Thomas McGuane - To Skin a Cat

“What we have long understood,” said Walter, “is that you feel a mandate for greater meaning, and we don’t oppose that. John and me are just two little old MBAs. We want more of what we’ve got, and we’re too old to change. When we get this thing right, we — or one of us — might run for office. That’s where significance as we see it kicks in.”

“But,” John cut in, “by way of reassuring you, Bill. We’re thriving on all the fronts we have chosen to fight on.”

“What about the gasohol plant?”

“We dialed it down to an enriched feeder deal. The pig guys are knocking our door down.”

“I thought maybe you trapped yourself there.”

“Did not.”

Superfluously, Bill thought of the cleverness of the pig, his rambling ways. Gasohol was cloudy, pig feed clear. Drink Two permitted him to ask, “Do you want to buy me out?”

“Not necessarily,” said John, indenting the bows of his tie.

“In other words, we could disagree about valuation.”

As soon as John began to demur, sinking his chin into the softness of his neck, Walter cut across and said, “Let’s say that’s the case.”

“Ten times earnings,” Bill said.

John’s and Walter’s disparaging chuckles were hair-trigger affairs that gave them away better than anything Bill could have made up. Bill saw himself as Jefferson while John and Walter were the twin halves of Hamilton’s brain.

“Come on, you crooks, give me a number,” said Bill, and his brothers raised their eyes to the plaster ceiling. Just then, Bill felt a gust of power in the room, a brief touch of the thing that held these men’s interest, and he did not necessarily despise it any more than he would despise weather. If he ever worked it out with Elizabeth, he might not want to have mishandled this.

“The trouble with this sort of thing,” said Bill, “is you never know who the Honest Johns are, do you? I mean, we hang it on profits, and the company suddenly goes into a long-range development plan and the profits go down.”

Walter was hot. “How do you go into long-range development retailing RVs and selling pig feed?”

“You’d find a way,” said Bill.

Before things got out of hand, John spoke up. “You’ve got the performance to date. Our little-bitty deal couldn’t stand hostility. We could never move around with that hanging over us.”

“Rest assured the cows aren’t going into long-range development,” said Bill. “I’m holding my end down.”

“Don’t be a son of a bitch,” said Walter. Walter didn’t give a damn right now and you had to listen to him.

“It’s clear the both of you view me as a remittance man. An interference.”

“No, we don’t,” John chimed in. “But your search for meaning is a bore.”

Bill felt trapped by the characterization. These brutes were sincere. Walter and John got to their feet. This was going nowhere. “Go fuck yourselves,” said Bill.

“ You go fuck your self,” said John.

“I see your point,” said Bill.

In despair over all this, Bill went to the gift shop and introduced himself to Karen, who was busy signing Italian pottery that had come in without pedigree from the sheds of Missoula. He supplied her with imaginary Tuscan monikers while she endorsed the bottoms with a little paintbrush. By the time she got through the ashtrays and vast number of coffee mugs, they were great friends. They had lunch at the B & G and had a quick “my place or your place” conversation while Bill scrutinized her through the smoke of his Camels.

“I don’t know anyone who still smokes,” she said.

“I’m very ancient in my ways,” said Bill, paralyzed by ennui. An hour later, they had gone from a comfortable missionary position to the kind of three-point stance used by football players. After making love, he had a spell of dullness like the two weeks that make the difference between a bad and a good haircut. As Bill drove off he thought, I hope I get the clap. I’ve betrayed the only woman who means anything to me.

Bill had hired an acid casualty to feed cattle for him, an ideal hand who never looked to the right or the left and kept his mind firmly on a job it was very hard for most people to keep their minds on. He called himself Waylon Remington, though Bill was quite sure that was not really his name. All that was left of Waylon’s hairdo from the good-time days was a long goatee. He talked to himself.

It had taken Bill a long time to get used to lining Waylon Remington out on a job. He would give Waylon his instructions and get no reaction whatsoever. It was fairly disconcerting until Bill realized that Waylon heard him perfectly well and would act as instructed. But Bill felt very solitary telling him what to do as though making a speech in an empty room.

Today, he explained to Waylon Remington how he wanted his stack yard arranged. “Just get the big hay panels from near the house and wire them up in a square around the stack. Make sure your entryway is on level ground so you can get in and out with the tractor” Bill and Waylon were driving down through the hay meadow as Bill spoke. “And use plenty of steel stakes on those panels around the entry, or the whole shitaree will fall down. Remember you have to drive that tractor all the way around the stack to get ahold of the round bales.” Waylon Remington stared at the hood ornament.

“Now,” said Bill as they reached the irrigation headgate, “let’s get out here.” The two got out and went to the flume. It was about half full. The water took off toward the south, split up a couple of times, and fanned onto the field. “Now, Waylon.” Bill glanced over at Waylon Remington, just two feet away. His mouth was open and Bill could hear the breath in his teeth; his lower lip was cracked and dry. “I need for you to be moving those dams just once a day from now on because we’re starting to lose our water for the year. Keep moving them twelve steps at a time but once a day instead of three.”

He went down alongside the Parshall flume. “Keep track of these numbers on the gauge. If you see a big change, either up or down, come get me and we’ll read the tables and make another plan. You never know when they’ll shut down the center pivots upstream. So, it could change.… Waylon?”

Bill wanted to get the horses but he wasn’t confident Waylon could keep a horse moving; so he put the truck into four-wheel drive and took him around four or five more projects. Tighten about a mile and a half of fence, adding clips and stays as he went. Fix the chain in the manure spreader. Add hydraulic fluid to the front-end loader and hit all the grease points. They drove past the salt blocks set out in old tractor tires, checked fly rubs, tanks, and springs. This didn’t require Bill to talk, and it got pretty quiet in the cab. Then Waylon Remington began to hum. He hummed songs from Jefferson Airplane. Bill began to panic. Could he really leave?

Bill put five yearlings into the pen and warmed up Red Dust Number Seven in front of them. The young horse was cinchy and liable to buck the first few minutes. He stopped him and rolled him back a couple of times.

Bill trotted Red in a circle. He had him in a twisted wire snaffle and draw reins, and he kept Red’s head just flexed enough that he could see the glint of his eye on the inside of the circle. Red was getting so that if Bill took a deep seat and moved his feet forward in the stirrups he would start down into his stop. Then he’d likely as not run his head up and be piggy about turning. This was where Bill thought he was the roughest. Red kind of straightened up when he had a cow in front of him.

Bill cut a yearling out of the small herd. The steer just stopped and took things in. The steer moved and Red boiled over, squealing and running off. Bill took a light hold of him, rode him in a big circle, then back to the same place on the steer. This time, Red lowered himself and waited; and when the cow moved he sat right hard on his hocks, broke off, stopped hard, and came back inside the cow. Now he was working, his ears forward, his eyes bright. This little horse was such a cow horse, he sometimes couldn’t stand the pressure he put on himself. The steer then threw a number nine in his tail and bolted. Red stopped it right in front of the herd. He was low all over, ready to move anywhere. Bill tipped his head and saw the glint of eye and the bright flare at his nostrils. Bill cut another cow.