In Open Spaces (18 page)

The July heat was thick, dry, and the mosquitoes were nearly as thick as the air, so everyone wore long sleeves. Art even had a sweaty kerchief around his neck. I felt for him. For some reason, mosquitoes never bothered me. Even if they did bite, I didn’t feel anything or swell up at all. But Art got big ugly welts, the size of quarters.

The cattle moved with slow submission, their heads heavy from the heat, jaws working steadily, up and down, side to side, on their cuds. One calf had an extreme, inexplicable amount of energy, and kept racing off, away from his befuddled mother. His mother would stop, crying loudly, then swing her big skull to one side, and with a slow sweep of her neck, around to the other side. Eventually, she would find the lost one, and press her nose against him, making sure it was indeed hers, mooing more softly, a soothing “mmmm” that seemed to assure the cow more than the calf. Soon the calf was off again.

We kept the cattle moving at a slow but steady pace. With no water in the mile between the pasture and the barn, we didn’t want them to get too dry. It would be a long day as it was.

Rita was happy to be back riding with us. The year before, she’d been pregnant with Teddy, their second child, and had to stay with the women and cook. Rita preferred riding. She had a straw cowboy hat broken down over her eyes, her dark hair in its thick ponytail down the middle of her back. She had taken to wearing baggy dungarees with suspenders, and she looked healthier than when she first arrived. Working outside had made her solid, her face browned by sun and wind. Her freckles had multiplied.

Jack was in danger of alienating himself from the rest of the family with his latest business venture. Because there were so few trees in our county, it was common practice, when people ran out of firewood, to use dried manure as a substitute. So Jack got the idea of collecting and selling manure. He built a box, like a coffin, with very narrow gaps between the planks. He would fill the box with manure, then add water, and while it was wet, he would compress it, stomping it down with rubber boots while the excess water leaked out between the gaps.

Once it dried, he turned the box over and dumped out the block of manure, which he then cut into bricks about the size of logs. It was a great idea, and people began stopping in to buy the “logs” which Jack sold for a nickel apiece, or six for a quarter. Soon the demand became
greater. Jack built more boxes, and began knocking off a little early some days to gather and prepare his product. At first, he would just leave an hour or so before the rest of us. But he began to cut out earlier and more often, then showing up late. It bothered Dad; I could tell by the cool expression he always cast toward Jack as he departed. But in his typical fashion, he didn’t confront the issue.

So while the rest of us worked harder to make up for Jack’s absence, again, he was making a profit from ranch resources, and showing no interest in putting what he made back into the place. It went against what was considered ethical, not to mention traditional, for a ranch operation. And when it became clear that nobody else was going to do or say anything about it, I knew it was up to me.

So one evening, while Jack was working at his project, I went out to the corral, where he had his boxes set up. Jack stood in one box, his knees alternately rising and falling. Water seeped from the narrow crevices between the planks.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“All right.” Jack eyed me with a hint of skepticism, and for good reason. I had been so annoyed with him that it had been weeks since I initiated a conversation. “Not too bad,” he added.

Although I had rehearsed what I wanted to say countless times in my head, and although this was by no means the first time I’d studied Jack’s little operation, I walked around the boxes, my hands locked behind my back, trying to settle my nerves before I spoke.

“Dad send you out here?” Jack asked. “Does he need something?”

I shook my head. “No.” I cleared my throat, trying to dislodge a lump the size of a chicken.

“What’s on your mind, then?” Jack asked. He didn’t sound impatient, or testy. “Or maybe I can guess.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Jack showed a little half smile, looking at me sideways. “I been wondering how long it would be before you spoke up.”

I dug my hands into my pockets and faced Jack. “Me, or anybody?”

He stopped his stomping for a moment, his breath slightly labored. “You,” he said. “I figured it to be you.”

“Why’s that?”

Jack’s mouth curled into the half smile again. He winked. “Ah, hell, Blake. It’s obvious that it bothers you more than anyone.” Jack began stomping again, knees rising and falling. “And it’s not hard to imagine why.”

I frowned, not sure myself about the answer to that question. “Why?”

He grinned. He stopped the knees again. He put his hands on his hips. “Ah, come on, Blake. I don’t really have to spell it out, do I?” Jack had gloves on and he lifted one leg, cleaning the excess manure from that boot. Then he stepped out of the box and did the same with the other. “You of all people.” He eyed me, tilting his head. “Listen…there’s no reason we can’t both come out of this ahead. We can both get what we want here.”

I was baffled by Jack’s certainty that I understood what he was talking about. He scrutinized me, and apparently saw my confusion. He sat on the edge of the box. “All right, Blake. Let me put it this way. It’s been obvious since…well, since I can remember…that if there’s anyone who has the same feeling about this ranch as Mom and Dad, it’s you.”

I raised my brow.

“What? You don’t think I see that?” Jack asked, smiling. “Come on, Blake. It’s obvious. I don’t have what it takes to run this place. I don’t have the patience. I don’t suffer well.” He studied me. “So it’s simple, really I get what I can out of it while I’m here. Then I leave you alone. You get what you want. So do I.” He shrugged. “Then I leave you alone.”

I stood looking at the dry gray earth at my feet, and thought about what Jack was saying. Obviously, the conversation had gone very differently than I expected. In a way, I couldn’t have planned it any better. I didn’t even have to do anything. But I was uncomfortable with Jack’s proposal, for a couple of reasons. I raised one of them.

“Have you talked to Rita about this?”

For the first time, Jack’s eyes became guarded, and before he spoke, I knew the answer to my question. “That’s my business,” he answered.

And whatever slim chance there was of going along with Jack’s little arrangement died. But it wasn’t only the fact that Jack would keep such important details from Rita. In fact, when I thought about it later, I realized that I couldn’t have gone along with the plan regardless of Jack’s answer to this simple question. The whole conspiratorial nature of the idea went against all matters of principle that our family had built as a foundation. And it showed me just how far removed my brother was from those values.

I looked down at him, sitting expectantly on his creation, and I shook my head.

“Sorry, Jack,” I said. “I can’t go along with that.”

Jack raised his eyes to me, squinting, looking at the same time confused and amused. “What do you mean, you can’t go along with it, Blake? You don’t even have to do anything. There’s really nothing to go along with.”

I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. That’s the problem. I can’t support you on this, Jack. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re going to take from the ranch, you have to put as much into it as the rest of us. You’ve got to pull your weight. It’s just the way it is, I think. It’s the way it has to be.” I shrugged.

Jack only seemed to become more amused. His shoulders shook slightly in a silent chuckle. “All right. So what are you going to do, then, if I don’t? You going to force me?”

I sighed. “Nope. I’m not going to force you. Obviously, there’s nothing I can do.” Again I shrugged, pulling my mouth to one side. “It’s up to you, Jack. If you can live with it, then I guess I’ll have to. But I just got to warn you, I won’t be happy about it. Never. It’s not something I’ll ever get used to.”

Jack kept his gaze on me, and he retained his incredulous grin.
After holding my gaze for a moment, he shrugged, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. But this exchange proved to be a turning point. Jack and I rarely spoke after that. But our silence did not seem to be born of animosity. Quite the opposite. It felt as if, now that our divergent paths had been established, any rivalry that might have been brewing was gone. There was no longer any need to compete, nor was there any need to be friendly. The pressure was off. Jack also rarely knocked off early after that, which gave me a sense of satisfaction.

But a new concern had come out of this conversation. My suspicion that Jack’s return after the war was only temporary had essentially been confirmed. And the ramifications of this eventuality had changed. Now Rita was involved. Which meant I cared even more.

We pushed the herd over the rise a hundred yards from the barn. Then we ambled down the slope and squeezed the cattle through the gate into the corral, where Dad and Gary had a fire going, with three irons burning orange in the flame. Just before we reached the gate, the rambunctious calf took off one last time.

“Rita, watch that little guy over there!” Jack shouted, pointing.

“He’s all right,” Rita answered, calmly watching the calf kick up its heels. “He’ll be back.”

But Jack didn’t accept Rita’s assessment, and made a ridiculous show of pursuing the calf, first chasing him further from the herd before he finally got him turned around.

“Get the gate, Jack,” I shouted as he guided the runaway calf into the corral.

He swung the gate shut, and the easy part was over. The cattle filled the corral, mawing and eyeballing us with an accusing look, as though we’d betrayed them yet again by bringing them there.

I twirled my lasso a few times and set my bead on the back hooves of a calf that was trotting along separate from the rest. I caught one leg
and backed Ahab while Jack went after the front legs. He laid a loop down on the ground. I kept backing, and the calf stepped into the loop with both front hooves. Jack flipped his wrist and pulled, stretching the calf out. It fell to its side. Dad straddled the calf, sat, and held its head while Gary laid the glowing iron against the calf’s right flank. The calf let out a bawl, and the smell and taste of burning hair filled the corral.

Gary lifted the iron and a wisp of smoke drifted from a perfect black “R
” in the midst of the furry brown coat. The calf was male, so Dad grabbed his pocketknife from his teeth, sliced the scrotum, and tugged the testicles from the open wound. He tossed them to one side, and the calf wriggled, bawling louder, his tongue hanging loose from the corner of his mouth. Dad sliced a notch out of the calf’s left ear to mark it as a steer. And after Gary dumped disinfectant on the wounds, Jack and I nudged our horses forward, putting enough slack in our ropes for Dad to slip the lassos from the calf’s hooves.

The little guy stood, dazed for a second, and I guided him toward the gate. When Bob opened the gate, Steve stood in the gap and waved his arms, spooking the unbranded calves to keep them in the corral. He then made a mark on one plank of the corral for each calf we’d branded, and a mark on another plank for each cow that got out. At the end of the day, we’d total these marks and figure the ratio of cows to calves. Each year a few cows would be dry, and a few would have twins. It generally balanced out to about nine calves for every ten cows, but some years, when the grass was thick, we’d have an equal number.

Nothing blocked the sun’s path, and between the fire and the eighty-plus-degree heat, the air was as dry as hangover mouth. Dry enough that we almost didn’t have enough water in us to sweat. Just within hearing distance, the Little Missouri River teased us with its rush of water. My rope was hot and stiff, worrying my hands until the nerves were tender. The heat encouraged the mosquitoes, too; the pesky little
bastards kept us extra busy waving them from our ears. But the mood was light, as it usually was when we worked as a crew.

“Some nice fat calves you got here, George,” Steve said.

“Not too bad,” Dad answered.

Steve scrutinized Dad, his skewed eye aiming off away from everything. “You been letting these calves chew on our grass?” he asked. “I don’t believe you folks could raise nice fat calves like these on that scrawny grass you got out here.”

Dad eyed me with a mischievous smirk. “Should we tell him, Blake?”

“Hell no, Dad. I don’t think we ought to admit to anything yet. Might give him reason to start looking for some kind of payback.”

“What makes you so sure we haven’t already?” Steve asked.

In the midst of our banter, Gary turned to say something, but he bumped into a cow behind him and dropped his branding iron, which caught his boot just enough to make him jump. One side of the R left a black curve on the toe of his boot. This sudden motion spooked some of the cattle near Gary. Bob was just opening the gate to let a newly branded calf out, and the rambunctious calf saw the opening and bolted. He was out before Bob or Steve could move to stop him.