Chapter 4

We put off messing with the camera until breakfast was over and most of the coffee was gone. I noticed that Chris, the taxidermist, hadn't caught on to the proper feeding times yet; that was his loss. Then again, he had a wife and maybe he liked her cooking, or something.

Bob, George, and I went into the office and Bob showed me how to hook the camera to his computer to get the pictures off. There was a special connection for it and as soon as he plugged it in, something popped up on the screen and then smaller versions of the pictures started showing up. Bob called them thumbnails.

When he clicked on one, it blew up to take in the whole screen and it was easy to tell that these shots showed up better than a picture taken in the dark had any right to. He did something else with his mouse and the color laser printer started making noise.

When the pictures came out, they weren't nearly as good as the others he'd printed. I wasn't going to say anything about it, but he started explaining that the color laser printer wasn't the photo quality one he'd used before. Maybe I'd learn something after all if I kept hanging around long enough.

We went right out and showed them to Ethel and she was probably more surprised than I'd been.

"You took these last night in the moonlight?" she asked.

"Sure did."

"You could probably make a good livin' up at the Wooden Indian about closing time every night. Take pictures of who's leaving with who and there's no tellin' how much you could make on blackmail," she said, laughing just a little.

"I believe I'll just stick to poker if I need money. The other guys at the table hardly ever shoot you, even when you win," I said.

"Just the same, don't lose that thing. I might need you to keep up with where George sneaks around to at night," she said, and laughed louder this time.

"What are you talkin' 'bout Ethel. I'll bet I haven't been out of your sight after dark for fifteen minutes total in the last thirty years," George said, laughing himself now, along with everybody else.

"Maybe, but momma told me not to let you roam far after sunset," she said.

"She told me she told you that, and it's why I always make sure you know where I am at nighttime," George said.

"And all these years I thought you were just scared of the dark," Ethel said, and everyone howled.

"Where's Chris, your new man?" I asked.

"He still has to help out at the woodyard, until he gets the new fellow trained for everything. That could take a while too, since they hired a Log Truck Driver to take his place," Ethel said.

"Now Ethel, that ain't nice. Some of those drivers are ok," George said.

"They get some pretty good ones during the high part of the cycle, but they've swung low right now," Ethel said.

"What cycle?" I asked.

"The boom or bust cycle. The paper mill keeps it stirred up, mostly by outsmarting themselves. They try to regulate things with the price they pay for pulpwood, but they can't get it right.

"They were buying hell out of pulpwood for the last three years and acted like they couldn't get enough. Last year they finally got their big woodyard, across the road from the mill, filled up, and quit buying.

"All the loggers that had been going good got their quotas cut to nothing. Probably more than half of the woods crews and truck drivers damn near starved to death last summer. The slow down cut their throats right when they needed to be puttin' money back to keep up their truck and equipment payments during the rainy months. The Western Star and Mack dealers in Texarkana will have their lots full of repoed trucks before Christmas.

"Just wait, by February the Domino mill will be paying them to haul timber down from Pine Bluff again, like they had to six years ago. The freight will cost nearly as much as the timber. They'll have a new manager at the paper mill before long, and the poor bastard who thought he knew how to run the place will be out looking for a job," George said.

"You talk like it's about to make you cry over the poor men out of work. You know you've been hoping Calderson would go broke so you could pick up the four thousand acres of timberland he bought right next to us. There ain't a chance in hell he can stay current now, and he hasn't cut the first damned log off it," Bob said.

"It is sad, and there's more. He won't get a chance to cut any. The repo man came after his sawhead and delimber last week," George said, looking hang dog for a couple of seconds and then laughing out loud.

"I still don't know what you wanted with four thousand more acres, and almost all of it in timber," Ethel said.

"Why it's for Chuck and Dave."

"Chuck and Dave don't want any timber," Ethel said.

"Not now they don't, but we can sell the timber about the time they finish college. That'll be enough money so each of 'em can afford a big tittied wife, like their grampa and daddy both got," George said, and the noise started.

Wanda squealed and then started giggling, and a blush crept up from the big titties George mentioned, climbing her throat and onto her cheeks.

Bob just about lost his breath laughing, and Ethel started slapping George on the closest shoulder, doing her best not to laugh but losing the battle. Finally, I was the only one that managed not to laugh out loud but even I was grinning like a fool.

"Bob, you and John take this old fool outside and let him clean out a few stalls or something else that might be useful. Wanda and I need to start thinking about dinner," Ethel said, but she wasn't through.

"And you, George, you'd better watch your mouth or you'll end up with your ass in a crack," she said.

"That's what I was hoping for all along," he said, and nearly ran for the door.

When we were outside, and after we got our breath back from more laughter over George's last joke to Ethel, Bob asked George if he'd been serious about what he was planning on for the timber land we'd been talking about.

"Sure, the bank got stuck with it and they're not about to sell it to anyone without a hell of a lot more security this time, and you know they can't just keep it.

"I guess they could cut the timber, but after the proceeds paid off the note they'd have to give anything left over to the Davis boy, so they can't gain a damned thing by doing that.

"In fact, I happen to know they always try to get out of loaning money into the timber business but just couldn't keep from letting him have the money for that tract.

"Everything else is going great for the bank now, and if they lose a hundred thousand or so on the land it won't even hurt 'em. They're just happy they got out of the truck and logging equipment financing business after the last bust.

"Hell, they've been coining money since the savings and loans all went tits up. They're practically slobbering to sell me the land because they know I can back up the loan with cash in CDs. Don't tell your momma yet, but it's already a done deal.

"I didn't buy his loan, I made them cut me a new deal and I secured it with the CDs. It'll only cost me half a percent over what the CDs pay. Calderson is out the hundred thousand that he had to pay down and all the payments he made for two years.

"I made 'em work to get me to buy it too. They refigured the original loan and gave me credit against the principal for every cent Calderson paid, instead of the interest eating up damn near all he gave 'em."

"How in the hell did you do that?" Bob asked.

"There are laws about how long they can keep collateral from a non-performing loan before they have to turn it into cash and admit the loss on anything the sale doesn't take care of.

"With the condition of the timber market now, the bank would have been fucked up the ass selling that tract at auction. Who 'round here has four million in cash to pay for it?

"He only paid a few thousand more than I'd offered for it in the first place. Now, two years later, I'm getting it for two hundred thousand less than he paid and at a percent and a half less interest than he was paying.

"By the time the note's paid I'll be nearly six hundred thousand ahead, counting the saved interest, and that don't count what I save on taxes or the interest my money earns while it's locked into "jumbo" CDs," George said, finishing his lesson in redneck finance one oh one.

"Why you thieving old scoundrel. We were gonna buy it in the first place just for the tax money it'd save us," Bob said.

"See thar, there's still something yo po old daddy can teach you 'bout suckin' eggs," George said, laughing again.

I was amazed myself, and I couldn't keep from asking George what in the hell he was doing with four million cash in CDs in a bank.

"What else was I gonna do with it? My daddy told me, when I earned my first quarter, "Son," he said, "Don't never bet your money on another man's trick."

"I know the big shots play the stock market and make big investments, but I don't know shit about that. I know how to make money raising and selling horses and cattle; that's what I do, and mostly all I do.

"I ain't about to fool around buying stocks and crap like that. I could have made the ranch bigger and probably made more money, but I'm already workin' as hard as I want to at this late date.

"Bob's taking care of most everything now, and I don't know of a thing he's thought of to buy that we haven't.

"Lots of people think we're just hicks that lucked into our money and are too stupid to invest it, but I think we do all right. I've read some books about business and one of them really sounded a nice clean note for me.

"The Peter Principle," he said, "Some of it wasn't much to write home about, but I took part of it to heart. I can't quote it exactly, but I got the message. When you get to where you've got control over all you can handle, don't go no higher. It might not work in every business, but it's worked for me.

"This one ranch is about all I can handle, and it makes money every year. To me it ain't right when people say if you ain't growing, you're shrinking. We make money every year, and after a while, it just adds up," George said.

"Not to mention that profit on the house you sold me," I said, thinking I was making a joke.

"Hell, that probably counts as one of the best deals I ever made. I got the house free; it was on a couple of hundred acres I'd made my mind up to buy anyhow. I had Ethel look it up and we've had the house twenty-two years and spent a total of seven hundred dollars on it over those years, all of it depreciated off years ago.

"When I sold you that place it was almost like I found ten thousand dollars on the ground. Worth more than money is how happy it made Ethel when she found out you could get rid a some of the critters that's been botherin' us. Hell, I could go on and on about how well I come out on you," George said.

"Say what you want to, but I still think I got the best end of the deal," I said.

"That's what's so hard for you young'uns to learn, how to make the other guy think he got the best of the deal, when it was really you that did," George said, laughing again, and Bob and I joined in after a second.

"That is a good deal then, me and you are both happy about it, and I don't see how it could get any better," I said.

We broke up then, Bob and George to go off and act like they were busy, and me to go home where I didn't even have to do that. I wanted to take a late night ride tonight and see how I could deal with my new gear from horseback.

It all worked great one at a time on the ground, but I had to figure out a way to have both the smaller binoculars, and the big ones with the camera ready at the same time and ride Joe Bob in the process. I'd need the small ones to see where the hell I was going and the large ones to take pictures, and both needed to be handy pretty much all the time.

I knew I'd never be able to use the big ones for finding my way because they were too heavy to hold up with one arm for long, and I needed a hand to use on the reins every now and then.

I saddled Joe Bob for a short ride. He was so damned smart I figured maybe I could guide him with my legs and feet and by changing my seat around.

After a few minutes of just riding around to get him warmed up, I gave it a try. Hell, he did almost exactly what I wanted him to from the start, even after I let go of the reins. It dawned on me then that George had told me Joe Bob was trained for reining competition.

I know it sounds contrary, but a reining horse is trained to mostly take cues from anything the rider does and the reins are the least of them. Joe Bob's cues weren't as complex as some I'd heard of, but he would turn left from inward pressure of my right leg, and vice versa.

I could control his speed with subsequent nudges of my heels, almost like a car's automatic transmission. One nudge was to walk, the next one moved him to a trot, and the next was for a gallop. He even had sense enough, or was well trained enough, not to use his fancy little fast walk or the smooth, almost rolling slow lope from these signals.

Neither of those gaits would sit well with a Quarter Horse show judge, so I guessed that the trainer had made sure he wouldn't cycle through them. He did do a perfect sliding stop from his gallop when I pressed both feet straight down on the stirrups.

That cured most of my problems, and I found that I could keep up with both sets of binoculars by the lanyards that let me hang them around my neck, I just had to keep the big ones around on my back until I needed them. I could pull them around to take a picture and then let them slide around to rest on my back.

All this good news didn't mean it wasn't going to be complicated, especially while I was riding at night and might need either the Marlin or the Mauser at any time. It put most of the burden on me though, and a little practice should let me work out a system; it wasn't life or death anyway. If I fumbled the ball, I'd just miss a shot, and I'd probably at least have a picture of the one that got away.

It's a good thing horses can't talk, cause I know Joe Bob would have been asking me what I was up to. We mostly rode around behind my house, off one way and then the next, into the pasture. We started, stopped, turned, walked, trotted, galloped, and then some. He could tell every time I fumbled with the binoculars, or pulled out a rifle and I'm sure he figured the roping would come next, though I never tried that.

We farted around for nearly four hours while I tried to get my system down. Finally, I thought I had a handle on it and we went to the barn. Jasper and Jeffry both made small snorts when we got back inside.

No doubt it was a mule laugh at Joe Bob for the things I'd been making him do. All of them still had plenty of hay and I put a big scoop of whole oats in their feed troughs and another one of wheat bran for good measure; then it was off to the house for me for some food of my own.

I hadn't had a good excuse to go back to George's house for more of Ethel's cooking and it was too late for that anyway. I cooked up a big steak, warmed a can of Ranch Style Beans in a pan with a can of Wolf Brand Chili and then poured it on top of the steak and had a good lunch.

I intended to go and give my night vision stuff a try after it was good and dark, so I toed off my boots and lay down for a nap.

I slept longer than I'd intended and didn't wake up until one AM. There was still time to prowl around a little though, so I took the gear back out to the barn and saddled Joe Bob. I'd learned my lesson last time, so Jasper and Jeffry got some attention of their own. They didn't have anything to tote on the way out, but I hoped I'd need them to carry some dead critters back.