in front of a mirror and admiring the garment. It made her look like a million dollars, Matt thought proudly.
“It’s for the dance tonight, Dad,” she trilled. “I’ve got to take it up in a place or two, but isn’t it lovely?”
Matt grinned. He hadn’t seen her so happy in he didn’t know how long. If she couldn’t charm Wade tonight, the boy was blind.
Wade came to get Molly about dark. Matt’s anger was forgotten as he watched the way the two youngsters looked at each other.
Old Foster came hobbling over just as the boy and girl left for town. A puzzled grin was on his face. “I just can’t hardly believe it,” he said, watching the car lights disappear down the town road.
Warm satisfaction spread through Matt. Just let those two parasite friends of Wade’s try to drag him off to the rodeo circuit now, he thought.
The slamming of a car door awoke Matt with a start. He threw back the cover a little and pushed himself up on one elbow to look at the clock. Hardly midnight. Doggoned early for Wade and Molly to be home from the dance!
In a moment the front door opened and closed again. Matt sat up in bed as he heard Molly sobbing. Uneasiness spread through him as he started to get up.
Turning on the light, he saw Molly sitting in a living room chair, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. He stood there uncertainly. He had never been much help when a woman was crying. Finally he walked over to her and patted her on the shoulder.
“Now, now,” he said soothingly, “it can’t be all that bad. Where’s Wade?”
“He’s still in town,” she said bitterly. “I hope he has to walk!”
She soon got control of herself. “It’s not Wade, really,” she said. “It’s those people who always hang around him, like Ed Gordon and Cecil Bragg, helping him spend his money. If we could make him see what a worthless bunch they are, he might straighten out all right.”
Matt’s anger began to kindle up again. “What made you go off and leave him?” he growled.
“It was Gordon and Bragg. Wade and I were having a wonderful time together till those two came in. Wade invited them to sit down with us. They had a bottle with them. I told Wade I didn’t like it.
“Finally Ed Gordon took a notion he wanted to dance. He grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me out onto the dance floor. Wade argued with him, in a quiet kind of way, but Gordon didn’t turn me loose. So I slapped him good and hard. Then Wade told me I ought to be ashamed, that Gordon didn’t realize what he was doing. I got so mad I slapped Wade, too. I grabbed his car keys off the table, got the car and came home.”
Matt sat down in another chair, his hands trembling, his face hot. “It’s my fault, Molly,” he said softly. “I thought we could change him. But all I’ve done is get you hurt all over again.”
About the middle of the next morning, Gordon and Bragg brought Wade out to the ranch. Matt watched Wade get his own car and back it up to his horse trailer. The old foreman strode over to him. He shot a hostile glance at Gordon and Bragg. He noted the pair’s bloodshot eyes and hoped they both had a headache.
“Looks like you’re going someplace, Wade,” he said evenly.
Wade nodded.
“I figured on going ahead with the branding,” Matt went on. “We need your help.”
Wade didn’t answer, so Gordon piped in. “Wade’s going with us to follow the rodeo circuit a couple of months.”
Matt’s heart skipped a beat or two. He felt a little of the color drain from his face.
“Wade’s old daddy has got money enough to hire all the help he needs,” Gordon went on. “He don’t need Wade.”
Heat roared back into Matt’s face. He doubled his fists and said with anger, “Doesn’t need him? You haven’t got any idea how much old Foster does need him!”
Matt reached down and pulled Wade’s hand away from the trailer hitch. “You can just unhitch that trailer, Wade. You’re staying here!”
Wade looked up in surprise. His grey eyes leveled on Matt’s. “I’ll go where I please and do what I want.”
Matt thundered, “A few times when you were a kid I had to take my belt off and warm the seat of your britches with it. You’re still not too big for me to wallop the daylights out of you!
“I hoped we could wake you up a better way. But wake you up I will, even if I’ve got to work the hound out of you. Now you unhitch that trailer and go find yourself some working clothes.”
Wade stood staring at him, his mouth open. Surprise seemed to have knocked the argument out of him. Now there was a trace of a smile in his eyes.
“I’ll stay and help you brand if you’ll hire my two buddies here.”
Dismay was in the two men’s faces. Matt didn’t like it. “They couldn’t work their way out of a wet paper sack.”
“If I stay, they do.”
Matt gave in disgustedly. “All right. They’re on till we finish branding. Regular day wages, seven dollars a day. And if they don’t work, by dogies, they don’t eat!”
The whole crew was up and out before daylight next morning. Foster Harbison came along despite Matt’s protest. Matt didn’t like the pale look in the old ranchman’s face this morning.
The men stopped at the back side of the pasture to smoke and wait for daylight to make it light enough to work. Ed Gordon carelessly flipped his cigarette butt away. A moment later the grass began to crackle where it fell. Orange flames licked at the dry grass, and the pungent smoke bit at riders’ nostrils.
“Put it out, quick,” Matt shouted. “A fire in this dry grass could burn off a couple of sections.”
Wade quickly swung to the ground, unbuckling his leggings. He and another cowpuncher used their chaps to beat out the fire. Gordon was on the ground too, but he stood helplessly, his mouth half open, as if he didn’t know what to do.
When the last sparks had been tromped out and Wade had remounted, Matt said to him, “Tell your friends to watch their cigarettes from now on. We ain’t firemen.”
They got the cattle into the corrals, separated them and had the branding half done before Molly drove up in the ranch’s second pickup, bringing their lunch. Matt noted sadly the uneasy way Wade looked at Molly and kept his distance from her. He noted too the way the girl avoided looking at Wade.
After the meal, Molly stayed around and watched the rest of the branding. Matt had a couple of cowboys drive the first pickup over to a windmill to fill the power sprayer, bolted to wooden skids fastened to the pickup bed. He mixed up a batch of DDT and poured it into the sprayer. He started the pump’s motor, picked up the end of the long hose, and began spraying a heavy fog of insecticide over the cows and calves as boys pushed them through a narrow chute.
“This’ll cut down on the flies and the tail switching this summer, Foster,” he said happily. “Wish we’d had this years ago. But there’ll be more beef to sell this fall.”
Foster grinned. But Matt still didn’t like the hollow look under the old man’s eyes.
As soon as the pairs were sprayed, Matt had the two regular cowhands start driving them toward a new pasture. After a while the cows without calves had been sprayed.
“Gordon,” Matt said, “you and Bragg drive these dry cows down the draw and put them out that gate over yonder a mile.”
Matt, Wade and Foster finished up around the branding pens and cleaned out the power sprayer.
Gordon and Bragg had been gone perhaps thirty minutes when Molly yelled, “Fire, Dad! Down the draw!”
Matt’s heart leaped right up into his throat as he saw the grey smoke curling upward from the draw. He started to curse the two careless cowhands. But there wasn’t time for it.
“Wade,” he shouted, “you fill up that power sprayer with water. We can use it to fight fire. Foster, you and Molly and me’ll take the other pickup down there and get started on the fire.”
Matt tore an old worn-out tarp into large pieces and quickly soaked them in a water trough. Then the three jumped into the pickup and bounced across the cow trails and ditches as fast as the thing would run.
Matt’s heart sank when he saw the fire. It was already well out of hand. The wind was blowing right down the draw, carrying the fire rapidly in the direction of the windmills.
Gordon and Bragg were both swinging at the fire with their chaps. But about all they were doing was spreading it. Their horses, both loose, stood a long distance out on one side. The cows had scattered.
“Grab those wet tarps and get to working with them,” Matt yelled. He told Foster to stay with the pickup, in case it had to be moved. But a minute later he saw the old ranchman right out front, beating at the fire as hard as he could swing. His heart couldn’t take much of that, but how could you argue with a man like Foster?
Matt concentrated on the fire, and wished Wade would hurry up with that sprayer. The wind got stronger. The flames rose higher and spread swifter. They would hit the big mesquites and swoop up the dry grass clustered around them.
Sweat dripped from Matt’s face and burned his eyes. Heat blistered him. His lips were dry as old leather. As he slapped desperately at the fire, he felt his breath getting shorter and shorter. It seemed the world was beginning to swing mad, fiery arcs back and forth before his seared eyes.
A scream brought him out of it suddenly. Molly! He looked around him but could see nothing but the wild, dancing scenes made by the blistering heat waves. Molly screamed again. Matt dropped his piece of tarp and went running toward her voice. Then he saw.
Foster had let the fire surround him. He stood in a small bare island out in the middle of a river of licking orange flames and wicked grey smoke. Molly was running toward him, dodging flames, jumping nimbly from one bare spot to another.
Matt called her excitedly but knew she never heard him. He saw Gordon and Bragg standing together outside the belt of fire, neither one making a move to help Molly or Foster.
Suddenly Matt saw Foster grip his shirt front painfully and slump to the ground. His heart!
Matt called again, panic seizing him. Forgetting the flames, he started running toward the girl and the old man. His foot caught between the forks of an old stump, and he felt the breath leave him as he sprawled out on the hot ground.
Black ashes choked him. He struggled for breath, beating at the sparks that burned his flesh in a dozen places. Pain and fear and desperation all grabbed hold of him, and he hardly heard Wade’s pickup come bouncing to a stop.
Then he was painfully conscious of Wade bending over him, helping him get his foot loose and slapping the breath into him. “Come on and help me,” Wade was calling.
Gordon’s scared voice sounded as if it was a mile away. “And get burned up? Lord no!”
Wade was hastily helping Matt to the pickup and beating at the flames that were burning the foreman’s clothes in places.
“I’ll help you get up in back, Matt,” Wade was saying quickly. “You’ll have to handle the nozzle on that sprayer. We’re going on in to get Dad and Molly!”
Flames were already licking up at the pickup, but nothing had caught fire. Almost automatically, Matt grabbed hold of the sprayer. Then the pickup was bouncing crazily through the flames. Matt held his breath until it got to the little island in the middle.
While Matt kept a heavy spray of water going on the flames, Wade jumped out. Matt didn’t miss the quick look that passed between the boy and the girl as they stood together in peril—a look that told much better than words ever could of love and thanks and forgiveness.
They put Foster in the pickup. Then Wade swung the pickup around and they were bouncing back out again. The heavy grass smoke choked Matt and burned his eyes until he could hardly see.
Outside the belt of fire again, Wade jumped out and took a quick look under the pickup and beneath the hood to make sure no flames had caught hold. Matt blinked his stinging eyes and saw the two regular cowboys spurring their horses as hard as they could run, coming to help.
Quickly Wade and Molly got Foster into the other pickup. Matt jumped off the fender and felt his sprained ankle give way beneath him, burning worse than the fire had.
“Molly and I are taking Dad to the doctor,” Wade told the newly arrived cowboys. “You all take the power sprayer and hold the flames in check the best you can. We’ll phone the neighbors and send out the county fire truck. Watch after Matt.”
As an afterthought, he added, “Matt, get rid of Ed and Cecil, will you? Send them to town. Tell them if they’re still here when I get back, I’m liable to kill them both.”
The doctor let Foster come home Saturday morning. He would be all right, the medic said. It usually took one attack to show an old mossyhorn like Foster that the doctor was right.
Matt bedded Foster down in the Cooper house, where Molly could watch after him. With his sprained ankle bound up like a Christmas present, Matt wasn’t getting around much himself.
Wade Harbison came in at noon, his face dusty, his clothes showing sign of hard work. Molly greeted him with a warm smile.
“Wade,” Foster called irritably, “come make these people let me up. There’s too much work around here for me to lie in bed.”
Wade put his hand on his father’s shoulder and gently pushed the old man back into bed. “You’re staying there till the doctor says you can get up. From now on, if there’s any work to do around here, I’ll do it.”
The irritation left the old man’s face, and a pleased smile replaced it. “What about that rodeo circuit your friends were talking about?”
Wade looked at Molly. “My friends? From now on I’ve got the same friends you have, Dad.”
Wade stood watching Molly. Nervously he put his weight on first one foot, then the other.
“Molly,” he said at last, “that sure was a pretty dress you had on the other night. I’d like to see you wear it again. There’s another dance tonight.”
Happiness shone in her eyes. “I’d love to go, Wade.”
That night Matt Cooper and Foster Harbison sat on the front porch and watched as Molly and Wade went out to the car, arm in arm. Just like the old days, Matt thought, and he enjoyed the warm glow of satisfaction that began to spread within him.
“Matt,” Foster chuckled, “I’ve decided I’m going to stay around a while. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to have those grandchildren yet.”