Michener, James A. (181 page)

'You paid that for a gun?' Todd asked, and the oilman said: 'Not just for a gun. For an A.Y.A.'

The dentist did not take any gun with him to the hunts; he loved dogs and had rigged up the back of his Chevrolet hunting wagon with six separate wire pens, three atop the others, in which he kept six prize dogs: two English pointers, two English setters, and the two he liked best, a pair of Brittany spaniels. He had trained them to a fine point, each a champion in some special attribute, and when they reached the fields he liked to carry the

men and dogs in his wagon, with Roy Bub driving, till Todd, keeping watch from an armchair bolted to the metal top of the wagon, spotted quail and gave the cry 'Left, left,' or wherever the covey nestled.

Then as the car stopped, the dentist would dash out, release the dog chosen for this chase, and dispatch him in the direction Todd had indicated. In the meantime, the three men with their guns would have descended, Todd scrambling down from his perch and Roy Bub from behind the wheel, and all would leave the car and proceed on foot after the dog, who would flush the quail and follow them deftly as they ran along the ground.

It was not light exercise to follow the birds and the dog, heavy gun at the ready, but at some unexpected moment the covey of ten or fifteen quail would explode into the air and fly off in all directions, seeking escape by the speed and wild variety of their flight. Then the guns would bang, each hunter firing as many shots in rapid succession as his gun allowed. Fifteen birds in fifteen heights and directions, maybe a dozen shots, maybe three birds downed.

Then came the excitement of trying to locate the fallen quail, and now the dog became a major partner, for he scoured the terrain this way and that, in what seemed like frantic circles but with the knowing purpose of vectoring the land until he smelled the blood of the dead bird.

'It could be the best sport in the world,' Todd said one day after the team of three guns and six dogs had knocked down forty-seven quail, each a delicious morsel relished by the families of the three married hunters—Maggie Morrison roasted hers with a special marinade made of tarragon vinegar and three or four tangy spices. Roy Bub had no wife yet, but did have four likely prospects whom he took out at various times and to various honky-tonks.

In September one year the oilman presented a stunning offer to his three buddies: 'I've located forty-eight hundred acres of the best quail land in Texas. Just north of Falfurrias. Owner wants four dollars and twenty cents an acre just for quail; five dollars for quail and deer and one turkey each; six for twelve months, including javelina and all the deer and turkey we can take legally.'

On Tuesday the four men took off from their obligations in Houston, thundered south to Victoria, then down U. S. 77 to Kingsville and across to the proposed land. They covered the two hundred and forty miles in just under three hours, thanks to an electronic fuzz-buster that Roy Bub had installed in the dentist's car; it alerted him to the presence of lurking Highway Patrol radars. The four arrived at the acreage about an hour before dusk

and spent those sixty minutes in a dream world, because this land was obviously superior. 'Look at that huisache and mesquite,' Roy Bub cried, for he was the expert. 'No tall trees, but those gorgeous low shrubs providing plenty of cover. And the mesquite aren't too close together, so the quail will have to strike open ground.' He pointed out that the fence rows had not been cut, which meant there would be plenty of protection for the quail during nesting seasons, and he was especially struck by the richness of the weed cover.

'Look at that seed supply. All the right weeds, all properly spaced. This place, to tell you the truth, is worth double what they're asking.'

The owner, eager to get top dollar but not hurting for the money, was a rancher who said frankly: 'I'd like to rent it for the full six dollars, but you're working men. If you want it during a trial period just for quail in the autumn, I'll be more than happy to rent it for the four-twenty I said. Feel it out. See if it seems like home. If so, we might have ourselves a longtime deal.'

'Have you other prospects?' the oilman asked, for the $20,160 involved was a little steep and the $28,800 for twelve months, all rights, was forbidding.

'I do, but people tell me you're four responsible men. They say you'll help keep the hunting good. For the long haul, I'd prefer someone like you.'

That night the four Houstonians held a planning session, and it was clear that the oilman and the dentist could afford rather more of the total fee than could Roy Bub and Morrison, so a deal was arranged whereby Roy Bub would continue to drive the dentist's wagon while Todd would occupy the armchair topside and also care for the land. This meant that in the off season he would lay out roadways through the mesquite, drag the earth so that weeds would prosper, and look after the quail and turkeys in general.

'We promise you this,' Roy Bub told the owner, 'when we leave, your land will be in better shape than when we came.'

'One important thing,' the oilman said, for he was an expert in j leases. 'We have the right to shoot October to January?' The | owner agreed. 'But we have the right to visit all year long. Picnics, j families?' The owner said of course. 'And we have the right, as of I now, to build ourselves a little shack?'

'You certainly do,' the man said. 'But you understand, anything i you erect on my land remains my property.'

'Now wait!' the oilman said, if we affix it to your land, digi

cellars and all that, it's yours. But if it remains movable, we can take it with us if you close us out.'

'Of course!' There was a moment of hesitation, after which he said impulsively: 'I like your approach to the land. Twenty thousand even.'

So the four young men obtained the right to hunt this magnificent land—flat as a table, few trees, no lake, no river—during the legal quail season, and permission to roam it during the other months. The elaborate division of labor they had worked out to protect the oilman and dentist who were paying more than their share of cost was unnecessary, because those two worked as hard as anyone. They built the lean-to; they planted seeds along the trails so that weeds would grow; they tended the hedgerows where the quail would nest; and they cared for the dogs.

The team's first autumn on their lease was gratifying. With the dentist running his dogs and Todd spotting from his perch atop the wagon, they uncovered quail almost every day, and with the practice they were getting, the three gunners became experts. From time to time the oilman allowed one of the other two to use his AY. A., and one day toward Christmas, when they were huddling in the lean-to after dark, he asked quietly: 'Either of you two want to buy that Spanish gun? Real bargain.'

'What about you?' Roy Bub asked.

The oilman went almost shyly to the wagon, and as if he were a young girl showing off her first prom dress, produced an item he had sequestered when they packed in Houston. Unwrapping it, he revealed one of those perfect English guns, a Purdy with a Beasley action which he had purchased for $24,000. When it stood revealed in the lantern light, it was not handsome, nor garishly decorated, nor laden with insets of any kind. It was merely a cold, sleek, marvelously tooled gun which fitted in the shoulder like a perfectly tailored suit. 'There it is,' he said proudly.

'How much for the Spanish job?' Todd asked.

'It cost me forty-six hundred, like I said. I'd like to keep it in the crowd, maybe use it now and then for old times' sake. I'll let you have it for twenty-six.'

'Time payment?'

'Why not?'

So at the end of the season, and a very fine season it had been, the quartet had both a genuine Purdy and an A.Y.A. copy, and Roy Bub also had a very good gun, because Morrison sold him the good weapon he'd been using at a comparable discount.

They were a congenial crowd that winter, for at least twice a

month, when no hunting was allowed at their iease, they left Houston at dusk on Friday, roared down to Falfurrias, and worked on their place. They turned the lean-to into a real house, with eight bunks, two temporary privies and a portable shower, and they improved the roadways through the far edges of the fields. In March everyone but Roy Bub brought wife and children down for a festival, kids in sleeping bags, older ones in blankets under the cold stars, and Maggie said to one of the other wives: 'I wouldn't want to cook like this four Saturdays a month, but it's worth every cent the men spend on it.'

In June, after a serious meeting in the bunkhouse, Roy Bub drove to the owner's house and invited him to join them. When he appeared, the oilman said: 'Mr. Cossiter, you know we like your place. We'd like to take it all year, at six dollars an acre, unrestricted. That would be twenty-eight thousand eight hundred. And we were wondering if you could shade that a little?'

'Men, you care for this place better than I do. Twenty-six thousand for as many years as you care to hold it.'

'A deal,' the oilman said, but Roy Bub cried: 'Hell, we could of got him down to twenty,' and the owner said: 'Blacktop me a four-lane road north and south through the middle so I can subdivide later on, and you can have it for twenty.'

Maggie Morrison analyzed it this way: 'I'm sure Roy Bub felt totally left out during our family stay at the hunting lease. Everyone else with a wife and kids.' At any rate, shortly after their return home, Roy Bub informed his team that they and their wives were invited to his wedding, which was to be solemnized at midnight Tuesday in Davy Crockett's, a famous Houston honky-tonk on the road to the oil fields near Beaumont.

'Do we really want to attend such a rowdy affair?' Maggie asked, but Todd said: 'Not only are we going, so are the kids.'

Maggie did not like this, not at all, and went to speak with Roy Bub: it's not proper to hold a wedding at Crockett's, you being in oil and all that.'

He looked at her in a funny way and said: 'I'm not in oil,' and she said: 'But I remember your white truck that first day. Roy Bub Hooker, Drilling.'

'That was my truck. But I don't drill for oil. I put that on so that people would think I did.'

'What do you drill?'

'Septic tanks. When your toilet clogs up, you call me. I wouldn't feel happy bein' married anywhere but Crockett's.'

So at ten in the evening the six adults and seven children drove

out to the huge unpaved parking lot that was already crowded with pickups whose owners were hacking it up inside.

The oilman, who had been here once before, assembled his crowd outside the door and warned: 'Nobody is to hit anybody, no matter what happens,' and he led the way into the massive one-story honky-tonk.

Wide-eyed, they found Davy Crockett's, the workingman's Copacabana, a riotous affair, with more than a thousand would-be cowboys in boots and Stetsons, neither of which they ever took off, dancing the Cotton-Eyed Joe and the two-step with an abandon that would have horrified any choreographer. The place had numerous bars, dance bands which came and went, and an atmosphere of riotous joy.

It was a gala place, and the Morrisons had not been inside ten minutes before a cowboy approached Beth, bowed politely, and asked her to dance. Maggie tried to object, but the girl was gone, and once on the floor, she did not wish to return to her family, because one attractive young fellow after another whisked her away.

Roy Bub, rosily drunk, welcomed everyone enthusiastically. The bride appeared at about eleven-fifteen, twenty-two years old, peroxide-blond hair, very high heels, low-cut silk blouse, extremely tight double-knit jeans, and a smile that could melt icebergs. When Roy Bub saw her, he rushed over, took her hand, and announced in a bellow: 'Karleen Wyspianski, but don't let the name scare you. She's changin' it tonight.' She was, he explained, a waitress in a high-class diner: 'Honcho of the place, and I grabbed her before the boss did.'

She had grown up in one of those little foreign enclaves so numerous in Texas and so little known outside the state. In her case it was Panna Maria, a Polish settlement dating back to the 1850s whose inhabitants still spoke the native language. She had quit school after the eleventh grade and come immediately to Houston, where she had progressed from one job to another, always improving her take-home pay. Her present employment, because of the large tips she promoted, paid more than a hundred and fifty a week, and had she married the boss, as he wished, she would have shared in a prosperous business.

But she had fallen in love with Roy Bub and his white pickup, and the fact that he went hunting almost every weekend did not distress her, for those were her busiest days, and she was content to join him on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays as a Crocket-teer. They were good dancers, liberal spenders, and never loath to join in any moderate fracas that was developing.

Karleen had for some time been aware that Roy Bub intended sooner or later proposing marriage, but she was not overly eager for this to happen, for she had an enjoyable life and did not expect marriage to improve it substantially. But she did love the energetic driller, and when he returned from the family outing at the Falfurrias ranch with the blunt statement 'Karleen, I think we better get married,' she said 'Sure.'

Neither partner considered, even briefly, getting married anywhere but Crockett's. Karleen was Catholic and intended staying so, but she cared little about church affairs. Roy Bub was Baptist, but he was willing to let others worship as they pleased, so long as he was not required to attend his own church. But each was resolved to rear their children, when they came along, as devout Christians in some faith or other.

At quarter to twelve the minister who would conduct the marriage arrived, Reverend Fassbender, an immensely fat fellow of over three hundred pounds who served no specific church but who did much good work as a kind of floating clergyman. One of his specialties was weddings at Crockett's, where the cowboys revered him. Dressed in black, with a cleric's collar size twenty-two, he exuded both sanctity and sweat as he passed through the crowd bestowing grace: 'Blessings on you, sister. Glad to see you, brother, may Christ go with you.'