The men seemed to loosen and touch more often as they got deeper into work, breaks between cuttings grew longer and more frequent. They sat on a little rise to the side of the corral passing dripping ice-chest beers and a bottle of Johnnie Walker J.C. had provided, gazing over at the string of fresh-cut geldings. Gimme a hit a that coffin varnish, they would say, and the bottle would be passed down, bloody hand to bloody hand, all of them half-shot with liquor but soon to work it off on the next horse.
"Must be some connection with their minds," said Sam. "Once you lop their balls off, whatever part of their mind that takes care of thinkin on the fillies must turn off too. So they don't even remember, don't even think like a stallion anymore. They forget the old ways."
"They turn into cows, is what. Just strong and dumb."
"But you got to do it," said J.C. "Otherwise you might's well let them run wild, run and fuck whenever they want, tear down all the fences and keep territory all to themselves. Nosir, it's got to be done."
The afternoon wore on in tugs and whinnies. Raymond forefooted a big roan all by himself and Brian caught a stray hoof in his thigh that spun him around. One of the horses, a little scab-colored animal, turned out to be a real bad one, kicking all red-eyed and salty, running at the men instead of away until Bad Heart up with a branding iron, swinging at its head and spitting oaths but only managing to herd it right on out of the half-open corral door. It scampered up the rise with the others, kicking its heels and snorting.
"Raymond, dammit!" yelled Jim Crow. "You sposed to latch that damn gate shut!"
"I did!" Raymond had the look of the falsely accused; he took his silver hat off to plead his innocence. "I closed it right after that last one."
"Then how'd it get open?"
"It wasn't me."
"Don't worry about it," said J.C. "We'll have to go catch him tomorra. He's a tricky sumbitch to bring in. Just a wrong-headed animal, is all. That's the one you give me," he said to Bad Heart, "pay back that loan."
Bad Heart grunted.
It was turning to evening when they finished. A cloud of fat black flies gloated over the heap of testicles in the corner. Brian had a charley-horse limp where he'd been kicked. They sprawled on the rise and pulled their boots off, wiggled red, sick-looking toes in the air, and sucked down beer in gasping pulls. Still-warm sweat came tangy through their denim, they knocked shoulders and knees, compared injuries, and debated over who would be sorest in the morning. Bad Heart coiled the rope he had brought and lay down alone in the back of the pickup. They pondered on what they should do next.
"The way I see it," said Jim Crow, "it's a choice between more of Minnie's cooking and goin out for some serious drinking."
They were silent then, it was up to J.C. to pass the verdict on his wife's cooking.
"Sheeit," he said, "if that's all that's keepin us here let's roll. What's open?"
"Not much. Not much legal, anyways. There is that what- sisname's place, up to Interior."
"Then let's get on the stick. Brian, you a drinkin man?"
"I suppose."
"Well you will be after tonight. Interior, what's that, fifty mile or so? Should be able to get there afore dark and then it's every man for himself. No need to change but we'll have to go round and tell the women. Let's ride, fellas."
In the pickup they talked about horses and farm machinery and who used to be a bad hat when they were young and who was still capable of some orneriness on a full tank and about drunks they'd had and horses they'd owned and about poor old Roger DuPree whose woman had the roving eye. They passed liquor front seat to truck-bed, taking careful, fair pulls of the remaining Johnnie Walker and the halfbottle of Mogen David J.C. had stashed under the barn floor. Brian closed one eye the way he did when he drank so they wouldn't cross and Bad Heart carefully wiped the neck when it was his turn. They banged over the yellow-brown land in the long plains twilight, holding the bottles below sight-line as they stopped at each trailer to say they wouldn't be out too late. Raymond started to protest when it was time for him to be left off, but Jim Crow said a few growling words and his mournful face darkened even sadder — it would just kill him if he had to smack the boy. Raymond didn't want a scene in front of the guys and scooted off flapping the rump of an imaginary mount with his silver hat. The liquor ran out and Sam's belly began to rumble so they turned out of their way to hunt some food.
They reached a little kitchen emporium just before it closed up and J.C. sprang for a loaf of Wonder Bread and some deviled-ham spread. The old woman in the store wore a crucifix nearly half her size and wouldn't sell alcoholic beverages. FOR PEACE OF MIND, said a faded sign over the door, INVESTIGATE THE CATHOLIC FAITH.
"Sonsabitches damnwell ought to be investigated," said Jim Crow. "Gotten so I can't but give a little peep of colorful language around the house and she's off in the bedroom on her knees mumbling an hour's worth of nonsense to save my soul. What makes her think I'd trust that bunch with my soul escapes me"
"Now they mean well enough, Jim, it's just they don't understand Indian ways. Think they dealin with a bunch of savages up here that haven't ever heard of religion. Think that somebody's got to get theirselves nailed to a tree before you got a religion."
"Fuck religion!" shouted Bad Heart from the back, and that ended the conversation.
A sudden rain hit them with a loud furious slap, drenching the men in the back instantly and smearing the windshield so thick that J.C. lost sight and the pickup sloughed sideways into the shoulder ditch. It only added to their spirits, rain soothing them where the sweat had caked itchy, not cold enough to soak through their layer of alcohol. It gave them a chance to show they didn't give a fart in a windstorm how the weather blew, to pile out and hunker down in the mud and slog and heave and be splattered by the tires when the pickup finally scrambled up onto the road. The flash downpour cut dead almost the moment the truck was free, just to make its point clear. J.C. spread a blanket over the hood and the men stood together at the side of the road waiting for Jackson Blackroot to slap them down a sandwich with his brand-new Bowie knife. The ham spread was a bit watery but nobody kicked, they hurried to stuff a little wadding down to soak up more liquor. They pulled wet jeans away from their skin and stomped their boots free of mud on the road pavement. J.C. came over to Brian.
"Don't you worry about the delay, son. We'll show you a real cowboy drunk soon enough."
"No rush."
"Damn right there's no rush. Got time to bum out here. Time grows on trees. Well, bushes anyway, we're a little short on trees. There isn't a picture show or a place with live music in some hundred miles, the Roman Church is about the only organization has regular meetings and you can have that. Isn't much cause for people to get together. Workin horses like we done is something though. A little excitement, even if it is work. Hell, it's better that it is work, you feel good about it even after it's over, not like a drunk where it takes a couple years of selective memory to make it into something you like to talk about."
"Doesn't seem so bad."
"Oh, there's worse, I'm sure. But I see you're passing through, not staying. Nobody lives here unless they were born here and can't hack it anywhere else. It's why most of the land around here was made into reservation, nobody else wanted it. Oh, the Badlands, up by Interior, they're striking to look at so the Park Service took them for the tourists, but the rest — hell, even the migrating birds don't come back anymore."
"Where you traveling to, Brian?" It was old Sam that asked.
"California."
He frowned. "You best be careful. That California is wild. Had a brother was killed there."