Generations in Agony...Texas: Chapter Thirteen

13) Junkyard Blues…

Carl had known Mulligans since well before the turn of the century. He had never met one that he liked, one bit. Badly behaved, for the most part, a Mulligan or two had always been known as bad news. In fact, he could clearly remember when old August Mulligan had caught and hung the last known horse thief, way back in ’06. Carl and his brother Charles had been part of the posse. It was also the last time they ever joined such a venture.

Smells of garbage and rust reached Carl’s nose well before he got all the way down to the gate. From the height of his saddle, Carl could see over the corrugated fence and gate: still closed and chained, even though the sign on it read that they opened at 7:00am and it was well past 8:00 already. “Hello to the house!” He yelled.

No one answered back.

Carl puckered up and blasted out a cattle whistle. It was a talent that he and Charles had developed when they were kids, so they would be able to sound-off across a thundering herd of beeves. The whistle echoed off the tilting metal buildings that made up the compound inside the fence. A few lazy yard dogs barked a couple of times, then he heard Roman Mulligan bark at the dogs. “Shut your goddamn traps!”

Still watching over the gate, Carl saw Roman stagger off the porch of his house. He still held an empty liquor bottle and looked as if he had passed out on one of the rocking chairs that lined the uneven porch—which was actually the case.

Roman looked at the gate, then turned and took a step. Then, he stopped and turned around slowly to scowl at the gate once more. It was then that he saw Carl’s head poking over the top. “Who’s that?”

“Carl Speck, Roman. Brought your horse.”

Roman lifted a pocket watch from his saggy pants and wobbled as he stared down at it, trying to determine the time of day. “Goddamnit!”

He spun around and hollered. “I want all you sons-of-bitches up right goddamn now!” Here and there around the place, sounds of boys stirring and scrambling to get outside rattled around the enclosure, then, one by one, Mulligan offspring began to poke their heads out. Carl saw one of the little Mulligans poke his head out to look around and when he saw his father the old man screeched at him: “Get over yonder and open the goddamn gate, boy!”

Quickly, as if he were running barefooted over hot coals, the kid moved, lickity-split, across the yard, past his scowling father, and up to the gate. Carl heard chain being unwound for a bit before the gates swung open and he led Pilot into the nasty place.

He walked Cleo straight over to Roman, who blinked up at the rider in his midst; the sun was behind Carl, so Mulligan could not get a good look at his face. He held a filthy hand up to block the glare. “Who is that?”

“Carl Speck. I brung your horse in, found him up on the Big Nothing.”

“…obliged, Carl. Neighborly of ya…”

Carl said nothing, simply holding out the lead for Roman to take hold. Another of the boys ran up and took it as Roman stood there staring up. “Been a while, Carl, how you been?”

“Good.”

“Wanna have some breakfast with us?” Roman said, surprising himself as soon as it came out of his mouth.

“No, sir. Got business to be about.” Carl fingered his hat and nodded, then turned Cleo and rode out of the gate.

*

CiCi Cabrerra had her coffee pot steaming and the air-conditioner ice cold when Carl Speck Sr. walked in, rattling the little cowbell over the door. His hat came off before he walked in, and he sat down in one of the waiting chairs as CiCi already had Milo Tuck in the only barber chair. “Hey, Carl…” She smiled at him and continued to clip around Milo’s ears.

Carl nodded and placed his hat over one of his knees.

“Howdy, Carl,” Milo said, looking at him through the mirror. “Finally got back to town, I see…”

“Mr. Tuck.”

“Folks called my daddy Mr. Tuck. I suspect you watched him grow up too. I’m just plain ole Milo around here, Carl.”

“Fair enough then.”

“How things looking up north?”

“Little dry, just now…”

“Kick tells me you’re about to drove six hunnerd head to the rails.”

Carl nodded.

“Wish I had a hand could do that much by his self. I got a dozen boys that would bungle that job.”

“Hard to find good help, they say…” Carl put that out there, for lack of anything else to say. Tuck was, after all, one of the big money families. No need to be rude to a man who can hire and fire a cowhand. One never knows.

“Yes, sir…beeves are looking pretty good this year. Me and Kick are both figuring on a banner year.”

Carl nodded once more, pulling his makings from his shirt pocket. “Okay if I smoke, CiCi?”

She looked up at him, a Marlboro dangled from her pretty lips. “Sure, Carl. You want one of mine?”

“No, ma’am. I’m fine with this here.”

“Suit yourself, then.”

“What’s this I hear about you bringing a body in this morning?” Milo said this and CiCi came to a full stop to listen to Carl’s answer. The talk had already run full circle around town. Anyone who was not aware of the event, was not living in Agony.

“Found him southwest of town.”

“Know what kilt him?”

“Looks like snake bite.”

“Shame…who was it?”

“Never seed the feller before—tell the truth. Pretty swoll up from all the bites. Clothes looked like city, though.”

“How’d a city slicker get way out yonder?”

“Lost his way, I can only figure.”

“Well, that’s just plum crazy, ain’t it?”

Carl shrugged as he licked his cigarette and stuck it in his lips. He pulled a stove match from his shirt pocket and struck it on the bottom of his boot. “I’m not one to make such a judgment, Milo.”

“Was there a car around close by?” CiCi said this as she resumed clipping the hair that was curling out of Milo’s ears.

“Nope.”

“That don’t make no sense, does it?”

“None at all.” Carl wished everyone would just shut up and let him get his haircut. He could feel hair down the back of his collar.

“Okay, Milo, you’re all set.” CiCi pulled the striped cover off of the Mayor and began to broom up the clipped hair.

“Thanks, CiCi…” Milo stood and pulled out his money clip. Once he had paid, he nodded at Carl before he placed his good Stetson on his head. “Good t’see you again, Carl.”

“Same to you, Milo.” He watched Tuck leave as he stood and took the chair.

“Goodness, Carl,” CiCi told him. “You need to get in here more often.”

“I stay busy.”

“Sure you do, but your hair…you could join one of those rock bands with all this.”

“Never cared much for rocks, myself.”

CiCi giggled. “Carl, that’s rock music. You know, like the hippies listen to?”

He had ridden out past the old Newcomb place. He had known Jaclyn Newcomb as a young man. He heard that she had left the old dusty place to her grandson and that he had filled it up with hippies from San Francisco. Much more than that, he did not care to know. “If you say so.”

CiCi shook her head and got to work on Carl’s thick, gray hair. Below the hat line, the hair was bleached as white as snow, while under was still showing a few strands of the dark hair Carl sported when he was a young man. She clipped and snipped, then attacked his bushy eyebrows and the hairs that poked out of his nostrils, then finally his ears before she lathered him up and shaved both his face and the back of his neck. A little talcum and a few brush strokes later and Carl’s haircut was done. He looked at himself briefly in the mirror. The person looking back at him seemed a stranger. It was not often that he took the time to see his own reflection; he considered it vain to care too much about his looks. Still, the glance told him that time was catching up with him; he looked windblown and weathered, like old rawhide.

He caught CiCi watching him. She smiled warmly and nodded. “Looking good, Carl. Don’t wait so long before the next one.”

Carl said nothing to the comment. He pulled his wallet out. It was the first time he had opened it in months. Handing her two dollars, he tucked it back into his Wranglers.

“I’ll get your change, Carl.”

“No need. I appreciate the hair cut, CiCi.”

“Any time, Carl. You going to see your grandson while you’re in town?”

Well, there it was… He felt suddenly trapped. Blood filled his face and turned his neck red. CiCi did not seem to notice. She went right along, sweeping and talking at once…

“He’s a fine young man. He found my son Jesus a few weeks back after that no good Roman Mulligan hung him out in the desert. If it wasn’t for your grandson Charlie, I hate to think about what might have happened.”

“What did the boy do?” Carl asked it before he thought about it. It just slipped right out, a curiosity that he did not realize he even had.

“Oh, he saved Jesus. Got him down from the rope after the Mulligans ran back to town.” She shook her head, as she would at anything she thought to be silly. “It’s a long story, but Charlie led Jesus and that horse of the Mulligans up into the cuts and they held up in Jesus’ cave up there while the rains and floods came and went. I was out of my mind. I thought for sure he was dead. But, they turned up later that week at the fair. Just walked in, and, they walked in with Jesus’ father, a man I had forgotten about.”

“Well, I’ll be…”

“Yup, sure is something. He’s a fine young man. Works at the Esso station now. I’m not seeing Caleb anymore, not since…well, anyhow. Jesus’ father and I are trying to work things out. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other.”

“I’ll be going now…”

“Okay, Carl. Come back soon, okay?”

He nodded, opened the door and stuck his hat on his head before he left out into the hot day.

*