Free Shake the Trees by Rod Helmers Page B

Canones Creek.  The remaining ten thousand acres of the Canones Creek drainage was comprised of the Rimes Ranch.  The Circle M and the Rimes Ranch were unequal halves of a whole.  The Rimes and the Mulligans had been neighbors for generations, and for generations they had coveted each other’s land.
    The Circle M was a high country ranch, which meant it had great summer pastures, but was nearly inaccessible during the snowy winters.  In fact, Chubbs lived in San Luis during the winter and spring, and only occupied the ranch house during the summer and early fall.  Every October he rounded his herd up and loaded the animals onto huge semi-truck trailers; the cows were then transported to irrigated leased pastures and the gentler winter climate found in the southern part of the state. 
    Except for the pastures irrigated by the creek, the Rimes Ranch, on the other hand, nearly dried up during the heat of the summer.  Rodger was forced to move some of his cattle to high country pastures on leased government land during July and August, and usually bought hay to get his herd through the winter.
    “Chubbs, how the hell are you?”
    “Well, I‘m not getting any younger, but everybody tells me I’m still real purty,” Chubbs said between breaths as he hauled nearly three hundred and fifty pounds up the wooden steps and onto the front porch of the ranch house.
    “Come on in and have a cup of coffee, Chubbs.”
    “Don’t mind if I do, Rodger, don’t mind if I do.”
    Rodger poured a cup of coffee and set it on the kitchen table as Chubbs settled into a wooden chair.  His sweat-stained cowboy hat, which was once white but now bore the patina of age, remained on his huge head.  Betty Rimes looked fish-eyed as she stared at the legs of the chair.
    “Would you like cream and sugar, Chubbs?”  Betty knew full well how he would answer, yet felt the need to at least try and elicit some small amount of guilt by demanding an oral response.
    “That would be mighty fine, Ms. Betty.”  Chubbs stirred in five teaspoons of sugar and as much cream as the cup would hold.  He pushed his hat back.  Beads of sweat had popped up on his forehead from the exertion of relocating himself from the pickup.
    “How’s Marilynn, Chubbs?”  Betty asked.
    “Mean as ever,” Chubbs replied as he inhaled equal parts liquid and air.  Betty had seen and heard enough, and left the men to themselves.
    “A big shot lawyer from California came by my place last week.”
    Rodger knew exactly what that meant.  “How much?”
    “Fifteen million.”
    “I’ll go twenty,” Rodger replied.  The old men held each other’s eye and kept straight faces for as long as they possibly could.  Then burst into uproarious laughter.  It was a joke only a land rich but cash poor cowboy could truly appreciate.  The stubbornness of their ancestors had kept the two ranches from being joined for generations.  Now skyrocketing land prices would do the same.
    “You gonna sell?” Rodger asked.
    Chubbs sighed and scuffed his boots around against the saltillo tile of the ranch house floor.  “All my kids have all left the valley, and they’re encouraging me to spend a small portion of their inheritance.”
    “On what?”
    “Hell.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’ll spend six months at one of those holistic fat farms.  Get me a new pickup to get there in.  Take Marilynn along for a nip and tuck.  She don’t wear a bikini the way she used to, ya know.”
    Rodger smiled sadly.  “I’m serious, Chubbs.  What do you want that money can buy?”
    Now Chubbs was serious.  “Ain’t about me, Rodger.  It’s about my kids and my grandkids and maybe their kids.  I’ll set up trusts for all of them.  For their education and their first house.  We’ve spent our lives scared to death, Rodger.  Scared to death that it wouldn’t rain.  That our pastures would dry up.  Scared to death we wouldn’t be able to pay our bills.  I don’t want them to