Wandering West

By Gary C. Stalcup

Jack Stiler’s return to The Lucky Star Ranch in South Texas is bittersweet. The property along this stretch of the Little Hondo has been in his family since the early 1900s. An ex-Wall Streeter, Stiler is still dealing with the loss of his beloved wife to cancer and the humiliation of a scandal that ended his career. He now faces the challenge of a lifetime as he tries to save the ranch. The region has been plagued by a drought of historic proportions, and the area surrounding his home is rife with the trafficking of drugs, guns, and desperate human beings who want nothing more than a better way of life. But Stiler’s return is more than a battle to save The Lucky Star from financial ruin and from the invasion of smugglers; it’s a desperate attempt to defeat the demons within. He battles to hold onto those he loves in the midst of even more death and destruction, while struggling with his own sense of mortality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Sep 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483403267

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Flecher

Prologue

C arefully, with the aid of the walker, I stepped out of the narrow shower, towel dried my sagging shell of a body, and then, steeling myself against the lingering pain, I moved to sit at the edge of the bed. I had been able to dress myself since yesterday morning, almost twenty-four hours ago, after my last shower. I opened the drawer to the nightstand beside the bed and took out the last fresh pair of Jockey underwear. Gingerly, as if lassoing a steer, I reached down in a tossing motion to loop the left leg hole of the garment over the left foot. Once I had the foot corralled above the ankle, I was able to reach down far enough to dip my right foot inside the right leg hole. With a grunt, I worked the underwear up to my saggy waist. The simple act of dressing to this point still had me breathing heavily, as if I had run in an all-out sprint to the nurse’s station and back. I rested for a minute and then managed to dress in the khaki slacks that had been laid out on the bed beside me. Fortunately, I had brought Topsiders to wear home. I had also sprinkled talcum powder inside the shoes. My feet easily slipped in.

My beard was still soft and moist from the shower. With the walker, I pulled myself back onto my feet and shuffled my way to the sink and mirror a short distance away. I could stand and balance myself without the aid of walls, furniture, or the walking device now. I folded and then leaned the walker against the wall beside me. My toiletries were packed in the black shaving kit next to the sink. I took out the shaving cream and applied a mound to my fingertips. While waiting for hot water to flow from the faucet, I studied the image in the mirror. The puffy face of middle age had given way to a thinner look, the bone structure of a younger man ironically displayed behind the droopy cheeks. What once had been a beard of dark reddish stubble was now completely white, and what once had been a smooth, lightly tanned neck was now a ruddy accordion of wrinkles. Tiny veins wiggled just under the skin of my nose and chin. The ravages of a full life were already telling. Even my best feature, the blue eyes, were washed out and cloudy where they peered out from heavy lids. How strange, it seemed, that something so gradual as the physical transformation from aging would so abruptly manifest itself as it lately had. It was as though the subconscious could no longer hold back the facts that had been so apparent to everyone else.

My face came alive with the menthol of the shaving cream. The new sharp, double-bladed razor felt good raking across my jaw for the first time in days. I was thinking how nice it would be to get back home when the nurse walked into the room. She was a tall, big-boned woman with strong yet gentle hands. I had seen her for the first time just an hour or so ago, when she massaged away a cramp in my right foot. I dreaded her reappearance. She had worked hard to strike up a conversation.

Am I pronouncing your name right? she asked, picking up the hospital gown I had tossed on the tile floor before showering. Mr. St—is it a long ‘I’ sound or a short ‘I’?

Long, I said. Like you see with your eye.

Mr. Stiler, she said, dropping the gown onto the bed. Right?

Right. Jack Stiler. I finished shaving the left side of my face and started on my right.

She nodded with a smile. I’m Hilda. I think I told you that earlier. Hilda Heinsohn. It’s German. My family’s from New Braunfels. They were some of the first settlers to come here from Germany. From the old country.

I smiled back through the mirror and then guided the double blades beneath the right side of my nose. Where’s Mark?

Hilda began gathering my personal belongings in a plastic bag she had discovered in the tiny closet. He ran down to grab your paperwork from the front desk. And to get a wheelchair so you can leave. You did arrange for a ride home this morning, right? You told me that earlier, didn’t you?

They should be getting here before too long. I rinsed stubble down the sink drain, rinsed the razor under running water, and placed it inside the shaving kit. After rinsing the excess shaving cream off my face and neck, I located my blue knit shirt hanging across the towel bar and slipped it on. I rummaged through the shaving kit until I found my brush. Before giving up on the unruly, thinning gray hair, I attempted several times to comb it in place. I don’t need a wheelchair, I then said, and I shuffled back to sit on the bed, leaving the folded walker behind.

Look at you, Hilda said as if she were admiring the first steps of a child. But you know it’s policy, Mr. Stiler.

Oh I know. Fine.

Stiler, she said, thinking. That rings a bell.

Just one?

What?

Never mind.

Are you the one they’ve been talking about in the paper and on the news lately?

Well—

You’re the one they’ve been calling the Wall Street cowboy, aren’t you?

I had to chuckle at the thought. Wall Street cowboy might be a stretch.

But you’re him, aren’t you, Mr. Stiler?

Well, some people on Wall Street used to say I was too much of a cowboy, and some people around here say I’m too much of a Wall Streeter. I chuckled again. Actually, I’m not much of either.

Wow, the nurse said, I’ve been trying to keep up with all the things that have been happening. You’ve had quite an interesting few months recently, haven’t you?

You’d have to know a good chunk of my life to put the past few months into context, I said.

That’s always the case, isn’t it? When I didn’t answer, she added, Well, sit tight, Mr. Stiler. May be awhile before Mark gets back with the chair and your ride gets here.

I watched Hilda walk out of the room as I moved into the vinyl recliner with the flowery pattern next to the bed. I settled into the chair, leaning it back as far as it would go, and closed my eyes. It felt good to be out of bed yet off my feet. Hilda was right. The past few months had been interesting indeed.

1

W e came to a stop along the crumbly bank of the drying creek. Agnes Rose leaned her bay neck toward the muddy puddle, nostrils flaring, and then straightened under the saddle as if the stagnation were an affront to her senses. I glanced over at Star Flash, motionless under Sadie’s seventy pounds. He seemed to be staring out across the hardpan that wiggled in the heat toward the afternoon horizon. He was eighteen now, a bit swayed under Sadie and without the pawing need to run. He was magnificent still, black with the trademark white blotch at his forehead, muscles defined now by genetics rather than by training. Those days were long past, his winnings, his disappointments, and so were the days of lucrative breeding. We were both pretty used up.

What’s so funny, Jack?

Sadie had never called me grandpa, granddad, or any of the other such monikers. To her, I had always been Jack. Just thinking, Sadie Mae, just thinking.

I’m thinking we need rain quick, or this creek’s gonna dry up completely. She didn’t look up from her smartphone, tapping away as she spoke. Sadie seemed oblivious to the heat. Under the pink straw hat, sweat gleamed across her flushed, freckled cheeks, trickling down her pale neck. Beneath the shoulder-length auburn hair she had penned up, the collar of her faded denim shirt was dark with wet blotches.

I think you’re right. I squeezed shut my eyes and tried to blink away the salty burn. With my right hand, I lifted the green canvas outback hat off my forehead just enough to wipe away the sweat with the long sleeve of my tan khaki shirt. Then I removed my sunglasses long enough to dry my eyes with swipes of my thumb. While Sadie texted on the smartphone, I took in the view.

This stretch of the Little Hondo had been in my family since the early 1900s. The creek was little more than a chiseled scratch of jagged ravine clawing its way along the prickly forests of low brush and the flat to rolling pastures of South Texas. This time of year, the landscape was mostly a checkerboard of dark, dense thicket and yellowing, water-starved grass. In 1935, we added to our holdings another mile or so of the ravine and its surrounding countryside. It was around that time that Big Pop, my grandfather, traded Wayman Farlow water privileges for a stake in his prize quarter horse, Lucky Star, as well as full ownership of one of Lucky Star’s future colts or fillies. That turned out to be a bargain. Lucky Star went on to earn more than a million dollars over the course of his racing career, once only a nose away from winning what would eventually become known as the All-American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs. In total, Big Pop’s take was well over two hundred thousand. He more than tripled the size of the ranch and renamed it The Lucky Star. We had been asset rich and income poor ever since.

You laughed again, Jack. I may only be eleven, but I’m old enough to know it’s not healthy to laugh to yourself like that all the time.

I had to marvel at the dexterity of those skinny fingers tapping away on the smartphone. It was as if vital, life-saving information were being conveyed without a moment to lose. Laughing at myself, I corrected. I may only be sixty-four, but I’m old enough to know it’s healthy to laugh at myself once in a while. C’mon, Sadie Mae, let’s head home. Agnes and Star are ready for a nap.

Jack is ready for a nap.

Smart girl.

We rode back in silence for a time. The hypnotic canter of hooves across hardpan was making me sleepy. The canter soon eased into an uneven walk. At least now I wouldn’t fall out of the saddle. I considered Star Flash as we rode on. True to the Lucky Star lineage, he had won, placed, or shown in more races than not, and he had bred well. Now the stable was bare, save for Agnes Rose and Star Flash. No one in the family had shown much interest in raising quarter horses and thoroughbreds since Dad died almost fifteen years ago. Mother had enjoyed them recreationally. She did her best to maintain a strong stable for a time, but age eventually took its toll. She died almost seven years to the day after Dad. Then, just three years and two months ago, Victoria died. I came back then. Victoria had drawn me away, and now she was gone. I wasn’t sure why I came back, only that it was not to manage a ranch. Raising cattle and horses required the stamina of youth and the funds to support it. I no longer had enough of either. Besides, I was not a cattleman, not much of a horseman either. I loved them both, the way a young boy loved his parents before the commitment. It was all about needs, mine not theirs. Returning was a quest for peace, I guess, a need for simplicity after spending so many years working on Wall Street. Maybe it was a desperate attempt to understand the way life had turned out. The Lucky Star was the place where thoughts flowed into dreams and then back again. The problem with dreams was that they were unattainable. As surely as night follows day, those thoughts gave rise to remorse, inadequacy, confusion, and self-loathing. I tried to guard against some of that, as impossible as it was. I did not want to be a bitter old man.

Jack! Jack!

Sadie’s hushed yell startled me. I looked up. She was pointing to a thicket of mesquite just off the caliche road. There, a number of trespassers were scrambling to their feet. More than likely, they were a conglomeration of Mexicans and Central Americans who were simply passing through The Lucky Star en route to a better life to the north. The more remote parts of the ranch were used by smugglers to transport their drugs and their weapons with increasing frequency. These people were just off the main roadway. If they were hauling contraband, we wouldn’t have come upon them so easily or so benignly. Just the same, I placed my right hand on Big Pop’s thirty-thirty Winchester rifle, which I carried holstered to my saddle.

In an instant, most of them disappeared, scattering along the thorny deer and cattle trails that were littered with the plastic and paper left by previous travelers. Still huddled under the sparse shade were a young man and a young woman. A girl younger than Sadie stood nearby. She was cradling a baby. I spurred Agnes Rose the short distance and, bracing against the arthritis, swung myself down to the rocky ground. The young woman was in pain. She was grimacing. Tears and sweat mapped her dust-powdered face as she murmured in Spanish to the girl. A cry stopped her in midsentence. Her worn jeans had been ripped away above the right shin. She was squeezing the leg with both hands where two trickles of blood dripped between her fingers into splashes on the ground. The young man knelt, crouching over her. He had looped his belt above the woman’s shin as a tourniquet and was gripping it with white knuckles. I glanced over at him. He, too, was grimacing. Tears clung to his dirty, sweat-gleamed cheeks. His dark eyes were puffy, veined, and no doubt weary from too many miles in the desert with too much responsibility for sleep. A dark red color lined his crusty lips. It was dried blood.

He looked up at me. "El agua, por favor . . . agua . . ."

Sadie had already dismounted Star Flash and was handing the young man one of the two Ozarka water bottles we had brought with us. I dug my fingers inside my jeans pocket to pull out the smartphone wedged uncomfortably inside. After two mistakes, my fat fingers finally hit the correct numbers. Tomas, I said into the phone, we need you quick! About a mile out, just off the road near the double-gapped gate to the east pasture!

I shoved the phone back inside my pocket and turned to the couple. The man had tried to get the woman to drink from the bottle, but she was now vomiting bile down her chin and chest. Her leg below the tourniquet was swelling quickly and turning a dangerous shade of purple. Nearby, the girl clung to the crying infant, sobbing softly. She had drunk about a third of the water from the other bottle and was now desperate to pour sprinkles across the baby’s dry lips.

Help is coming, I said. "We’ll get her to a doctor soon. Very soon. Medico. Pronto. Muy pronto. I told the man to slacken the belt slightly, but he looked at me in the way one did when communication was less than adequate. I tried to think of reassuring, comforting words in Spanish, but it had been a lifetime since my childhood days. Back then, I could at least make the people who came north across the Rio Bravo better understand what I was trying to say. Out here, speaking some level of Spanish was practically a necessity. Habla Ingles? Do you speak English? Habla Ingles?"

Nada, Senor. The man was shaking his head.

I turned to the girl in frustration. "English, si? Habla Ingles?"

She shook her head, tears rolling in rivulets down her frightened face.

What happened, Jack? What’s going on?

I turned to Sadie. She stood stroking Star Flash’s velvety nose. It was a nervous stroke, and her large green eyes were searching me for understanding. This wasn’t happening on television, not at a theatre, not on the computer, not on any of that. This was real. The outcome was in question if not in doubt. I was trying to smile reassuringly when Tomas’s pickup rumbled toward us in a cloud of white dust. The battered white Silverado squeaked past the brush to a stop by the horses.

Ready to go, Jack. Tomas had already pulled himself out from behind the steering wheel and was yanking open the back door to the crew cab. I called Dr. Garcia’s office so he’ll be ready in case—

No time to get to Javier’s, I said. The young man and I were struggling to carry the young woman to the backseat. Take her to Gayle’s. I’ll call her as soon as you leave.

Okey-doke. Tomas spoke in Spanish to the girl with the baby. He hurried to open the front passenger door and then gingerly took the baby long enough for the girl to climb inside.

I watched them drive away and then dug the phone out of my pocket again to call Dr. Gayle Thaxton. Gayle was the local veterinarian. Her office was less than twenty minutes away, and she would have the anti-venom to aid in saving the young woman’s life and hopefully her leg. When I had completed the call, I turned to Sadie. She was standing between the horses, tugging on one of Agnes Rose’s red ears. She was watching the last of this scene play out as the white plume of dust wafted down the roadway. Sadie, you okay? Sadie Mae? Tomas will get them to Dr. Thaxton’s in just a few minutes.

Sadie nodded blankly. What happened, Jack?

I pointed toward a clump of grass just off the road. The body of a large rattlesnake lay stretched out, belly up. Nearby was a large bloody rock. The crushed head of the snake was already drawing flies. Now you know why I’m always telling you to walk slowly and make plenty of noise when you’re out on foot here.

Sadie eased over to the snake as if it could flip over and coil for another strike. She crumpled her freckled nose and then escaped back to the horses. Don’t worry. I’m never walking around out here again. Not ever.

I handed her the reigns to Star Flash. Come on, let’s go. I slipped my foot into the stirrup and steeled myself for the climb back onto Agnes Rose.

Do you think she’ll be okay?

We’ll have to hear what Tomas has to say when he gets back.

What will happen to the girl and the baby?

Well, that’s a good question. Could be Immigration takes them all in to be deported. To be sent back to wherever they came from. Could be Gayle turns a blind eye to it all.

What should she do, Jack?

I let Agnes Rose pull up beside Star Flash for the leisurely walk home. Well, that’s another good question, Sadie Mae Stiler. On the one hand, they’re all here illegally. On the other, they’re all here running from a life of violence and crime and corruption. Ultimately, things have to change—that’s for sure. But making changes isn’t often easy, whether it concerns a simple, straightforward issue or whether it concerns a complicated one like this. A people’s way of life is at the crux of this matter. Millions of people in their native countries are being oppressed—being mistreated, held back—in one way or another. And millions more will be affected—here and there—by the change, in one way or another. Am I making any sense of this for you, Sadie Mae?

Kinda. She was looking out into the silvery-green patch of sagebrush just off the road, her tender mind working to understand. When she looked back at me, she said matter-of-factly, Then let’s make people treat each other right so they can stay home. Like you always say, Jack—like the Golden Rule.

It’s making sense all right, I said with a chuckle. That’s the ultimate answer to just about everything people-related. The world just needs more Sadie Maes out there to lead us. People who aren’t afraid to make the right long-term decisions for the most of us.

What’s so hard about that?

Too many people let themselves believe what they want to believe. They rationalize instead of using sound judgment. That’s lazy thinking. Just remember this, Sadie Mae. It’s easier to do things the right way, the first time, in the long run, than the easy way in the short. The easy way generally creates more problems than it solves. The irony is—you know what irony means, don’t you? When she nodded, I continued, The irony is, the right way—usually the harder way—is in fact really the easier way because eventually you’re gonna have to come around to it regardless.

Daddy always tells me it’s easier to do things the right way first, she said.

Smart daddy, that son of mine, I said with another chuckle.

So, I don’t see what the problem is, Jack. People should do the right thing—period.

I agree, sweetie pie. Seems so simple, doesn’t it? The world over, the innocent people—on both sides of any issue—are the ones who get hurt the most.

So don’t let the mean people be in charge anymore?

Sadie always could make me smile. I gestured to the smartphone she now had wedged inside her jeans at the gold horseshoe of a belt buckle. Contraptions like that phone have more power to pull us all together in the right direction than any million so-called leaders do. Problem is it also has the power to pull us all apart in different directions. It still boils down to having real leaders. Wise, unselfish people.

So don’t let the mean people be in charge.

Well, honey, that’s where wars come in.

Like Great Uncle John and Uncle Johnny?

Like Great Uncle John and Uncle Johnny.

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We rode on without speaking for a long while. I was lost in thought. As usual, these days, my mind drifted to loving memories of a distant past before locking in on the growing financial crisis at hand, how to pay the mounting bills of The Lucky Star as well as those of my own. Sadie rescued me from the mental torment, calling out, Look, Tomas is already back!

Mr. Rojas, I corrected the eleven-year-old.

I focused a short distance ahead down the straight, flat roadway. The dark, tiny specks had transformed into the large cedar and limestone house we called the rock house, the cedar and limestone stable and the silvery tin barn and shed. We were ambling into the barnyard as the Silverado squeaked to a halt beside the holding pens. Tomas pushed open the pickup door and pulled himself out of the cab with the stiffness of one who had spent a lifetime performing manual labor. In the sweat-stained straw hat and the worn Wrangler jeans tucked inside scuffed brown boots, he was the picture of a true cowboy. Smallish and wiry, Tomas had come to my father back in the midsixties looking for work. He had wanted to be a jockey like his uncle who had come from Mexico some years before, but Tomas was not that small. Instead, Dad put him to work doing odd jobs at first, including working cattle, then eventually grooming the race horses and finally training them. Now Tomas was one of the better trainers around and certainly one of the most humane. He treated his horses as he had his own children, with a loving firmness. On my return, I had initially wondered why he stayed here. He could get a much better job training horses almost anywhere he wanted. An owner of one of the more prominent stables in Virginia had propositioned him to move east a couple of years ago, and the King Ranch made regular inquiries about his interest in working one of their stables. Tomas had resisted. He was too old to make changes now. The Lucky Star was his home.

Well? Sadie was peering down from Star Flash, demanding information.

Tomas approached us, holding two halves of a carrot for the horses to munch. He smiled reassuringly at Sadie, his sparse gray mustache thinning even more. There was a calm about Tomas that transcended words and actions. His was a wisdom borne from a naturally even disposition and a lifetime of enduring more hardship than most. Today’s ordeal was but one emergency in a life of emergencies. Don’t worry, Sadie. Dr. Thaxton thinks the woman will be okay in a day or two.

So is she letting them go?

From his open, calloused palm, Tomas allowed Star Flash to chomp the remaining carrot stub and stem. He dusted his hands, wiped them on his jeans, and then peeled off a corner of chewing tobacco from the packet of Brown Mule he housed in his khaki shirt pocket. Sheriff Chapa was at the vet with his dog at the same time. Said he would turn them over to ICE. Dr. Thaxton got a hold of Dr. Garcia. They’re taking the woman to the hospital. At least for the night. Her and her family. All of them. They wanna watch the man too. Might’ve gotten some venom in his bloodstream when he sucked the bite. Plus they’re all dehydrated and sunburned pretty bad. Tomas wedged the plug of tobacco inside his left cheek. Oh, turns out the woman’s pregnant. Hoping to have the baby over here.

What do you mean, turn them over to ice? Sadie asked. Are they gonna torture them somehow with ice?

Tomas and I laughed. I dismounted Agnes Rose and said, No, honey. I-C-E. It stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s a part of the federal government that deals with those who come to the United States illegally, among other things.

Why does she want to have the baby over here? Sadie dismounted Star Flash and resumed the tapping on her smartphone.

Well, over here the baby would automatically be a natural-born citizen. And the older girl… I let my explanation die away.

Sadie had lost interest in the conversation. She was moving in the direction of the house as she texted on. Jack, okay if I use your laptop?

When I come in, I said. You know my rules. Besides, I still have websites open. I still have work to do.

I watched Tomas lead the horses inside the stable. He began unsaddling Agnes Rose first. My impulse was to step in to help, but I resisted. Tomas needed to perform such tasks himself as difficult as they were for him now. His right hand did most of the work while the left he used mainly as a guide. Many years before, his left arm and hand had been crushed against the stable door by a spooked horse. He now had seventeen pins and three plates holding all the parts together. I only knew the details because his wife, Gloria, had once commented as much in passing. Tomas would never have told me that. He was old school. He didn’t speak about himself. He had a big heart, but he was tough as nails. He was fair and honest, but with equal expectations of others. I would have to find more horses for him to train. He deserved that much from The Lucky Star. For a moment more, I watched him struggle with the bulky, Western-style saddle. I would miss him dearly if he died before I did. I hoped I went first.

I ambled across the barnyard, heading nowhere in particular, moving my stiff body after being perched atop the hard, unforgiving saddle for much of the afternoon, allowing the blood to flow back into my numbed buttocks. I approached an expanse of parched Bermuda grass that lay between the huge rusting tin barn that housed our implements and the round training corral where Big Pop and Dad had trained our colts and fillies. I rubbed the toe of my boot into the grass. It looked dead, but I knew it wasn’t. However neglected, this stretch of yard, surrounded by packed ground and caliche gravel, had always survived the droughts and the freezes that turned it into brittle straw. It seemed not so long ago, while the adults worked, that John and I were playing flies and skinners with the one baseball bat and glove we had. John would hit me hissing grounders that, more often than not, hopped erratically. Sometimes those bad hops popped open my lip and bloodied my nose. Sometimes I would grab the ball and, as hard as I could, throw it back at him where he stood laughing. Like a matador, he always seemed to sidestep my retaliatory throws and laugh even harder. John, the little prick… John, my dear big brother… how I missed him…

I moved to the barn and poked my head inside. Beyond the shaft of light that peeked in from the partially open door, it was as dark as night, except for the few lasers of light that penetrated from the slits of rusty tin. I took a deep breath. It smelled as it always had, of grease, dirt, and a mustiness that grew where light seldom shone. Only when the large sliding doors were fully open could one see what