“Betsa bootsies,” he sounded like he was calling up confidence from wherever he could get it. “If sailors know anything, it is knots.”
Standing carefully to one side, I grappled the tongs in and caught the hairy end of the cow’s filthy tail, tugging the whole thing snug against the nearest rear leg. That brought out a fresh green splurt of manure as expected, but I was out of range. Herman moved in and swiftly tied the tail tight and firm to the joint of the leg. Waltzing Matilda did not know what to make of this and kicked. Which yanked her tail hard enough to make her bawl at top volume.
“Quick!” I cried, but Herman already was sliding the milking stool into place and in no time milk was streaming into the bucket like hail hitting. There is the old braggart joke about milking a cow so fast she would faint away, and while Waltzing Matilda showed no sign of swooning, Herman was working those teats at incredible speed, his hands flying up and down as the level of milk in the bucket rose perceptibly. The angriest Guernsey on the planet attempted a few more tugs of leg and tail, only to bawl in frustration. Either out of confusion or an inkling of sense, she did not crap like Niagara anymore.
When Herman had stripped the teats to the last drops and set the frothing and nearly full milk pail safely away, our defeated adversary started to try a kick and thought better of it. Herman gingerly reached in from the side and undid the pigging string. Eyeing him as best she could from the stanchion, Waltzing Matilda now switched her tail, but neither kicked nor unloosed manure. I swear the cow got the idea.
And Jones surely did.
? ? ?
“ONE EYE, I want to see you after you get that milk up to the house,” the determined foreman headed us off as we were leaving the barn and everyone else had dispersed. Me, he provided, “You’re on your own for the day, laddie buck, find something to do to keep yourself out of trouble.”
At loose ends, I drifted across the ranch yard, habit directing me to the bunkhouse while my mind sped to every here and there. In contrast, the hoboes had an enviable talent for taking time off, and the crew was a hundred percent at leisure. Sunning themselves in chairs propped against the bunkhouse, Shakesepeare was working a crossword puzzle and Harv was deep in a Police Gazette. At the horseshoe pit, the others were trying to solve Midnight Frankie’s evident ability to win at any game of chance ever invented, without success according to the clangs of his ringers and their echoes of frustration. I went and sat on the steps, waiting.
It did not take long. Herman emerged from the boss house and headed straight for me, the shift of his eyes as he neared telling me he wanted to talk in private.
That meant conferring in the crapper again. With our reflections registering us in the silvered mirror, Herman horse-laughed as he described Mrs. Costello nearly fainting away at receiving a milk bucket without Waltzing Matilda’s splatter on it.
Then his words slowed, half proud, half cautious. “I am choreboy for good, Jones telled me. More wages, a little.” He held his thumb and first finger apart just barely.
“I was hoping,” was as much as I could say.
“Is what we wanted, hah? I hole up in Big Hole.”
“I’ll come see you sometimes,” I blurted.
He drew a breath through his teeth as if the next words hurt, and they did. “Not a good eye-dea, Donny. There is trouble in that for us both. Your Gram might get too much curious about how I am here. And I can not have the Kate know my whereabouts.” He paused before making himself say the rest. “So, Fritz Schneider of the Diamond Buckle and Wisdom town I am from now, someone you met on your travelings but must only remember, not come see. Savvy?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“Many times have I said you are some good boy. Never more than now.” His eyes damp, matching mine, he looked off past me. “I must make sorry to Highpockets about not going with them.”
“Yeah, you’d better go do that.” Still neither of us moved, and to break the awkward silence, I asked, “Where’d you learn to milk like that?”
He managed to smile. “Telled you the cows lived downstairs in Emden.”
I laughed, a little. With neither of us finding anything more to say, Herman stirred himself. “Now I must see to chickens and hogs, big new responsibilties.”
“I’ll feed the horses for you,” I volunteered, wanting something to do besides letting our separation eat my guts out.