The Smiling Country (Hewey Calloway) - Softcover

Elmer Kelton, author of more than forty novels, grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron, was published in 1956. For forty-two years he had a parallel career in agricultural journalism.

Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Among his best-known works have been The Time It Never Rained and The Good Old Boys, the latter made into a television film starring Tommy Lee Jones.

He served in the infantry in World War II. He and his wife, Ann, a native of Austria, live in San Angelo, Texas. They have three children, four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

The Smiling Country
CHAPTER 1Hewey Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that distracted his attention from matters of real importance. In his opinion anyone who wasted time worrying about his age had more leisure than was good for him. He had not acknowledged a birthday since he had turned thirty a dozen years ago--or was it fifteen?In horse years, Biscuit was older than his rider, but the brown gelding was equally indifferent to the passage of time. Any minor concessions to his age were offset by steadiness and a light-reined response to any task Hewey called upon him to perform. He could outguess a cow in nine of ten confrontations and outrun her the other time.Hewey could not say nearly so much about the green-broke pony on which Skip Harkness picked his way along the rocky mountainside above Limpia Creek. Since Hewey and the freckle-faced kid had left the corrals and chuck wagon camp down on the yucca flat, the colt had stepped high and kept its ears working nervously while it watched for a booger. Any booger would do. It had already pitched twice, once spooking at a jackrabbit skittering through the underbrush, then taking fright at the cry of a disturbed hawk that sought to scare the horsemen away from its nest high in a tree. The two outbursts had been little challenge, for Skip was young and wiry and laughed at every jump.Hewey respected anyone efficient at his trade, but he worriedabout this button's long-range prospects. A kid from a blackland farm back in East Texas, Skip had cowboyed a couple of years and learned just enough to be dangerous to himself and everybody around him. Small triumphs tempted him to kick trouble in the ribs when it could just as well have been left asleep. Instead of pulling up on the hackamore rein to stop the pony from pitching on treacherous sloping ground, Skip had encouraged it to buck harder by spurring high in its shoulders and back in the flank. The colt pitched until its sorrel hide glistened with sweat.Hewey could not bring himself to criticize, for he used to show off too, not all that long ago. He still gloried in a challenge, but he saw no future in suicide. He said, "I've seen broncs that'd throw you so high the hawks'd have to look up to see you.""Ain't been a bronc throwed me since I was sixteen."Hewey guessed Skip to be eighteen, no more than nineteen at the outside, with his heart in the right place but his head on backward. "Biscuit would've busted you good when he was a colt. He flattened me several times.""Was that before or after the War between the States?"The kid was thumbing Hewey in the ribs about his age and Biscuit's. This was 1910."Wasn't nothin' I could do then that I can't still do. I can ride more miles, find more cows and rope more calves ..."He quit talking, for Skip's satisfied grin said he had thrown out the bait and Hewey had swallowed it, hook and all. Hewey never understood why some buttons barely weaned from mother's milk took such pleasure in warting their betters. His nephews would never do such a thing, not Cotton or Tommy. They showed respect, even when he knew they disagreed with him. He wished he had one of them here now instead of this reckless kid with more brass than good sense. They could teach Skip something about manners.If he put his mind to it he could almost feel sorry for the youngster, born too late to see Texas before the grasping hand of civilization reached out and spoiled it. Hewey had ridden across more country than Skip was likely ever to see. He had driven cattle to the Kansas railroad and had broken broncs from the Rio Grande to the Canadian line. He had shipped out to Cuba under Teddy Roosevelt He had traveled horseback across much of the West before it was parceled out by barbed-wire fences and ribboned with roads for the automobile. Skip would never have that opportunity or even realize what he had missed. Hewey Calloway had done it all, yet here he was, still in the prime of life.He would admit, when he looked into a mirror, that his hair and his whiskers showed about as much gray as brown, but that was a sign of maturity and reliability. If his joints sometimes ached when he threw the blankets aside of a morning, most of the pain faded once he got the muscles working and the blood flowing freely. He was sure he was a better hand now than he had ever been. He would never ask, but he was probably drawing down five or ten dollars a month more than Skip or the other weanlings on this outfit. At least he should be. He could ride anything they could and rope rings around them.If a genie were to pop out of a whiskey bottle and offer him three wishes, Hewey would give one or two of them back. There wasn't much he would change, beyond tearing down the fences and ditching all the automobiles. Anybody who couldn't get where he was going on horseback or in a wagon was in too much of a hurry.The kid offered, "You want to ride my bronc a little while, just to keep your hand in?""There's no fight left in him now. You've already spurred it out of him." A real hand didn't let some button sweat the rough edges from a bronc and then turn it over to him as if he were too old todo it himself. Hewey could still do it himself, any time he wanted to. And he often wanted to, for he still enjoyed a good contest between man and horse.The J Bar crew was rounding up two-year-old steers to ship to Kansas for summering on Flint Hills grass, but the wagon boss had sent Hewey and Skip to look for a bunch-quitting bull that had fled from yesterday's drive. It had evaded three years' worth of roundups, the branding iron and knife, and had left a long scar across the chest of one unlucky cow pony that had not moved out of its way. The bull had a reputation for being easy to find but hard to catch. The few pursuers it had not outrun, it had outfought, so most local cowboys accorded it an averted gaze. It ranged in one of the narrow, brushy canyons that time and rainfall had carved through the Davis Mountains. Grazing mostly in the dark of the night, it drank from the small and hidden tinajas, depressions that eons of runoff water had scoured from flat rock.The solitary maverick responded to its mother's wily Longhorn blood, which overpowered the gentler influence of its Hereford sire. Old Man Morgan Jenkins was trying to breed the Longhorn blood out of his herd, and this bull was putting its outlaw stamp on too many calves to suit him. Such brush-popping fugitives furnished entertainment to cowboys who loved the chase, like Hewey and Skip, but they were a financial albatross to ranchers and their bankers.Hewey was bothered a little when Skip was the first to spot their quarry. He knew his own eyes were still sharp enough; he figured Skip just happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time.Hewey stepped to the ground and tightened Biscuit's cinch so the bull's strength and weight would not pull his saddle down on one side. Skip took no such precaution, and Hewey was not given to offeringadvice that had not been asked for. If the kid was half as smart as he thought he was, he shouldn't have to be told.Skip had a way of turning routine into a contest. "Reckon that old horse of yours can catch him?""Biscuit'll kick gravel in your eyes."Skip did not give him the chance. He spurred the bronc and took the lead. Hewey was tempted to overtake and pass him, just to demonstrate that he could, but he decided the trail the bull followed in its hasty retreat was too narrow and treacherous to accommodate two fools. One was enough.Hewey took his time, loosing the horn string that held his rope. His sun-browned hands were leather-tough, scarred by rope bums and mesquite thorns, the knuckles large except for one knocked down years ago in an encounter much like this one.The fugitive bull outran Skip into a heavy brush thicket. Skip followed him partway, then stopped in confusion. As Hewey caught up, Skip said, "Can't see him anyplace. Looks like he sprouted wings and flew.""Outsmarted you is what he did." Hewey listened intently for the sound of popping branches but heard none. "He's laid down in some thick brush where you can't see him. Let's go root him out." He motioned for Skip to take the left side of the draw. Hewey moved up the right, weaving around the mesquite and catclaw.Though he was watching closely, the bull almost took him unawares. He heard a snort; then a black apparition exploded out of a tangle of mesquite, head down and sharp horns coming straight at Biscuit. The horse whirled so quickly that Hewey had to grab the saddle horn to keep his seat. The bull made a thrust at Biscuit's haunches as it passed, but the horse was an old hand at avoiding such calamities.Skip shouted, "I've got him." He spurred by while Hewey wastrying to collect his wits and get his breath back. The bronc crow-hopped as Skip shook out the coils. Its only experience with a rope had been on the receiving end, frightening and painful.Dread burned in Hewey as he saw that Skip had the near end of the rope secured to his saddle horn instead of taking a couple of dallies that he could turn loose in a hurry. There were many places more pleasant to be than sitting on a nine-hundred-pound bronc tied to an ill-tempered bull that weighed sixteen hundred pounds and was looking for something to kill.Boy, Hewey thought, you're fixing to learn not to suck eggs.The chase was fast and rough, the bull shattering brush, its cloven hooves scattering small rocks in their wake. It probably would have gotten away had it not lost its footing on a bare, slanting slab of rock and slid on its belly. It arose quickly, but its speed was hindered by a limp. Foamy saliva streamed from its mouth. When it became weary enough and provoked enough, it would turn to fight. Then it could be roped, though retrieving that rope might cost bull, horses and men some blood, hide and hair.Hewey had once seen a tiger in a circus. The sound welling from deep in the Longhorn's throat reminded him of the great cat's roar. The bull wheeled and lowered its head.Skip shouted, "You stay back out of the way. I can handle him."Like Richmond handled Grant, Hewey thought.Skip's rope hissed like a snake as he sailed his loop over the horns. The bronc tried to buck just as the bull hit the end of the line. The impact jerked both animals off their feet. Skip gave a surprised shout and hit the ground on his back. The bronc regained its feet and ran in panic. As the rope again stretched taut, it snapped at the saddle horn, popping like a whip. The horse galloped away, holding its head high and wringing its tail.The loop was still around the bull's horns, the frazzled end of therope lying on the ground. Skip jumped to his feet, instinctively grabbed it, then dropped it as the bull lowered its head again and charged. The boy sprinted toward a catclaw bush not much taller than he was. "Hewey! Do somethin'!"It was high time this scatterbrained kid learned that the way of the braggart was strewn with shame and regret. "You told me to stay out of the way.""Hewey!"The bull stepped on the trailing rope and broke its stride long enough for Skip to reach the other side of the catclaw. He looked desperately for his bronc, but it was still running. It might as well be ten miles away for all the good it could do him. The bull made a run around the bush after the boy, hooves clattering on the hard ground. Skip managed to stay two paces ahead, circling.Hewey suggested dryly, "Why don't you climb the tree?"The catclaw was well named, for its branches were armed with needle-pointed thorns shaped like claws. Perhaps a cat might climb that bush, but Skip never could, not even with a sharp-horned bull providing incentive.The bull stopped and began to paw dirt back over its shoulder, a sign it had barely begun to fight. Skip crouched on the opposite side of the tree, ready to run to the left or the right as circumstances might require. "You just goin' to sit there and laugh?"Hewey leaned on his saddle horn. "Been a long time since I saw a circus. You might be able to run faster if you took your boots off."The bull feinted to the left, then the right, but Skip kept the bush between them. Stymied, the animal stopped and pawed dirt again.Hewey said, "I wish the boys at the wagon could watch you handle this bull. I've got half a mind to go back and get them."Sweat cut trails through the dust on Skip's flushed young face. It was hard to see which was strongest, anger or fear. "Time yougot back there wouldn't be nothin' left to see, just a puddle of blood and a little bit of hair."Hewey decided the lesson had gone on long enough. He eased Biscuit toward the bull, which shifted its attention from Skip and charged at the horse. Hewey kept Biscuit far enough ahead to avoid the horns. At a safe distance from Skip he cut around and brought Biscuit up behind the bull. His loop sailed down around the long horns. He left enough slack that the bull stepped into the loop with its right foot. Hewey quickly drew the rope tight, pulling the foot up against the head. The animal faltered, lost its balance and fell heavily, raising a puff of dust. It lay struggling, unable to rise with its leg immobilized against its muzzle.Skip complained, "You took long enough." His voice cracked, perhaps from outrage, perhaps from a remnant of fright, most likely from both. The red in his face exaggerated the freckles."Wanted him to wear himself down a little." Hewey untied a short length of rawhide rope coiled on the back of his saddle and pitched it to Skip. "Tie him."Skip struggled to bring the other three legs together, accidentally backing into the catclaw bush in his efforts to stay clear of the threshing head and dangerous horns. The clutching thorns ripped the back of his shirt.Hewey dismounted and untied a short dehorning saw he had brought for good purpose. "First thing we'd better do is to tip his horns so he won't gore any more horses."Skip knelt on the bull's head to keep the animal still while Hewey sawed off the outer several inches of horn. He gripped the muzzle and raised the head to let Hewey work on the other side. The bull snorted mucus in Skip's face.Hewey ran a finger over the rough edge after the sharp tip was gone. "He could still bust your ribs with that. But he wouldn't poke a hole in you that the Lord never intended."Skip's emotions began to subside. "I thought you were fixin' to let him put a new hole in my butt.""I just wanted him to educate you a little. I'll bet you're a lot smarter than you were twenty minutes ago."If Skip felt any appreciation, he kept it well concealed.Hewey said, "I'll let you and that bull sulk together while I go catch your horse."Skip's bronc gave up running after catching a forefoot in the looped hackamore rein. At first it resisted Hewey's efforts to free it from entanglement, and it stepped on Hewey's toes before it calmed down. "Broncs and farm-raised buttons," Hewey muttered. "You deserve one another."Skip's face had lost its angry color by the time Hewey led the bronc back. The boy said, "At least Old Man Jenkins ought to be tickled. We got him his bull."Hewey watched the animal fight against the restraint of the rawhide that bound its feet. "Mr. Jenkins...