Kitabı oku: «Chancy's Cowboy»

One

People are strange. And among those strange humans, there are Texans. While there are other people who live on a variety of lands, Texans are probably the most peculiar when it comes to being partial. No matter what happens to their crops or the grasses, no matter how hot or dry or freezing or wet or cold the weather is, Texans know they live on the edge of heaven.

That can cause other people to squint their eyes at the Texas land and study it. It could well be that it is the land that makes the Texans just a little bit odd.

Out in West Texas, north and a little west of Uvalde, it was one of the ranch crew who explained the circumstances at the Bar-Q-Drop. That was the branding iron’s result. A bar with a Q and a drop of something.

Some said the drop was the miracle of the springs they’d found on that land. Others said it was the blood spilled in the land fights. Another said it was the grief of the Native Americans who’d been pushed out of their lands.

The crew head’s name was originally Bill, but with one thing or another, he became so stoved up that he could hardly walk and they called him Creep.

Over all those early years, Creep had been pitched off uncomfortably tied horses and bulls too many times. He could hardly walk, but he could talk. Creep had been around for a long time. So, it was Creep who explained anything from the past.

In this instance, it was about the budding woman who actually owned the place.

Creep said that there’s nothing like a female who doesn’t understand what she can safely do. Nor could she realize there were just things she couldn’t do. He said that any of God’s creatures ought to know its limits... right?

Well, there are occasionally people who haven’t any idea as to the dangerous edge past what they can logically do. There was just such a female at the place out in West Texas, a nuisance child who had turned into a very irritating young woman.

A clue to her would be her name. It was Chancy Freedman. Yep. That’s the truth!

It was her daddy that had named her Chancy. At birth, mind you. And he’d been right from the start! How had he known? Why did he allow her to try anything she wanted to tackle? Anybody watching knew her curiosity was too wide.

It was her daddy, Mel Freedman, that was at the bottom of it all. He just watched her. He’d have to yell at her on occasion. And she’d always try just a little more—until he hollered like a stuck bull.

Mel’s wife was Chancy’s mother. She’d been named Elinor and had such big eyes. They were like a cow’s when it was chewing its cud. Her expression was sweet and tolerantly contented. Elinor was infer ested in the kid...enough.

Once Chancy’s mama calmly watched as Chancy was walking along the top of a picket fence. The kid was not yet even four years old! You know what a picket fence is? Yeah. And not quite four, Chancy was allowed to walk along the top of one?

Her mama said it was good for her sense of balance.

I have to admit Chancy did okay on that fence, and at that age! She never once fell off or ruptured her stomach or gouged her eye on them pickets, but none of us breathed until the stock man Bill just went over and lifted her right off the damned fence.

That was back before Bill was called Creep. He could still move about, back then.

It was Bill who directed the men, the dogs and the horses. The cats did everything their own way. Since Bill was in charge, he was the one that cut off the tops of the picket fence. He hadn’t even asked for permission. He was deadly serious and positive as he sawed the top of the picket fence flat. Nobody said nothing.

But when Bill was finished, the boss, Mel, asked real curious, “Why’d you do that?”

Bill said in a rough way, “Because.”

That was a Texas reply. It replied something but didn’t explain, and any half-brained jackass knew exactly why it had been done and he was not to push.

But Mel wasn’t that intimidated. He observed the fence while the squint-eyed, ready Bill watched Mel’s face. And Mel finally turned to Bill and nodded as he said, “Good job.”

When Chancy was little, the only one who actually watched out for her was Bill. Especially after her mother passed away. Elinor had just...quit living.

Four-year-old Chancy questioned putting her mother in that box. She asked Bill, of course, because her daddy was vacant minded. So it was Bill who said her mama was dead. The box was like an envelope and in it she’d be sent to God.

And then they put the box in the ground! Little Chancy was appalled. The whole crew had to do a lot of explaining. She pointed at the mound and questioned in distress.

Chancy would select a crew member, point to the new mound under the trees out there, and she would ask The Question. Whoever was pinned down would stumble around in his reply. They got together with Bill and were taught approximately what they should say. It was brief. And having said what they’d been taught, they waited—enough.

For a while, Chancy buried her dolls. The cats and dogs would not tolerate being buried. It was a terrible time for the crew. They did try to help the four-year-old to understand.

It was the minister who finally came out to the ranch. He told the child Chancy of life and death and made it simple and understandable. And—acceptable.

For Mel there was no such comfort. It was slow, but Chancy’s daddy gradually lost all interest in anything around him. That included Chancy. Mel’s mind was on beyond His grief was deep.

It was Creep that considered it all.

We saw a dog like that once. The lonely dog had been attached to a cow that went dry and was butchered for the meat. The dog never understood. He never did. And there was no minister to soothe and explain to the dog.

The crew made a rug from the hide and the dog lay on it sadly. He grieved himself to death.

That’s about what happened to Chancy’s daddy. After his wife died, Mel just wasn’t alert. He seemed not to be in touch with the world, or to care about anything. He was alive until Chancy was eighteen. Guess he thought that, by then, she knew everything she needed to know, and he just—quit living. He was a lot like that dog. ’Course he was human, but grief is with us all.

Creep sighed as his thoughts went on. Makes a man wonder why somebody like her mother could do that to a man. Pull him into her thataway so he can’t think of another woman. Just her. Makes a man think on women and wonder what it’d be like to care that much. I look at women around here and wonder why a man would think that way.

But then I’m past the itch.

So it was obvious that raising Chancy had been left up to the ranch hands. From age four, she’d been under their directions. They could stop her just because there were more of them directing just one female. They were stronger and they could be very sure she should not do whatever it was she was trying to do that was past her strength.

It’s probably because her mother died so young that Chancy never really understood that she wasn’t male. There was no woman around to influence her.

She never wore a dress. Her hair was cut so it didn’t blow in her face.

She could be very firm. Once she was out with Bill and his horse stepped into a hole. The horse went down and threw Bill bad. You should have seen Chancy take over!

She told Bill’s horse, “Stand there, or I’ll shoot you!”

Of course the horse understood her tone rather than—Well, he probably understood the threatening tone of her words, and he did stand still.

In the hospital, when Bill was back from being put together and in bed in a room, he looked like he might not make it. But he finally came out of the coma they’d had him in, deliberate. Right away, he asked Chancy with some foggy interest, “What would you’ve done if he’d bolted and you did shoot him?”

It was an odd question and not clear to anybody else, but Chancy replied instantly, “He’d have limped.”

All the crew loved her. Try as she did all her life, at eighteen she still was not even a part of the crew. She was not only incapable, she was female.

Interesting. Her daddy had seen to it that she did as her fair-haired, white-skinned momma had done. She wore sun block, a brimmed hat, long sleeves and thin leather gloves. She’d done that faithfully because way down under her skin, she was basically female. And she remembered her mother doing it. So Chancy kept that part as being like her mother. But she still felt that she was a part of a whole. In that place, the whole just happened to be male.

As Chancy had grown older, she didn’t get much taller after she’d adjusted to that twelve-year-old spurt of growth. All the crew fell in love with her, but she just went on treating them like family. She never saw a one of them as a man. Each was a good friend and helpful. They were almost kin.

And she tried her durndest to be like the crew. Tobacco chewing failed with her. She gagged. For once the observing males had been serious. They didn’t laugh. It was only when she wasn’t there that they exclaimed and shook their heads and laughed.

Her biggest trial was learning to whistle. Shrill whistling. She could whistle ordinary, but the guys could all do that ear-piercing one when they were herding cattle. They didn’t even. have to use fingers in their mouths. Try as she did, she could only bring out a little bladder-sounding squeak.

She could whistle a tune good enough, but she couldn’t whistle a loud sound worth a darn, and she was cursed with a female holler.

When she was about sixteen, one of the guys was rolled under his horse and ended up in the hospital. Tim had been squashed. Really pitiful. And Chancy visited Tim in the clean, white room at the hospital.

She’d been as concerned for him as for one of the wolf-ripped dogs. She held Tim’s hand. He was out cold and didn’t know it, but his, uh, maleness rose under the sheet.

The others of the crew watched her, their eyes amused and compassionate with the problem. That way, and out cold. Men are vulnerable.

If she noticed the problem, at all, she never seemed to.

While he was still in the hospital, it was a trying time for Tim. Beside being squashed, he had broken ribs. So he was helpless to move as she came into his hospital room.

That she was there was bad enough for Tim, but she’d put her hand on his forehead to see if he had a fever.

He’d raise his one good knee. The crowding rest of his visitors, from the place, watched and bit at their laughs. But they were sympathetic. They understood.

Chancy never caught on at all.

And she was puzzled when Tim left them and moved to another ranch. But sometime later, she went to Tim’s wedding to a charming girl who giggled.

It was not the first time that Chancy had heard giggling but it was something she’d never really understood. She asked Creep, “Why did the bride giggle?”

Chancy was interesting but she was a nuisance.

Chancy was eighteen when her daddy died. He was just through. Apparently he figured Chancy was old enough and he was free to find Elinor, his lost love.

Chancy didn’t even cry because her daddy had been so withdrawn for so long that she hadn’t really known him well. She’d forgotten how he’d once been. It was too long ago.

It was the minister who explained love to her. Why her daddy had gone to be with her mother. Their love had been special.

Chancy was thoughtful about love. It was crippling, obviously. And she decided she’d never get entrapped in such a serious mess.

So it was about two years after Chancy’s daddy had been planted next to her almost forgotten momma, and Chancy had no inkling what would come of being in charge of the place.

Chancy could only remember a woman who sat on a cane chair that had a high back and woven armrests. Her mother had watched what Chancy did and smiled.

That was about all she remembered of her mother. She didn’t recall anything about walking on the picket fence.

So Chancy was then twenty years old. She’d taken her first two years of college by TV lessons. She was registered by mail and bought the books the same way. She sent in her computer assignments on time.

Chancy worked hard and she did well, but she wouldn’t go on campus. The older men had been determined that she should mix with other females who were her age. But she was stubborn. And she owned the ranch. She was their boss if she ever got around to realizing it. They weren’t about to mention it to her.

With the times changing and becoming more complicated, it was obvious to the crew that they needed another man. One who could organize and direct them as they ought to be handled. They needed a man who knew computers and how to run the place more efficiently.

Chancy was no leader.

The assembled crew told her seriously that they needed somebody who knew how to direct them. along. Silent as her dad had been, he’d at least nodded or shaken his head. He’d been a mute sounding board...when it was serious enough and they’d had his attention.

So three of the men went east in Texas to find somebody who knew how to take care of the place. And they were directed to Cliff Robertson.

Clifford Robertson had a degree from A&M, which, in all sports and just competition is Texas University’s mortal enemy. Cliff not only was born and bred on a place like the Bar-Q-Drop, but he knew how to run a place. He understood men.

In the Texas questioning statement, the crew inquired nicely with remarkable subtlety, “A woman who is still budding, owns the place?”

“How old?”

“Twenty.”

Cliff smiled. “She’ll be okay.”

They weren’t sure what that meant. But the man was exactly what they wanted, so they didn’t warn him about Chancy. They didn’t want to discourage him. What little they’d said was enough.

Cliff had green eyes, blond hair and he was a wedge-shaped man. All shoulders, no hips and long legs. He wore boots as a part of him. And he had a good, easy stride.

He knew women. They didn’t boggle him. The crew members took him places to eat so they could watch his reaction as the women watched him. He could handle that real easy.

He didn’t flirt, nor was he distracted. Women were easy for him when he wanted one. He not only understood and could handle women, he knew how to organize a place and make it profitable. He liked animals. He was efficient and he knew what to do.

And he was young enough not to demand half of the proceeds from the place.

If it hadn’t been for Cliff, who was about ten years older than Chancy, she would never have made it to being the breathtaking adult she came to be.

At that time, to the crew, she was a problem. They had to spend too much time being sure she was all right.

Even so, the men looked at Cliff with some sweat in their hair and down their chests and under their arms, and they narrowed their eyes watchfully as he first met Chancy. Men had trouble meeting Chancy. They got a little silly. If Cliff reacted that way. they’d have to find an older man who would be harder for the crew to handle.

Chancy treated Cliff like one of the bunch. No flirting, no wiggling, no licking lips slowly, no rubbing against him.

His eye wrinkles were white as he considered her. The crew expected that. It was a normal, male reaction to her. And since she acted like a normal person, Cliff apparently figured he’d be okay.

However, every single man on the place managed to find a way to warn Cliff. They explained her thinking she was one of them and could do whatever a man could do.

Each man warned Cliff that it was up to him to discourage her pushy conduct.

That caused Cliff to pull his head back and give the first couple of men a startled look.

So each assured Cliff that she would be pushing in to help the men with the herding and cutting and branding and everything else! To remember that she considered herself one of them.

And at separate, found times, each one of them told him in a deadly voice, “Don’t you let her experiment with you.” Their eyes were squinched up and very serious.

They told him that no man who had all his marbles would get within fifty miles of her.

Having seen her, Cliff nodded soberly.

The men went on that if a man was around her, he’d spend all his time rescuing her—from water, blizzards, being lost or risking being trampled by beeves or horses. And they’d add, “Fooled you there, didn’t I.”

And Cliff understood there was a serious problem.

But then Clifford Robertson moved to the spread: He brought his neat little sports car towed behind his truck. He had his clothing packed neatly. He stopped near the house and got out He looked around and breathed. His soul smiled. It was as he’d remembered. It was a perfect place.

The sky was wide and the trees were oaks and hackberry, and pushing in were the relentless mesquites. There was a proliferation of wild, spring flowers and the Texas bluebonnets that filled his soul.

His room was in the house. That had caused Cliff to hesitate. He would rather be around the men. And he wondered who was the chaperone for the nubile female.

The terrifying woman was as he remembered. A slip of a girl who greeted him nicely and didn’t do anything else. Well, she showed him his part of the house and where to put his things.

His unit was downstairs at the front of the house, which was of adobe. The walls were thick and the air inside was cool. There was a separate door to the outside.

His part of the downstairs had been built for her parents. There was a reading room next to the bedroom with a desk, and he had his own bathroom. It was just right.

And he looked at the nubile woman and wondered why she hadn’t taken her parents’ suite for herself? He asked, “Where are the rest of the bedrooms?”

She replied simply, “Upstairs.”

He already knew that the cook and the yardman slept in rooms in the back of the house.

That was all she said. Cliff found a brief surfacing of curiosity in that he wanted to see her room.

Having shown him his section of the house, Chancy took him to the house’s separate barn to introduce him to his horse.

The meeting of those two would be interesting for her to watch. Jasper was a big horse. He was independent, curious, self-directed and willing to share. He was an individual animal that was also pretty smart.

As they walked to the barn, she lied. She said, “Here, we trade horses around so that we can know them all.”

That caused Cliff to pause and look at the neophyte. So he settled that right away. He told her firmly, “If I take a horse as mine, I’d rather no one else rode him.”

Chancy glanced over at him as she considered him with a tilted-back head. “That’s a little stingy.”

He looked around as men tend to do. He was stem. “It’s the way I work. Then I don’t have to remember which horse I’m on and what quirks it has. I can understand the animal better.”

“You call them... animals?”

He grinned. “I’ve never ridden a human.” As soon as he said that, he sunk his teeth into his lower lip.

Apparently she didn’t understand the unintended innuendo.

She was twenty, by then, and all the crew had treated her as if she was isolated and had never read nor heard anything.

The two went into the barn. Cliff asked, “The other horse. Is that yours?”

And she smiled. “Yes.”

He asked softly, “Anybody else ride it?”

“No.”

He was firm. “Nobody else’ll ride mine.”

“That’s selfish.”

He looked at her unduly, with his slitted eyes considering. Then he told her in that soft voice, “I’m selective.”

She figured he’d decide on his own horse and then keep it to himself. She just hoped he liked the one they’d chosen for him.

Inside the barn, Cliff looked at her horse with interest and even petted it, but he asked, “Which of these is the one for me?” He’d already decided on the stallion but he could be reasonably tactful.

So she showed Cliff Jasper. He was the one.

The horse and man observed one another, and it was Cliff who went to the horse. Jasper was steady and waiting. And the man gave the horse a sugar cube.

The bribe made Chancy smile.

But Cliff’s hands went over Jasper, getting the horse familiar with him. He took up each hoof and looked at each one. And during all that time, Cliff was running his hands over the horse and talking to him.

It was interesting but not unknown for Chancy to watch. The man and the horse were getting acquainted. Cliff was showing the horse that he was his. And the horse appeared to consider that quite easily.

She wondered why the horse accepted a stranger when she hadn’t been able to get his attention at all. He’d been reasonably tolerant of her, but he had discarded being her horse.

It was rather irritating to see a man get that close to a horse so quickly.

In the next month, Cliff worked as if God had sent him to them to spare the rest of the crew of the responsibility for...the Chancy one.

Probably the biggest surprise was that she was a jolt to a single man who was diligent in his activities. Those that concerned the place. Without any warning, she was in the group and determined to be a part of it. She owned the place.

She simply did not have the muscle or the strength to handle what a man could do so easily.

She did not obey rules laid down that were brief, logical and few. She went off when she chose. She joined and intruded on smooth work and jostled them all. She startled placid animals and infuriated busy men...who loved her.

It was Cliff who took the reins of the days and the rest could just watch and be critical.

That critical didn’t last long. Cliff offered for any of them to take the budding female on—to direct and control her. Nobody volunteered.

Clashes between Chancy and Cliff happened. And some arguments. Those were courteous, so far.

Chancy did ride a horse. Not the calm one Cliff allotted to her. No. She sneaked onto Cliff’s horse. There were sharp whistles so that the whole, entire crew all watched what Cliff would do about that.

When he saw what she’d done, he got on her horse and whistled at his, who was under her and riding away like the wind.

The whistle was to stop... and his horse did stop. The horse almost had to rear, clear up, to keep her on his back. With his rider stable, the horse had turned and looked at Cliff with some interest.

Of course, Chancy was flicking the ends of the reins against the horse and urging his sides with her naked boot heels to get him to go again. She was earnest and determined—but even her rein strokes were kind. She was simply indicating seriously that she wanted the horse to do as she chose.

That was logical.

Cliff pulled her horse up alongside her and the prancing Jasper. Cliff took the reins from her hands as he got off her horse.

He told her through his teeth, “They are both brown coated. But if you look closely, you’ll be able to tell which is Jasper and which is your own horse.”

Then he put his arm around the lower part of her torso and lifted her effortlessly from his horse. He had the audacity of lifting her then onto her own horse, as if she’d made a mistake.

She glanced around, but no one else was anywhere around that she could see. So she looked again at Cliff. She tilted her sober-faced head, waiting for an apology from Cliff.

He gave none.

Cliff swung up on his own horse and just trotted it away, leaving her there with her own horse. She was owner of the land. He didn’t give a damn.

He had told Chancy that his horse was not trained as an exercise horse. He was a working horse. He obeyed enough. He didn’t need any stranger getting up on him and demanding other rules. He was not a pet.

The horse, Jasper, was a partner. He was willing to carry a saddle and a man...if there was a reason. But he did not take to just roaming without some goal.

Cliff had learned to call the horse’s name of Jasper. If Jasper hadn’t anything to control or find, he’d get bored and just stop. Or he’d go looking for something interesting.

The horse’s curiosity sometimes led to a real wrangle of wills. He’d take the bit in his teeth and just...go!

Actually, Jasper was a whole lot like the male version of the budding female. Like Chancy. But Chancy was more kind.

There were increasing times that Cliff wondered how had her daddy known to name her thataway, right away, when she was born?

From what Cliff had heard, her parents hadn’t been ordinary. And maybe not even—normal. They’d been a little weird. Their attachment had been too intense. But from what Cliff had heard, they’d understood limits.

How come their daughter had turned out as curious as she was? As determined and independent? And yet. And yet, with all that, she kept her courtesy and interest in others.

But she was a handful.

Chancy was never flippant or snotty. She was earnest and curious, and she continued to consider herself equal to any adult male. Any man knows no female is equal to a male at any time. Not only females’ physical strengths, but their minds don’t work the same as a man’s.

Men are generally just tolerant and ready to salvage whatever the female louses up. That is done silently by the male with great endurance that is allowed to show—somewhat.

Cliff considered what he’d heard of the parents and knew they had been indulgent. The crew even yet just shook their heads over Chancy how many times?

But it was obvious to Cliff that her parents had never lifted a finger or a voice to Chancy. They’d just observed her with interest...and rescued her if necessary.

In exasperation, the crew told Cliff that the rescue part was just about always. Practically from birth, she had defied the limits.

Interestingly, none of her curiosity was mean or flippant She just thought she could do anything a male could do. She kept on trying. She was an irritating woman.

Probably the main thing about the changes was that now Cliff was in charge. It was to him that questions came. It was his directions they sought. Before his arrival, they had discussed their problems when they were in Chancy’s presence. They hadn’t really inquired if she agreed, but she had known what was being done.

With Cliff in charge, things had changed. It was odd for Chancy not to know what all was happening.