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I PAID the merc clerk for the phone call and traipsed the darkened street of Wisdom back to the Watering Hole, weighed down with feelings that did not match up. Unspeakably relieved and glad though I was that Gram was herself again, nonetheless that emotion was shot through with remorse, already halfway to longing, for all I would be abandoning at the Diamond Buckle ranch and the Big Hole. The honest-to-goodness genuine job as haystack teamster. The bunkhouse hoboes who, in their coarse generous way, had taken me into the Johnson family right there on the last bus to Wisdom and ever since. The prestige of being a ranch hand for Rags Rasmussen, a source of pride I knew I would carry with me all my life.
Against those hard-won rewards, I now was free almost any time to go and be with Gram and Letty as well, a dream ready to come true. But only if I paid up with either deceit or confession about my time on the loose. Did I dare to simply show up in Glasgow, shiny as the silver greyhound forever fleet on the side of the bus, and start spinning extravagant tales about how terrific my summer in Manitowoc had been? That felt treacherous. The truth had a nasty habit of coming out. At least sometimes.
Before any of that, however, dead ahead through the swinging doors of Wisdom’s sole saloon was the matter of Herman. It was only fair to let him know I’d have to leave him sooner than later, wasn’t it? Hadn’t he brought it up himself, back there in the bunkhouse? So why was part of me wrestling so hard against telling him, at least yet?
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THE ATMOSPHERE in the Watering Hole had turned very beery in my absence, the crew doing its best to drink the place dry in record time. Babs was behind in clearing away empty glasses as she filled fresh ones and scooted them along the bar to the hobo lineup laughing uproariously at some limerick Shakespeare had just composed. I was surprised to see two empties in front of Herman already, plus the one becoming that way in a hurry as he drank with lip-smacking gusto. Elbow to elbow with him there at the quieter end of the bar, Pooch was working on his latest golden schoonerful in his dim, deliberate way.
“Scotty!” Herman let out, as if we hadn’t seen each other for ages. “Welcome back to Watering Hole, such a place. How is the Grossmutter?”
“Up and around,” I hedged.
“Good, good. What a woman she is. Time for Crushed Orange, hah, to celebrate her recupery.”
At his arm-waving signal, Babs worked her way along the bar to us and produced a bottle of Orange Crush for me, along with the announcement:
“Make way, boys, you got company. Here comes the Tumbling T crew.”
Just as rowdy and ready for moonhowling as our bunch, the newcomers swarmed in and established themselves along the other end of the bar, brandishing their paychecks. There was no mistaking who was the Big Ole of this contingent of hoboes turned haymakers. The Tumbling T’s leader was nearly Highpockets’s height, but could not have been built more differently, with what’s called a cracker butt, nothing back there as if that share of the anatomy had gone onto the front in his hanging belly. He turned out to be a boxcar acquaintance of the Jersey Mosquito, who called out to the Tumbling T’s main man, “Deacon! You old sidewinder, c’mon over here and pretend you’re social.”
“Still pestering the world same as ever, are you, Skeeter.” Deacon barked a laugh as he joined him. Quick as anything, he spotted the Diamond Buckle hatband on Skeeter’s battered headgear. “But what’s this?” His laugh became nastier. “You let the rancher slap his brand on you these days? What’s next, holding hands and sing-alongs on the old rancheria?”
Overhearing, Highpockets said with cold control, “Rasmussen just likes to show off that world championship he won the hard way. I’d say he’s entitled.”
“If it don’t bother you to have the boss’s loop around your brain,” Deacon responded with a slick smile, “it’s no nevermind to me. Where’s your hospitality, Skeeter, I could use a drink.”
While that touchy reunion of sorts was going on, I sipped at my pop, pretty much matching Herman’s and Pooch’s downings of beer, while conscience worked me over from one direction and then another. I felt I couldn’t hold Gram’s news to myself, even though I hated to let it out, either. But driven to it at a more or less decisive moment, I mustered myself as much as I was able. “Herm—I mean, Gramps—I need to talk to you about something.”
“Has to wait, please,” he said, somewhere in another world as he hoisted his glass for an appreciative sip. “Pooch and me, we got big thoughts to think. Don’t we, podner.”
“Damn straight,” Pooch said mechanically.
“Yeah, but I really need to tell you—”