Old Hearts
James Early held out his tin cup while Mose Dickerson, his constable over in Leonardville, poured it full with a steaming brew.
"Yer gonna like this," Dickerson said. "I put a egg in it."
"Settles the grounds. That's the way Thelma made her coffee."
"I 'member." Dickerson reached into his saddlebag. From it, he produced a can of Carnation. "Care fer a little cow?"
"Black's fine."
"I like to lighten mine up a shade." He admired the label. "Carnation milk, best in the land. / Comes to you in a little red can. /No tits to pull. No hay to pitch. / Just punch a hole in the sunovabitch. Oh, pardon me, Jimmy, I didn't mean to say that."
Early chuckled, and Dickerson hauled off a spur. He held the roul against the top of the can and gave the roul a whack with a rock. Milk squirted up in his face.
"Thought you were gonna put it in your jo," Early said.
"Funny man." Dickerson raked his sleeve at the errant drops before he topped off his cup. "Yer horse ever buck ya, git away from ya, Jimmy?"
"Not Molly, but one I had before did. Once."
"What'd ya do?"
"Like you would have, I taught him a lesson."
"How's that?"
"I made him walk back home all by himself."
Dickerson slapped his knee. "Jimmy, you sure are good at puttin' yourself in a good light. You know what I'm scared of? Mules."
"My dad had a good pair of working mules."
"That's musta been highly unusual. You know why the cavalry over at Fort Riley used to brand its mules U.S.? U.S., meant UnSafe at either end."
"Mose, where do you get these things?"
"Oh, I collect 'em. And I kin tell 'em to you time and again 'cause you pretend you never heard 'em before." Dickerson sipped at his coffee. "You know, we got us some rare and wonderful sights in our county—"
"Oh, here it comes."
"—and the rarest of all sights is clean socks in a bunkhouse."
"Or your house."
"You got me there, Jimmy. Now If I had a wife—"
"Mose, there's too much tumbleweed in you for you to marry."
"Yer probably right. But I could have me a jealous wife, you know, and if'n I did and I came home with a hair on my coat, I'd sure better have a horse to match it."
"You do go on."
"You know what surprise is, Jimmy? It's a near-sighted porcupine fallin' in love with a cactus."
Early stared off at the horizon.
"You can laugh, Jimmy. I always thought that one was one of my best."
"Mose, your best is careful. And careful is a naked man climbing a barbed wire fence."
"Haw, that's good. That's just good."
Early took a swig from his cup. "How long have we known each other?"
"Long time, Jimmy, long time, and I'm proud to claim we're right fine friends. Proof of it's there—we've sopped gravy out of the same skillet." He motioned to a fry pan, a stew rich with the aroma of well-seasoned beef bubbling in it.
"That we have. What do you say we have us some supper?"
© Jerry Peterson.
