Chapter 21

Cowboy Jack was in his chair when Joe Bob and I made it back. He encouraged me, loudly and vociferously, to get the horse out of his house right away. I was more than happy to, and by the time I had Joe Bob in the electric fence with the two mares, he sniffed around on them for a minute and since neither of them were in he lost interest soon enough.

When I made it back inside the house Cowboy Jack had a Long Neck already opened for me and I took it gladly. He wanted to hear of my adventure and I spent about an hour giving him the details.

"You ought to take a Thoroughbred for a trip. You've been upgrading the bloodlines there and a Thoroughbred would put some height on them."

"Maybe, but what bloodline should I try. I think they've gotten a little spindly lately," I said.

"Maybe you can find some of Big Red's get still hanging around, though all the ones really close to him are long in the tooth by now," he said.

"You know, Kathy put Joe Bob through the healing chamber before I brought him back. Maybe if I took an old one she could give it a checkup before I took it on through," I said.

"You know, you stumbled onto something taking Joe Bob through."

"You're right about stumbling. In fact I nearly fell on my ass when I did it. Everything seemed to turn out ok though."

"I'll say, Joe Bob looked better when he came back than he did when he left. He must have been there four or five years their time and he don't look a day older now. Just a little fatter, and that don't hurt a horse. Maybe we should take a look at his teeth," he said.

"Won't hurt anything. I'd like to know if they put him any older."

"Well we'll check 'em out after lunch then," he said, and then he got up and cooked a meal.

After we'd eaten we went out and had a look at Joe Bob's teeth, whether he wanted us to or not, and he didn't really. He still looked like he was on his first bunch to me and even they didn't look worn down any at all.

"I'd say he ain't a day older than when he left," Cowboy Jack said.

We just hung around and tidied up the barn and such for the rest of the day. I spent some time in the tack room I'd put in, and I put up some hangers to hold a couple more saddles. I had plenty in Chaos now, but I still had just the one here.

Since I was just fucking off I headed into town and bought a couple of archery targets and backstops - the kind with the high-density foam to catch arrows. I also bought a couple hundred more arrow shafts. Nothing fancy mind you, but some to use for practicing.

I spent the afternoon working with my first compound bow, the one I'd bought and hadn't taken the cams off of. Like with any type of practice I was getting better with it. The trouble was I knew it didn't shoot exactly the same as the one I had on Chaos. I decided to see if I could find a bow made without any metal at all.

I was considering going back to San Antonio and I talked with Cowboy Jack about it. He had a suggestion.

"Why don't you get one a them computers and hook it up to the Internet. My buddy, the one what comes to take me to town, said his daughter got one and she can look up anything for sale.

As soon as he said it I knew he was right. I even knew they had satellite dishes which could hook you up to it, even without a phone wire. I also knew you'd take a fucking buying a computer from just about any store.

I had the cure for that though. In my home town, at the feed store, young Whooper had grown up liking computers and he could build 'em himself. Don't ask how he went from working at his Daddy's feed store to building computers, but I knew he did.

I lit out before breakfast the next morning and made it to town in the afternoon. I decided to take a spin by Johnny and Junior's sporting goods store just in case they happened to have a compound bow made with no metal, but I struck out there.

Junior went on and on about how expensive they were and how long it'd take him to order me one. He was a little surprised when I told him "Ok then," and walked out the door.

The next morning I went down to the feed store and got to talk to Whooper. I had to walk down to the fertilizer barn where he was mixing a load for someone's pasture and follow him around to get the details across. He told me he was out of the business of making computers since it took up too much time from working at the feed store and from mixing the fertilizer they sold in bulk.

I wasn't having that, especially since I knew no one much was fertilizing at this time of the year unless they were just freshening up a pasture for better grazing. If they were fertilizing for a hay crop they'd have done it at least six weeks ago, or else they were pissing in the wind. I waited until he was done mixing and loading it into a spreader truck though and then followed him back to the main store building.

"I'll pay five thousand bucks for the best computer you know how to build me," I said, and since I'd said it where both his Momma and Daddy could hear me the deal was done.

The next part was a little tricky since he started asking me what I wanted to do with it. I decided it would be best to tell the truth here, since I didn't know enough about computers to make up a good lie anyway.

"Hell, I don't even know what I can do with one. A friend of mine said I could get a hookup through DirecTV to reach the Internet and I know you can buy stuff ordered off it. That's what I want to start with, and I guess if I need something else I can call you back later."

He had a slight change in attitude then and he told me he could build me plenty of computer to do that for a lot less money, but I wasn't backing down so easy.

"Use any extra involved to make it faster and better and to get all the stuff I need for it. I'll run by the bank and pick up the money right now," I said, and since the bank was in walking distance from there I trotted over and withdrew the cash.

By the time I'd got back his Momma had told him to take a couple of days off to go home and build it for me. He took the cash and asked me to follow him over to his house.

I did and I was in luck. His wife was just putting lunch on the table and there was already a place set for me. After we ate he took me into his computer workroom, which has been a smaller bedroom at one time and was now piled high with parts and other shit everywhere. It also had a bunch of computers running in there on a long bench with swivel chairs in front of it.

Hell, he even had a Coke machine in there. I guess he bought it for an antique or something, but it looked like it was brand new now, only it didn't look like a new type machine. In the first place, all it had was the old time real-glass Coke bottles in it, and not even king size ones either. The next thing was the price. It only took a nickel to by a coke. Damn if it didn't work when I put a nickel in it and pushed down the handle.

After we got through joking about the Coke machine he sat me down in one of the swivel chairs, gave me a few instructions, and showed me how to look for stuff with Google, then he turned me loose and got to work himself. I'll be damned if he didn't have the computer put together and was doing what he called loading software before I figured out much about how the Internet worked.

He ended up working me harder than I'd worked him. While the one he'd built me was doing something by itself, he explained how to run Opera to me and he told me about Avast, the free for home use, virus protection.

About an hour later he switched me to my computer and showed me how to make sure Sygate Personal Firewall was working and he explained someone had bought them out, but he told me all I had to do was keep using the one he put on my machine for me.

I finally took off about six pm, but he said something that caused me to get him to build me another one just like the one he just finished building. He let me know two computers could use the hookup from one DirecTV deal with a home network. He said there wasn't much to a home network and he said he'd throw one in for my lagniappe.

The next day, when I got over to his house, he showed me he had Cowboy Jack's computer built even before I showed him the money. When I did he didn't want to take it and claimed the first five thousand had me well covered for the parts.

"To tell the truth, Jack, I feel a little obligated to you for the time you spent in the service," he said.

"Don't worry about it. It was pretty much a water haul for getting anything useful done to my way of thinking, but at least I got to kill a bunch of bastards who needed killing pretty bad. You just take the money. I've got plenty," I said, and he did, but I could tell he still didn't like it.

It took him three hours to show me how to hook 'em up together. I worried I wouldn't remember how to do it when I got back to Kerrville, but he told me to just call him and he'd walk me through it.

He didn't know it of course, but that caused another complication. I didn't want to admit I didn't even have a phone, so I decided to get one of the cell phones and I asked him which was the best one to get, not mentioning that we didn't have a phone at all.