Thomas Mcguane - Keep the Change

“She took me to the cleaners,” said the ASCS man, elevating the brim of his cap with a rigid forefinger. “She left me a purple pickup and one clean pair of jeans and that was all she wrote. Propped up in front of the game shows smoking weed all day and this baldheaded old judge says she gets the works.” “I hear you,” said Joe absently, and tried to get back to his subject, which was an aging alfalfa field and a ditch that leaked because of all the shale. “The thing is, I’ve got some backhoe and concrete work that has to be done and it’s going to be expensive.”

But before he could enlarge on his subject, the government man said, “We’ll pick up seventy percent on all irrigation projects whether you shit, go blind, or piss up a rope. But you’re going to have to come to town and fill out some forms.”

That was what Joe wanted. So he commenced a laying on of hands, murmuring effectively about the victim’s life in America. The ASCS man told him the working man don’t stand a chance. They walked down through the alfalfa, the white flowers just beginning to come, the shadows curving toward them over the plateau. A hawk flew levelly across the space toward a single tree; just before he got there, his line of flight took a deep sag and he swooped up to his perch.

Joe’s cattle were such a sorry, mixed bunch, under such a variety of brands, that it was imperative to get them in and rebrand every one of them. The state brand inspector practically ordered him to. “You better have you a branding bee,” he said to Joe when they looked over the receipts.

Joe branded a hundred and thirteen yearlings on Sunday. Astrid left early to tour Yellowstone. She had heard about branding and was determined, she said, to go through life without ever seeing it. Two strong neighbor boys, Ellen’s nephews, came down to wrestle. Joe roped the whole time off his gelding, enjoying the good job of breaking Bill Smithwick had done. Old man Overstreet, his plaid overcoat safety-pinned across his chest, showed there were no hard feelings by helping Joe at head and heels as they worked the yearlings in the pole corral. But Joe remembered the old man had been told about Clara. Joe was a little uncomfortable.

Joe thought, I’ve been away too long. I feel sorry for these animals. A tall sixteen-year-old in a red shirt, which had rotted out in the center of his shoulders, followed the dragging cattle behind Joe’s horse and grabbed a front leg so they would drag more smoothly. The other boy put a knee on the head and crimped a foreleg around. The sixteen-year-old sat on the ground holding one leg and subdued the other with his feet. Still, they got kicked. Old man Overstreet applied the irons, J-S, Joe’s father’s brand. When the smoking metal seared into the flesh of the steers, they stretched their necks out and opened their mouths; their gray tongues fell forth and they bawled. Joe could hardly bear it, though he let no expression cross his face. The sixteen-year-old freed Joe’s lariat, and the boy’s mother, a silent, rawboned woman of fifty, applied the iron and gave shots to the ones with hoof rot or bad eyes. It went very smoothly in an increasing cloud of smoke. When they had all the cattle penned in one place, old man Overstreet, looking like an undertaker in his long tattered coat, started to go through the cattle with his cutting horse.

Joe thanked his helpers and went back to the ranch to do the paperwork on the soil conservation cost-sharing application. There were black thunderheads up the valley and occasional sparks of lightning; the day could quickly get shortened. He cracked a beer and went out on the porch to watch the weather. This may be the principal use of a cattle ranch in these days, he thought: watching the weather. He daydreamed. Holding his cold can of beer, he remembered an old radio ad he had heard years ago in some city, an ad that was recited in a stylish, hip shout: “ Jet Malt Liquor! Acts much quicker! It leaves you flying at thirty thousand feet! ” Can’t ask more of a beer than that. And now came the butterflies, drifting across from the orchard, fritillaries, sulphurs. Little messages from above. A mixed blessing, an easy life. It seemed unbearable that Astrid didn’t enjoy this. A car surged past far across the fields on the highway, a big American flag streaming from its antenna.

There had been days down south, amazingly long and durable, the days of Joe and Astrid letting down their guards, that turned upon ordinariness. The wonderful times in the produce department of the supermarket, shopping for dinner; the same cheerful black woman sprayed mist on the bins of vegetables and it was like being on a pleasant, intensive truck farm. Or they sailed out to the swampy, uninhabited islands drifting past the bird-crowned mangroves, whose small white blossoms were aswarm with honey bees. They watched the tourists photograph the pelican. They watched the international white sea clouds arrive from Central America on southerly winds.

Sometimes they had helped each other home from bars where a stunned, reflexive criminality disclosed itself in the hungry night life. To have no plan, in the serene near-darkness, amid papery flowers that emerged at sundown, seemed all that they could desire. He had wanted Astrid to understand him. It frightened him to think he might not hate her. This pain seemed quite physical. He had begun picturing Astrid day and night. He had begun to be terrified for her well-being. It was horrible. He resumed cigarettes.

But the time came when it all seemed unhealthy. They withdrew to Green Turtle Cay. There they met a land surveyor from Ohio in a borrowed boat, who was thrown up on the beach by a gale. They sent the homemade local postcards to everyone they knew. They walked the beach at all hours and on Sunday stood in front of the local churches to hear the singing. From the telegraph hill, they could watch yachts move along the coast of Great Abaco, the passenger ferry’s regular plying and the periodic advent of the tomato boat. On Wednesday, it was possible to observe the fabulously grotesque scuba lessons behind the one popular resort hotel. Coconut or fruit trees which had proven reliable had steps nailed to their trunks. Each day, swimming became more important. Joe wanted to stay in the cottage and have sex, while Astrid wished to paddle out a few yards for purposes of gaining contact with the drop-off. Finally, it threatened to spoil their vacation and they went back.

Joe made it a habit to ride through the yearlings every day. They were pretty well scattered out and it always took an entire morning. But he enjoyed saddling his horse in the dark and then to be rolling along as the day broke to count and check the cattle. Behind this was the knowledge that he really couldn’t afford any death loss. The country had had several dry years; cattle numbers were down across the state, and in the Midwest it was rumored that stored feed was at an all-time high. Unless somebody fooled around with it and the futures boys manipulated things out of all reason, Joe thought his cattle would be right valuable by fall.

The great pleasure came from the grass, traveling through it horseback: the movement of the wind on its surface, the blaze of sunrise across its ocean curves. As the full warmth of day came on, the land took on a humming vitality of cows and grass and hawks, and antelope receded dimly like something caught in your eye. Joe always rode straight into at least one covey of partridges which roared up around his horse. After the first burst, the little brick and gray chickens cast down onto a hillside and resumed feeding. Joe’s horse watched hard, then went on traveling. Instead of being someplace where he waited for the breeze through a window, Joe had gone to where the breeze came from.