Off the Cuff Read online

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  Lance Morgan wants to build a land and cattle empire that will dwarf what the carpetbaggers took from him back in Tennessee. He is opposed by bandits, crooked officials, often the elements, and sometimes his own friends and family.

  Arabelea Cruz is the beautiful and talented owner of a Mexican cantina. She gives Lance his first taste of tender and passionate love.

  He meets Colleen MacDuff, lovely and vivacious, she has her own goals and priorities, and they don’t always mesh with Lance’s.

  George Gibson is a Tennessee backwoodsman, he usually defers to Lance. But he shows he can have a stubborn mind of his own when it comes to right and wrong.

  Santiago, the vicious bandit chief, becomes a powerful force in the region, and he has sworn eternal hatred for Lance and his family.

  The former family slave, Mike Morgan, adjusts to life as a free man when he must make his own decisions. He shows Lance that loyalty can be freely given — but never forced.

  Stir them all together in a harsh and unforgiving land, and they become a windstorm of action that sweeps across the Brasada.

  -END-

  Last of the Breed

  There’s a place I know where the morning lies still... as quiet as a thought on your mind. As you sit and wait at The Cafe, you become aware of a faint sound, a slight rattle coming from up the street. You see headlights, which become a pickup pulling into the parking area of The Cafe with a crunching of gravel beneath its tires.

  The towed trailer creaks as its cargo of saddled horses shifts its weight at the change in momentum. More headlights are becoming visible up and down the highway. It’s morning “drive-time” in the Davis Mountains of far West Texas.

  The little bell atop The Cafe’s front door jingles a greeting to the first driver, a man slightly taller than average, ruggedly good looking, dressed for a day on the range.

  Chair legs scrape against hardwood floors, spurs clank as he takes a seat at one of the plain wooden tables. This is Bob, a rancher in the area, Although he has nothing for sale, except a couple of dozen bulls in the lower pasture, his net worth could be estimated at about eight million dollars.

  He is closely followed by another man of similar look and almost identical dress. This is Cody, a cowboy who works for Bob’s neighbor, George. He, too, has nothing for sale, but his net worth would be only about five thousand dollars counting a prepaid two thousand dollar life insurance policy, but he is a “top hand” widely respected by all who know him.

  A young, blond waitress stands with coffee pot in hand next to the table.

  “Coffee?” she asks.

  Bob nods. “Please, ma’am.”

  Cody also nods. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Bob turns his attention back to Cody. “I saw in the paper yesterday that Bonnie May’s daughter got home from the hospital. How’s she doing?”

  “We feel pretty good about it, Bob. They seem to have caught the tumor early.”

  Bob leans forward and put his hand on Cody’s arm. “Well, tell her we’re still praying for her.”

  Cody’s face is solemn. “Thanks, Bob. I appreciate it.”

  Other men of similar appearance and demeanor have entered The Cafe, and the coffee pot is making the rounds. Some of these men are ranchers with millions in net worth. The others are hired hands who work for them. Yet, it is impossible to tell, from appearance or manner, which is which.

  Their eyes are still and honest; voices quiet and modulated— easy on the ear. They are unfailingly courteous to the wait staff, to one another, and to any strangers that come into their presence. When they inquire as to one another’s well being, you get the feeling it is not an idle question. They really want to know.

  We long for the presence of this kind of man — in our neighborhood, our state, our country. Men like these are of great value to any society. But alas, it is not to be for long. They are dying out, and they will not be replaced.

  Bob has a stock watering pond he built more than 20 years ago so his cattle could utilize a far corner of his property. The pond served well for several years, and then was invaded by pondweed these weeds sucked up moisture, shaded the water from the sun, turned a clear water source into a stinking mudflat, and decayed in large masses, which further degraded the water quality.

  Bob fought that weed with all he could think of. He cut and raked it by hand, even tried chemicals, but all to no avail. The pondweed thrived while his cattle shunned the water.

  Yesterday, Bob got a notice from the EPA. He would have to remove his cattle from any pasture from which that pond could be reached. It seems that this pondweed is a unique variety not before identified — although the difference between this pondweed and regular pondweed can be determined only by microscopic examination.

  His notice read that this rare pondweed might be endangered by cattle grazing or trampling. Never mind that cattle can’t stand the taste of it and it only grows out in the open water where it is most unlikely to be trampled.

  This order implemented by some ignorant bureaucrat is an example of the economic hardship imposed on people by a bureaucracy gone mad with unrestrained power.

  Ranchers in the Hill Country are forced to watch their most productive pastures choked by worthless cedar they are not allowed to injure because it has been deemed the nesting place for the golden-cheeked warbler. One wonders where the birds nested before cedar invaded the pastureland.

  The bureau has threatened to shut down the entire oil industry of one of the most productive fields in America over the plight of a tiny lizard that allegedly inhabits that area.

  Many square miles of America’s most valuable farmland has been turned into dusty, weedy brush land because some tiny, worthless fish was supposedly endangered by irrigation. This action, due entirely to the stupidity of unrestrained governmental regulation, impoverished hundreds of families, much like Bob and his friends, who had farmed the area for many years.

  Ranching is Bob’s heritage. The ranch has been in his family for many generations, but this will be the last. People value the lifestyle afforded by that remote location and provide a swelling demand for “ranchettes,” small tracts of land on which one can retire or vacation.

  Buyers don’t seem to be aware that the popularity of this practice is destroying the very qualities that made it desirable in the first place. But demand has made the going price of ranchland much higher than its value for grazing cattle.

  Bob’s heirs will find it impossible to raise the cash needed to pay the “death tax,” again imposed by an ignorant and uncaring bureaucracy. When Bob dies the family ranch dies with him. It will be parceled out and sold as “acreage.”

  But for now, Bob struggles to provide a living for his family and gainful employment for a small crowd of cowboys whose jobs are dependent on a small and shrinking industry.

  At Bob’s table, the conversation switches smoothly from English to Spanish to accommodate a couple of Mexican bull buyers, oversized pockets bulging with rolls of hundred dollar bills, who have joined them for morning coffee. Later they will take a look at the surplus bulls Bob has for sale this year.

  The sun is just beginning to put a rosy glow on the eastern horizon as the pickups, towing their horse-laden trailers behind them, pull back onto the highway. It will travel across the sky and will have disappeared below the western horizon long before they return.

  Bob and his friends are a unique breed. It is good to know there are such men in the world today — even though their numbers are tiny and shrinking daily. When they are gone, the world will have suffered loss— a loss that can never be truly measured.

  -END-

  The Tarnished Angel

  The decade following the War Between the States was a period of rapid change on America’s frontier. In January of 1873, the Houston and Texas Central line stretched a shining pair of rails up to Denison on the Red River and linked up with the M-K-T lines coming in from the north. While facilitating commerce betwee
n Texas and the rest of the nation, and eventually spelling doom for the Longhorn cattle drives, the iron rails also brought with them a bountiful supply of undesirables. And, Denison became their home.

  Included among them were many of the West’s most notorious gunmen who, for a time, hung their hats in that fair city. Less noted, but no more desirable, was a woman called Molly Hipp. Official records show that in September of 1873, Molly was hauled into court for “allowing thugs to become disorderly” in her "house.” Molly owned a brothel known as “The Eldorado House” on Skiddy Street.

  Another person deemed to be among “the undesirables” was a character known only as “Old Dennis.” This bit of flotsam in society’s stream did odd jobs around the jail at such times as he didn’t actually occupy it. He had some undefined illness, compounded by frequent and lengthy bouts with the bottle. Eventually the bottle and the illness combined for the ultimate victory, and Old Dennis died with his boots on while working at the jail.

  His death would have probably gone unremarked but for the local newspaper which took the city council to task for its refusal to bury the old man. The paper said the man was entitled to “humane treatment when sick and a decent burial when dead.”

  While the city fathers sat and did nothing, Molly Hipp marched down the street clad in her finest attire and claimed the body. She bought a coffin, trimmed it with satin and lace and, with the help of her girls and some of her regular customers, gave Old Dennis a proper send off.

  The Denison paper duly reported, “It remained for a woman whom the world has branded ‘the vilest of the vile’ to perform this last act of charity for the dead.”

  A short time later, some of the city council were disporting themselves in Molly’s house when a group of the regular “sporting gentlemen” decided to test the mettle of these city stalwarts. After nailing the back door shut, they slipped a couple of half-grown bears in the front door.

  These sizable beasts, tempers frayed to a thread, lumbered threateningly into the front room. The panic-stricken council members launched a serious retreat only to slam up against the well-secured door in back. Forced from its hinges by the sheer weight of hysterical numbers, the door burst open and spilled the council members, in various stages of dress and undress, into the street.

  It could be thought that this was just retribution for the council’s cold hearts, but was probably just an attempt by the local sports to enliven a dull evening.

  Molly continued not only to ply her trade, but also to turn the sweet face of charity on the sick and indigent of Denison. She eventually became known as the “Angel of Skiddy Street,” a definite step up from the “vilest of the vile.”

  Perhaps the Apostle Paul had someone like Molly in mind when he wrote, “Charity covereth a multitude of sins.” And, the recipients of her kindness would probably make a good case that Molly’s were fully covered.

  -END-

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