Keep the Change

4

Joe and Otis crossed paths as two professionals, and Otis had taken to questioning Joe about little things he was noticing, the levels of springs, the appearance of yearlings that had had diphtheria, pink eye, cancer eye, bag problems, warbles. Joe renewed the fly rubs up in the pasture and ran the chute when Rosewell had cattle in to doctor. He had gotten so he knew all the levers of the headcatch, the catch itself, the gate, the squeeze. He knew which bars to flip out on the cattle they had missed branding so that they could get old man Overstreet’s 9-Bar on the left hip. At first, it disturbed Joe to watch the irons smoke into flesh, and the tongue-slung bawling of the cattle as pain drove manure down their back legs. In the end, he turned the irons over in the fire himself to get the right pitch of heat, to make sure the brands went on bright and clean. He quit noticing when the burning smell drifted on the summer air. And to make up for it, he doctored the ones that had eye ulcers from burdocks in the hay they had been eating.

Not long after Joe and Ellen had started to see each other, he was asked up to the Overstreet house. It was an old two-story ranch house with a dirt path beaten from the driveway to the entry. With ill-concealed distaste, small, fat Mrs. Overstreet led Joe to her husband’s office, a room off the bedroom where water rights filings, escrow receipts, bills, brand inspections, road permits, cattle registries, breeding and veterinary records, defunct phone books, memorandum pads, and calendars were heaped up on a rolltop desk. Mr. Overstreet sat on a kind of spring-loaded stool that permitted him to swivel around, tilt back, and regard Joe all in one movement. He was nearly as small as his wife and in every gesture he radiated a lifetime of sharp trading. Like many old-time ranchers, there was nothing “Western” about him. A topographical map on the wall illustrated the boundaries of the ranch. He went to it and pointed to the large missing piece on the south side. “See that?” His eyes burned at Joe. They seemed to consume the papery little face that curved up under a halo of thin iron-gray hair.

“Yes, sir.”

“That belongs,” said Overstreet, “to you people.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It spoils the shape of this other, don’t you think?”

Joe said nothing.

“Besides that, I’d like to hear how you’re getting along. In your own words.”

“I’m getting along fine.”

“Your salary comes out of my lease arrangement with your daddy. So I’m not out there wringing the last penny from your hide. I do that mainly with Otis. But he says we’re getting our money’s worth.” He removed his glasses and worked his thumb and forefinger into his eye sockets as he spoke. He turned his gaze to the map of the ranch and restored his glasses.

“Joe,” he said, “you come from the big wide wonderful world out there. Ellen comes from right here on this little bitty patch of ground. Now no more than I’d try to sell you a pasture without water, don’t you sell Ellen something she really isn’t in a big way of needing. You catch my meaning?”

“I guess I do.”

“You do, Joe. Take it from me. You catch my meaning. Now go on out and keep doing the good job you’ve been doing. Your dad will be proud of you. You’re doing a man’s job. If he ever fires you, you come and see me. I’ll take you to Billings and teach you to trade fat cattle. I’ll teach you to wear out two Cadillacs a year packing cattle receipts. Why, if I had your youth and my brains, I could walk on the backs of my cattle to Omaha. Go on out there, Joe, and bow your damn back.”

But Joe didn’t get the message exactly. He was stirred instead by the romance of landholding that the old man radiated from his cluttered office. And when he and Ellen returned to their little wickiup in the willows alongside Tie Creek, he was less accepting of the plateau that they had reached weeks before. The wickiup was just a place where they had artfully bent the willows into an igloo shape and lashed them down. Ellen had read somewhere that it was the way the Indians had once sheltered themselves. The wickiup was an easy walk from the house and perfectly camouflaged. They were so secure in this shelter that they calmly went on with their activities even when Otis Rosewell rode past a few yards away. They lapped their tongues while the backs of their heads moved in vague figure-eights. They repeated “I love you” and tried to key their utterances to blissful peaks or reflective sighs. A long silence, a sigh, and an “I love you” indicated they had foreseen an extensive future with all its familiar appurtenances and had taken the phrase “I love you” as a kind of shorthand. Joe ached with meaning. Ellen undid the metal snap in back of her brassiere and her breasts were revealed. Either he would sweep his hand slowly up her rib cage and encompass them, or he would unpack them carefully. They were full handfuls with graceful small nipples. And once when Ellen was doing a handstand, Joe made out the faint blue veins underneath. No matter what position Ellen was in, they stuck straight out. If he mashed them gently, they resumed their perfect shape upon release. If he pushed them to one side and let go, they sprang back. They were practically brand new and the feeling Ellen insisted upon was that they were so wonderful they canceled any further expectations.

Joe overflowed with feeling for the girl in his arms. He had never felt such strong emotions. Everything meant something bigger. He could look at her for hours from only a couple of inches away.