Shortgrass Song (73 page)

“I've seen 'em used on some of those great big ranches down in Texas,” he mumbled, gripping his nails with one side of his mouth. He was growing his mustache long again, and the little iron spikes looked like straight, square whiskers jutting from his lip. “They use 'em there so they won't have to send line riders out with messages all the time.”

“What give you the idea I needed one?”

“That day the old man busted into your cabin and tore into you about not bein' handy all the time. I figured if we ran a few telephones between here and his office in town, he could put you to work about twenty-four hours a day.”

Buster grunted. “That's probably just what'll happen, too. How come you didn't order more wire? You got to have a lot of wire to go between the boxes.”

“Already got it strung,” Caleb said.

“Where?”

With the palm of his hand he wiped the glaze of moisture from the inside of the cold windowpane and pointed at the nearest corner post of Buster's cow pasture. “Right there. Top strand.”

“You're gonna hook it up to bobwire?”

“That's the way they do it in Texas. The corner of your pasture connects with the old man's south pasture. His south pasture runs right by his cabin and Amelia's house one way and dang near all the way to town the other way. No need to string new wire when we already got it runnin' all over the park.”

“And that works?” Buster asked.

“Except when it rains,” Caleb said, pounding in the last nail.

Gloria came in from Amelia's mansion to fix Buster's dinner. “What are you two doin' to my house?” she asked with no slight concern.

“Puttin' in a telephone,” Buster said.

“Telephone? Are we gonna be able to talk to the folks in town?”

Buster nodded. “We're gonna hook it straight to Colonel Ab's office.”

“Not that town! I was talkin' about the Springs. Ain't you gonna hook it up to Colorado Springs?”

“Woman, you don't know anybody with a telephone in Colorado Springs anyhow.”

“If I had a telephone that would go there, I might get to know some of them! Why did you put it there by the front door? Why didn't you put it in the kitchen where I could use it?”

“You can use it here,” Buster said.

“Next time you go messin' with my house, you better ask me first.” She stormed through the parlor and into the kitchen.

Caleb grimaced and Buster rolled his eyes.

After dinner they drilled a hole in the parlor wall, despite Gloria's protestations. They ran two smooth telephone wires through the hole. One of them went along the side of the house and into the ground. The other ran out from under the porch roof and across the yard to the fence surrounding Buster's cow pasture.

Standing in the dirty slush of week-old snow, they attached a tall pole to a fence post to suspend the telephone wire high above Buster's front yard, over the heads of riders and wagon drivers. They ran the smooth wire down the high pole and connected it to the top strand of barbed wire on Buster's fence.

Buster looked down the fence line toward Ab's south pasture and saw that the barbed wire circuit wasn't continuous. “I guess we got to run a high wire over the gate, too,” he said.

“I thought you didn't know nothin' about a telephone.”

“Common sense,” he said, shrugging.

“The most uncommonest kind of sense there is, ain't it? The world's shy on it, but you sure got your share.”

They lashed a tall pole on either side of the gate, held tightly in place with twisted wire. They spliced a length of wire to the top strand on the fence, ran it over the tops of the tall poles, and spliced it again to the top barbed wire on the other side of the gate. Now the gate could be opened and wagons could pass underneath without breaking the circuit.

They hitched Buster's farm wagon and loaded a spool of wire, some poles, a few fence-working tools, and three other telephone boxes. They drove to the corner of Buster's pasture where it joined with Ab's big south pasture, inspecting the barbed telephone wire along the way for breaks. At the corner, they spliced the top strand of Buster's fence to the top strand of Ab's.

They traced the top strand of barbed wire around the perimeter of the big pasture and back toward the Holcomb Ranch headquarters. They encountered two barbed wire gaps and a gate and had to install more tall poles and splice more wires over the passages. Toward late afternoon they came to a corner where three fence lines met. One led toward Ab's log cabin. Another led past Amelia's mansion.

“Whose telephone are you gonna put in next?” Buster said.

“Well, I don't know. What's Gloria fixin' for Amelia's supper tonight?”

“Duck.”

“Duck? You sure?”

“I shot 'em myself.”

“Does Gloria cook a good duck?”

“Oh, she cooks 'em mighty good. She bastes that duck in butter and drippin's, then she stuffs it and serves it with 'taters, brown gravy, and greens.”

“And biscuits?”

“No, Miss Amelia likes white bread.”

“Doggone it, I guess I'll put in Amelia's telephone next, then.”

They inspected the top strand of wire from the corner post to Amelia's horse stalls, where they would have to set several poles in the ground along a line running from the stalls to the mansion.

“Where are we goin' with the wire?” Buster asked, grabbing the posthole diggers.

“I don't know. I better go ask Amelia where she wants her telephone.”

Gloria answered the door when he knocked. Before Caleb could get a word out, she said, “Miss Amelia said to hang it on the kitchen wall. She said there ain't nothin' ruder than somebody talkin' on a telephone in the parlor when they have real-live guests sittin' in the room with them, or when somebody's trying to read the paper under the light. Captain Dubois had him a telephone in his parlor, and Miss Amelia made him move it to the kitchen.”

“Wherever she wants it is fine with me,” Caleb said.

“She told me to ask you if you want to stay for supper tonight.”

“Why, yes, I would. I'd never pass up a chance to eat your cookin', Gloria.”

She smirked. “I guess I better stuff another duck then.” She turned into the mansion, closing the door in Caleb's face.

Gloria made Buster drive her home after the poles had been set and the telephone wires strung into the kitchen. The roast-duck dinner was on the table, so Caleb put aside the varnished walnut box with the polished black mouthpiece jutting from it like a blunderbuss. Holcomb Ranch's dawn of electric communications would have to wait until after supper.

When they sat down, Amelia asked Caleb to say the blessing. He turned red and felt a hot flush but said he would try. It was just Amelia there, after all.

“Heavenly Father,” he began, “we thank you for these wild ducks and this garden truck and all. Not to mention store-bought things like salt and pepper and coffee.” His tongue got mired for a moment, but he recovered. “And for the good friends and family to share it with, and the memory of them that can't be with us. In Christ's name we pray, amen.”

Amelia smiled, her eyes glittering beautifully. “That was very nice,” she said.

“Well, it ain't as good as Pete used to pray.” He grabbed a fancy china bowl full of mashed potatoes. “I'm sure glad you asked me to supper tonight. This roast duck beats the likes of what I've been feeding on—poke salad and peckerwood eggs mostly.”

She threw back the corner of a napkin wrapped around a loaf of well buttered bread. “Well, you look gaunt. You probably haven't eaten a decent meal in months.”

“The last one I had was down in Long Fingers's village,” he said, taking a slice of steaming bread. “Big victory celebration. They made the chief's favorite dishes.”

“What would that be?”

“Roast dog and unborn calf!” He grew wide-eyed and grinned at Amelia.

She paused with her fork before her lips but choked back her protestations and ate. “Caleb,” she said, sipping her tea. “I've been thinking of selling our cattle to make more pasture available to the horses. The Appaloosas are getting very popular among the people in town Would you be available next summer to round the cattle up and market them for me?”

“Hadn't thought that far ahead,” Caleb replied. He forked a load of roast duck into his mouth.

“I wouldn't ask, but I can't do it myself, you know. And I thought … if you were going to be here…”

Caleb grunted. His eyes shifted as his jaws performed some unusual mastications.

“Caleb?”

In a moment he put his fingers to his lips and removed a small lead pellet from the end of his tongue. He dropped it onto the floral china with a clink. “Buster's eyes must be goin' bad. He used to shoot 'em clean in the head every time.”

*   *   *

After supper, Caleb insisted on hooking up the telephone as Amelia soaked dishes for Gloria to wash the next day.

“Now, see this wire?” he said, explaining the contraption. “That runs out there to the top strand of the fence and all the way over to Buster's Cincinnati house, and it's hooked up to his telephone. Now, listen, don't ever hold onto that top wire. Don't grab aholt of it if you're crawlin' through the fence or somethin', because if somebody just happens to crank on this handle, it'll send a jolt through you like lightning.”

Amelia frowned over her shoulder. “Is it dangerous?”

“Well, it won't kill you or anything, but it won't tickle either.” He hooked up the battery and the ground wire, made a final splice, and closed the hinged front of the telephone box.

“May I try it?” she asked, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“I don't see why not.” He stepped back to let her send the maiden signal.

Amelia angled the blunderbuss upward and turned the magneto handle as if grinding a coffee mill for an army.

“Whoa!” Caleb said. “You're liable to spook Gloria up the chimney like that.”

“Hello?” she said. “Buster?”

Caleb could hear the tinny strains of the Thompson household rattling from the earpiece.

“I woke the baby,” Amelia said, making a pained face at Caleb.

“Oh, Lord, you're gonna catch it now.”

“Let me speak to her, Buster.… Gloria?” She pulled the earpiece away from her chestnut tresses and grimaced. “Well, I'm sorry, I didn't know. The dishes?” She swept her eyes across the ceiling. “No, I'm soaking them. Yes. In the morning. Very well. Good night.” She hung the earpiece on its spring-loaded cradle.

“She's about got you trained, Amelia.” He noticed a strange look on her face.

“I just made the first telephone connection in Monument Park. Perhaps I should have thought of something more profound to say.”

He shrugged. “Well, soakin' the dishes ain't just rat shot.”

Amelia smiled at him and shook her head. “Pete always said you had the most picturesque ways of expressing yourself. He envied you for that.”

Caleb felt his astonishment pull at his face. “Envied
me?
”

“Yes, for the way you talk, the way you sing, and … doing whatever it is you do out there.”

“
Pete
envied
me.
” His skin was tingling. “That's swappin' ends for you.”

“He always said, ‘If I could just preach like Caleb sings.'” She lifted the coffeepot from the stove. “Go stoke the fire in the parlor, and I'll bring the coffee.”

When she brought him his cup, she sat beside him on the sofa. “Caleb, what about next summer?” she said. “Will you round the cattle up for me?”

Caleb poured some coffee into his saucer. “It ain't really the cattle, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You could get Dan or Piggin' String to round cattle up for you.”

She fumbled with her cup and stared into the roaring fire for a moment. “No, it's not the cattle. It's you. I want you to stay.”

“What for?”

“For the sake of your nephew. He needs a man about, Caleb. There are things I can't teach him.”

“There are men fallin' all over theirselves on this ranch,” Caleb argued. “The old man, Buster, Dan, Piggin' String.”

Amelia had put her cup and saucer down and was becoming agitated. “We've argued this before. The colonel is old and gruff, Buster has a family of his own, and as for Mr. Brooks and Mister McCoy … I know they're good men, Caleb, but they're just so dumb! They're ignorant, and they want nothing more out of life than to remain that way. They're not the least bit interesting, and I would rather have my son learn from his own uncle. He's your brother's son!”

He took her slender arm in his hand to calm her. She had toned muscles there from working with her horses. “Now don't get all headstrong.” He looked into the round astonishment of her eyes and snorted. “There ain't nowhere else left for me to go anyhow. I've been thinkin' about stayin', but I didn't expect I'd have to come right out and tell everybody. It's embarrassing.”

“Why on earth would that embarrass you?”

“I'm not used to goin' where folks tell me to go and stayin' where they tell me to stay. If you'd have just waited, you might have seen that I was stayin'.” He put his coffee on the table. He had no stomach for it anymore. “Anyway, a fella can't ride anywhere no more for the fences,” he grumbled. “There's roads now in places I went before there were even trails.”

“Is staying here so bad?” she asked. “Why does it make you so bitter?”

“Because I'm twenty-nine years old and I don't have anything to show for it. If it's my fault, I don't know why.” He fell back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. “Lord, I remember comin' here as a kid, when we owned everything as far as we could see. I just knew someday this whole country was gonna be mine and Pete's and Matthew's. Now look at it. The whole park's plowed under and sectioned off with fences and roads and irrigation ditches so you can't ride from here to there without gettin' down to open a dozen gaps and stoppin' to say howdy-do to fifteen farmers.”