That Old Ace in the Hole (39 page)

Bob fidgeted. “The ladies at LaVon’s quilting bee told me about the old days—melons and cowboys and oil booms—I could see how it was. That old panhandle homey kind of life.”

“You don’t hardly know a thing about this place. You think it’s just a place. It’s more than that. It’s people’s lives, it’s the history of the country. We lived through the droughts that come and we seen the Depression and the dust storms blowin up black as the smoke from a oil fire. We seen cowboy firin squads shootin half-starved thirsty cattle by the thousand. Yes, that’s who had a do it, the men who took care a cows all their lives was the ones had a shoot them too. And there was many a tough saddlebum turned his head away.”

“That was almost seventy years ago, sir.”

But Ace had the bit in his teeth. “Ever year a few more sell out to the corporations. Ever man for hisself. It’s mostly the younger ones wants the money as they don’t intend a live here. They got their hunderd reasons for it. I happen a feel we should stick together on this one and tell the hog farm corporations to go pound sand.”

He picked up the tea jar and drank, passed it to Bob. “All we got is the land and the Ogallala and they are ruinin both. So that would be my answer to Global Pork Rind.
Go pound sand.
When you come here, Bob, why everbody thought you was a shinin light when you talked about puttin the land to use for nice houses, nature estates and all. It seemed like you was bringing in a kind a value-added situation.”

“But Ace, we can’t live in the past. And you can’t bring it back. Don’t people have a right to make up their own minds where and how they want to live their lives? Probably in forty or fifty years there’ll be something else that pushes out the hog farms and somebody else will say how sad it is, how the panhandle hog heritage is being lost.”

“Somethin else like what, use the panhandle for a atomic testin ground? And you sure don’t need a tell me about change. A lifetime windmillin. It’s like Brother Mesquite says: ‘Things are as the windmill to the wind, constantly changin, makin a response.’ But what things change
into
is somethin else. Just one or two people can stand up and fight back.”

“I don’t agree with that, sir. Ace. Look at the Indians.
They
fought back and you see what happened to them. They had something other people wanted. Same thing here. You got something the hog corporations want and they will get it.”

“Not as long as I’m around. You know, your luxury home idea was pretty good. It could work if there wasn’t no hog farms around. Maybe not just places for rich folks, but somethin more moderate. Not luxury homes but decent houses and room for decent people who got some respect for the land. I think you had the germ of a good idea there. Like to talk more about that to you.”

“Frankly, sir, Ace, I think the hog farms are here for good. Maybe that’s the future of the panhandle—people will move out and turn it all over to the hog farms and feedlots. Intensive stock-raising. It could be the best thing.”

“Best thing for who? And would you be proud a be part a that? Here, have some more ice tea.”

Bob sighed. “Well, best thing for the general good.” He was getting nowhere. The man was hung up on the past. Ace passed the jug of iced tea to Bob and talked on.

“Bob, everbody here knows a few things about swine. Some still do raise them on a small scale. Phil Bule raises beeler pork, no antibiotics, no growth stimulants or hormones, and it’s the best you ever eat. His pigs live outside and they can go in the sun or the shade as they want. The skin on factory hogs is as thin as tissue paper. Try to get em in the truck, just touch em and they bleed. An some a those hogs is so weighty their legs snap like sticks. Pigs twitch their head and rub themselves raw on pen wire. Of all the creatures’ lives on God’s earth, for downright pure-dee hell the life of a hog farm pig has got a be the worst.” He crushed his cigarette butt against the tower’s steel frame. “The whole thing is ugly and unnatural and I’m against it. And you should be too.”

“I don’t know what I’m against,” mumbled Bob. “And I don’t see what’s wrong with adapting to change. There’s plenty of people here who don’t object to having corporate agriculture in their county. And they don’t mind the lagoons, either.”

“For Christ’s sake, don’t call them ‘lagoons.’ A lagoon is a beautiful pool a water set off from the sea. Anyway, here’s the Canadian River valley, a small piece a the world, got its own cultural ways grew out a the place. It’s a rural ideal, you might say. But a outside force can break it up. And then you git anger and resentment because what made the place special and good to people is wrecked. And that’s where we are now, in shadowland.”

“Mr. Crouch—Ace—it seems to me that windmills did a share of breaking things up too. I mean, you could say that windmills were a kind of anticommunity technology—every man for himself instead of water co-ops. So what you’ve done all
your
life has been against the panhandle too. How is that different than a businessman trying to make a living in large-scale stock raising?”

“You should a been a lawyer, Bob. It takes us back around the circle. There are so many people in the world now that there is not enough elbow room. Doesn’t your rural resident born here have a right a live here? More right than a absentee corporate hog farmer to ruin the place?”

“Why should being born in a place give you more rights than anybody else? I’ve never understood that. It’s like Francis Scott Keister going around with his bumper sticker, ‘Texas Native.’ I mean, so what?”

“It’s historical and psychological rights. Hell, it’s gettin to sunset and we’re at loggerheads. Time to git down and head out.”

Nimbly Ace Crouch stood up, stretched, lowered the bucket of ice and tea to the ground, then went quickly down the ladder, half sliding. Bob followed cautiously and slowly, gripping the side rails. At the bottom the old man said only, “Follow me and I’ll unlock the gate for you.”

At the highway Ace Crouch opened the gate, drove through and parked his rig, held the gate open for Bob. Bob stopped outside the gate as well and, while Ace relocked the gate, tried to continue his argument.

“I mean, is it fair for your brother to suffer out there when he could be in town enjoying life? And what about the Shattles? Mr. Shattle is sick from the fumes. They need to sell those properties. And—”

“Son, Tater and me is movin toward death. We’re in the years when we meet our fate instead a dodgin and twistin in the long game that nobody can win. We sorted it out, Tater and me, that we got a obligation to the panhandle. I’m the oldest one. I got the responsibility. And the power. Tater and me won’t sell nothin to no hog corporation. You lose. But remember, you can’t win em all.”

“
All!?
I haven’t won any.”

Ace Crouch got in his truck. He nodded once and drove away.

Bob, who had never been a villain before, smarted with resentment. But he was afraid of losing the way again, so followed the old man’s taillights.

A
s Bob drove into Woolybucket, tired and blue, for it had been a day strewn with the sandburs of defeat, he noticed that the lights were on in the Old Dog and people moving about inside, then remembered Cy’s intention of staying open late to catch something he called “the supper trade” to combat the losses from the Christian competition. A bowl of chile would cheer him up. Maybe Brother Mesquite would be there, although he didn’t see the monk’s old pickup. He parked in front of the café and went in.

LaVon Fronk sat in one of the booths, a plate of pork chop bones and bread crusts before her.

“Well, Bob, just the one I was hopin a see. Come in on purpose, find out if you was around. Called Jaelene and she said you been out all day. I got a favor to ask.”

“I didn’t ever expect to see
you
here,” he said. “I thought you swore never to eat here.”

“Coolbroth wanted a eat here but he gobbled and run off to one a his meetins. I have to say, Cy’s a pretty good cook. What I wanted a ask you was if you would sit in the quilt raffle booth for a hour tomorrow at the Barbwar Festival. I got everthing covered except from two to three o’clock. Coolbroth won’t do it. It’s just sellin raffle tickets. The drawin is at five.”

“Well, I guess I could. If it’s just an hour.”

“It is. At three o’clock it’s”—and she consulted a list she pulled from her purse—“Mrs. Herwig. You remember Mrs. Herwig. Or somebody else. You know, Bob, there is some folks mighty mad at you for trying to git their land away for hog farms. Even Freda Beautyrooms’ son there, that Waldo, he took a half-page ad in
The Bummer
sayin nobody should sell to you, you misrepresented yourself.”

“I never wanted Freda Beautyrooms’ place for a hog farm. He got it all wrong. I thought it would be a great location for the luxury houses.”

“Oh yes, all surrounded by hog farms, stinkin to the north, south, east and west? He says you’re not connected with any real estate firm. This’s good pork,” she said, gnawing on a bone.

“Probably from one of the terrible hog farms.”

“No, Cy Frease gets his pork from Phil Bule. I asked him.”

Bob heaved a sigh. “Anyway, nobody is selling to me. It’s finished. I’m going to call Global Pork Rind Monday morning and tell them I couldn’t make any sales.”

“I don’t understand how come you care so much about that company. Do you have stock in it? Are you related to the Pork Rind people?”

“No. It’s just I took on a job and I wanted to—I don’t care anything about Global Pork Rind, but I think it’s important to finish what you start.”

“If you don’t care, then quit makin a fuss.”

“LaVon, I have a responsibility. You know my folks abandoned me. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to just walk out with the job unfinished.”

“I don’t see there’s any kind a ‘finish’ to a job buyin hog farm sites. People change jobs all the time. It’s not anything
like
your folks runnin off. Find somethin else to do. There’s work out there for smart young men. That reminds me, Jaelene telephoned a tell you if I seen you that you had a bunch a calls today, urgent calls.”

Bob continued to argue. “But what about those people who were going to sell their places? I mean, they are on the spot now. Sure,
I
can go off and find another job, but what about Tater Crouch? He’s got to smell that stink forever. And the Shattles. Even Jim Skin, who could use the money for that old worn-out land.”

“Don’t lose sleep over it. Tell you something, all a them people
is
sellin their land, but not to you. There’s another buyer.”

“What, Evelyn Chine? She’s hurt bad and not likely to be in her job again.”

“No, not her. Ace. Ace Crouch is buyin it all. In fact, he bought the hog farm next a the Shattles and now he’s tearin down the hog houses, just smashin away. The hogs all got trucked off this afternoon.”

“Ace? Ace Crouch? But he’s poor. He couldn’t buy a hog farm. Or all these ranches. I just talked with him this afternoon and he never said a word about buying the hog farm.”

“He’s not talkative, like Tater is. Anyway, you ought a go ask Tater. Seems Ace had a few surprises up his sleeve for Tater and everbody else.”

“By God, I will,” said Bob, who was puzzled and angry. He got up.

“Bob, don’t you want supper?” called Cy from the stove. “You don’t want the pork chops, there’s spaghetti and meatballs.”

“No time,” and he rushed out the door.

He parked in Tater’s front yard, leapt up the porch steps and opened the door without knocking. The old man was sipping from a tumbler of whiskey and watching television,
Sex in the City.
He looked up, gestured at the overcostumed actors.

“Don’t seem like we’re on the same planet.”

“Tater,” Bob said. “Tater, what is going on? What are you all doing to me? Will somebody please let me in on the secret? Your brother Ace chewed my ear off all afternoon about pioneers and moral geography.”

“Bob, nobody’s doin nothin to you. Ace laid it all out to me and he’s the oldest. He got me to see that while we last we must not give up the panhandle to you or nobody. This is our place, and we are goin a hang on to it. Nobody is sellin a ranch to a hog farm from here on out.”

“But how? First of all people here are too independent. They won’t cooperate. Seems to me panhandle people would rather ruin themselves than work together. And Ace can’t buy all these places. It would take millions and millions. You told me yourself he doesn’t have a pot to piss in.”

“I was wrong about that. He’s got solid gold pots with diamonds around the edge. That old Dutchman he used a be windmill partners with left him everthing. He didn’t say nothin because it’s took a year for the money to get untied. He thought the lawyers might get it all. But they didn’t, he got it.
Hunderds
and hunderds a millions. Ace is too rich to stand. He is a petrodollar billionaire. And see, him and Coolbroth Fronk and LaVon and the Shattles and Brother Mesquite and me and a bunch a other people is with him. He’s got it in mind a buy up all the farms and ranches and the hog places he can, and politicians, too, if that’s what it takes to git them on our side. We’re goin a take down fences and open her back up, run bison in the panhandle. Brother Mesquite’s goin a help with it. We got them Poppers comin down a talk at the church next Thursday. They’re already doin this kind a thing in the Dakotas. Why not the panhandle? There’s even a buffalo market now that Ted Turner’s openin up them bison burger stands. Things is goin a change.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Bob, turning on his heel and leaving. He left the door open as a sign of displeasure.

The wind was wrong and the stink of hogs more powerful than ever as Bob drove up to the Shattles’ house. He supposed, if they really had moved out the hogs, that it was the festering lagoon—manure pit—that continued to waft its abominable odors over the prairie.

“Hello, Bob,” called Jaelene Shattle. “Did you hear the news? Ace Crouch bought the hog farm and moved out all the hogs today. Next week they are goin a pump the lagoon into big septic trucks and take the stuff to Nevada. Should take it to Warshinton. Give the stink to the government.”

“So you don’t have to sell your place.”

“Oh, we
are
goin a sell it. Tater, too. Ace is behind a big consortium, the Panhandle Bison Range. Buffalo, prairie dogs, prairie chickens, native grass, antelopes, all that kind a thing, somethin like a nature preserve. And he figures people will want a have houses near the nature preserve, see the buffalo and all. Sort of what you was sayin back when you was lookin for luxury house sites. Waldo Beautyrooms is goin a sell the Axe-Head Ranch to them.”

“This is just talk,” said Bob. “It can’t work.”

“We know it’s goin a be hard work, takin back the panhandle from the corporations, but what else can we do? Give up and die? That reminds me, you had telephone calls today. Here, I wrote everthing down.”

Bob looked at the sheet of paper: Abner Chine, urgent, with a Kansas area code number; Uncle Tam, urgent, with the shop number; Brother Mesquite, urgent, with the monastery number. He called Mr. Chine first.

“Oh, Mr. Dollar, I’m glad you reached me. Mrs. Chine and I want to talk to you about Evelyn. Her doctor seems to think that you and Evelyn are—married? Would that be so? Evelyn said nothing to us about it and in light of her situation—the doctor thinks she will be spending many months, even years, in therapy and will need constant care, so if she is married we need to know about it, as much for the insurance situation as anything else. Her employer says she did not incur the injury in the line of work so we are left holding the bag, so to speak.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Chine, that was a misunderstanding, entirely my fault. Evelyn and I are not married. I said that so I could get to see her. I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to cause a problem. Actually, I think she
was
injured in the line of work. Evelyn had an unorthodox but effective approach to sales.”

“That could help our case, Mr. Dollar. Would you be willing to talk with Mrs. Chine and I about that?”

“Certainly,” said Bob. “I expect to be driving up to Denver on Monday. Will you still be in Amarillo? I could go that way.”

“We’ll meet you there, Bob. How about two o’clock at the hospital? And you can see Evelyn. She’s conscious now but they say it will be a long haul for her. It would do her good to see you. Even if she don’t recognize you.”

He called Uncle Tam at the apartment, for it was dinnertime and his uncle would be scraping carrots and chopping leeks.

“Hi, Uncle Tam. It’s me.”

“Bob, thank God. I was worried. There was a piece in the
Post
today. Front page. There was a shooting at Global Pork Rind yesterday afternoon. Wait a minute, I’ve got it right here. ‘An unnamed woman, thought to be a disgruntled employee, entered a meeting room at Global Pork Rind and opened fire on four executives, killing one and severely wounding another. Mr. Quantum Goliath of Tokyo, the president of GPR, was at the meeting. The three survivors were taken to Denver General Hospital. The names of the deceased and injured were not given pending notification of next of kin. The woman is in custody.’ I was going to listen to the eleven o’clock news and see what they’d found out.”

“My God,” said Bob. “They don’t say who got killed?”

“Nope. ‘Pending notification.’”

“I think I can guess who the woman is. There’s a very angry wife from down here whose husband was planning to sell out their ranch to Global Pork Rind and he was having an affair with a GPR saleswoman too. Tazzy Keister. She shot her husband and the saleswoman and then escaped from the local jail. She was on the warpath, declared war on hog farm companies.”

“Bob, you are in dangerous work.”

“I was, Uncle Tam. But I’m out of it. I’m a failure. I couldn’t even make one sale. I’ve abdicated my responsibility. I guess I’m like my dad.”

“Whew. I am so damn glad you are safe. So you failed to buy up people’s farms and ranches for hog facilities. Is that such a terrible thing? Come on home and we’ll spread the whole thing on the table and take a look at it.”

“I will come back next week. I promised to help at the big Barbwire Festival tomorrow. And all Sunday there will be cleaning up to do. I want to say goodbye to a few people here. They have a plan to get around the hog farm thing. So next week I’ll turn in the car and talk with Mr. Cluke, tell him I quit.”

“He might be one of the ones that was shot up at that meeting.”

“He might. If you hear anything, let me know.” He thought his twenty-five years of life were like a slag heap of mine tailings that had yielded only a few specks of gold. But when he said this to Uncle Tam, instead of sympathy or some unclelike bit of advice his relative howled with laughter.

“How small are those specks of gold, Bob? About the size of pepper specks? Or fly specks? Bigger than a grain of salt?”

“See if I tell
you
anything again,” said Bob and hung up.

The last phone call, to the monastery, got him a recorded message. “Good evening, You have reached the Triple Cross Monastery. We are unable to take your call now as we are at compline. Please leave a message after the tone or call again in the morning after lauds.”