OLD TRAILS, NEW TRACKS

By

R. W. Edie

 

Copyright R. W. Edie, Inc.
11 W. La Canoa, Green Valley, Arizona 85614
All Rights Reserved

 

     OLD TRAILS, NEW TRACKS is a collection of eight novelettes about people with a Cowboy Mentality trying to function in a more or less modern world.

 

     These are fun stories.  They are not nostalgia stories but more about modern day drifters, like Tad Harrison and Sam Stone.  There’s Jim Hartley and Charley Hensen, small time ranchers trying to become big time ranchers.  There are also people like Cal Belington and Sally Raymond whose heritage is long gone, leaving them with no particular direction for the future.  And, there is Reverend Bert Sloan, Mindy Hensen, and Jake Haws who are running from something, or towards something, without knowing what they are running from, or caring what they are running towards.

 

     These are not violent stories, in so much as nobody gets killed, but sometimes a person wonders why nobody gets killed because some of these people shouldn’t be allowed to run around loose without a keeper.  There is some alcohol use, no drug use, but there is enough sex to warrant an R rating.

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WINTER QUARTERS

 

 

 

     Montana--Big Sky country--high timber covered mountains--wide open valleys.  In the spring, the grass, new and fresh, reborn after a long dormancy in the frozen ground, covers the valley's floor, replacing the winter snow.  The snow, now old and feeble, turns into water.  The water, in turn, gives life to the new spring growth that is now taking over--the new, nurtured by the old, replacing the old.

 

     Knowing it's time is short, the carpet of green vigorously works it way up the mountain slopes.  Encouraged by the warmth of the sun, the green carpet invades the territory once held by the crumbling, worn, gray mantle of winter that is retreating before it.

 

     The deer, the elk, the antelope, and, possibly, some buffalo who have drifted out of their preserve, graze on the new grass.  The newly awakened black bear forage for grubs and edible roots.  The wild geese in their traveling V-formations noisily honk their arrival.

 

     The cattle and sheep ranchers, swearing at the deep brown mud that pulls down the wheels of pickups and tractors, and sometimes even sucks the horseshoes from the horses' feet, turn their livestock out from the winter feed grounds, thankful that the snow is gone even if it has been replace by mud.

 

     Spring in Montana is a wondrous time--a time of a new beginning.

 

     Spring eventually turns into summer and the mud dries.  The wild flowers, Lupine, Larkspur, Paintbrush, turn the endless green carpet into a mosaic of color that no artist could ever recreate, although many have tried.  The animals, the deer, the elk, the antelope, the buffalo--if they haven't been rounded up and sent back to the preserve--the cattle, grow fat and slick as they shed the remainder of their winter hair.  The calves are branded; the sheep are sheared.  The ranchers take full advantage of the long summer days to harvest the hay they will need for the coming Winter.

 

     The Summer, short, wears on into Fall, the grass matures into a dark tan, the quaking asp and birch take on their new colors of gold and red signaling the end of another growing season.  High on the mountain peaks the first snowflakes herald the coming of Winter.  The wild animals, fat from foraging in the high country, drift toward their wintering areas in the lower hills.  The bear disappear into their dens  The geese form into their traveling V-formation and honk their departure cries.  The cattle and sheep are gathered, the calves and lambs are shipped to feedlots.  The ranchers look to the northwestern horizon hoping in vain not to see anything except blue sky.

 

     The blue sky disappears.  The second offering of snowflakes silently covers the land and all it supports with raw whiteness.  Gone are the greens and reds and purples and yellows and golds.  This, again, another new beginning.

 

     It begins quietly at first, a slight whisper in the top branches of the cottonwoods, the snap or crack of a dead or frozen twig.  A few of the more ambitious new-fallen snow flakes dance gaily across the backs of their less ambitious buddies, making no more sound than a lover's slippers in the night; but coaxing, tantalizing, arousing to newer action, newer heights.  The air turns crisp, invigorating.  The north wind, invigorated, starts howling through the branches of the cottonwoods and aspen, stripping away the last remaining dead leaves.  Nothing of the old is allowed to remain.  The new snow, awakened, ambitious and rejuvenated by the howling wind, whips and slashes fifty feet up into the air and then plasters itself like stucco on anything in its path that's exposed.

 

     Winter has begun in the Big Sky Country of Montana.  It's colder than a witch's tit, and everything that can walk, fly, or crawl, starts hunting for someplace that's warm.

 

 

 

     On one occasion, Tad Harrison had asked of Sam Stone, who Tad considered to be a learned philosopher, why a person always saw three cowboys riding in a pickup truck.

 

     "I reckon it's because that's all that'll fit in there with their hats on," had been Sam's answer.

 

     Well, there were three of them in the pickup truck, Tad, Sam, and Jesus Morales, all heading South for the Winter.

 

     Jesus wanted closer to Mexico so he could go home in the spring.  Sam wanted out of the cold so his old bones would work better.  Tad just wanted to find a new range, preferably someplace warmer than Montana.

 

     "Christ, in a storm like this, in Montana, we'd be holed up in the bunkhouse, or the bar, instead of out drivin' around."  Tad wasn't thrilled with the circumstance.  They were just outside Flagstaff, Arizona, in the first week of January, after driving thirteen hundred miles from northern Montana, mostly in blizzard conditions.  Now, in Arizona--sunny Arizona--they were still in a blizzard.

 

     "Hey, Sam, where's that map she sent us?" he asked.

 

     Receiving no response, he looked toward the old man sitting next to the passenger side door.  Sam's chin rested on his chest.  "Hey, Sam!  Are you dead, or what?"

 

     Jesus Morales, sitting in the middle, jabbed Sam awake with his elbow.  "No 'sta muerto, Sam." he grinned.

 

     "I know he ain't dead."  Tad waited for Sam to wake-up more before he asked for directions again.  A gust of wind rocked the pickup and sent snow swirling across the road.  "I thought we were comin' to Arizona to get out of the winter."

 

     "All Arizona no caliente," Jesus remarked.  He spoke very little English.  His companions understood very little Spanish.  Conversation between them amounted to a mixture of words each hoped the other understood.

 

     Sam, now awake, hat in his lap, rubbed his bald head and read the hand-drawn map.  "Don't show nothin' about Flagstaff.  Just shows where to get off the freeway between Flagstaff and Williams."  The map was drawn on the back of a letter they had received from a widow-lady who hired them to help her with her cattle.

 

     "Christ, I hope we get out of this soon."  Tad pulled the snow covered pickup into a service station to ask directions.  He was the spokesman for the group.  His proficiency in elocution had not earned him the honor--Jesus Morales, a wetback, didn't speak English, and Sam Stone, the other member of the trio, claimed to be old enough to know enough to keep his mouth shut, and usually did.  The talking concession fell to Tad.

 

     He rolled down the window.  "Hey," he shouted at the service station attendant, who was just entering the warm confines of the office.  "How do I get on the road to Williams?"

 

     "Just keep goin' the way your pointed--you'll get there."

 

     "How far will it be before we get out of this storm?  It's sure as hell gettin' tiresome."

 

     The service station attendant was still laughing as he closed the office door from the inside.

 

     "Unfriendly damned place," Tad muttered as he pulled back on the road.

 

     He found the freeway and they traveled west until Sam, holding the map, announced they had arrived at the proper exit.  It didn't seem like it was snowing any less.  After getting off the freeway they traveled along the frontage road until Sam determined they had arrived at the proper place to turn off, again.  The white stuff continued descending on them.

 

     They bounced along a semi-graveled road boundaried on both sides by tall Ponderosa pine.  The graveled road gradually deteriorated into a dirt road.  They were climbing higher.  The snow was getting heavier.  And now, the wind was starting to blow, causing the snow to swirl in spiral and zigzag patterns.

 

     Tad turned the defroster and windshield wipers onto high.  "Hey, Sam," he shouted over the roar of the heater fan and the clunk of the windshield wipers.  "Are you  sure we ain't lost?"  He knew better than to ask.  Sam was never lost.

 

     "You're doin' just fine.  Should be there as soon as we get on top of this hill."

 

     Within another mile, they reached the top of the hill.

 

     "Christ, we're above timber-line." Tad looked out across a wide open stretch of land.  It was white, covered with snow.  A cluster of buildings and corrals sat in the middle of the open area.  The buildings, also, were covered with snow.

 

     Tad stopped the pickup and looked at Sam, "Is what we're lookin' at supposed to be where we're goin' to get out of the winter?"

 

     "That's supposed to be it."  Sam didn't sound any to happy.

 

     Tad wasn't very happy, either.  "Holy Jesus!"

 

     "¿Mande?" Jesus, hearing his anglicized name, gave Tad a questioning look.  Since Jesus had been around, Tad had almost become a Christian.  He was forced stop using his favorite swear-word because of the confusion it caused.

 

     "No--no--not you," Tad said, waving Jesus' look away.  "The Other One."

 

     They drove on down the road toward the buildings, more from habit than enthusiasm.  By now, some of the snow had melted into water.  The water, in turn, had converted the red, volcanic dirt into red, volcanic mud.  The mud stuck to the tires and fenders, and whatever else it touched.  The road ended among the ram-shackle buildings.

 

     They stopped where it looked like everybody else stopped and were noisily greeted by a pack of dogs.  The dogs appeared to be partly hound, with a bunch of other stuff mixed in.  Tad had never seen anything like them--some were spotted, like leopards.

 

     The dogs bounded around the pickup, yapping and making a fuss.  One of them jumped into the back and sniffed around on the tarp covering their belongings.  Jesus, who had no use for dogs, started swearing in Spanish.

 

     The door of one of the buildings opened and a woman came out.  She put her thumb and finger to her lips and blew an ear splitting whistle.  The dogs scurried back to her and deposited themselves in a disorderly fashion on and under the porch.  All the dogs obeyed except the one in the back of the pickup.  He was engrossed in discovering what was under the tarp and not worried about what his mistress wanted.

 

     The woman stepped from the porch and advanced on the pickup with a rolling walk typical of people who have spent the most of their lives either on a ship, or on the back of a horse.  The dog in the back of the pickup noticed her approach and tried to avoid her grasp, without success.  She caught him by the scruff of the neck, jerked him out of the pickup box, and sent him scurrying off toward the other dogs with a kick, aimed well behind him.

 

     "You'll have to excuse Peanuts--he's just a youngster and hasn't learned any manners, yet.  I'm Anne Smertz."  She stuck her hand in the pickup window and shook hands with each of the cowboys as they introduced themselves.

 

     Tad tried to estimate the lady's age.  She acted like she was forty, looked like she was eighty--he guessed she was somewhere in between.  Almost his height, she was skinny and wiry, and work-hardened.  Her gray hair was braided into a single strand, reaching the middle of her back.  On the right side of her face, a scar ran from the corner of her eye down to her lower jaw.  When she opened her mouth, Tad could see she was missing some teeth on that side.

 

     The lady was no rich, slick-ear from town, which should make Sam feel better.  The old cowboy didn't like working for women in the first place, especially ones who, as he put it, "don't know which end of the cow eats and which end shits".  Anne Smertz knew--she also knew which end kicked and which end bunted--she'd been on both ends and found out the hard way.

 

     "I was beginning to wonder if you fellers' were goin' to show up," Mrs. Smertz said.  "I'm sure glad you made it.  I was afraid I might have to hire some war-whoops to help me gather."

 

     "We fought storm all the way down here," Tad apologized.  He suddenly had a bad taste in his mouth.

 

     She sensed Tad's dislike for her derogatory statement.  "Don't get me wrong."  She looked him straight in the eye.  "I've got nothin' against Indians.  The only problem is, the ones around here who had any get-up-and-go, used it and left.  The ones who are still here ain't worth a damn."

 

     "I guess it's that way everywhere, ma'am."  Tad was getting cold, setting in the pickup with the window rolled down.

 

     "Well, it's too late to do anything today.  You boys put your saddles in the barn and the rest of your stuff in the bunkhouse.  We'll start bright and early in the mornin'."

 

     The trio dismounted from the pickup and started unloading their gear.

 

     "I hope one of you can cook," Mrs. Smertz said.  "Like I said in my letter, I'll furnish your grub, but I ain't goin' to cook it for you."

 

     "We'll make out all right."  These, the first words Sam had said since arriving at the ranch.  Sam did most of the cooking.

 

     Mrs. Smertz patted at her pockets.  "One of you boys wouldn't happen to smoke, would you?"

 

     Sam pulled out his sack of Bull Durham and handed it to her.

 

     Turning her back to the wind, she deftly made herself a cigarette.  "I haven't been in town in a month.  Ran out of tobacco a week ago.  Guess I should be like my sister Agnes, she took up chewin'.  I just ain't got the stomach for it."  She handed the makings back to Sam.  "Much obliged."

 

     It seemed to Tad that she hung onto the tobacco sack a little longer than necessary after Sam got hold of it.

 

     "¡Aiiiee!  ¡Chinga perro!"

 

     The dog, Peanuts, had crept off the porch and around the pickup, and was lifting his leg on the saddle Jesus had set on the ground.

 

     Jesus aimed a vicious kick, not intended to miss, at the dogs ribs.  He missed anyway.  "Los Indios saben qué hace bien para perros.  Se comeran."

 

     Mrs. Smertz was immediately between Jesus and the dog.  "The first thing you better learn," she snapped at him in Spanish, "Is that around here you speak English.  Then, in English, to all of them, "The other thing you're going to learn, by the time this round-up's over, is if it makes one of these dogs happy to pee on your saddle, you'll let him pee on your saddle, because he's the one doin' ninety-percent of your work when it comes to gathering these cattle out of the brush and timber."

 

     Jesus assumed the hang-dog demeanor which had been handed down from one generation of Mexican peons to the next generation of Mexican peons.

 

     Tad picked up his saddle and started for the nearest building.  The building had no windows, and the door hung askew because of a broken hinge.  He was starting to have substantial misgivings about the state of affairs.  Maybe it would look better tomorrow, after he warmed up and had a good night's sleep.

 

     Mrs. Smertz stopped him.  "I don't think you'll have room for your saddle in the bunkhouse.  You better put it in the other shed.  Or, at least, that's where the other hands who've worked here have kept their saddles."

 

     Tad stopped to reconnoiter the situation.  Neither building had any windows.  Both had doors that were falling off.  He didn't see any difference between the two, at first.  Then, after a more detailed assessment, he ascertained what constituted the major difference.  The so-called bunk-house had a complete roof on it, whereas the other shed's roof was only partially intact.  He didn't know why he hadn't noticed the difference in the first place.

 

     "Sorry," he muttered, and carried his riding gear over to the other shed.

 

     He hung his saddle on a long pole which ran the full length of the shed.  He assumed it was there for that purpose, partly because it was underneath what remained of the roof, and partly because it already had a saddle hanging on it, probably Mrs. Smertz's.

 

     He studied the saddle.  It was well used and brush scarred.  It was also well oiled.  A deep gouge in the left fender had not been caused by any brush.  It took a cow horn to do that.  He thought about the scar across the lady's face.  Rough, and tough, Tad thought, she probably never had a female thought in her life.

 

     Jesus came in carrying his riding equipment.  He was muttering something in Spanish Tad didn't understand-- something about dogs and goats.  Linguistically incapable of participating in the conversation, and also remembering his war-bag and soogans were lying on the ground, Tad decided his best course of action would be to leave Jesus to his mutterings and rescue the rest of his stuff before Peanuts felt the need to relieve himself, again.

 

     He carried the rest of his gear into the so-called bunk house, and joined Sam at standing in the middle of the floor surveying their winter quarters.  There were a half dozen iron cots scattered around.  The mattresses had been neatly rolled up.  A big, old-fashioned, wood-burning, cook-stove dominated one side of the room.  Not far from the stove sat a table made out of slabs of rough-cut lumber.  The benches around the table were made of the same material.  Each of the walls could boast of having a window, none of which contained any glass.  Snow drifted into the room through the glassless windows, as well as through the cracks between the logs.

 

     "Well, what do you think?" Tad asked.

 

     Sam deliberated the question for a short time, then answered, "Well, it would probably be kinda' homey--if it didn't have such a close resemblance to bein' outside."

 

     Before Tad could come up with his own assessment, Mrs. Smertz came in carrying a huge box of groceries.  "I think this should be about all you boys need to get started."  She looked around.  "You will probably need some more wood.  I imagine you noticed there's plenty of if around here.  There's a chain-saw and an axe in the shed.  Help yourself."

 

     Tad cleared his throat.  "Uh, what--what about glass, or something for the windows?" he asked.  "It's going to get mighty cold in here before morning."

 

     "Glass?  Hell, these windows ain't never had any glass in them.  However, if you boys are allergic to fresh air, there's some old feed sacks in the barn, I reckon you could nail some of them up.  Trouble with doing that, is it cuts down on the light and you have to use more kerosene."

 

     That was when Tad noticed there weren't any lights in the cabin.  "I, uh---."

 

     Anne Smertz, finished with her conversation with him, turned to Sam.  "Could I bum another one of them smokes off you?"

 

     Sam handed her his tobacco.  She dumped some in the paper and rolled the cigarette as she walked out the door.  "Thanks, Sam.  I'll see you boys in the morning."

 

     The three cowboys spent the rest of the day hauling wood, closing off the windows, and battening the cracks in the walls, working with whatever they could find.  When they were through, the bunkhouse still lacked being blizzard proof, but it was better.

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