I woke up in the Austin State Hospital with a damn bottle of something hooked up to my left arm and the liquid that was dripping from it into me wasn’t brandy. Bandages’ were covering what I thought was my entire body. Every time I took a breath I thought someone was sticking a knife in me. I could only see out of my right eye and my head felt like someone had stuck it in a vise and left it there.
I noticed what was left of my hat sitting on top of my jeans and shirt on a Naugahyde covered chair next to the bed with my Dan Post cowboy boots neatly lined up underneath it.
“Well, you fucked up big time, pardner. It was Hap, his grizzled old face smiling down at me.
Damn Scanlon got the check and that little rodeo queen from Austin you were so hot to trot over.”
“What are you doin’ here? I asked. Why don’t you go find a nurse to ride and let me sleep?” Hap chuckled and shook his head. “I already done that. I ain’t here to see you. I need the truck keys; can’t go nowheres without ‘em. I figured I would load up the riggin’ and horses and come back an git your sorry ass and head north. You sure don’t have the money to lay up in here and have all them pretty nurses scrubbin’ your back since you lost that big check to Scanlon; and you sure ain’t going to be ridin’ nuthin’ for a long time, pardner.
Doc said you broke your wrist along with a half dozen ribs. Ya’ got a concussion that probably made your brain all mush and a broken nose and a swelled up eye that is as black as Bill Pickett.”
Bill Pickett was a black cowboy from Texas. He devised his own method of bulldogging steers. He jumped from his horse to a steer’s back, bit its upper lip, and threw it to the ground by grabbing its horns. Soon, there were enough imitators doing the same thing that the event was added to the rodeo circuit.
“I say we head back to Milwaukee and git ourselves a real job and quit this shit.”Hap said.
I sure as hell wasn’t in any condition to argue with him. If Hap was ready to hang up his spurs, then maybe it was time. He was one of the best ropers around and had been winning most every time he went out this year. I was his partner in the team roping event. I was the heeler and Hap the header. That meant Hap got after the calf as soon as he shot out of the chute and I would follow and loop my rope around the back legs of the critter after Hap had lassoed its head. I was left handed and nobody wanted to team up with a left handed roper, but Hap didn’t seem to care. He could have been a serious contender if he had a different heeler but he said he liked it the way it was. Nobody could drink brandy like I could and he liked that. We did alright but didn’t finish in the money enough to be considered a threat to anyone of importance.
“Guess you’re right Hap. You want to get that doctor in here to get this shit outta my arm so I can get dressed?”
Heading north on highway 183 out of Austin, heading toward
Brushy Creek, I turned to Hap who was chewing on a piece of straw, listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio singing The Cowboy’s Prayer, which was the number one hit in 1934 by Goebel Reeves. “If you are going to keep singing all the way back to Milwaukee, the least you could do is stop up here and get me a bottle of brandy; anything to put me outta my misery.”
“You got enough money to buy a bottle, Max?” Hap asked with a grin on his face.
“Probably not; that’s why I brought you along Hap. Not for your singing.”
After paying the hospital and doctor bills my wallet was so flat it could hide under a snake.
“Alright, I know it ain’t my singin’ that’s gottcha hurtin’ and it ain’t ol’ Casper either. You are just pissed ‘cause Scanlon bested ya’ once again, and I don’t mean by getting’ the buckle. I mean that little rodeo queen from Austin. That hurts, don’t it? Well Max; don’t lose any sleep over her. She’s about as exclusive as a mailbox.”
I looked at Hap and shook my head and said, “You are an abomination, Hap. I don’t know why I keep you around. Just get my bottle, will you?”
“Ha, you know you can’t make it through a week without me being there to pick up the pieces of what’s left of ol’ Max Fly after he messes up. It’s inevitable. Anyway, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. I’m getting’ some food. I gotta eat if I am doing all the driving and listening to you complain for fifteen hunnert miles.
As we pulled back on the highway after feeding the horses some oats I took my first drink. As the amber liquid warmed my insides, I lifted the brandy bottle in front of my face and stared at the label and said.
“Next to you Hap, I guess these Christian Brothers are my best friends.”
“You’re probably right, Max. You’re crazier than an outhouse rat and not many folks can stand to be around you for long and I ain’t lyin.
Me? What do I know? I’m just an abomination, whatever that is.”
I figured that didn’t deserve a reply so I just leaned back in the seat and pulled my hat down over my face and tried to catch some shut eye.
After listening to the tires hum along the highway for a couple of hours, Hap turned and said, “I been thinking, Max.”
I pushed my hat up with my finger and sat up and grabbed the bottle and said, “Wait a minute that requires a drink. That thought must have been on a long lonely journey Hap.”
Ignoring my remark he grinned, “What do you think about becoming a rodeo clown? You don’t want to spend the rest of your life hooked up to bottles in a hospital do you? I mean I don’t mind waitin’ on you or nuthin’. There sure are enough nurses to keep me occupied until you can sit up and take nourishment; just a thought.”
“Rodeo clown, eh?”
After mulling that over for a few moments, I said. “Damn Hap, did Scanlon really take that little rodeo queen from Austin home with him?” changing the subject back to something that was irking the hell out of me.
Hap shook his head and stuck the piece of straw back in his mouth and smiled and began singing another Goebel Reeves song Blue Undertaker’s Blues,
“I went down to the undertaker
Saw my best little woman laying there.
Stretched out among them snowy white linen,
So sweet, so still, laying there.
When she gets them wings of an angel,
Let her flit and fly while she can.
She will never get satisfaction
From the words of no one man.”