Thomas Mcguane - Keep the Change

He went to the vet and bought an aerosol can of boticide, antiseptic, and a pair of sheep shears. He now had forty-three dollars tied up in the dog. Then he bought a T-bone. That brought it to almost forty-nine. He drove out to the cabin.

When he played his light underneath the building, the wolfish eyes burned yellow. The dog growled on, both inhaling and exhaling. Around its face, a thick corona of matted fur extended for half a foot in all directions. Joe pushed a pole up in there at the end of which he had arranged a noose of broken lariat. The dog shuddered back to the ultimate inch of recess, driving dust forth in a swirl around the beam of light as the pole approached. It snapped with lightning speed at the end of the pole but the loop kept on coming forward until it was around the brute’s neck. Joe tightened the loop slightly, then slipped the pole out. Now holding the nylon rope, he could feel the throb of life at its end. A peculiar quiet reigned in the dusty yard as Joe looked around in an attempt to foresee the consequence of pulling the creature into the light of day. Maybe the dog had the right idea. But Joe had grown up with dogs and this one had lost all shadow of the old alliance with mankind and had become an instrument of secrecy and fear.

The time had come. Joe began to pull. A scrambling could be heard from within and a faint dust cloud rolled out, accompanied by the most piteous tone, a pitch of voice rendingly universal. Joe was about to overwhelm all of the dog’s accumulation of temper and habit and to drag him out into the daylight.

The rope was as hard as a stick in his hand. It yielded a degree at a time. Sweat poured from Joe. It runneled down his laugh lines. It stung his eyes. As the dog advanced to meet its fate, it occurred to Joe that he didn’t know what it looked like, except for that big wedge of muzzle. For a split second, a part of him wondered what would happen if the dog weighed a thousand pounds. Joe regained enough rope to be able to coil it at his feet. He made one coil, then another, and while he was making the third, the dog shot out from under the cabin, hit the end of the rope and snatched Joe onto his face. Joe held on while the dog ran baying in a great circle, its hindquarters sunk low to scramble against the restraint of the rope.

Joe got to his feet with the rope still in his hands, his palms burned and stinging. He retreated until he reached a pine tree that once shaded the yard of the cabin. Here he was able to take a couple of turns around the base of the tree, and bracing his weight against the rope draw the dog to the tree and snub its head against it. Joe’s heart ached at the suffering of the animal in its captivity, the misery which broad daylight seemed to bring. The dog lay there and howled.

Joe bound the dog’s mouth shut with twine, narrowly avoiding being bitten, and began to clip the fur with the sheep shears. As soon as he broke the surface of the matted fur, he hit a bottomless layer of pale, thick maggots and felt his gorge rise. He drove back his loathing until he had clipped the dog from end to end, down to its festering skin. He got an old rusted gas can from the shadow of the cabin and went to the small creek that ran past to fill the can with water. He rinsed the dog over and over while the dog, thinking that it was drowning, renewed its moans. Once Joe was sure the dog was clean, he sprayed it with antiseptic and then finally a blast of aerosol with the botfly medicine. The dog lay panting.

Joe cut the twine binding the dog’s mouth, placed the T-bone within reach and freed the rope. The pink medicated mass of the dog, whose wounded pride found voice in a sustained howl, bolted across the dirt yard past the eloquent T-bone and into the hayfield, where it sat and poured out a cry and lamentation for the life in the dark which it had lost.

Joe spent the rest of the morning sealing up the space underneath the cabin with rocks. The dog sat in the field and watched him, making small adjustments in its position toward the steak. Joe noticed these adjustments and, as he walked back toward the ranch, he felt that, given time, the dog would sell out. He thought he knew how the dog felt.

•

The phone rang. There was some excitement about getting his first call. A small voice came over the line. “Joe, this is Ellen Overstreet. Do you remember me?”

“Why I sure do. How are you, Ellen?”

“I’m just fine, Joe. I was excited to hear you were back.”

“Where are you living these days?”

“Until recently, outside of Two Dot. But we’re separated. I think we’ll work it out though.”

“ ‘We,’ who is we?”

“Actually, I’m Ellen Kelton now. Do you remember Billy Kelton?”

“Are you kidding? After all the thumpings he gave me? Is he still the wild cowboy I remember?” Joe’s question was polite in the extreme.

“Well, not nearly. He’s gone to ranching.”

“Are you all going to make it through this dry spell?”

“I honestly wonder,” said Ellen in a musical voice. “We have had such dust pneumonia in our calves from following their mothers down these old cow trails to water. We’ve lost quite a few of them. Billy’s spent all his time doctoring.”

“I can’t tell you how nice it is to hear your voice. It sounds like you’re as pretty as ever.”

“I’m not!” Ellen laughed. “On the other hand, nobody puts on weight around here. But let me get to the point.”

“All right,” Joe said warmly; but the truth was, a nervous feeling had invaded his stomach, something which had just crossed time from where he used to be to where he was now.

“I just thought — and I don’t know how easy it will be to do — but I just thought you might like to see your daughter.”

“ My daughter? You say my daughter. Well, yes! What’s her name?” Joe watched the wind toss an end of the curtain into the room. He knew what was meant when people talked about time stopping. He felt his hand moisten on the telephone receiver.

“Her name is Clara.”

“Clara. Where did you get that?”

“It’s Billy’s mother’s name.”

“I see. Kind of an old-timey name. I guess I’m going to see her, huh?” A sudden intimacy descended with the crisis. “I mean, why in hell don’t you just tell me what I’m supposed to do, Ellen.”

“That’s up to you, Joe. I’m just making the offer.”

“Anybody know this?”

“I told Dad.”

“You did? And what did he say?” His mouth had gone chalky. “You told your father?”

“He said, ‘Good,’ ’cause Clara will get it all when you people’s place is part of his and it all makes a perfect square.”

“Well, this just kind of floors me. And well, Ellen, what about you? What happened to your plans?”

“I teach. I teach at Clarendon Creek.”

“That’s where I went! That’s where my Aunt Lureen taught.”

“The first four grades.”

Joe could smell the sweat pouring through his shirt. He felt like he was burning up. He felt as if the rickety logic of his new life had just disappeared.

“I would like to see her,” Joe said. “Any arrangement that you would like suits me.”

“I just wanted to find out if you were interested,” she said in the same musical voice. “I’ll be in touch!”

An old man named Alvie Butterfield who irrigated for the Overstreets came through the ranch yard to change the water in his head gate. He had with him the border collie Joe had used as his cattle came in. Alvie was on a small battered Japanese motorcycle wearing his hip boots. He had his shovel fastened down with bungee cord and his blue heeler balanced on the passenger seat. Joe was walking to the truck with a load of outgoing mail and stopped to talk. They ended up talking about Zane Grey. Alvie’s old face wrinkled and his eyes looked off to unknown distances. He said, “I believe everything in them books. When them cowboys are in the desert, I’m hot. When they’re caught in a blizzard I send the old lady for another blanket. When they run out of food, I tear down to the kitchen to make a peanut butter sandwich.” Even recalling these moments with his nose in Zane Grey caused rapturous transformation in Alvie, and the reality of a life directing muddy water downhill was made tolerable.