Kathleen Eagle - One Cowboy, One Christmas

Except his own body.

He’d been sitting too long, and the notion of hitting the road anytime soon wasn’t sitting too well with his diced-and-spliced hip. You’re gonna pay for all that walkin’ last night, son. Your body and your truck were all you had to look after, but you beat up the one and deserted the other.

He watched the Drexler house grow in appeal as much as in size as the pickup drew closer. He thought about the warm bed behind the first-floor corner window. He wouldn’t mind laying his aching body in it for another night. Being held down was no longer much of an issue. Getting up was the challenge.

He dropped the women off near the back door and headed for the outbuildings, where his beloved Zelda stood powerless, her bumper chained to a small tractor hitch like a big blue fish on a hook. Hoolie pulled his head out from under Zelda’s hood and wiped his hands on a greasy rag, which he stuck in the back pocket of his greasy coveralls. A disjointed memory of his father flashed through Zach’s mind as he parked the Double D pickup nose to nose with his own. Greasy coveralls had looked damn cool through a little boy’s eyes. If it was broke, Dad could fix it.

“You got some engine trouble here, Zach,” Hoolie said. Like after last night, trouble was news. “I could use some help gettin’ her into the shop, but I can tell you right now, she ain’t goin’ nowhere unless she gets a good overhaul. Rings, seals, the whole she-bang. Not that you weren’t runnin’ on fumes, but who needs a gas gauge when you’ve got that second tank?”

“That’s what I say.”

“How long since you’ve had ‘em both full?”

“Since gas was under a dollar a gallon. How long ago was that?”

“I ain’t that old, son.” The old man smiled. “Tell you what. You help me out around here, I’ll fix your pickup for you. Don’t give me that look. It’s a simple American-made straight shift. I can order parts off the Internet, slicker’n cowpies.” He did a two-finger dance on an imaginary keyboard, tweedled a dial-up signal, made a zip-zip gesture and smacked the back of one stiff hand into the palm of the other. “In one tube and out the other, sure as you’re born. Hell of a deal, that Internet.”

“Haven’t used it much myself.”

“You gotta get with the twenty-first century, boy. For some things. Others, hell, you can’t beat a handshake and an old-fashioned trade, even up. I help you, you help me.”

Zach nodded. “What do you need?”

“A good hand. All-around cowboy. These girls got a good thing goin’ here, but they’re runnin’ me ragged.”

“Good for what?” Not for profit, according to the “girls.”

“Good for what ails us in the twenty-first century. Tube-headedness. All input and no output. Too many one-way streets. Too much live and not enough letlive.”

“Gotcha.”

“So, what do you say?”

Zach glanced under Zelda’s hood. Poor girl. Mouth wide open and she can’t make a sound. In their prime he’d made sure she had nothing but the best. A guy had no excuse for neglecting his ride. “You’re a pretty decent mechanic?”

“Worked for my dad until he closed up shop. Then I came to work for Don Drexler. Every piece of equipment, every vehicle on the place runs like a top.”

Zach smiled. “I say I’m getting the best end of the deal.”

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