At the ass-end of Ault, a quick-minute burg straddling Colorado 85 North, a hop-skip from the Wyoming line, the old fool, Grover Grib, savored his predilection to devour his clientele with gab. Half-drunk at ten in the morning, he bared a yellow-toothed grin and winked at Diehl. “I knew your daddy,” he said, hacking hard and spitting green as he followed Big Diehl out the fenced side yard of Grib’s Farm Supply and Feed, drooping and peeling, worse every year, since Diehl could remember. “Hell, knew you, too. Come in with your daddy. Come in by yourself, once a while. Your mama, too, ‘fore she passed.” Grasping red suspenders above the balloon of his gut, his gray dungarees shredded at the ankles, his t-shirt, once white, yellowed at the armpits. “Your daddy come in about every three, four weeks. Bought oats, fertilizer, small implements. Liked my fence wire, if I recall. Sometimes cash. Sometimes credit. Yessiree, knew your daddy.” Grib licked his lips in the shade of his broad-brimmed straw hat quivering with the wind, anxious to taste the morsel Diehl would throw back.
Diehl, a small-framed, tight-muscled young man with hard gray eyes and a face lingering in ambiguous youth, keyed open the trunk of the weather-dulled green ’82 Ford Fairlane, tossed in the hundred-pound bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. “Daddy paid your light bill ever’ month, Mister Grib.” He tried on a grin for the old man.
A half head shorter than Grib’s six feet, a camouflage ball cap pulled tight on his head, Diehl’s olive drab t-shirt, neck limp with age, fluttered as a flag pulling against a sturdy pole. Jeans aged to gray, wallet chained to his belt loop. His legs conspicuous outward arcs, muscles, ligaments, bones molded by the backs of horses since his fourth birthday when his daddy sat him atop his first. Diehl gave-up his grin and, turning from Grib, his tan combat boots crunched against the pebbled parking lot.
Trailing Diehl like a happy puppy, Grib followed him back to the yard. “I believe it was you went off to the Army, few years back.”
“That I did.” Diehl grabbed the second bag, grunted it up to his shoulder.
“Iraq?”
“Nope. Good Lord winked me outa’ that mess. Served my time in Texas, mostly.”
“Come back, then?”
Diehl tried another grin, failed, looked at Grib, saw the whites of his eyes yellow-brown as fall-finished corn. “Discharged yesterday. Been drivin’ all night from west Texas.“
“Well,” Grib said, bowing his head, scratching his armpit, “’course your daddy’s place is gone. Hear he moved up to Laramie.”
Nodding, stepping around Grib, Diehl carried the second bag to his car, slammed the trunk, opened the driver side door.
“Two bags ain’t gonna get very far. You got a spread somewhere?” asked Grib.
“Little one. Up north.” Diehl lied.
“Still, just two bags …”
“All I need right now, Mister Grib.”
“Well,” Grib clawed his ear, “ain’t nothin’ you don’t know, but that stuff don’t like heat; blow your ass to Casper and back, not given the proper respect.”
Diehl looked up at the fluorescent glare of the mid-November sky, felt the forever wind against his face. “Somehow I don’t think there’s much to worry about right now, Mister Grib. Heat ain’t somethin’ that passes through these parts this time a year.”
“Got a point.” Still the happy-crappy smile creasing his face, knowing gab wouldn’t fill his belly this time. Goddamned cow people treated words like diamonds—ain’t givin’ ‘em away. Now farmers, Grib thought, watching Diehl climb behind the wheel and skid back onto 85, farmers gave up an all-you-can-eat buffet ever’ goddamned time.
Couple of miles out of Ault, north toward Pierce, Diehl slowed, pulled the old Ford onto a no-name county road. Prickly wire on either side. Stopped about a mile east.
The clingy sidekick to the mid-November Northeastern Colorado dry sky, the razor cut of high prairie winds rushed west to east off the Front Range of the Rockies. Bumping up against an occasional bluff or an errant mesa rising out of nowhere, the cold blow found easy passage between the dirt top of the county road and the Ford’s rusted undercarriage.
Squatting in front of the car, Big Diehl rested his back against the bumper, felt the heat still coming off the engine, ignored the rush of chill below. He lobbed the Remington .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, palm to palm. Remembered his mama’s words: “Somethin’ workin’ on your mind, Big, you get on outside. Have yourself a sit down with the Lord. Take the Good Book with you. Walk a mile or two. Get off by yourself. Just you and the Lord. Don’t have to read no scripture. Just hold that book. You and the Lord will work it out.”
Still thinking it through, still working it out, feeding the urge to do what needed to be done. He felt the gray steel as a comfort inching close to the image of his mother’s smile, or the Good Book in his hands, or the wrap of a heavy blanket on a cold night, black as a nightmare, when shooting stars evoked more grief than wonder. They’re dyin’, he remembered thinking, as he’d watched the flash-sparkle across the sky peter out, dying, dead. Barely ten, alone with Scooter, his Blue Heeler, herd quiet, more than a few coyotes pondering their next moves. Cow pies had fueled a stingy fire.
Back and forth, palm to palm. Same as he’d done as a kid with the Word. The home place unseen behind rolls of prairie, heifers on their bellies scrunched into a sewing circle where the shade of a sickly cottonwood barely mattered, Scooter sniffing some critter’s trail. The Good Book, back and forth, palm to palm.
“Sharp knife ain’t no goddamned good, ‘les you got the wrist flick just right,” his daddy had said. “Quick slice a couple inches down from the top of the sack, squeeze out the balls, then another flick high up on the sperm cord just to make sure it takes. Don’t need no goddamned steer full a juice with no equipment to work it with.”
Diehl sliced his first bull at eight. Homemade squeeze chute no damned good, Scooter silently snapping at the calf’s nose, his daddy or Ernesto, their hired Mex, holding up the tail, a knee shoved up against the flank through the gap in the rickety chute, a splash of antiseptic on the bleed.
Ain’t no life for a kid, he thought. Ain’t no goddamn life for a kid. Back and forth, palm to palm.
Biting images. His mama gave-up a stillbirth when he was ten. Found tumors. His daddy never touched her after that, watched her shrivel. Waited until Diehl was twelve, began touching him, took his pleasures with him after that. The old Ford, the last gift given in atonement maybe, maybe just thinking Diehl had been a good boy to please his daddy—not crying, not telling. A new saddle, his grandpa’s old Remington, the gelding got with a third cutting of alfalfa, the goddamned Nintendo, the old Ford. The old Ford had put an end to it all. “Ain’t doin’ this no more,” Diehl had told his daddy, shoving the scarlet eyed, wobbling, beer-belied, pitiful ruin of a man aside. Diehl had grabbed his car keys, drove half the night. Returned when he knew his daddy would be sleeping it off, sprawled on the couch or face down on his bed.
Back and forth, palm to palm.
“Skunk drunk, standing over the birthing bed—you came two weeks early,” his mother had told him more than once. “Your daddy breathin’ pure fumes, wobblin’ on his feet, a fat ol’ cigar rollin’ side to side across his mouth, he looks down at you in my arms and says, ‘Gonna name him Big.’ ‘Roy,’ I says, ‘what you got in mind for a big name?’ Well, he stops chewin’ on that cigar and stares at me real serious. ‘Big,’ he says. ‘Gonna name him Big Diehl.’ Well, wasn’t no arguin’ with your daddy, as you surely know.”
Big Diehl surely knew.
Palmed in his right hand, squeezing the grip, Diehl pulled the slide back with his left hand, cartridge chambered, the hammer cocked. Bracing himself, he lowered his left knee to the ground. Clasping his left hand over his right, he raised and extended his arms, sighted, eased pressure on the trigger. Plugged a metal fencepost thirty yards up the road. A metallic ding fused with the explosive hard pop, the recoil of the slide and the tingle of the spent shell dancing on gravel off the right side of the road.
Knowing that a single shot, traveling the open prairie would urge a momentary pause in the lives of folks unseen, up the no-name county road, dismissed as a mere affectation of the nature of open spaces and dimwits with guns. Diehl gave up the urge to fire a couple more slugs from the old Remington. If he fired again folks would want to know the source of the ruckus. Folks were that way. More than a few heifers lost to sons-a-bitches, liquored up, their defense ready: “Well, shore looked like antelope to me!”
Curious folks were something Diehl didn’t need or want right now.
Diehl stood, the Remington held against his thigh, lifted his ball cap up a bit with his left hand, let the cold flow of the forever wind cool his thoughts, snuggled the hat back down on his head. Figured he’d had his sit down with the Lord.
Wrapping the .45 in a slightly oiled cloth, placing it back in the glove box, Diehl tapped a pack of Kool Lights on the dashboard, pulled one out between his lips. Flicking a stick match against his thumbnail, he lit up, exhaled against the windshield washed in the leavings of a habit begun at fifteen. Knowing the bald face of his tires wouldn’t grip him out of the depressions on either side of the road, he gave up ten minutes maneuvering the car west, back toward 85.
Easing from behind an eighteen-wheeler, Diehl floored the gas pedal, crooked an ear toward the dashboard, listened to the strained chug of the engine, sniffed gas fumes, becoming gradually worse since he’d first noticed it almost six hours ago as he crested Raton Pass and eased into Colorado, leaving East Texas and the Army behind him for good.
Grabbing the bill of his ball cap with his thumb and forefinger, he gave it a slight tug as he inched past the big rig’s cab. Smiling up through the windshield at the driver, he nodded his head. “Happy truckin’, muthafuckah,” he said, the image of long-lost Scooter—“The best goddamned herdin’ dog on the face of the fuckin’ earth!”—cradled in his arms, hips broken by some son-of-a-bitch pushing a deadline behind the wheel of a Peterbilt up 85, past Nunn, where four lanes became two.
Scooter had crossed the highway a thousand times from the western edge of the home place to the leased forty just the other side of the road. But, that one time, the last time, a semi moving ninety-to-nothing clipped him good. Real good.
Back in the rightmost lane, Diehl grabbed the quart of Southern Comfort on the seat to his right. He’d worked the sweet whiskey since leaving Denver behind. Hugging the bottle between his thighs, he unscrewed the cap with his right hand and kept the old Ford’s want to slew across the center line in check with his left. Plucked the Kool from his lips, placed it atop the mountain of butts in the ashtray, raised the bottle, sipped, and swallowed. Placed the bottle back between his thighs, screwed on the lid. Cranking up the volume from the oldies station crackling out of Denver, he snatched the cigarette, gently clamped it between his teeth, squeezed his hands around the Naugahyde-wrapped steering wheel. Listened to Tom Petty warn, “Don’t come around here no more.” Diehl shook his head, smiled. “Here already, my man.”
“Kinda stumpy,” he said, passing the town of Pierce, snuggled up against the highway. Losing Tom Petty to the capricious ebb of radio waves birthed miles behind, he studied the squinny jut of winter wheat seeking sun and water on either side of the straight-shot monotony of 85 North, skirting clumps of towns with names as dismal as his memory of a childhood lived amongst them: Eaton, Ault, Pierce, Nunn. Winter wheat—soon dormant as the days shortened—and fallowed fields bore witness to the hit or miss backbreaker dreams of God-fearing farmers, surely hunkered each Sunday morning in the Lord’s house where prayers begged a plentiful spring.
Past Nunn, as the four lane squeezed to two, he fiddled with the radio dial. Found the shit-kicker station out of Cheyenne—Waylon Jennings pleading a waltz to heaven, “Honky-tonk angels in heavenly flight …” Diehl squinted; saw a small speck of black-white in the middle of the road, right on the yellow line. Dismissed as some unlucky critter, maybe skunk, dead on the stretch between Nunn and Cheyenne, where farms dwindled and open range spread to the horizon. The range dotted with Herefords and black baldies, their necks bent as supplicants feeding on a more fundamental need than divine grace. The black-white dismissed as the result of an unkind intimacy with a fender. The image of Scooter returned, the old boy broke up inside.
Closing the distance, he raised his cap and scratched the white-bond stubble on the top of his head. Lowered his cap back down, brushed his hand against the two-day growth on his face. “Shit,” he said, taking his foot off the gas. Speck resolved itself into what was clearly a dog, a Border collie, most likely, its head raised, alive, fur shuffled by the wind.
Diehl gently pumped his brakes as he passed the critter, oddly content lolling in the middle of the road. He tugged the steering wheel to the right. The pebble-studded dirt off the side of the road let loose a brown cloud from the undercarriage of the Fairlane and, caught by the wind, vanished as soon as it rose. Skid of his used-up tires against the gravel, puff of gas fumes from under the dash, gave witness the car was used up. Bringing him this far from the East Texas hardscrabble where he’d served out his last year in the Army, a place that nurtured little except tumbleweeds and armadillos, he knew he’d have to nurse the old gal just a little further. Laramie wasn’t that far away.
Stopping about fifty yards from the dog, shoving the gearshift into park, he grabbed the bottle of sweet whiskey still between his thighs, tossed it onto the passenger seat, opened the door, and stepped out onto the graveled apron. Tugged his cap further down on his head, spit the Kool from his mouth. Looking back, the dog hadn’t moved. Perked its ears.
Knew he’d pulled off 85 at the precise spot where, for the last time, Scooter had leapt the barbed wire along the western edge of the home place: the house, the barn, the silo, his mama, his daddy, the cattle, the horses. Knew everything that was the home place back then, back before hard times and fat Japs holding the bank’s paper—his daddy’s greed in the mix—yanked the whole thing out from under him. Knowing all this, he kept his eyes stuck on the black-white in the middle of the road. He’d promised himself a long time ago there was no damned use in looking back, or, now, in even turning his head to his left to reckon the spread of Colorado prairie that, just a few thousand heartbeats ago, embraced his youth. But, tough as it was, tough as his daddy had made it, it’d still been home.
Forsaking his promise, he’d looked back often. Had to make things right. Justice be done.
He began to run.
Diehl closed the distance. Twenty yards between them, stopping, looking up and down the highway, seeing no cars or big rigs topping the horizon either way, he spread his arms, yelled against the wind, “Hey, buddy.” Slapped his leg with his hand, whistled, “Right here, buddy. C’mon.”
The dog, ears still perked, stared at Diehl, didn’t move. “Shit on a stick.” He walked toward what he now knew for sure to be a Border collie, somebody’s working stock, content layin’ for some damn reason in the middle of the road.
Not thinking about it, instinct maybe, he said, “Scooter! Come!”
Sitting up, not moving from the road, the dog’s tail began to wag.
“That’s right,” Diehl muttered. Slapped his thigh, said it again, “Come! Scooter! Come!”
The dog stared at Diehl.
Turning his head, Diehl looked up 85 North, then south, where, barreling hard, an eighteen-wheeler pierced the horizon.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Diehl slowly stepped to the dog. “You’re a sweet one,” he said, calm as could be, repeating words he hadn’t uttered since Scooter was whole. He walked onto the blacktop, down the yellow line, soothed his words. “You’re one crackerjack dog, you are.”
Two feet from the dog, saw happy eyes, one brown, one blue-white, burrs in its coat, tail still washing the tartop, no blood. Diehl looked south again, saw the big rig not a mile away. Slowly extended his hand, said, “What the hell you doin’ out here, buddy?” The dog sniffed the nicotine-stained fingers, smelled something familiar, stood on all fours, stepped toward Diehl. “That’s it,” he said, placing his hand on the dog’s head, scratched an ear, realized the dog wasn’t broke-up, hadn’t been hit.
The big rig blaring its air horn, now a half-mile away, Diehl grabbed a handful of hair on the dog’s neck, quickly slipped his arm under its belly, picked it up, carried it to the west side of the road, slid down the small gulch off the apron, held the dog tight in his arms.
Semi passed, whipping a vacuum either side of 85. Diehl, still hugging the dog, raised his head, looked north. Saw the semi well up the road, moving hard toward the state line. Saw smoke rise from the front of the Ford. “Christ!” he said, heard a puff, saw fire coming off the engine. “Christ!” he said again. Picked up the dog, began walking further south, away from the Ford. Thirty more yards, he stopped, bent down in the gully, kept the dog low against the ground, watched the fire inch toward the trunk. Lowered his head, laid down over the dog, knew what was coming.
***
“Aunt Bea, you out there? Come on. This is Red Devil.” Red Devil, red-faced, well-fed, long-hauling out of Greeley bound for Sioux Falls, truck idling. Pulled off the road, thumbed the CB mike buried in his thick-fingered fist.
Aunt Bea, born Claudette Catherine Casebolt, ensconced in a 10 X 30 tin house set on cinder blocks at the western edge of Nunn. Never married, seldom dressed in other than a button-up bathrobe painted festive with daisies, red sallies, tulips, huffed a sluggish cloud from the Camel between her lips, grabbed her mike. “Never fear, Aunt Bea is here. Hey, Red Devil, how ya hangin’? Over.”
“Well, some G-D big explosion ‘bout three miles north of Nunn. Saw it in my rearview. There was a piece-of-you-know-what Ford sittin’ off the side of the road back there. Wa’nt there after the boom. Metal, glass flyin’ all over the road. Smokin’, burnin’. Little prairie fire, too. Ain’t got the time to check it out. You give a call to the smokies, will ya? And, Bea, leave my name outa it, okay. I’m pushin’ a schedule. Over.”
Kitchen table given over to her CB, telephone, coffee pot, ashtray, Claudette swept the cigarette from her mouth, picked up the receiver of the phone with one hand, pressed the mike with the other. “On it, Red Devil. Be safe out there. Over.”
***
Hell incarnate, the blast lifted Diehl and the dog up, inches off the ground, set them down hard. Bits of steel, plastic, rubber, rocks rained on Diehl’s back. A slow rise to his knees, still embracing the dog, Diehl looked to where he’d left the Ford. Not there. Saw the car’s detritus. Saw the hole, ten, twelve feet across and about half as deep. Shook himself, took his hat off, slapped it against his thigh, put it back on. Let loose of the dog, who sat up, stared into Diehl’s eyes, tongue hanging out the side of its mouth.
Diehl stared back into the dog’s eyes, cradled its head between his palms. Eyes soaked up, Diehl broke his hold, pulled the burrs from the dog’s coat. “Yessir, you are one crackerjack dog.”
***
The Colorado Highway Patrolman, u-turned just this side of the Wyoming line, sped to the scene of some mess on the road a few miles out of Nunn. Not worth a second look, not unusual on this stretch of 85, he gave a quick eye to the young man, legs bowed, camouflage ball cap, green t-shirt, faded jeans, walking north on the apron toward Cheyenne. A Border collie loped behind the kid, its shoulders hunched, head held low to the ground. “Best goddamned herdin’ dog on the face of the fuckin’ earth!” the patrolman said to himself, letting the thought pass that a dog like that would herd a breeze if it thought it was blowing in the wrong direction.
END |
