On Sunday Pete drove Jake to the bus depot and saw him off on his trip to Denver, which would take him away only three days total. "What time do you get back on Tuesday?" Pete asked as Jake stepped up the steps into the Greyhound. "About 10:30 Tuesday night," Jake said. "Are you sure that's gonna be okay?" "Maybe I'll send Joanne," Pete said, knowing that'd be what Jake wanted to hear. For reasons known only to her, Joanne had ducked taking Jake to the bus, pushing it off on her father instead. She would later tell Py that seeing people off was not her favorite thing to do. "I used to have an uncle who'd always tell you that he'd be happy to help you carry your things in, but he'd never help you carry them back out," Joanne told him. "I think I feel a little bit the same way about people leaving."
A part of her feared that Jake would not come back. The thought never occurred to Py or Pete -they had no doubt that Jake was fully committed to everything they had talked about. They expected that Jake wanted to do just what he had said, which was to return Parker Ranch to the proud place it had once been. Joanne, on the other hand, had instincts about Jake. There was something unsettled about him, something stray. Something within him needed to be resolved and Joanne could feel it. She wanted to believe that there was poetry about his distance, but in her heart she wondered if it wasn't just avoidance -or, worse yet, cowardice. Something in his eyes, his voice, the way he kissed... Jake was running from something, though she did not know what it was. For some reason he was staying out there on the fringe of human existence, wary and unsure. It made her love him and mistrust him. And it made her too scared to put him on the bus.
She was not going to be the fool who delivered him out of her life, which was a part she was certain had been played by others. Jake was a "leaver." She could feel it in his sighs.
In Jake's absence, work continued on the Parker Ranch renewal. Weeds were cut down, what lawn existed was mowed, trees were pruned and scrap lumber was stowed out of sight behind the barn. The windrow was cleaned free of blowing trash and paper. Joanne put Py to work washing windows and she busied herself hanging new curtains she had made for the living room and kitchen. Jo was a brutal boss, forcing Py to work from 7 a.m. to nearly 10o'clock at night -a regimen she also attempted to impose upon her father, but with less than equal impact. Pete stayed in town for as long as he could on Sunday after taking Jake to the bus, hanging out at the local "Lion Tamer's Club," which is what he called Snorty Wilson's pool and poker hall. Joanne got a good six hours work out of him on Monday before he snuck off to the water tank, where he soaked while getting drunk on Wild Turkey whiskey.
Py also found diversion from Joanne's iron-fisted rule by trying to coax in a stray tomcat that had been watching the work from a safe distance at the edge of the property. It was a coal black tom that had showed up on Sunday soon after Jake and Pete drove off toward town. The animal watched the farm yard from the tall weeds growing around the quonset hut, lounging languidly and casually grooming itself throughout the day, disappearing for a time -Py figured it went to catch a field mouse, though he didn't really know -then returning later in the day. Py tried to call him into the yard, but to no avail. On Sunday night he put some table scraps out for him, but the cat was too wary for that. Py flashed a light out into the yard before turning in that night and saw two shining eyes in the dark, which he believed to be those of the tom. His suspicions seemed confirmed when the animal was still around Monday morning, watching again as the trio worked to get the house looking good before Jake's return -an arbitrary deadline that had been imposed by Joanne, who had an agenda for everything. Py tried several times on Monday to call the cat in, but it was useless. This was a creature that had obviously lived independent of human kind its entire life and was not now about to change.
Their biggest .accomplishment during all this time was completing the renovation of the white picket fence surrounding the yard, which in turn surrounded the house. This had been at the top of Joanne's list of things to do. "It gives the place a homey look, don't you think?" she had asked Py, who had to agree that it did. "I always thought a white picket fence makes a house seem enchanted," she said, mostly to herself. The fantasy had been lost on Py and Pete, who had the task of repairing or replacing the pickets and nailing them back into position. The entire fence was given a fresh new coat of white paint and by mid-afternoon Tuesday it was restored to its previous glory.
Those three days the weather was hot. Horseflies swarmed over the property, biting occasionally, seemingly stirred up by the temperature and the rotting debris Py and Pete had uncovered when they raked the ground around the house. During his daily trip out to see Cooksin the bull, Pete noticed that the animal was besieged by the bloodsucking pests and was tossing his neck and tail regularly to shoo them off his back. Pete quickly got a quart of clean motor into which he blended a couple ounces of liquid camphorated oil, and he rubbed this homemade repellent on his prize bull, but to small avail. The flies even harassed Pete when he tried to cool off that afternoon in the tank. As agitating as it was to him, he had no idea how much it was bothering the huge Charolais, which sought shade from the late summer sun and rescue from the swarming flies by standing up tight against the barn and the tall pines of the corral.
About three o'clock Tuesday afternoon a visitor arrived. Ben Miller, the Sheriff, drove into the yard and pulled his car to a stop outside the newly restored gate. "Pete, Py," he said to the men, by way of a greeting as he got out of his car. He tipped his hat to Joanne, which prompted Pete to ask -"This is my daughter Joanne, Ben. Have I introduced you before?" "Ben Miller, ma'am," said the Sheriff. "Glad to meet you."
"So what brings you out this way, Ben?" Pete asked.
"I actually came to see Mr. Mulvane," said Ben. "I got some news I thought you'd be interested in. It's Frank Walker ..." Py's eyes widened at the sound of the name. "He's decided to drop any notions he had about filing charges."
Py looked for a moment like he might faint as the news drained all tension from his body and he seemed almost to go limp. Joanne let out a gleeful shriek that immediately shocked him back to his senses, then threw her arms around him in a warm embrace. "That's great, Py!" she said. "You can stop worrying!" "Great, great," was all he could think to say.
"I thought you'd be happy to hear," said the Sheriff. "To tell you the truth, I never expected it to go any different. I don't understand Frank Walker sometimes. You had no fault in what happened."
"I sure appreciate you driving all the way out here to tell me," Py said sincerely, extending a handshake to Ben Miller. "I sure do."
"My pleasure, son." Miller looked around the property as the celebration died down, taking note of the freshly painted fence and the general upkeep of the house and yard. "It looks like you folks have been doing some work out here."
"We sure have," Pete said. "We're gettin' the place all shined up, rejuvenatin' everything. Tryin' to get it back to where it was."
"Well, you're doing a good job ..." Sheriff Miller saw something out by the barn that stopped him mid-sentence. "What in the hell is that?" he asked.
Pete looked just in time to see Cooksin the bull arch his back and with one mighty push crush the huge oaks of the corral to a 45 degree angle near where the fence joined the barn. The bull had been rubbing up against the barrier, scratching as best he could the numerous horsefly bites that he'd received during the day. After thirty minutes of that, the two thousand pound animal had worked the posts loose in the ground, though they were buried more than three feet deep. Then one mighty shove had pushed the fence halfway over.
Pete took only one step toward the barn, voicing his alarm, when a second thrust from the huge animal flattened the fence against the ground -and the bull was free. Cooksin spun around, disoriented by his sudden emancipation, tossing his head in a warning gesture. He didn't seem to realize what he had done and he seemed jolted to discover his new range, devoid of restrictions and boundaries. "Holy Christ!" Pete said as he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't want to startle the huge bull and set off a rampage.
Pete looked back over his shoulder and yelled to Py -"Get around to the side of him! Let's steer him back into the pen before he knows where he is!"
"I'll help you, Pete!" said Sheriff Miller, who hurried to Cooksin's northern flank to cut off any retreat in that direction.
"You be careful, you guys," warned Joanne, watching as the trio moved in toward the huge white bull.
"Not too fast, Py," Pete said, seeing that Cooksin was getting a little spooky. The bull turned so it faced Py head on, snorted a few times, then spun and faced Sheriff Miller. "Will he come after me?" Miller asked, wondering now if he hadn't rushed into the fray just a little too quickly. Cooksin put his head down low to the ground and eyeballed the Sheriff, looking like he might charge. "He could," Pete said. "Be careful." Then he started talking to the animal in a strange, high-pitched voice. "Hey, bully-bully. Come now. Hey, bully-bully." "Easy boy," Py said, joining in on the chatter. It was all designed to keep the bull calm, so they could ease him back into confinement. "Easy boy." Sheriff Miller started making a clicking noise, something akin to finger snapping but done by sucking his tongue off the ridge behind his front teeth. "Tch-Tch-Tch..." It was a new one on Pete. He assumed its intended effect on the bull was the same as his "Hey bully-bully come on" line.
Joanne stayed back in the yard near the house, watching uneasily as the three men moved closer and closer to the bull, somehow sensing that the animal was about to do something crazy. Cooksin continued to reposition himself for attack in any of the three directions from which he was being approached, stepping awkwardly across the timbers of the fallen fence, kicking up dirt and dust and looking more and more upset. "Easy boy," Joanne heard Py say. "Tch-Tch-Tch," went Sheriff Miller.
For a moment Cooksin seemed to be in retreat, backing away from the oncoming cowboys, withdrawing into the corral. With a jerky, splay-legged motion he turned his back on the men, but finding himself facing the pen, the place where he had been captive, he abruptly stopped. "Oh-oh," Pete said. "Easy," Py said, sensing that the bull was about to panic when suddenly that's just what he did. Cooksin spun awkwardly once again, swinging his rear end around in deference to the "banderillos." And he charged.
First he came at Pete, who froze like a deer on a highway. "Whoa! Whoa!" Py said, seeing what was happening, and quickly Cooksin dodged in his tracks and retargeted him. "Hey! Hey! Hey!" yelled Sheriff Miller, trying to distract the bull, and
in a flash Cooksin was reoriented and charging hard toward him. And this time he couldn't be stopped. The big bull lowered his head as he came forward and, seeing that, Sheriff Miller turned and started to run. Fleeing in panic, not watching where he was going, he ran directly into a light pole. The bull seemed momentarily confused as the Sheriff came to a dead stop against the greasy mast and bounced back flat on his back to the ground. "Oh my God," Joanne said, watching from the yard as the sheriff lay supine.
Cooksin instantly veered away from the fallen lawman and trotted, head high and alert, around Pete's right flank and in the direction of the house. Joanne, standing inside the fence, was now the only thing standing between rolling thunder and havoc and she began to wave her arms wildly, trying to shoo the Charolais away from her domain. "Get out of here! Get out of here!" she scolded, but he kept coming, walleyed as Pete and Py rushed from behind, admonishing him with desperate pleas to stay well clear of the house.
Nothing worked. Cooksin went through Joanne's freshly restored white picket fence like it was so much kindling. Pickets went flying as the bull followed the fence line right around the perimeter of the yard, Joanne unknowingly directing him in his rampage by flailing wildly at him. The bull snapped a 4 x 4 fence post off at ground level, flattened the rose bushes Joanne had artistically arranged in the landscape, and pulled down the clothesline that she had strung between the house and a large elm that stood outside the fence. As Cooksin rumbled by, apparently headed for the main road, fifty yards from the house, Joanne dropped to her knees in defeat. "Cut him off, Py!" she heard Pete yell, and in the background she heard Sheriff Miller moaning as he slowly got up off the ground. "You work your way around that side to cut him off and I'll go through the windrow!" Pete's voice grew distant as he disappeared into the pines. She saw the rear end of the big bull in a cloud of dust in the distance, then looked around at the damage done to her yard. It didn't matter now whether they caught him or not, as far as she was concerned. Her picket fence was in shambles. Enchantment lay in pieces on the ground.
END OF CHAPTER TEN