Cornbread and Beans
The ridge behind Albert Albrecht’s sandstone ranch house had been deteriorating for some time—decades, maybe centuries, perhaps eons—long before the rancher inherited the property from his father who’d been deeded the thirty-seven-thousand acres of unrelenting West Texas desert grazing land by his father who got it from his own father, the ornery old cuss in the grainy black and white portrait on the mantel in the living room, a glassy-eyed German Albert had only been told wondrous tales about. The bristled old timer in the photograph had cleared the land more than a century ago, mostly on his own, with the sweat and grit of Mexican labor when he needed it. Someday, thought Albert, that whole damned mesa will give way in a gully washer and take everything with it… and where will I be? Better off? Who knows?
At least his property rested atop enough water to get by…almost comfortably. His wells, so far, had been generous even in the most severe climates though lately the summers had been brutal. Water was the one commodity more precious than land in West Texas. By that measure Albert was a wealthy man.
It was just past sundown as Albert watched a pack of scrawny coyotes scurry nervously in and out of the mesquite bushes no more than forty yards from his back porch. Those crazy bastards think I’m gonna feed ’em, muttered the rancher to no one. By now they should know that the Albrechts ain’t the most benevolent folks in Contreras County. Far from it. I, like the rest of my kin, ain’t no soft touch.
The rancher suspected that Eva, sweet gentle Eva, had been slipping the mangy animals food on the sly. Suspected? Hell, he knew she was. How else could she explain the discarded cans of Strong Heart dog food in the trash bin behind the storage shed? Did she think he wouldn’t notice? It was just one of the things he appreciated about his wife: her soft-hearted nature. Sometimes it was better not to ask what the woman was up to behind his back. She couldn’t help herself. She was from more genteel stock, Pennsylvania born and bred, Welsh, or so she claimed. After forty-three years of being married to Albert, she still didn’t get it. West Texas was no place for a do-gooder.
“Albert,” said Eva, “what are you doing out here? Aren’t you going to come in for dinner. Beans and cornbread.”
“I’m watchin’ those damned coyotes,” said Albert. “They’re a nuisance. The county will pay us a ten-dollar bounty for each pair of ears we bring in. It might be a way to give us a little extra cash.” He squinted. “I could get out my twenty-two and take a bunch of those ears into town. If I could bag a pair every day we’d have an unexpected seventy bucks a week.”
Eva shook her head. “You’ll do no such things. Those wild dogs don’t harm anything.” She sighed heavily. “I’ll never understand how your mind works. We’ve got more than enough money. You’re one of the richest men in this county.” She paused. “You’re just saying this to get my goat.”
“Hardly, I’m just trying to put food on our table. And they ain’t dogs. They’re coyotes.”
“I know a coyote from a dog. You old fool, as far as food on the table goes, you don’t look like you’re starving. Far from it. I shouldn’t be giving you cornbread. You know what that doctor in Ft. Stockton told you.”
“That’s what I get for goin’ all the way to Pecos County to find out what I already know. I’m gettin’ old. I didn’t need no woman doctor to tell me that.”
“You’re sixty-eight years old,” said Eva. “You just act like an old coot.” She chuckled. “And you know darned well you were more than mildly charmed by Dr. Spencer. She had you wrapped around her little finger, and you ate it up. You were spellbound.”
The rancher stroked his three-day stubble, blinked then glared at his wife. “I’m thinkin’ about puttin’ up a wall out there to keep that damned mound of earth and tumbleweeds from comin’ down on us.”
“For crying out loud, you’ve just got too much time on your hands. Why in the world would you go and do some foolhardy thing like that? That ridge has been there forever.”
“It looks to me like it could give way at any moment,” said Albert. “Then where will we be? We’ll be sound asleep some night. and the whole damned thing will come crashing down on us.”
“It will not, and you know it.” Eva tapped her foot on the stone porch. “You’re just looking for a project. You never should’ve sold off your precious cattle.”
“That fella from Van Horn bamboozled me on that deal,” said Albert.
“He did not, and you know it.” Eva laughed. “Nobody pulls the wool over an Albrecht’s eyes. I learned that no sooner than you dragged me out here to this god-forsaken place. Everybody told me how shrewd you and your father could be. My father warned me about marrying a stiff-necked German, but I didn’t listen. I had no idea how difficult you can be at times.”
Albert grinned. It was true. His old man was a wheeler-dealer all right… in his time. That was for sure. But the stubborn old cuss was in the cemetery in town. Albert had learned everything he knew from Cornelius Albrecht. “You’re just too wishy washy,” said the rancher. “You would’ve given those damned cows to that bastard.”
“Are you coming in to dinner or not?”
The rancher whistled through his teeth, one more of his several habits that annoyed his wife, much to his delight. “What would you say if I ran for the school board?”
“What brought that on?”
“I just thought it might be something I’d like to do,” said Albert. He winced. “That son of a bitch Malcolm Harper has offered to put the Ten Commandments in every classroom in town if the county will grant him a permit for some goddamned golf course between here and town. It’s nothin’ short of a bribe so’s he and his snooty friends can romp around and knock a ball into a damned hole.” He stopped. “Also, I hear that he plans to put a gun into the hands of every teacher at the grade school and at the high school.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine some poor teacher having a gun in her desk? She’d shoot her damned foot off… or blow away some poor student.”
“Albert, not every teacher’s a woman. You’re way out of touch. Times have changed.” She grinned. “I thought you’d go right along with some hairbrained idea like that.”
“Well, I don’t much like it. Not at all. And, yes, I know there are men teachers these days.” He coughed. “I got my guns, but that don’t mean they belong in the school.” The rancher leaned forward in his creaky wicker chair. “Harper just wants his damned golf course… and permission to use the water it will drink up to keep it green.” He harrumphed. “That son of a bitch is good buddies with the governor.” He sniffled. Hay fever, he grumbled silently. “There ain’t more than a dozen assholes in this county who’d ever play golf. The only folks who’d come out here to play a round are a bunch of dandies from Pecos or Culberson County, maybe an occasional asshole from Del Rio. As for the Ten Commandments… he doesn’t give a hoot about that. It just sounds good.”
“Can he do that?” asked Eva. “Can he just put some religious plaque in classrooms without anyone’s permission?”
“That’s what the governor has suggested,” said Albert. Goddamned tumbleweeds, he cussed to himself. He wiped his nose with the sleeve of his denim shirt. “We’re just lucky to be seven miles outside of Dos Pesos instead of Dallas or Ft. Worth. The Catholics around here aren’t all that keen on that sort of thing.” He laughed. “And we’ve got more damned Catholics than you can shake a stick at.” Albert glowered at the coyotes, now getting closer at the sound of Eva’s voice. “I talked with Father Rafael about it. He’s against it.” He nodded. “Most of the Mexicans are Catholic, you know.”
“Since when did you become a Mexican lover?”
“I ain’t,” said the rancher. “It ain’t whether or not I love Mexicans. It’s whether or not they can go to school without getting shot at by some trigger-happy teacher or having some Bible-thumpin’ zealot preachin’ at ’em the whole damned day.”
“Albert, I swear, you’re becoming a liberal.”
“You’re the one who voted for that woman from San Francisco,” said Albert. He grunted to himself. He knew all too well that he also couldn’t bring himself to vote for that whore-mongering real estate man from New York. He just didn’t want Eva, or anyone else, for that matter, to know how he’d voted. In his opinion there hadn’t been a politician worth spit since Ann Richards was governor.
“You never fail to surprise me, Albert Albrecht.” She smiled. “You’re a Lutheran, and now you’re consorting with a priest.”
“I like that priest,” said the rancher. “He makes good sense. And while I’m eatin’ beans that rascal Malcolm Harper and his cronies are eatin’ steak and lobster.”
“You don’t like lobster.”
“That ain’t the point.”
“Albert, tomorrow night we’ll have lobster, if that’s what you want.”
Albert took a deep breath. “There’s another thing. I hear rumors of Harper and his cohorts finagling to get one of those damned data centers in this county.” He grimaced. “That’ll be the ruin of every rancher for miles. Only they’re too thick-skulled to know it. First that damned fracking north of here, now this. Where the hell will the water come from? Not to mention the electricity. Tell me that. I don’t know much about those damned data centers, other than what I’ve read, but I know they drink more water than a forest of salt cedars.” The rancher stood. “That son of a bitch Harper moves into this county and starts lookin’ for ways to scam us all. I’ve read up on those so-called data centers. I don’t understand ‘em, but they’re a disaster for everyone wherever they pop up.”
“You worry too much,” said Eva. “But go right ahead and run for the school board. Run for the county commissioner’s court. Run for county judge. Everyone in Contreras County knows you. You’ll win. I’m sure of it. But, then what? You’ll go to spouting all of your left-wing ideas, and I won’t be able to show my face in town. I’ll be the wife of that bleeding-heart radical outside of town.”
“Laugh if you want,” said Albert. “You’ll get by just fine. I’ll be the one who gets booted out of the county for standin’ up for somethin’ no one gives a rat’s ass about. All they care about is the lousy jobs their stupid projects might bring in. They’d sell their souls for jobs not a one of ‘em will ever see.”
“If you want to run, then run.” Eva shrugged. “It’s time for supper. Beans and cornbread, hardly steak and lobster.”
“I’ll be in right behind you.” Albert watched the coyotes gyrate and swirl like the musicians he’d seen on MTV when he was looking for a ballgame. His wife’s voice seemed to have thrown the animals into a frenzy. The truth was he’d never shot any animal in his life, other than livestock that needed to be put down, and he hated that. He studied the ridge behind his property. It appeared to be crumbling right before his eyes. He would’ve sworn he could hear it cracking. Everything he cared about was about to come down on him. Or so it seemed.
~