He watched the Dery boy coming across the dry river bed with a 410
shotgun on his shoulder, the heat so intense his feet were invisible in
the mirage rippling off the sand, heading for his place he suspected,
as he waved so the kid would see him. It wasn’t that he liked the kid
or cared about him either way, but he was low on papers and the boy
sometimes had tailor mades. It annoyed him that the kid would be
roaming around in the blistering heat, the heat he had known all his
life, the heat he resented being reminded of by some kid paying no mind
to it. His wine was gone too and he’d have no money for smokes or drink
until the Mexican goat fellow showed. This year’s kids were ready for
market and he needed cash, he always needed cash. When Macias showed,
there would be no drunk mistakes like last year either. He’d be careful
this time and if that Mexican had beer he was not going to touch a drop
until the money changed hands. No sir, once was all it took. He’d be
sociable though, knowing that no one else was coming to buy the goats.
You couldn’t give them to the town people and Safeway didn’t want
nothing to do with goat meat, but the Mexicans like it for sure. He had
tasted it himself once in what they called tacos and they were good. He
and his folks never ate the goats, hell, they called them all by name,
besides, they had no ice box or a way to keep meat. The old women and
he mostly ate beans with biscuits and sometimes a hen. Seems like the
birds got most of the garden when the sun didn’t burn it
up.
No telling what that kid wanted, maybe nothing. The last time he had
seen this boy he had been dozing on the cot under the mesquite tree
listening to the well pumps rhythmic kerplunk, kerplunk when he’d
been startled by the two brothers, this kid and the older one, standing
there watching him sleep, the dogs silent to known visitors or too lazy
to get up out of the shade. In his confusion he blurted out “Up jumped
the devil” and began jabbering on about the birds hanging around and
how they bothered him. The big black ones weren’t so bad but those
little ones made such a racket that he couldn’t get no rest. Destroyed
the garden too, picking at the tomatoes and squash. Good thing they
didn’t like the snap beans or he wouldn’t have nothing left.
He asked “Why don’t you take that shot gun and get rid of them
birds for me?” “I’ll give you two bits for everyone you get”.
“We only got two shells and we’re looking for rattlers.” the older boy
answered, excited by the idea of having something important to shoot
rather that the usual blasting of a can or some luckless lizard. The
younger one pulled a set of rattlers out of his pocket to show Scotty
bragging “Look, its got seven or eight buttons if you count the end.
Our Meme got it yesterday in the yard. She cut its head off with a
square shovel. It took her a long time too, rattlers are tough
and she’s not strong. She said we should look out cause there would be
another one nearby, they always travel in pairs.”
Scotty nodded his head in agreement as he’d heard that too and then
thought that’s the most he’d heard that kid say. Taking the Prince
Albert tin from his rear pocket he rolled a cigarette, fat in the
middle and skinny on the ends, all the time watching the younger kid
watching him intently. Probably thinks he could do it better Scotty
thought, thinking it was a waste of time to try and roll a presentable
specimen, hell they didn’t smoke no better. After a couple of drags the
lit end and the remaining tobacco fell from the paper. Looking with
disgust and a little embarrassment, he threw the remaining paper
to the sand. Thankfully, the boys got bored and began to wander off as
he yelled after them “Think about shooting them birds, you hear?” not
meaning it. The younger one yelled “See you” as they disappeared into
the wash. Thinking about the encounter, Scotty wondered why he had gone
on so about the birds. If he had two bits, he’d walk to town and buy a
short dog, not waste money on no birds.
As the boy approached Scotty he too was remembering the last time he
and his brother had come here, what had happened and mostly the
conversation following the encounter. As they walked away from Scotty’s
the older brother said “Did you hear what he said?”
“What?” The younger one asked, a little puzzled.
“Up jumped the devil.” “What do you think I meant?”
“Oh that. I don’t know.” After a pause as they both thought the younger
one asked
“What did he mean? Are we the devil?”
“No, I don’t think so” the older brother answered. “Maybe it’s just
something he says, like hi.” “He’s weird you know. Or like when
somebody says speak of the devil when you come into the room.”
The younger one lamely came back with “When you show up you mean.” and
they let it drop.
They walked on heading for the shade of the box canyon as the younger
remarked “Yeah, you know mother said he has sticky fingers.”
“What? Sticky fingers? What do you mean, he swipes stuff?”
“She said he comes into the lumber yard and looks at things, nails and
stuff and never buys anything. Mother said “One time he took this
carriage bolt and held it up and said ‘I’m going to see if this fits,
I’ll be back’ and he never came back.”
I’ll bet he didn’t, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” tho older
brother said with a smile on his face.
“What? You know something don’t you? Did Meme say he was the devil? She
say that?”
“No” the older one answered, annoyed by his younger brothers eagerness.
“And you better not say anything about what we are talking about,
either.”
“I won’t, I promise. Come on, tell me.”
“Well, I think they think he does something with the goats.”
“Meme say that?”
“No, she would never say something like that, at least not to me. I
just know that’s what she and Fred think.”
“How do you know?”
“Remember when Scotty was working at the house, digging the cess pool?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it was really hot and I took him some ice water in one of those
pewter glasses and when I put the empty glass in the sink they went ape
shit.”
“Who?”
“Meme and Fred both. You’d think I’d committed a mortal sin or
something. So that’s what they think, he is a deviant or does something
weird with the goats.”
The younger one looked puzzled.
“You know, fucks the goats.”
“Really?” the younger brother exclaimed making a little jump and
laughing with excitement. “I’m going to sneak back and see if I
can see him do it.”
“No you’re not and don’t you say anything either.” the older one
scolded. “I can’t tell you anything. You got such a big mouth. Anyway,
I don’t think he really does that.”
The boy was alone and Scotty was glad about that. The older brother was
big and made him uneasy the way he looked at him with suspicion. Scotty
could tell that the big one wanted to say you better not do anything
funny with my brother. He never would do nothing anyway, whatever that
might be. He knew their grand father and sometimes worked for him
digging a hole or fixing something with the fence. They had been
together over in Long Beach during the war working in the ship yards.
It was old man Dery that had seen to him getting home after he was
fired for the last time, telling the office not to give him any money
for a bus ticket cause he would just drink it up. Dery had taken him to
the depot, got him a ticket to Wickenburg and bought him a loaf of
folding bread and some bologna for the trip. That was Scotty’s first
and last dealings with the authorities of the work a day world. Without
the pressures of the labor shortage during the Second World War, no one
in their right mind was going to hire him and he knew it.
The kid had two L & M’s and offered him one. After breaking off the
filter and striking a match on his shoe he asked where the kid was
headed with that elephant gun, buttering him up in case he had
something else to share.
“You don’t talk much” Scotty
observed.
“No, well some times.” the kid evaded, his no not so much an answer to
the question as a disagreement with its accuracy. What he couldn’t say
was that he didn’t talk to adults if possible. When ever he revealed
what he was thinking it would back fire resulting in a reprimand or
worse. And he certainly never told what he was up to. That would surely
result in punishment. Besides, how could he tell Scotty he had been
forbidden to go near his place. The kid shrugged and said nothing
else except to ask if the could go up to the house for some water.
Scotty said “sure you can, have all you want” and watched as the kid
went around and up the side of the wash to the house to drink water
from the clay pot they kept hanging from the big mesquite near the well
with the burlap wrapped around it. He knew the kid liked to drink from
the banged up enamel ladle with its rust spots and bent handle left
hanging from the pot and to pour the leftover water on the burlap
that helped keep the water cool. The idea of it seemed to fascinate
him. The kid hung around for a while saying little, studying everything
and then wandered off with his gun in the hot sun leaving Scotty to
wonder if he had no sense.
Nothing grew right on Scotty. Nothing ever had. When he was young his
hair grew longer in spots, lumps every which way and his teeth were
crooked close in back and spread in front so food got stuck. He was
small, smaller than the few other kids in the desolate ranching area of
pre first war Territorial Arizona and not wiry strong either. When his
beard came in it too was spotty, thick on his checks, missing at the
sideburns and thin on the chin and mustache, black in some places and
red in others without reason. If he didn’t shave for more than a week,
which was often the case, he looked like one of those Howler monkeys
you see in National Geographic. In those days, no one forced an
inconsequential kid like him to go to school or do much of anything
else, especially not his mother or grand mother, both of whom were
overwhelmed by day to day life and barely able to take care of
themselves. His young life had been a nomadic shuffle from one squat to
the next, his family allowed to stay for melon picking season and then
run off when the harvest was in. They would moved on to an abandon
range or miners shack, squatters mostly, looking forward to the next
drink, usually wine. Muscatel or Port cost .25 cents from Safeway, .29
cents at the liquor. That’s how they’d ended up here, a couple of miles
south of Wickenburg and a half a mile or so from the Phoenix highway on
the other side of the Hassayampa River and the Santa Fe railroad tracks
in what had once been a patented mining claim shack that, by neglect of
the agreement, had reverted back to the railroad. Scotty was forth six
or forty seven, living with his mother, she only fifteen years older
than him and her mother, the oldest Mrs Weathersby, in her early
eighties. Scotty never knew his dad and didn’t much wonder about him.
His mother said he had come through working on the highway to
California and she’d referred to him as Jim. If she knew his last name
she never mentioned it. She went by her mothers married name of
Weathersby and so did Scotty. The old Mr. Weathersby, his grand father,
had run off long before Scotty was born and was only mentioned with
rancor. When Mrs Weathersby heard her husband had died she had gone to
Phoenix hoping to collect a widows pension. It was there she found out
the “damn fool froze to death” in a late winter snow outside of
Prescott in a hobo camp, too drunk to seek shelter. As for the widows
pension, they didn’t know anything about that at the Maricopa County.
Maybe she should check with his place of employment and that was the
end of that. A story she told over and over.
Their place wasn’t bad if you didn’t mind the scorpions and centipedes
crawling in and out from under the porch, no electric, gas, not even
propane. There was a good water well and a single stroke gasoline
engine for a pump with a 500 gallon tank that held more than 100
gallons, plenty for the house, garden, the goats that they herded for
cash, the three stray dogs that hung around, the chickens and the lone
cat that seemed to live off the land. Baths were an occasional need and
like cooking, required cut wood. It was mid day mid July and Scotty was
down in the dry river bed cutting the needed wood under the canopy of
the Mesquite thicket, trying to stay out of the sun and wishing the
wood would cut itself.
The only reason for dust to be coming up from a truck on the dirt path
to his place was either the Mexican for the goats, which he hoped or
the railroad coming to work on the trestle or the tracks. He hoped it
wouldn’t be the railroad there again to tell him to find another place
to live cause they were tearing his place down, a threat they had been
making for years. The same for the Gypsies staying in the other shack a
couple of hundred yards down the tracks. They weren’t really Gypsies,
just tramps he guessed, a word he didn’t care for, knowing it was used
to describe him. Besides, a tramp was on the road like a hobo and they
had homes, such as they were. To call them poor people seemed even more
hurtful, there being “no polite way to talk about folks that don’t got
things unlike the rich that talked about themselves and their friends
with ease, bragging about their cars, houses, horses, the good stuff
they ate, the fine Whiskey they drink and each other. Rich got lots to
talk about, poor got none of those things. All they can do sit around
and dream and depend on luck.” Their place, he realized he didn’t know
their name except for the daughter they called to as Sweetie, was
closer to the rails and got more attention from the railroad. As long
as they were still there he figured he was safe. He couldn’t read the
papers and signs they nailed to the fences, leaving the goats to eat
the paper within reach and using some to light the fire. The truck
stopped and turned around. He thought for a minute it might be Cecil
coming over about some work or to bring left overs. He’d smelled
mesquite cooking yesterday and Cecil often shared the leftover ribs
with him. Maybe not. Probably someone lost.
