Artifact 11: Life on Corona Ranch Takes a Turn

Corona Ranch usually runs like a finely tuned machine, but that machine is about to get an unexpected wrench thrown into it.

.Artifact 11: Life on Corona Ranch Takes a Turn

 

            This soon-to-be-singular day began pretty much the same as any other day on Corona Ranch: Rusty slept off his bender, John Thompson toked on a cigar, Melba Thompson tended the garden, and Salazar prepared breakfast.

             On his way to begin his day, Salazar stopped the second time by the truck where Rusty still slept, but this time he opened the door, gripped Rusty’s shoulder, shook him, and spoke to Rusty.

“Senor Young, Senor Young!” Salazar said. “El sol es ascendente y usted necesita levantarse para el trabajo. Senora Thompson esta trabajanto en el jardin. Mis companeros de trabajo estan consiguiendo listos trabajar con los ganados.” 

Rusty opened his eyes and gave Salazar a sickly grin.

“Vali, vali, Salazar. Time to go to work, I got it,” Rusty said, adding a groan as he stretched and swung his legs out onto the ground.

He paused in that position with his back propped against the truck seat and his cowboy boot heels dug into the gravel. He still wore his good, ‘going out to town’ clothes including a two-tone tapered-cut shirt with pearl buttons, wrinkled but clean except for a fresh stain on an elbow, and almost new jeans with a blood stain on the thigh but still neatly tucked into highly polished black with white and red tooling cowboy boots. His silver spurs jingled when he shifted into a more upright position. 

            “S**t! Look at my boot!” Rusty swore to Salazar, pointing to a massive scrape across the right instep.

Feeling the ache in his foot, he remembered that in his scuffle last night, a guy vying for Jaclyn’s affections stomped on his foot just before Rusty decked the guy, but it didn’t end there. He recalled being on the receiving end of a return punch, going down on one elbow as a result, and the fresh guy’s nose bleeding on his leg when Rusty tackled and wrestled him down. In recollection, Rusty wiggled his aching jaw and swore again looking at his wrecked clothes. He vowed that he’d get even with the guy next time though Jaclyn said she didn’t care for that guy at all and that Rusty shouldn’t bother getting even. She added that Rusty shouldn’t get worked up over other guys making a pass at her which occurred on a regular basis. Nevertheless, Rusty got worked up like always.

Seeing Rusty pushing himself to his feet, Salazar departed, satisfied that he could get back to his breakfast preparations. After taking a leak behind the big oak, Rusty made his way to the bunkhouse after a return trip to the truck for his ‘goin’ out’ hat that seemed unscathed from his scuffle. The two other hired hands, Tab and Amos were already out of bed, dressed, and at work in the corral. Yesterday, Rusty had instructed them to get the past springs’ newborn calves together for branding in the small corral after installing the loading chute. It would be an especially good year on Corona Ranch because there were seventy-three young beef calves.

            The bunkhouse was rustic living at its best for the cowboys. It was far better than being out on the range with the cattle in all kinds of nasty weather or sleeping on the cool prairie under the stars. Bunkhouse living drew the working cowboys together as amigos as long as they remembered who was the boss. In this Corona Ranch bunkhouse, corral, or range the boss was Rusty because he had the full confidence and support of the owner John Thompson as long as he kept his drinking and fighting under control and not at Corona Ranch.

Rusty changed his clothes as fast as his hungover body could move. The boys had a pot of hot cowboy coffee on the small stove by the door. During his shirt exchange, Rusty sloshed some coffee into a tin cup and took a huge gulp instantly burning his tongue and throat. Rusty swore again but continued his dressing with intermittent coffee swallows that were a bit more conservative. Rusty’s brain slowly began to function again and his focus on the day’s onuses cleared.

            Rusty’s original plan was to get at least half the calves branded before breakfast and beat the quickly rising daytime temperature which in mid-July was sure to be at least a hundred degrees. As usual, he felt behind schedule after a night on the town. Of course, the progress on the task at hand depended on how far John and Amos had already proceeded on their own unsupervised. Almost dressed, he pulled on his worn, beat up, smelly, and droopy work boots out from under his bunk. They definitely had seen their better days with utterly no brown leather exposed on the lowers because of the scuffing, dust, dirt, and dried manure not to mention the deep burn on the left shin where a branding iron went astray.

 “Battle scar,”  Rusty says proudly to anyone who is interested.

            Carrying the coffee in the tin cup to the door, he pulled down off a peg his work hat and tipped it on, the well-used Pampas-style hat Salazar had given him years ago. Rusty likes this hat for work because of the shorter brim that isn’t as good in the rain, but the brim doesn’t get in the way for close-quarter tasks like branding. Walking around the end of the barn, Rusty smelled wood smoke which assured him that the boys were working though the smoke wasn’t tinged with that familiar acrid smell of burnt hair. He knows that smell all too well even though no one noticed the foul smell once branding proceeds to the second calf.

            “Hey! Top o’ mornin’ to ‘ya,” Tab said brightly but softly. He knew that Rusty had a splitting head after his rowdy night.

             “Howdy boys.” Rusty said as civilized as he could with his aching head. He put back the rest of the coffee. It singed his throat, but it helped his focus. He hung the cup on the usual untrimmed stub of a limb on a fence post. “So how’s it goin’?” 

            “Good enough,” Amos said. “You know boss, you were right about that scrawny brown bugger. He must have gotten into some pong weed before we brought ‘em in. He’s down and out next to the barn. I checked him all over and hosed him with some castor. Guess we’ll let him be and see if he comes around.” 

             “Good job. Did you get started here yet? Rusty asked, even though he could tell that they hadn’t.

            “No, we just got the chute wheeled around and the fire nice and hot,” Said Tab scanning the sun angle. “You want to start pokin’ them before breakfast?”

            “Sure thing, shouldn’t burn a good morning’s daylight. Got the irons hot and ready?” Rusty asked, but a visual confirmation gave him his answer. He nodded to the two men and pulled one of the lariats off the fence, un-reeled the noose, and gave it a couple quick swings. Amos did likewise and headed out toward the milling herd of young cattle with a few already bawling without being touched.

            “The big blacky out front, closer to you.” Rusty said, pointing with his noose hand. 

             Amos threw first and scored right over the black calf’s’ head and the noose tightened up as the calf twisted away, but Rusty had anticipated the calf’s reaction and direction. He threw his rope that found its way around the calf’s neck. With two ropes on the calf, it couldn’t go far. Even though it wrestled violently, the men were used to much larger animals on the end of their ropes. They dug their heels in and reeled themselves in closer to the calf hand over hand along the ropes. They pulled the calf closer to Tab who stood ready, gloved hand on the handle of the red-hot iron that lay in the blazing fire.

 Rusty looped his rope around the calf’s rear legs and pulled up toppling the bawling calf to the ground. Amos kneeled and planted his knee into the calf’s neck as Rusty did the same on the animal’s hip. Tab pulled the iron from the fire, and in the split-second the calf quit moving he planted the iron straight and firm. The calf bawls became a squall, but he was soon on his feet with smoke still wisping off his branded hip. Using their ropes, they guided the calf to the chute and shut the gate behind him, unlooping their nooses in the process. 

             “A good start.  Ready to go again, Amos?”

            “You bet,” answered Amos already looping his rope in a coil for his next throw.        

            Moving right along, the threesome got fifteen calves branded in so many minutes. The men worked efficiently as a cohesive team so experienced in their work that no words needed to be said because they knew what the others were thinking and how the calves would react. On the sixteenth calf, John came around the corner of the corral to inspect the branding progress. 

              “Looking good boys, want some breakfast? Salazar says it is ready, now!  You know he takes his cookin’ serious, so we had better pay heed,” John said with a smile watching his men work.

            “Yep, we sure do know it,” Rusty shouted over the current calf’s bawling and scampering feet as he and Amos flipped the calf over for Tab’s stamp. “We’ll be right there after this calf and cleaning up.”

            “All right, I’ll see you in a minute.” John turned, walking back to the house with a wisp of cigar smoke curling around his head and trailing behind in his wake.

            The three men branded the calf quickly and got him turned out with the other branded calves. Tab threw a bolt of wood on the fire to keep it hot while they ate breakfast. Amos hung his rope on the fence and stepped through the split rails. Rusty pulled off his bent, well-worn hat and briskly flipped it over his pant legs to chase the heavy dust out that had already collected on them. As he started for the bunkhouse, he stopped and turned back to the fence post to retrieve his tin cup. Outside the bunkhouse, the three men simultaneously stamped their feet to shake the dust and dirt off their boots.

            Amos paused and said, “You hear that?”

            “Hear what?” Rusty asked.

            “I guess it’s just an Army/Air Force plane,” Amos replied, looking around to the sky pausing in the direction that was clear of oak foliage. “Yeah, there it is, look there.” He pointed. “Way up there and banking around. That’s odd, cuz we don’t see ‘em much out this way.”

             “I guess no one never makes mention of them or I never paid any notice,” Tab said. Rusty gestured for them to get a move on.

The men took turns washing up at a basin set outside on the bunkhouse porch by the hand pump. The basin sat on a three-legged stool and a chair nearby had a towel draped over it. Either Salazar or Mrs. Thompson did that every morning to keep the men from messing up the house sink. The men dried off and headed to the house. 

            John met them on the way in, stubbing his cigar out on the porch rail. “I guess that young guy, Hanson, is doing all right after that fireworks accident,” John said. “They reported on him today on the news. Messed up his fingers bad, you know.” 

            The men shook their heads knowing about the incident. Knowing that John always checked the market prices every day, Rusty asked, “how are the beef prices holding up?”

            “Not bad, they slid down a couple pennies, but I’m sure they’ll come back around by this fall.”

            “Let’s hope so,” interjected Tab.

            Inside the ranch house, they saw Salazar hard at work at the hot wood cook stove scrambling up the last of the eggs. Bacon was heaped high on a huge serving platte, next to piled up fried potatoes along with a tall stack of toast.

 “Nothing fancy today, Sal?” Asked Rusty as he sat a little too hard and jolted his already sore head. He held his head in both hands for a few seconds.

            “No senor, cocinero las comidas mas rapido hoy. Senor Thompson habla nosotros tienes mucho trabajo.”

            Rusty nodded in agreement, but Mrs. Thompson noticed Rusty’s headache reaction and offered up a tonic she made for Rusty on his worse days.  

            “No thanks ma’am. Another cup of strong coffee will do me just fine and dandy,” Rusty said with his best manners.           

            With that, she gave him a smile and a steaming cup she poured from the stainless steel perk pot. Despite his headache, Rusty was already shoveling eggs into his mouth with a vengeance. He picked up a thick strip of smoked bacon with his fingers, bit it off and began chewing it down. Rusty froze in mid-bite, realizing what he was doing, suddenly recalling the rest of his table manners he was supposed to use when eating in the Thompson house. He sheepishly glanced about.  

 “Ah, sorry, Ma’am, I didn’t know how hungry I was,” he said, chewing slower and washing it down with a sip of coffee.

            “That’s fine dear; we know you working men are hungry. This isn’t a fine dining out establishment where we worry about manners,” Said Mrs. Thompson with another warm smile.

            “I don’t know about that, Miz Thompson,” Tab said. “Between your cookin’ and Salazar’s, this house always has the best fine eating�"better than any eatin’ out place.”   

             Despite his Spanish, Salazar understood and smiled proudly as he finished putting the remainder of the eggs, bacon, and toast on another platter and sat down at the end of the table. Amos paused his chewing and looked aside. 

            “You hear that?”  He asked.

             “What’s with you hearing things today?” Tab asked, turning to Amos with squinted eyes and a furrowed brow. “It’s probably just that airplane you heard outside.”

            “Oh, I hear it now, Amos.” Said Mrs. Thompson.

            “Don’t think it’s that plane.” Rusty said pointing up and circling his finger in the air. “No, I think someone is coming up the lane.” He patted the air. “Don’t get up; I’ll see what they need.”

            He took another big bite and with a scrape of his chair on the wood floor, Rusty pivoted out of his chair and stepped out the door. Standing on the porch and peering down the lane, he saw the dust from a couple vehicles coming up the gravel lane seconds before he saw the vehicles themselves. As they made the last turn into the oak tree boundary that surrounded the buildings, Rusty was surprised to see that they were green army vehicles.

            The US Army’s arrival signaled the beginning of a significant unsettling change for Rusty and John.