Eventide (Plainsong #2)(9)

How long did it take to wash him out of the wife’s system? Harold said.

That I don’t know. He never said. But that’s one thing about him for sure. Old John could get to you.

I don’t guess he’s getting to nobody now, is he.

No sir. I reckon his day is over.

Still, I guess he had his fun, Raymond said. He had himself a good run.

Oh, he did that, Schramm said. None much better. I always thought a lot of old John Torres.

Everybody did, Raymond said.

I don’t know, Harold said. I don’t imagine Lloyd Bailey thought that much of him. Harold put his fork down and looked around the crowded diner. I wonder what become of that punkin pie she was going to bring me.



WHEN THEY HAD FINISHED LUNCH AND LEFT MONEY ON the table for the waitress the McPherons moved next door into the sale barn for the one o’clock start. They climbed up the concrete steps into the middle of the half circle of stadium seats and sat down and looked around. The pipe-iron corral of the sale ring lay below, with its sand floor and the big steel doors on either side, the auctioneer already in place behind his microphone sitting next to the sale barn clerk in the auctioneer’s block above the ring, both of them facing the ranks of seats across the ring, and all the animals sorted in pens out back.

The seats began to fill with men in their hats or caps and a few women in jeans and western shirts, and at one o’clock the auctioneer cried: Ladies and gentlemen! Well all right now! Let’s get to going!

The ringmen brought in four sheep, all young rams, one with a horn that had splintered in the waiting pen and the blood was trickling from its head. The sheep milled around. Nobody much wanted them and they finally sold the four rams for fifteen dollars each.

Next they brought in three horses one after the other. A big seven-year-old roan gelding came first that had white splashes on its underbelly and more white running down the front of its hind legs. Boys, the older of the ringmen hollered, he’s a well-broke horse. Anybody can ride him but not everybody can stay on him. Boys, he’ll get out there and move. And he understands cattle. Seven hundred dollars!

The auctioneer took it up, chanting, tapping the counter with the handle end of his gavel, keeping time. A man in the front row allowed that he would give three hundred.

The ringman looked at him. You’ll give five hundred.

The auctioneer took that up, and the roan horse sold finally for six hundred twenty-five, bought back by its owner.

They sold an Appaloosa next. Boys, she’s a young mare. Not in foal. Then they sold a black mare. She’s a young thing now, boys. About two years old, not broke. So we’re just going to sell her that way. Three hundred fifty dollars!

After the horses were done the cattle sale began, and it was this that most people had come for. It went on for the rest of the afternoon. They sold the old stuff first, then the cow-calf pairs and the butcher bulls and finally the lots of calves and yearlings. They pushed the cattle in from one side, held them in the ring for the bidding, and moved them about to show them to best advantage, the two ringmen stepping out or tapping them with the white prod-sticks, then pushed them through the other metal door into the outback for the pen-back crew to sort out. Each pen was numbered with white paint to keep the animals separate, and all of them had yellow tags on their hips saying which lot they belonged to. On the wall above the metal doors electronic boards blinked TOTAL LB. and HEAD CT. and AVERAGE WT. There were advertisements on the walls for Purina and Nutrena feeds and Carhartt equipment. And below the auctioneer’s booth this sign: NOTICE ALL GUARANTEES ARE STRICTLY BETWEEN BUYER & SELLER.

The McPheron brothers sat high up in their seats and watched. They had to wait until late in the afternoon for the sale of their yearlings. Around three in the afternoon Raymond went down into the diner and brought back two paper cups of coffee, and sometime later Oscar Strelow sat down in front of them and turned sideways in his chair to talk, remarking on a pen of his cattle that one time sold so poorly he’d driven out and got drunk afterward and when he got home in that sorry state his wife was so mad she wouldn’t talk to him but went straight into town the next morning and bought a brand-new Maytag washing machine, writing out a check for the entire amount right there, and Oscar said he didn’t think it was a good idea to offer any comment about it to his wife just then and he still never had.

They kept running the cattle through. The younger of the ringmen was the one watching the bidders and they looked at him purposefully, making a nod or raising a hand, and he’d holler Yup! looking back and forth from one bidder to the other, Yup! and when the last bidder gave up and looked away the auctioneer up in the block cried: I sold them out at one hundred sixteen dollars to number eighty-eight! and the young ringman released the cattle out of the ring. Then the older ringman in a blue shirt with a big hard belly hanging down above his belt buckle let the next lot in through the steel door on the left and began to holler.

Boys, they’re a nice pair of steers. I’m going to let you all in for ninety-five dollars!

Boys, she’s a long-haul calf. She looks a little like a milk cow. Seventy-four dollars!

The only thing wrong with this one is she’s got a short tail and that’s stupid!

Boys, she’s got a little knot on her jaw. Dry it, it won’t amount to nothing.

A heifer girl and a good one!

All right. Seventy-seven dollars! Let’s not play games.