Generations in Agony...Texas: Chapter Two

2) North end of the Onyx range…


If he owned a more vivid imagination, Carlton Speck might have thought himself the last cowboy on the planet. He had not seen a soul in over six weeks. Not many hands working the Onyx spread wanted much to do with this section, and, truth be known, Carl preferred it that way. He was not a people person.

Walking Cleopatra, his eight-year-old Palomino cutter, along one of the miles of fence line that he had helped erect decades before, he felt agitated that he had to go back to headquarters to find out where the six hundred head of beef needed to go: rail-head or truck-yard.

Over the years, being around people had become more and more disagreeable. His stomach churned just having to talk to most folks and exchanging pleasantries was a pastime he would just as soon avoid the way he would a coiled rattler.

Cleo snickered when they neared the pickup and trailer rig. For reasons Carl could never understand, she liked riding down the highway in the trailer, her head hanging out the side window. He could swear that she smiled at him in the side-view mirror. He liked to joke with himself that if she were any good in bed, he would have it made.

“Okay, darlin’, we’ll get you in there quick enough.” The horse did not talk back, which Carl appreciated most about Cleo.

There were salt stains under the saddle blanket when Carl pulled it off her back. He emptied a water jug into her bucket and let Cleo guzzle as he brushed her down, then led her up the drop ramp. She was so familiar with the process that it had begun to seem to Carl as if Cleo took inventory of her trailer: she glanced from side to side and sniffed the grain trough on the front bulkhead, finally sticking her chin over it to munch on the sweet oats she loved.

After closing her in, Carl walked around the side and reached in the window to pat her on the neck once more before they started rolling. “Alright, girl, we’re gonna go back in amongst ‘em. Maybe you’ll see that gelding you’re so fond of, if we stay that long.”

He popped the hood and reconnected the battery cable, then climbed into the hot cab. The truck started up fine, but was running rough, like it did not want to hold idle.

It was a 1955 model Chevy that he had bought new, and had no intention of replacing. Now, though, it looked as if he would have to spend a little cash on it, a thought that galled Carl. “Sum’bitch…”

Getting a truck tuned up might take the better part of a day, maybe two, knowing how Morgansen did things. For a moment, he thought about taking it up to Sonora, but he knew nothing about the reliability of any mechanic up that way; besides, it was too damned far to chance running with a bad idle. If the truck were his horse, he would already be walking, leading the wounded animal as long as it took to get there. “Sum’bitch…” He muttered to the windshield, then put it in gear and started bumping across the prairie, headed for the dirt service road nineteen miles away.

~