LITMIR.BIZ

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to hold on tight and not get bucked off?”

      “Yeah. Really tight.”

      “I’ll have to remember to try that,” said Diamond.

      He called the Bewd ranch to give Leecil a hello but the number had been disconnected. Information gave him a Gillette number. He thought it strange but called throughout the day. There was no answer. He tried again late that night and got Leecil’s yawning croak.

      “Hey, how come you’re not out at the ranch? How come the ranch number’s disconnected?” He heard the bad stuff coming before Leecil said anything.

      “Aw, I’ll tell you what, that didn’t work out so good. When Dad died they valued the ranch, said we had a pay two million dollars in estate taxes. Two million dollars? That took the rag off the bush. We never had a pot to piss in, where was we supposed a get that kind a money for our own place that wasn’t nothin when Dad took it over? You know what beef is bringin? Fifty-five cents a pound. We went round and round on it. Come down to it we had to sell. Sick about it, hell, I’m red-assed. I’m up here workin in the mines. Tell you, there’s somethin wrong with this country.”

      “That’s a dirty ride.”

      “Yeah. It is. It’s been a dirty ride sinct I come back. Fuckin government.”

      “But you must have got a bunch of money for the place.”

      “Give my share to my brothers. They went up B.C. lookin for a ranch. It’s goin a take all the money buy it, stock it. Guess I’m thinkin about goin up there with em. Wyomin’s sure pulled out from under us. Hey, you’re doin good with the bulls. Once in a while I think I might git back in it, but I git over that idea quick.”

      “I was doing o.k. until I messed up my knee. So what about your kid, was it a girl or a boy? I never heard. You didn’t pass out cigars.”

      “You sure do ast the sore questions. That didn’t turn out too good neither and I don’t want to git into it just now. Done some things I regret. So, anyway, that’s what I been doin, goin a funerals, hospitals, divorce court and real estate closins. You make it up here this weekend, get drunk? My birthday. Goin a be twenty-four and I feel like I got mileage on for fifty.”

      “Man, I can’t. My knee’s messed up enough I can’t drive. I’ll call you, I will call you.”

      It could be the worst kind of luck to go near Leecil.

      On Thursday night, sliding the chicken breasts into the microwave, she prodded Pearl to get the silverware. She whipped the dehydrated potatoes with hot water, put the food on the table and sat down, looked at Diamond.

      “I smell sulfur,” she said. “Didn’t you take a shower after the springs?”

      “Not this time,” he said.

      “You reek.” She shook open her napkin.

      “All rodeo cowboys got a little tang to em.”

      “Cowboy? You’re no more a cowboy than you are a little leather-winged bat. My grandfather was a rancher and he hired cowboys or what passed for them. My father gave that up for cattle sales and he hired ranch hands. My brother was never anything but a son-of-a-bee. None of them were cowboys but all of them were more cowboy than a rodeo bullrider ever will be. After supper,” she said to Diamond, pushing the dish of pallid chicken breasts at him, “after supper I’ve got something I want you to see. We’ll just take us a little ride.”

      “Can I come?” said Pearl.

      “No. This is something I want your brother to see. Watch t.v. We’ll be back in an hour.”

      “What is it,” said Diamond, remembering the dark smear on the street she had brought him to years before. She had pointed, said, he didn’t look both ways. He knew it would be something like that. The chicken breast lay on his plate like an inflated water wing. He should not have come back.

      She drove through marginal streets, past the scrap-metal pile and the bentonite plant and, at the edge of town, crossed the railroad tracks where the road turned into rough dirt cutting through prairie. To the right, under a yellow sunset, stood several low metal buildings. The windows reflected the bright honey-colored west.

      “Nobody here,” said Diamond, “wherever we are,” a kid again sitting in the passenger seat while his mother drove him around.

      “Bar J stables. Don’t worry, there’s somebody here,” said his mother. Gold light poured over her hands on the steering wheel, her arms, splashed the edges of her crimped hair. Her face, in shadow, was private and severe. He saw the withering skin of her throat. She said, “Hondo Gunsch? You know that name?”

      “No.” But he had heard it somewhere.

      “Here,” she said, pulling up in front of the largest building. Thousands of insects barely larger than dust motes floated in the luteous air. She walked quickly, he followed, dotting along.

      “Hello,” she called into the dark hallway. A light snapped on. A man in a white shirt, the pocket stiffened with a piece of plastic to hold his ballpoint pens, came through a door. Under his black hat, brim bent like the wings of a crow, was a face crowded with freckles, spectacles, beard and mustache.

      “Hey there, Kaylee.” The man looked at her as though she were hot buttered toast.

      “This is Shorty, wants to be a rodeo star. Shorty, this is Kerry Moore.”

      Diamond shook the man’s hot hand. It was an exchange of hostilities.

      “Hondo’s out in the tack room,” said the man, looking at her. He laughed. “Always in the tack room. He’d sleep there if we let him. Come on out here.”

      He opened a door into a large, square room at the end of the stables. The last metaled light fell through high windows, gilding bridles and reins hanging on the wall. Along another wall a row of saddle racks projected, folded blankets resting on the shining saddles. A small refrigerator hummed behind the desk, and on the wall above it Diamond saw a framed magazine cover, Boots ’N Bronks, August 1960, showing a saddle bronc rider straight, square and tucked on a high-twisted horse, spurs raked all the way up to the cantle, his outflung arm in front of him. His hat was gone and his mouth open in a crazy smile. A banner read: Gunsch Takes Cheyenne SB Crown. The horse’s back was humped, his nose pointed down, hind legs straight in a powerful jump and five feet of daylight between the descending front hooves and ground.

      In the middle of the room an elderly man worked leather cream into a saddle; he wore a straw hat with the brim rolled high on the sides in a way that emphasized his long head shape. There was something wrong in the set of the shoulders, the forward slope of his torso from the hips. The room smelled of apples and Diamond saw a basket of them on the floor.

      “Hondo, we got visitors.” The man looked past them at nothing, showing the flat bulb of crushed nose, a dished cheekbone, the great dent above the left eye which seemed sightless. His mouth was still pursed with concentration. There was a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. Emanating from him was a kind of carved-wood quietude common to those who have been a long time without sex, out of the traffic of the world.

      “This here’s Kaylee Felts and Shorty, stopped by to say howdy. Shorty’s into rodeo. Guess you know something about rodeo, don’t you, Hondo?” He spoke loudly as though the man was deaf.

      The bronc rider said nothing, his blue, sweet gaze returning to the saddle, the right hand holding a piece of lambswool beginning again to move back and forth over the leather.

      “He don’t say much,” said Moore. “He has a lot of difficulty but he keeps tryin. He’s got plenty of try, haven’t you, Hondo?”

      The man was silent, working the leather. How many years since he had spurred a horse’s shoulders, toes pointed east and west?

      “Hondo, looks like you ought a change them sorry old floppy stirrup leathers one day,” said Moore in a commanding tone. The bronc rider gave

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