Gallatin Canyon Read Online Free Page A

agonize over the decision. He let the conflicts play themselves out on his face, then heaved a great sigh.
    “We’ve got a deal,” he said, his voice resigned.
    As they strolled back to the party together, Briggs decided that spicing things up in this way was absolutely the last favor he would do for Olivia. He watched the groom go to her and whisper in her ear. Olivia looked over at Briggs, smiled at him sadly, he thought, and waved. Hello? Goodbye? He wasn’t sure.
    The rain had stopped, and something caused the wedding party to gravitate to the stately elm shading the lawn, its leaves just starting to change color. Briggs followed until he was part of the half circle of celebrants facing Olivia, who stood on a small dais, placed there, he supposed, for this purpose. “I’d like to propose a toast!” she called out, in a voice that carried remarkably. He barely heard her words but stared, spellbound, at her wide, confident smile, the steady movement of her head as she took in all the guests, and the hand gestures that would have been clear from the nearby mountains. Her voice rang out expressively, each syllable occupying its own time and space. At the end of her toast, she clasped her hands to her chest and bowed modestly to the admiring applause and, without looking, reached out a regal hand to her new husband.

Cowboy
     
    The old feller made me go into the big house in my stocking feet. The old lady’s in a big chair next to the window. In fact, the whole room’s full of big chairs, but she’s only in one of them, though as big as she is she could of filled up several. The old man said, “I found this one in the loose-horse pen at the sale yard.”
    She says, “What’s he supposed to be?”
    He says, “Supposed to be a cowboy.”
    “What’s he doin in the loose horses?”
    I says, “I was lookin for one that would ride.”
    “You was in the wrong pen, son,” says the old man. “Them’s canners. They’re goin to France in cardboard boxes.”
    “Once they get a steel bolt in the head.” The big old gal in the chair laughed.
    Now I’m sore. “There’s five in there broke to death. I rode em with nothin but binder twine.”
    “It don’t make a shit,” says the old man. “Ever one of them is goin to France.”
    The old lady didn’t believe me. “How’d you get near them loose horses to ride?”
    “I went in there at night.”
    The old lady says, “You one crazy cowboy go in there in the dark. Them broncs kick your teeth down your throat. I suppose you tried bareback.”
    “Naw, I drug the saddle I usually ride at the Rose Bowl Parade.”
    “You got a horse for that?”
    “I got Trigger. We unstuffed him.”
    She turns to the old man. “He’s got a mouth on him. This much we know.”
    “Maybe he can tell us what good he is.”
    I says, “I’m a cowboy.”
    “You’re a outta work cowboy.”
    “It’s a dyin way of life.”
    “She’s about like me. She’s wondering if this ranch supposed to be some welfare agency for cowboys.”
    I’ve had enough. “You’re the dumb honyocker drove me out here.”
    I thought that was the end, but the old lady said, “Don’t get huffy. You got the job. You against conversation or somethin?”
    We get outside and the old sumbitch says, “You drawed lucky there, son. That last deal could of pissed her off.”
    “It didn’t make me no never mind if it did or didn’t.”
    “Anymore, she hasn’t been well. Used to she was sweet as pudding.”
    “I’m sorry for that. We don’t have health, we don’t have nothin.”
    She must of been afflicted something terrible, because she was ugly mornin, noon, and night for as long as she lasted, pick a fight over nothin, and the old sumbitch bound to got the worst of it. I felt sorry for him, little slack as he ever cut me.
    Had a hundred seventy-five sweet-tempered horned Herefords and fifteen sleepy bulls. Shipped the calves all over for hybrid vigor, mostly to the south. Had some go clear to