Mornings in Two Pan Read online

  Ox looked away first. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t understand family pride. Forget it. I’ll take care of Tower.”

  “No. You won’t. I shouldn’t have told you. No wonder you sit out here alone and don’t have any friends.”

  Ox leaned back. He stared at his son for a moment then stood, pushing off the table for assistance. “People may not like me. They may cuss me. But they know I’m a hard worker. Anyone in three counties will tell you I keep my word. I don’t cheat on a deal. They respect me and my family. I hope to God you can say that about yourself someday, ’cause it’s lookin’ slim.”

  Jiggs didn’t reply. He watched Ox walk into the darkness, taking slow steps toward his house, his arms bent slightly from his sides, giving him balance.

  With closed eyes, Jiggs let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair. Once again, he was the varmint son. The foul up. And it was true; he’d thrown ice water over tonight’s talk.

  Ox’s voice came from the darkness between their houses. “A long time ago, I told Tower he was so lazy he’d never wear out. He’d live his miserable life forever. And look...I was right.”

  “Yep. You were right.” Jiggs got up, walked to the corner of the house, and watched until his father’s door closed and the inside light blinked on.

  He’d achieved his goals. He hadn’t mentioned the skull and had discovered Bruno Woolsey probably wasn’t buried in the creek. Big deal. In the process he’d hurt his dad, telling him he was friendless and his grandmother was a whore. All of it reminded his father that his favorite son was gone.

  Jiggs still didn’t know whose skull he’d stepped on, but it was becoming a rotted trap door to a dark past. Picking up his plate and table trash, he went inside. He had a phone call to make.

  Don’t Let The Bull …

  THE NON-BURNED-out segments of the LED clock showed L:00 in the morning. Usually Jiggs woke up at that time, waiting for the phone to ring, but tonight, he hadn’t gotten to sleep yet. Throwing back the covers, he slipped on a pair of moccasins and traipsed outside in his underwear. The night was quiet.

  He paused by the corner of the house, looking for a light in the small cottage next door. All was dark. Walking quietly across the gravel, he wondered why a hard-nosed guy like his dad never seemed to have any trouble sleeping.

  Slowly, he opened the door of the faded-blue pickup. He bent and twisted to get under the dash. In a minute he squirmed out and sat on the running board, stretching his back.

  Crouching low, he pushed the door until it was almost closed. Then he nudged it with the palm of his hand, clicking it shut.

  He turned and padded across the gravel, pausing at the corner of his house. All was quiet. All was dark—except for the stars watching from heaven.

  *

  The next morning Curly Dogs stood at the horse trailer. He snorted a couple of times, refusing to go in until he’d had the requisite amount of scratching between the ears.

  “Wait up. I’ll go up to Blank Map with you.” Ox waved to Jiggs. His snap-button shirt was frayed at the cuffs. His jeans were raveled at the hems, but his boots, though worn, were waxed and well-tended.

  “Not going to Blank Map.” Jiggs led Curly Dogs into the trailer.

  “Oh.” Ox stuck his hands in his pockets and watched. “Where you headed off to?”

  “I’m riding with Hop Hopkins.”

  “What’s he got goin’ on?”

  “Don’t know. He said if I wanted to talk, meet him over on the Shiny. Knowing Hop, it’s a way to get work out of me.”

  “Don’t go spreading family business around with that old buzzard.” Ox gave Jiggs a withering look.

  “Well, if you won’t talk to me, I’ll find someone who will. Or I’ll discuss it with the sheriff if that’s more to your liking.”

  “You’re a piece of work. I’m asking you to shut up about the whole damn thing.”

  “I might if you’d tell me why. What’s got you so riled? Whose skull is it? Family, stranger, enemy? How’d it get there?”

  “It’s a bad dream. Leave it. You think digging around will bring anybody back to life?”

  “Tell me and I’ll make up my own mind.” Jiggs closed the trailer door and slid the bolt. “Oh wait. Everybody in this family has to think like you.”

  “It’d be a damn sight easier. Keeping you on point is like herdin’ wasps.”

  “There are laws about finding bones.” Jiggs stared at his dad.

  “Let me tell you somethin’. Every man’s trail is paved in bones. We all drag secrets behind us. If you live as long as me, you’ll be freighted with more than your fair share. More than you’re totin’ now.” Ox stared at him like a prospector assessing ore.

  Jiggs felt he was on the receiving end of judgment day. There were plenty of things he’d kept from his dad. But he’d never told anybody the worst one. Ox looked as though he knew. He walked around his father and busied himself, checking the gear in the truck bed.

  “You got time to ride with Hop, it’d be nice if you’d make time to ride fence with me one day. As I remember there were some good occasions in it. Nap should go too.”

  Jiggs was silent.

  “Never mind.” Ox walked away. “I’m busy anyway. Gotta get another part for that baler.”

  Jiggs looked up. “Don’t go messing with Old Man Tower.”

  “Once a jackass, always a jackass.”

  “You talking about you or him?”

  *

  The cattle guard onto Shiny Creek Ranch made a vibrating thump-thump-thump as Jiggs drove over it. He passed through three more gates, wishing he had a teenager to hop out and open and close each one. It used to be his job when he rode with his dad. “Forty years later and it’s still my job,” he mumbled to the chickadee in the tree that had stopped chirping to watch him. A quarter-mile farther along a two-track path, he parked in a clearing beside a ’70 Ford truck that had been top-of-the-line in its day. Now the side molding was falling off.

  Dooley Munroe was hunkered by a rockjack, using a tire iron to twist two wires tight between fence posts. Jiggs’ childhood buddy had aged, but was still lanky as though food refused stick to his bones. It was strange to see Hop sitting in a camp chair, near his horse, surveying Dooley’s work. His broad-shouldered frame didn’t carry as much weight as it used to. Both men watched Jiggs get out.

  “This looks like an industrious outfit.” Jiggs swung an open palm toward Dooley and had it met with a handshake.

  “Something you wouldn’t know fart about.” Hop Hopkins stayed in his chair and reached out.

  Jiggs gave his hand a single shake. “As I remember, Dooley, Sol, and I fixed this fence thirty years ago. Don’t tell me it’s falling down already.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t get my money’s worth outta you peahens.” Hop slowly pushed to his feet. “You ready to ride? We’ll check the rest of the fence.”

  Jiggs went back to his trailer and was tightening cinches when Dooley stepped beside him. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea, but I couldn’t talk him out of it. Here. Take this.” Jiggs stared at the roped bundle he held out. “It’s oxygen. Hop hates it. Won’t carry it. But if he gets out of breath…” Dooley shook his head. “His nitro pills are in there, too.”

  “Good grief. Why didn’t you call me? You think he’s gonna die on me?”

  “Some days, I think he could still toss you and me over a hay wagon. Other days, he has a hard time getting a breath.”

  “Maybe we oughtn’t be doing this? You comin?”

  Dooley shook his head. “Nope. He wants to talk to you, personal. He’s set on it.”

  Jiggs took the bundle and threw several hitches over it, snugging it behind the saddle like a bedroll. He wore the face of a man who’d stepped into a water hole deeper than his boot tops. “I wanted to talk to him, not be the death of him. We won’t go far.”

  As they walked toward the old man and his white quarter horse, Dooley’s voice dropped lower. “He says he’ll ride a
s long as he can sit a saddle, but if he’s out for long, he’ll be so sore, he won’t be able to walk for a few days. Old age takes everybody prisoner.”

  “We don’t have to ride. We can talk over there.” Jiggs pointed to a stump.

  Dooley didn’t reply. He glanced at the old man who was standing ramrod straight and staring at him.

  “I don’t know what you’re yappin’ about,” Hop said, watching Dooley take a step stool from the back of the Ford and set it next to the saddled horse. “But you look guilty as hell. Like that time you covered the sheriff’s car in wet cotton balls and let ’em freeze overnight.”

  “Never proved it was me.” Dooley looked at Jiggs. “Too bad it was such a long cold snap, huh?”

  Hop kicked the step stool out of his way. “I don’t need any hitch up. The day I can’t get on a horse is the day I stop riding and shoot myself.”

  “The less you strain your heart, the better it’ll be.” Dooley held the bridle, in one hand and steadied the old man as he pulled himself into the saddle.

  Jiggs threw a leg over Curly Dogs and looked at Dooley. “You gonna be here?” His former classmate nodded.

  “C’mon, Jiggs.” Hop reined Eagle and walked away. “When you two titsy-fritzels finish worrying, try to catch up.”

  Eagle had made the trip along the fence many times. He stepped over boulders and shouldered his way through sage brush.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go too far?” Jiggs said.

  Hop threw a look over his shoulder and reined Eagle sharply to the left, up a steep hill.

  “Craphouse crickets,” Jiggs mumbled as dirt clods and rocks bounced toward him. He pointed his horse’s nose in the same direction. Curly Dogs snorted several times, letting Jiggs know he didn’t think much of the off-trail excursion.

  Topping the thirty-foot hill, they came into a flat meadow ringed with trees. A spring bubbled from a pool and ran to the downslope. Hop halted beneath a circle of pines, dropping the reins as he got off. Eagle lowered his head, cropping green shoots and spring flowers.

  The old man wore an amused look. “After you called, I got to thinkin’. And I got a little matter I wanna talk to you about, too.” He kicked around a boulder. Satisfied there weren’t any snakes, he eased onto it and sat. “You go first.”

  “You need anything?” Jiggs asked.

  “You wanna talk or nursemaid?” Hop waved him away. “Get on with it.”

  “I found something,” Jiggs said quickly, looking at the old man for signs of fatigue. He still had the chiseled face, weathered and lean with hard work. The hair sticking out from under his cowboy hat was as white as it had always been. It didn’t seem the old guy had changed much. Jiggs found a rock to sit on. “I was working Starvation Creek which has rerouted itself and left us dry. Anyway, I dug up a skull in the streambed. Real old. Everything has rotted. Just bone left.”

  “Dig a deeper hole and drop it back in.” Hop gazed into the hazy purple distance.

  “I’m pretty sure there’s a law about that.”

  “When’d you start worryin’ about the law? I remember you was always pullin’ some empty-headed stunt. I had to vouch for you a couple of times.”

  “So why did you take me under your wing?”

  Hop looked down and gently rubbed his eyelid with his thumbnail. “Ox took the passing of your mom pretty hard. Seemed like he had his own demons to fight without tryin’ to raise you and Pax.”

  “You did the same for me when I lost Katie—arranging for Zinnia Roggs to take care of Nap. Then you worked me to death. I don’t want to go through that again.”

  “That’s what neighbors are for. Everybody goes through a hard spell. Now why’s this old skull a problem? Throw it back in a hole and forget it.”

  “I figured the skull had a family. They might like to know where it ended up. If I turn it in, the authorities will get it where it needs to be. Yeah, I know,” he cut off Hop who’d opened his mouth. “We’ll lose money if they close of that land to dig. But Dad’s acting like it’s part of the Kennedy assassination. I think he knows whose skull it is.”

  “All the more reason to shut up.” Hop took a breath, “Did you ever know Willy Springfield?” Jiggs shook his head. “The Springfields had been here a good while, prob’ly fifty years. Now that I think about it, this was before your time. Willy went to his graduation party in the granite quarry. Willy was talkin’ and dancin’ with a couple of girls. Bein’ friendly and what not. He was the last person to see them alive. So they scooped up Willy and questioned him. The boy had been too drunk the night before to remember anything. People pointed fingers. The FBI got involved. When they couldn’t find the girls, the authorities plowed up the Springfields’ ranch, every acre of it, looking for those girls’ bodies. Willy wasn’t a bad kid. He’d knocked heads with the law several times, kinda like you.” Hop gave Jiggs a measured look. “Well, long-story-short, Willy spent the next ten years, claiming he was innocent.

  “Then we had a drought. Worse than now. Somebody walking the riverbed, found the back end of the girls’ little Ford sticking out of silt and buckbrush. Those girls were still in it. No evidence of any foul play. They’d missed the corner and drove off, next to the bridge into the water. Even after the State apologized and let Willy out, tongues still wagged. His family sold out. Moved away from the stink that never shoulda been on their name.”

  “But that was a murder investigation. People were looking for their daughters.”

  “Yep. You don’t know what you’ve got there, so you might have more government agencies involved. And heaven help you if it was a Nez Perce who died. You’d have the Department of Indian Affairs and an armload of tribal agencies involved. And for what? That skull could be anybody and come from anywhere. Probably from the plague year; it coulda washed into the crick and rolled downstream.”

  “Then why did Ox blow up when I told him about it? He went out and stomped it to pieces. He was mad. Not his usual you’re-a-dumb-ass angry, but Armageddon fury. I don’t know why he didn’t take it and move it where I couldn’t find it.”

  “Probably figured you’d tell somebody, and then they would dig up the whole ranch. Ox has his reasons to be pissed. You’ve only known him for forty-five years, but your dad lived a whole life before you showed up in this world. Hell, for that matter, we all did. I’d say he’s had to freight a bigger load than most. Your granddad put him through hell.”

  “I’ve heard a few of the drinking stories.”

  “I remember the first time I saw Brick. I was a little shaver, sittin’on the corral fence.”

  “Was he drunk?”

  “Far from it. You know how a kid looks when he hasn’t grown into his man-body? They’re dumb and clumsy, and you’re pretty sure they’re never gonna be any other way? Kinda like you.” He didn’t wait for Jiggs to answer, but continued, watching the breeze bend the yellow, thin-stemmed flowers. “Then the kid surprises you. Works hard and somehow goes from being a goosey-squirt to a man.” He glanced at Jiggs. “Well, Brick wasn’t that kid. He showed up at our corral, wearing a three-piece pinstripe suit, a Bowler hat, and shiny black shoes. He was a big-earred eastern tenderfoot. He introduced hisself and announced he’d come to work the Woolsey ranch. Opinion was, his mama had sent him back to Oregon to avoid going to France for the Great War.”

  “This was Bruno Woolsey’s kid?” Jiggs asked. “The one he had by a saloon gal? Old Man Tower told me they’d become dignified and gone to Saint Louis.”

  “I don’t recollect exactly where he came from or any stories about his mama. But his problem wasn’t being a dandy. Dirt, boots, and time coulda put a cure to that. No, I’m sorry to tell you, he didn’t have the common sense God gave a horse fly. I’m not talkin’ about greenhorn screw ups. He’d make the same mistakes over and over. Part of his problem was that he trusted people. Or maybe he wanted folks to like him, so he’d go along with the crap they handed out.

  “I got to see him a lot. He worked a deal with my dad.
We could use his land for raising horses. He’d help break them, and they’d split the profits when they sold them to the army. The ranch hands were always putting him on the worst nag they had. I saw him try to mount a wrang that had froth foaming from its mouth. A fella named Totty Banks bet Brick that he couldn’t ride it for thirty seconds. Totty was joshin’, but Brick—he wasn’t a loud man—he bit his bottom lip, assessing the whole affair, and mumbled. ‘I can do it.’

  “Totty had Brick out there, circling, looking for a way to step onto a nightmare. It took three men on ropes, holding that flipper down to keep it from heaving backwards. It was madder than a cut snake. My dad put the kibosh on the ride when he saw what was happening. He told him, ‘If you die, I don’t want to hunt up a new business partner.’ ’Course, that was Brick’s chance to get out with some dignity. Totty didn’t razz him. He thought Brick would back out when he got near all the snortin’ and flyin’ dirt.

  “Brick didn’t seem to have a clue about the grace he’d been offered. He kept roundin’ the horse and sayin’, ‘I can do this.’”

  “Hardheaded.” Jiggs nodded. “Sounds like a Woolsey.”

  “I guess he thought a manly act like that would snag him a reputation for being brave. And I suppose it was a courageous thing he was trying to do. But nobody saw it that way.

  “I got off the corral fence and got down behind it. I could see Brick was scared. Hell, I was scared. The fellas holding the horse were scared. Brick barely got one foot in a stirrup when a volcano exploded in that very spot. Two of the men got drug before they could get free. Another flew in the air. As soon as they could, they were runnin’. Brick was glued to the dirt. I guess he didn’t know enough to never let the bull between him and the fence.”

  Hop stared at the movie playing in air in front of him. “Brick stood, his hands out to his sides, watching that bronc jump straight in the air and then dive, planting all four hooves like he was trying to punch a hole through the earth. That horse’s eyeballs were rolling in its sockets. On one orbit, an eye musta seen Brick, because the beast bounced like a pogo stick, straight for him.