Rhizomania, or The Cavalry Gun

"We got to get this Sayre situation taken care of, though," said Shorty.  As a compromise, a note was given to Frank's wfe Maybelle, who'd stopped by Shorty's house on her way down to the Spanish Store. She had plans to spend her afternoon doing some sewing with Hortencia Lujan, and Hortencia's son Cesario would convey the note to his employer, making sure that Doran's planned visit would be a welcome one.  If the answer was no, Cesario would tell his mother and his mother would tell Maybelle and Maybelle would tell Frank to come down and stop Doran before he got to Sayre's place. Once this awkward arrangement was set in place, it was time for Doran, Shorty and Frank to get busy in the hay field.  Frank, surveying the long, narrow field which sloped down the gentle hill from his own ranch to Short's, scanned the windrows of raked hay. Each stripe in the field had gone from green to pale yellow as the hay, turned over two days after the cu

“Did you want me to shoot him in the back?” asked Shorty, shifting the rifle in his arms so he could get at his tobacco pouch. “You told him to run, you know you did,” said Doran. “We should have kept him at the house and taken him to the sheriff.” “And told the sheriff that a man came in our barn and moved a horse and tied him up wrong?” Shorty opened the leather pouch, withdrew a cigarette paper and a pinch of tobacco, and began to roll a smoke. “There ain’t any laws against being a just plain stupid person, Doran.” “They cut the fence!” Doran shouted, curling his hands into fists.  He paced around in a circle, the loose uppers of his mulehide boots rubbing against his bare legs. “They about beat me to death!  They was going to burn the barn down with Redboy and Ben in it!” Shorty licked the cigarette paper’s edge, finished the tight cylinder, then stuck it in his mouth. He lifted the lantern from its spot on the grassy turf, raised the mantle on it, and applied the hot fl

“Your ribs was all popped out of place,” said Shorty. “Shifted over, with their tethers all twisted. You’re all right now, ain’t you?” He picked up his Winchester from among damp clumps of buffalograss, and held out a leathery hand for the fallen man to take. “Go ahead and get up on your feet and see if you can walk.” Doran briefly considered coming around to the man’s other side and offering another hand, but he thought it best to stay back and ready in case there was trouble.  Shorty had a good grip on the Winchester, but if the man lunged for the rifle, Doran could step up and push him down as long as he had a couple steps’ head start.   The man rolled forward on his dusty knees, then cautiously pushed himself up from the ground, waiting to straighten his back until he had taken an experimental deep breath. Satisfied, he had a change of attitude. He now stood upright with his shoulders rolled backward into a defiant posture, so that he both leaned back in a contentious man’s sl

Then he heard Redboy’s high, frightened whinny.   Doran’s feet were in his boots and he was on the other side of the one-room dwelling in a moment, leaving behind him and a spilled tin cup lying in a dark puddle of cold coffee, plus an upset chair, in his wake.   Outside in the cool night air, Doran heard behind him, through  the open doorway, the sounds of a sleepy, confused Shorty, stumbling in the dark and swearing continuously.  From inside the dark cabin came a louder, metallic sound. After a moment, Doran identified it as the spilled tin cup on its side, rattling across the pine floorboards and hit the wall. Shorty said loudly, to the dark, empty room, “What are you about , Doran?” But Doran, even if he'd felt like explaining a spilled coffee cup on the floor, did not have time for rhetorical questions. He'd already begun to run toward the barn, where Redboy’s distress sounds had intensified, both vocal distress calls and the heavy thumps of hoofs hitting the s

“We went  every  day,” said Shorty, sounding astonished at the younger man’s ignorance. “I had a good job on the work crew that laid in all those lagoons and canals –“ “Lagoons?” “Don’t you know nothing ?” said Shorty, mopping his face with his bandanna, then tucking the damp cloth into his pants pocket. “The fairgounds was all water up the middle. The Grand Basin and canals off the main basin, leading off in every direction.With gondola boats, like a canoe but the ends curl up.  And then there was islands. Lagoons and waterways around the islands. Who do you think dug all that out?”  Shorty leaned over, reached out and picked up a well-worn work boot from a wall shelf. He grasped the broken-off end of some loose stitching with his thumb and forefinger, and began to pull the stiff, dirty thread away from the leather. “Some of the other fellas thought the foreman might not want me to hire on. Thought I was too little. But when I went to see him, I told him, “You let me dig all

Shorty, riding ahead, turned in the saddle to regard the younger man. “Doran, you ought to go down and speak to Mr. Nemecek about that girl Barbara. If you had a wife, we could eat good.” “If she knows how to cook,” said Doran. “Was Winnie a good cook?” “Took blue ribbons at fair time every year,” said Shorty. “She’d take a ham and stick it all over with these little black things.“ “What were they?” said Doran. “Some kind of spice,” said Shorty. “They smelled good. And she’d slather honey on the meat, and I don’t know what else. I tell you what, I miss that good ham.” They rode in silence for a bit. Looking at the shrubs among the long prairie grass, Doran saw that the scarce bits of green and purple had almost disappeared, leaving the flat landscape greenish-brown. The cottonwood saplings, few and far-between, still had their heart-shaped leaves. Tiny bits of white and pink, showed where patches of asters and ironweed still thrived. But the loss of color meant that Neb