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The Last Cowboy

  By Sheila S. Jecks

  Copyright 2012 Sheila S. Jecks

  The Last Cowboy

  They say you make your own luck!

  I know about that.

  Sit a spell and I’ll tell you how I made mine one day in the spring of 1936 right here in southwest Arizona.

  Now I’m jus’ an ordinary guy, no better’n no worse than the next man, but that day things changed.

  We was goin’ through some hard times the Mrs. and me, what with her and three young’uns to feed, an’ my job at the Cotton Gin off Hwy 95 just outside Yuma hangin’ on by a thread.

  I figured I’d better see about bringing in some more money that summer as the oldest one James, we named him after my pa, was pretty good with a baseball and they wanted him t’ go to baseball camp in July up Sacramento way.

  Now this would’a been a tight fit for us, don’t know how we’d a managed. But he was a good boy an’ I wanted t’ give him his chance for something more’n just day labour in a cotton gin.

  I talked it over with the wife and we agreed the cotton gin was always slow in spring, so maybe I’d go over Phoenix way and see what work I could find to pay for baseball camp, afore things picked up again at the gin.

  That night I slept rough on the side of the road ‘cause I didn’t want to waste money for one o’ them newfangled motel rooms. Took me two days to hitch a ride over t’ my cousins place just outside o’ Phoenix.

  Next day, I went t’ the Employment Centre down on Front Street, and stood in line with the rest of the out-o’-work guys. The line moved real slow.

  I was standing waitin’ my turn when a fellow comes up to me and says, “Hello there, my name is Harold Greeves, and I’m looking for a cowboy. I need someone that can ride a horse and knows a bit about ranching. The pay is good, and the work is easy.”

  I looked at the feller; he sure was a city slicker. You could see he never rode a horse in his life.

  “Sure I can ride, what’s it to ya’.”

  “Sir,” he says, kinda polite, “I’m looking for someone that can help me with my old father-in-law. You see he’s getting on, and the Doctor tells us he doesn’t have too much time left. My wife wants him to do whatever he wants, for as long as he can.”

  “We talked it over,” said the man “and Dad said he needed to go back and live on the old ranch and ride till he ‘drops off dead’.”

  “Don’t think I can help you with that,” I says, “don’t mind the ridin’, or the ranchin’, but I don’t know about the droppin’ off dead part.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” said Mr. Greeves, “I’ll take care of that. All you have to do is go riding with him every day. Take him wherever he wants to go, and make sure he gets back home every night.”

  “What’re ya payin’ for this here ride?” I asked, pretty sure the pay couldn’t be good enough for the money I needed t’ make.

  “I’ll pay you $1.00 for every hour you ride with him. Room and board supplied. I’m sure the work can’t last more than a few weeks. He’s over eighty years old, and it’s been a long time since he rode a horse. You look like someone we can trust. I’d make it worth your while.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears, $1.00 an hour to sit on a horse and babysit an old man?

  Sounded too good t’ be true.

  But the long and short of it all was I went with it. That kind of money would go a long way t’ pay for the kid’s baseball camp. If the old man could hang on for three or four weeks I’d have all the money I needed.

  But with my luck, the job probably wouldn’t last more’n a week and the old man would be stiff as a board, in more ways than one I thought. But, I knew I had to try.

  So I go’s back to my cousin’s house an’ got my bedroll an’ backpack an’ went to meet him at the garage just off Highway 10 where the new highway crossed. Didn’t think he’d show, but he did, picked me up in a nice car too. I wasn’t too up on fancy cars in those days, still can’t keep ‘em straight, but I remember this one was a hum dinger. It even had cool air blowin’ in an’ all the windows was closed. I knew it was a money car.

  We drove west down Hwy 10 till we got to the turn off for the Ak-Chin Indian reservation. Went down a piece an’ he turned off on a old dirt road, seems we was headed to the town of Estrella. We was on that road for a half hour or so an’ we finally came to a cabin out there in the desert.

  It looked brand new.

  A old man was sittin’ on the front porch. He was in old faded jeans, a blue shirt an’ one o’ them red bandanas all the old time cowboys use t’ wear. His sleeves was rolled down but I could see a tattoo peekin’ out at the cuffs. His white Stetson was restin’ on the small table by his side. He didn’t look up none when the car stopped, but when I got out o’ the car with my bedroll an’ backpack, he perked up and looked me over.

  Now, I was a little heavier then, more muscle, more hair, an’ a lot more get-up-an-go. Me and the old man looked each other up an’ down.

  “You the guy they hired to babysit me?” he said standin’ up hard.

  “Don’t know if babysitin’s the right word,” I said, “but sure, they hired me to ride with ya. Kind of like, keepin’ ya in line.”

  “Fine,” was all he said. He sat down with a groan an’ stared out at the open desert again.

  I didn’t know what they expected of me, but I kind of admired the old man. Takes a lot o’ grit t’ ride a horse when you’re eighty.

  The old man finally looked at me again, and said, “take your kit around the back son, you’ll find the bunkhouse’s been fixed up fine.”

  I got my gear an’ went ‘round the cabin and there was a short barn that served as a bunkhouse, nothin’ in it ‘cept a potbelly stove an’ some beds. Two of ‘em looked like they’d been used lately so I put my bedroll on the far one, hung my backpack on the near one, an’ sat down an’ rolled me a cigarette. There, I thought, home sweet home.

  That night I ate in the cabin, the grub wasn’t fancy but there was lots of it. The two-inch steak done rare in the middle and charred on the outside; perfect, just the way I liked it. The beans were good, out of a can I ‘spect, but that was O.K. by me.

  The cook was pourin’ coffee when the old man looked at me and said, “What am I supposed to call you? You can call me Mr. Blakencroft.”

  “Just call me Jim,” I said, “my kin come from over Yuma way, that’s where the wife an’ young’uns are.”

  He just grunted and took his coffee outside. He sat in his chair, an’ me, I sat on the steps an’ looked at the sunset.

  Ramona the old cook, half white an’ half Ak-Chin, told me she was born on the ranch and when the rest of the family moved t’ town she stayed here; been here all her life.

  She was a plain cook but she made good coffee, dark an’ strong with just a bit o’ chicory in it, almost ate through the mug.

  That was just the way I liked it, too.

  That city feller, Mr. Greeves, the son-in-law that picked me out of the employment line, didn’t stay for supper. He had t’ get back t’ the city to make the money he was payin’ me to look after the old man; so he said.

  So it was just the old man, the cook, an’ me.

  Next morning, couldn’t have been more than 5:30 and I hear the old man calling from the porch, “get up, get up you lazy, no-account!”

  “Who you callin’ a no-account?”

  I was up, dressed, and washed in no time and out in the barn saddlin’ horses afore he could call again.

  The old man kept four horses in that big barn by the wash. He told me we would ride them one after the other so they wouldn’t get wore out. I said, yes sir, whatever you say, sir. But you and I know that was kind a’ silly. No horse was goin’ to get wore-out with that sk
inny old man on his back.

  I saddled up the two mares that first day, them bein’ the gentlest and brought ‘em around the front expectin’ to go in for breakfast. But all I got was a mug o’ hot coffee.

  The old man was standin’ on the porch, goin’ t’ show me how to get on a horse, he says.

  Then he told me what to do.

  “Here,” he says, “bring that horse around here, beside the porch so I can get up on this side.”

  I see what he wants an’ I bring the mare up, he swung into the saddle all in one heave. I was some impressed. Showed it took a bit o’ thought on how to get on a horse real careful like from the porch, a good move for such an old man.

  “We’ll be back around 10:00 for breakfast,” he told Ramona, “right now I want to go down to the arroyo to see if any brush needs to be cleared away so the cattle can get at the water.”

  I looked ‘round; weren’t no cattle that I could see. I supposed they were just figments of the old man’s memory.

  We rode off into the early dawn.

  Nothin’ more beautiful than sunrise in the desert. The first blazing red