Once the funeral was behind us, I moved out of the LeisureLife, partly for comfort and partly ’cause the old sumbitch falled apart after his sister passed, which I never would’ve suspected. Once she’s gone, he says, he’s all that’s left of his family and he’s alone in life, and about then he notices me and tells me to get my stuff out of the LeisureLife and move in with him.
We rode through the cattle pritnear ever day year round, and he come to trust me enough to show how his breeding program went, with culls and breedbacks and outcrosses and replacements, and took me to bull sales and showed me what to expect in a bull and which ones were correct and which were sorry. One day we’s looking at a pen of yearling bulls on this outfit near Luther and he can’t make up his mind and he says he wished his sister was with him and he starts snuffling and says she had an eye on her wouldn’t quit. So I stepped up and picked three bulls out of that pen, and he quit snuffling and said damn if I didn’t have an eye on me, too. That was the beginning of our partnership.
One whole year I was the cook, and one whole year he was the cook, and back and forth like that, but never at the same time. Whoever was cook would change when the other fella got sick of his recipes, and ever once in a while a new recipe would come in the AgriNews, like that corn chowder with the sliced hot dogs. I even tried a pie one time, but it just made him lonesome for days gone by, so we forgot about desserts, which was probably good for our health, as most sweets call for gobbing in the white sugar.
The sister never let him have a dog ’cause she had a cat and she thought a dog would get the cat. It wasn’t much of a cat, anyhow, but it lived a long time, outlived the old lady by several moons. After it passed on, we took it out to the burn barrel and the first thing the old sumbitch said was “We’re gettin a dog.” It took him that long to realize that his sister was gone.
Tony was a Border collie we got as a pup from a couple in Miles City that raised them. You could cup your hands and hold Tony when we got him, but he grew up in one summer and went to work and we taught him “down,” “here,” “come by,” “way to me,” and “hold ’em,” all in one year or less, ’cause Tony would just stay on his belly and study you with his eyes until he knew exactly what you wanted. Tony helped us gather, mother up pairs, and separate bulls, and he lived in the house for many a good year and kept us entertained with all his tricks. Finally, Tony grew old and died. We didn’t take it so good, especially the old sumbitch, who said he couldn’t foresee enough summers for another dog. Plus that was the year he couldn’t get on a horse no more and he wasn’t about to work no stock dog afoot. There was still plenty to do and most of it fell to me. After all, this was a God damn ranch.
The time had come to tell him why I went to jail and what I did, which was rob that little store at Absarokee and shoot the proprietor, though he didn’t die. I had no idea why I did such a thing — then or now. I led the crew on the prison ranch for a number of years and turned out many a good hand. They wasn’t nearabout to let me loose until there was a replacement good as me who’d stay a while. So I trained up a murderer from Columbia Falls, could rope, break horses, keep vaccine records, fence, and irrigate. Once the warden seen how good he was, they paroled me out and turned it all over to the new man, who was never getting out. The old sumbitch could give a shit less when I told him my story. I could’ve told him all this years before when he first hired me, for all he cared. He was a big believer in what he saw with his own eyes.
I don’t think I ever had the touch with customers the old sumbitch had. They’d come from all over looking for horned Herefords and talking hybrid vigor, which I may or may not have believed. They’d ask what we had and I’d point to the corrals and say, “Go look for yourself.” Some would insist on seeing the old sumbitch and I’d tell them he was in bed, which was pritnear the only place you could find him now that he’d begun to fail. Then the state got wind of his condition and took him to town. I went to see him there right regular, but it just upset him. He couldn’t figure out who I was and got frustrated ’cause he knew I was somebody he was supposed to know. And then he failed even worse. The doctors told me it was just better if I didn’t come round.
The neighbors claimed I was personally responsible for the spread of spurge, Dalmatian toadflflax, and knapweed. They got the authorities involved and it was pretty clear that I was the weed they had in mind. If they could get the court to appoint one of their relatives ranch custodian while the old sumbitch was in storage they’d get all that grass for free till he was in a pine box. The authorities came in all sizes and shapes, but when they were through they let me take one saddle horse, one saddle, the clothes on my back, my hat, and my slicker. I rode that horse clear to the sale yard, where they tried to put him in the loose horses ’cause of his age. I told them I was too set in my ways to start feeding Frenchmen and rode off toward Idaho. There’s always an opening for a cowboy, even a old sumbitch like me if he can halfway make a hand./.