“Deliver him this note,” Ma instructed as she pressed the strap of rough parchment into my hand. “Leave it on his door.” They were doing a quick inventory that morning, and they didn’t want me there. They wanted me to learn all the secrets of running the store, but didn’t want me in the way. Another contradiction of growing up in my house. After Ma told us of the Cowboy’s first visit to the store, she decided to make the dinner invitation more formal than usual, but she didn’t want to make the long trek to the Beasleys’ ranch, where the Cowboy had set up residence in their bunkhouse.
“What if he’s there? I can’t just hand him a note and walk away,” I protested, realizing as soon as the words came out how childish they, and I, sounded.
“Then use your mouth and talk,” she said in pointed and arch tone, ending any possibility of further discussion. “Now move, store should already be opened and you know we have to do inventory.”
When she had brushed by and moved to the front of the store, I hastily opened the note to read in my mother’s neatest scrawl an open-ended invitation to dinner, addressed only to ‘The Cowboy’, leaving the option to drop in unannounced and on any day, the way they were always welcoming the cowboys. For some reason, probably at the Beasleys’ encouragement, the cowboys always joined us at least once a week. When I was old enough to argue against sharing meals with strangers, when the adolescent shyness overcame me in those early teenage years, Ma brought out the bible and read about feeding your neighbor or something – only once or twice more did I invite the lesson and bother with attempting to alleviate my social discomfort; at all the dinners I mostly remained silent.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to bring the note to the Cowboy. On this April morning it would be a relief to walk all the way to the Beasleys, which was the furthest home out of town, closer to the rise of the mountains. Ground was more prone to hold water in that section, and being around any bit of green felt better to me than the dry beiges and browns that barely shifted gradation. I also had a feeling that this cowboy was about to teach me something, one of the very first moments of premonition that I’d experience in my life – but on that morning I attributed it to boredom, and the will to make something – anything – happen in that dusty town.
The road to the Beasleys followed the long straight street that ran through the only stretch of earth I’d ever known. It stayed more or less linear until it reached the start of the nearby mountain, at which point it gently curved around said mountain’s base, gradually gaining a little in altitude, when it rounded the northern side. On the hottest days, anyone who was foolish enough to make the trek in the sun was forced to stop at the Beasleys – the ranch was the only thing for miles, and everyone knew them well enough to knock on the door, usually just after they were letting themselves in. Mrs. Beasley always had a pot of coffee on (burned and dregged, as Pa would say) and a pitcher of water at the ready. It was the latter that forced everyone to stop, even if they didn’t care for the Beasleys (because some most decidedly didn’t care for them). In the heat of the desert sun, stopping for shade and water was a matter of survival and sustenance.
On this spring day, the sun was just starting to bother me, so I hurried my steps out of town and around the mountain. By nine o’clock I was sitting across from Mrs. Beasley and delivering the note Ma had sent, at which Mrs. Beasley smiled, folded it back up, then promised to deliver it.
“You came all this way just for that?” she asked. “Your mother should have given it to him when he was at the store – that was only a few days ago…” and she trailed off, waving away a fly that had entered with me.
“Guess she forgot,” I said, looking down into my glass, already emptied of its water. Mrs. Beasley jerked up and traipsed across the kitchen to refill it.
“Your mother’s good to always feed them,” she said. I knew she didn’t mean for it to sound condescending, but it did. I also knew, from what I’d heard between Ma and Pa, that this was why not everyone liked them. It didn’t explain why everyone tolerated them though, aside from the water, and the expansive ranch that kept cowboys in regular employ, as well as a few other hired hands throughout the year. This was where the town got most of its meat too, so even if someone didn’t take kindly to the Beasleys, especially Mrs. Beasley’s flighty airs (which always seemed to me rather benign, and more like an aloofness that was born of distraction than any intended class differentiation).
As I gulped down the second glass, Mr. Beasley stumbled through the screen door into the kitchen, quite loudly and literally, taking the rickety thing to the ground with him in a plume of dust.
“Will-eee-ummm!” Mrs. Beasley yelled after calming her startled self. “What the HELL are you doing?!”
Mr. Beasley looked up at me from the floor, smiling his round perennially-red-faced smile, the one that disarmed and made everyone wonder even more at the predicament that was Mrs. Beasley.
“Oh hey, Leeeeeve,” he drawled while rolling onto his stomach and pushing himself up with both arms. On all fours, his white hair wildly shooting out in every direction, Mr. Beasley looked like some silly, ghostly pony, the bottom of his pants frayed and fringed from years of wear and neglect, stained and dusty from weeks of not being washed. Looking at the couple, it was almost impossible to connect them with the two people who built this ranch from scratch decades before I was even born; more difficult to place them in any sort of command position of such an operation.
“Leve,” Mra. Beasley covered cooly, “You can bring your note to… the Cowboy. He’s the only one in the bunkhouse now. Might be out on the other side of the mountains though, if he’s doing what I asked.” She then took my glass before asking if I was done. I detected a sour side-eye directed toward her husband, now bent over the mess of screen and splintered frame in front of him.
Stepping out from the kitchen, one had a vista of land before them, and even then they were only viewing a fifth of the entire property. Behind the main house several large plots of land stretched out, extensively fenced with wooden and barbed wire that ran almost as far as the eye could see. Cattle grazed here and there, while in another fenced area a pair of horses stood lazily trying to keep their cool as the heat of the day brutally ensued, their tails swatting listlessly at flies, their heads hung down, muzzles almost touching, as if in intimate discussion.
Beyond this, the short row of bunkhouses stood, closer to the mountain’s first rise. This is where the cowboys stayed. Sounded like there was only one right now. For April that wasn’t good, but maybe it was a good sign for myself. I stepped off the porch and headed back along one of the fence lines. As I approached the bunkhouse the two horses bolted, spooked by something I couldn’t sense. The sky was cloudless, the air was still down here, but the animals always sensed things in advance, something higher in the sky. Some noise between a neigh and a moo issued from the way I’d come.
Fresh horse prints marked the dry ground as I neared the wooden structure. It was, for the town and time, a decent size for a bunkhouse, opening into one great room, where four pairs of bunk beds were spaced not too closely together – two on each end. In the center of the room a large wrought iron stove took pride of place, beside which a dirty pile of logs stood, probably from several season ago, the Beasleys not bothering to keep a cowboy through the winter for as long as I could remember; I was too young to have witnessed when this room was constantly active, when ten to twelve cowboys squeezed into the sleeping quarters on any given spring or summer night. Those stories were kept from me, before I learned not to show interest in whatever I really wanted to hear.
As I neared the front door, which was the only door, I passed a grimy window framed by spider webs and spackled with a sea of dust, thick on the glass, carved by the wind and gentle pull of time. Scant windows and lack of any cleaning always gave the bunkhouse a dim and dark appearance, especially during the day. When I was a kid, I was a little scared of this place – the darkness and the loud cantankerous rustle of the cowboys were such foreign things to me, who was accustomed to the quiet existence of my parents and their whitewashed, stark home. At night, the bunkhouse glowed almost red from the fire, its lone window winking menace and tease, the warmth being necessary on nights that far into the desert, right where the mountain began.
It had been years since I’d seen a fire lit here. Mostly now the cowboys complained of the heat, the way it crept in during the day and made the place stifling until the sun dropped behind the mountain – then it was almost terrifyingly fast in how soon it cooled off. No one complained of the cold during the spring and summer, but I knew there could be frigid nights well into April, and so did the Beasleys, who insisted on the pile of dry logs and the box of long matches by the stove.
Knocking on the door, I leaned in to listen for the tap of boots along wooden boards, or some creaking of a bunk bed to indicate life, but there was only the hum of wind coming off the mountain. I knocked again, then gently opened the door. A shaft of sunlight struck the sooty stove, and already the heat was building. Unfinished wood swirled in knots along the walls and ceiling, the raw exposed beams giving order to the space. The nearest lower bunk was neatly made – it was the only bed that was made; the rest were bare, stained mattresses embarrassingly naked, and rolled up to the headboards. A large leather satchel, scuffed and worn, slouched beside the bottom of the bed. Seeing such things did instill a sliver of doubt in my mind: could I live like this? Could I live as a cowboy? And as soon as the question surfaced, I answered with my full heart: yes.
I backed away from the bed and looked for somewhere to leave Ma’s note. The bed seemed too personal. The leather satchel too presumptuous. Near the door some rusty thumbtacks held up old lists and schedules. I took one and pressed the note into the front door after I shut it behind me. Somewhere around the mountain, or deeper into the desert maybe, the Cowboy prowled. I listened for him, but only the sun made a sound, and it was the sound of the wind.
~ The FALL of The COWBOY ~ Autumn 2026
