On the Range for the Holidays

FICTION The Cowboys

“Know what day this is?” the boy asked. The old man shook his head. “Christmas,” said the boy. “It's Christmas.” And the old man grunted. Squeezing his eyes shut, the boy sucked a ragged breath through clenched teeth. Christmas, he thought his 15th Christmas and he had to be spending it snowbound in a line shack miles from ranch headquarters, and with the old man. Him, of all people. For two days, they had been holed up there, and about the only sound the old man had made was to grunt. Grunt and snore. The old man snored louder than anyone he'd ever heard, and back in the bunkhouse the other riders were forever funnin' him about his snoring. At night when the old man snored, it kept the boy awake, and when the old man didn't snore, the boy was awake worrying that maybe the old man had died. With a length of split oak, the boy poked at the coals in the rock fireplace, then laid the wood on the fire. The old one was huddled nearby, seated on the shack's only chair, his mackinaw buttoned to his throat, a woolen blanket drawn around his shoulders, and still he shivered. It seemed as though he always shivered. “You sick?” asked the young one. “No more'n usual,” the old cowboy answered. “The miseries is what I got, what with the years catchin' up with me.” And then he coughed and grunted and shook some more.

Fighting back the tears, the boy scooped fresh snow in his hands and held it against his burning cheeks until he knew he wouldn't cry. Then he went inside the cabin to the old man.

You can't carry on a proper conversation with somebody who just grunts and snores all the time, and the boy was lonely. He went outside into the cold and checked on the horses. They were in the lean-to alongside the cabin, and they were about as well off as he and the old man were. Better, maybe. At least the horses didn't snore. Or grunt. He laid a hand on the flank of the chestnut mare, and she sidestepped nervously into the gray. The boy talked them quiet, and gave each a large handful of hay from the bales that had been stashed there against such needs.

It had stopped snowing, but the wind continued to sweep across the mountain meadow, and its bite was something fierce. No wonder the old man shivered so. Overhead the clouds were heavy and gray, and they moved across the sky as if they had important places to go. Off toward the west, the gray seemed some lighter, and the sky there appeared almost to glow, and the boy knew that's where the sun was, and that would make it midafternoon.

For a while, he stood in the spare turnaround space he had cleared between the cabin door and the shed, not minding the cold. Now the snow was higher than his shoulders and was even deeper where it had drifted.

Christmas. He thought about home and the holiday table Ma laid, even when money was tight, and about the marvelous cooking aromas that always filled the whole house from early Christmas morn on through the day. Pa always said the good thing about farming was that there was 'most always something to put on the table. Thoughts of home and of his parents and his sisters and brother and of last Christmas rushed through his mind, and he pulled off a mitten and plunged the bare hand deep into a pocket. His fingertips sought and touched the precious jackknife Ma and Pa had placed beneath the Christmas tree for him, just one year ago. And the thoughts filled his mind and his heart. At once he wondered why he had ever abandoned the farm. "To make my way," he had told his family when he left, and to his friends he had said, "To see the elephant." So he had come west to Arizona Territory, and he had lied about his age and signed on at the ranch as a rider.

Now he longed for nothing more than to feel his mother's warm embrace, the weight of his father's firm hand upon his shoulder, to hear the laughter, the talk, the sweet songs of Christmas.

Fighting back the tears, the boy scooped fresh snow in his hands and held it against his burning cheeks until he knew he wouldn't cry. Then he went inside the cabin to the old man.

"Expect Cookie's rustlin' up a fancy feed," said the boy, hanging his coat on a peg beside the door. Rubbing calloused fingers over his grizzled jaw, the old one grunted. "Expect," he agreed.

The boy put more wood on the fire and held his hands to the warmth of the embers. Presently he opened a can of beans and carefully pushed it close to the heat, then he perched on the wooden box that was his chair.

Their holiday feast would be the shared tin of beans and the one of peaches and those few crackers that were left. The boy knew the old man would grunt and grumble, unhappy because there was no coffee to wash down the food. The boy sighed. The old man always found something to grumble about.

"Don't you care?" the boy asked in time. Startled, the old cowboy looked up, eyebrows raised.

"Care? Care 'bout what?"

"Christmas," said the young one. "Don't you care that it's Christmas? Doesn't it matter to you?"

"I reckon I'm beyond carin' 'bout such things," said the old cowboy, shrugging. "Anymore, one day's the same as another to me. 'Bout all that matters is bein' able to wake up of a mornin', bein' able to haul m'self out of bed to face the new day." Shivering, he drew the blanket tighter around his shoulders, and the boy wondered if he would ever be that old, would ever not care about it being Christmas.

"Figures that one of these mornin's 'fore long, this tired ol' body just ain't goin' to wake up," said the old one. "That's what matters; that's what I care about. You find any coffee in that cupboard, sonny?"

For maybe the 17th time in two days, the young one said no, that he had found no coffee, and then he sat quietly, thinking ing of family and home, drawing upon memories of earlier Christmases, and savoring each fragment of the past. In time he spoke.

"I care," he said clearing his throat. "It matters to me."

"Beg pardon?" the old man snapped, leaning toward the boy. He pulled off his big hat and scratched his head, as if that would help him hear better.

"I said, I care," the boy repeated in a louder voice. "It matters to me that today is Christmas."

The young one pushed a hand into his pocket and his fingers found the jackknife and closed around it. Drawing it from his pocket he studied it, remembering how thrilled he had been when he had undone the ribbons and fancy paper and found the knife. And he thought about the many things he had planned to carve and whittle with that knife but had never gotten around to. There would be time for all that whittling though, and there would be the blades of other knives to do it with. Because at that moment he knew what he must do.

"Merry Christmas," said the boy, and he thrust the knife toward the old man. "I'm sorry it ain't wrapped."

The other looked puzzled. Frowning, he cocked his head and asked, "What you sayin', sonny?"

"It's yours," the boy said. "Wisht I had a fancy bow for it." And then he placed

the knife in the other's hand and closed the gnarled fingers around it. It was the first time he had ever touched the old man's hand, and the fingers were icy. "It's your present," said the boy. "Merry Christmas."

For a while the old cowboy sat silently, gazing into the fire, and then he opened his hand and looked at the gift as if he didn't believe it. His eyes glistened. The old one smiled, then grunted, "Thank you, sonny." He was on his feet then, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders. He shuffled across the room to his bunk and rummaged about inside his bedroll.

The beans were warming now; the boy could smell them. He tried to imagine what he smelled was a stuffed turkey roasting in Ma's kitchen, but he chuckled to himself. Beans were beans, turkey was turkey. His imagination was not that good.

And then the old cowboy was back in his chair. By the flickering light of the fire, the boy could see that the other had a mouth organ, which he slapped against a palm, as if to clear it of spit, even though the boy had never heard the old man play it in all the months they had slept in the same bunkhouse.

Thoughtfully the old cowboy tapped his booted foot upon the plank floor, then caressed the harmonica with cupped hands, raised it to his dry lips, and began to play.

At first the notes were thin and uneven, but they became louder and more certain, and the boy recognized the strains of "Silent Night." Never in his life had he heard more beautiful music.

The late Don Schellie wrote a humor, human interest, and history column for The Tucson Citizen for more than 20 years.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Joseph Daniel Fiedler was a 1996 recipient of the Silver Medal in the Society of Illustrators' 38th Annual Exhibition.