The Stumplehorst family had twelve hundred irrigated acres bordered by a worm fence that was laid out by old man Stumplehorst in the 1940s. Four hundred head of Angus meandered across the wavy grass like black holes; quarter horses raised for hobby, neat rows of chicken coops and swine pens, and twenty acres of planted vegetables. Not even the fashion designer Ralph Lauren in Ridgway, Colorado, had a ranch like this. And he had money. The Stumplehorsts didn’t have money. They had the US Government.
When Calvina’s father died, so died his distracted way of managing the ranch. She immediately sought out the government programs that had always been available, but never utilized by her father whose interests, as previously noted, were elsewhere. In short order, she cobbled together a dizzying network of subsidies that increased the Stumplehorst Ranch’s financial wherewithal six-fold. A rancher needs land to graze cattle. By enlisting in the Federal Land Lease Program, she was able to add four thousand acres to the ranch—allowing them to build a bigger herd. And while she was at it, she might as well avail herself of the government’s Risk Management Insurance Program that made it possible to hedge volatility in the beef market. She also helped herself to a USDA Rural Development Subsidy, which paid for the irrigation and soil preparation of their new organic squash and lettuce business. Her husband, Skylar, who was no Andrew Mellon, but a reduce-the-size-of-the-government Republican nonetheless, was uneasy with her high finance shenanigans and told her so.
“Tell me something, Skylar,” she’d said, when he balked. “If you saw a dollar laying there in the middle of the road, would you, or would you not, pick it up?”
b
Calvina Stumplehorst took one look at the patrol cruiser coming up the driveway and saw the boy in the front seat. It was obvious that Skylar had not told her about his conversation with the sheriff.
“What’s this about?”
“It’s nothing,” Skylar said, trying to cast it off. “It’s a kid I said I’d let work here for six months.” The tumble of that deviated syntax set off alarm bells for Calvina. Her eyes narrowed. A partial truth, or worse, a lie, was being told.
“Is that Buster McCaffrey, the murderer?”
“Nobody’s ever proved that.”
“That’s what the sheriff told you.” Calvina was always one step ahead of him.
“It’s just for six months. We can use him for round up.”
“You haven’t adopted him.”
“Of course, not. You think I’m an idiot?”
Buster got out of the police cruiser and took off his hat. Long, tangled, dirty hair spilled out.
“Uh, ’lo, Mommy. ’Lo there, Daddy.”
Faith, Hope, Charity, and Destiny Stumplehorst giggled. Mrs. Stumplehorst turned purple and hissed something in her husband’s ear and stormed back to the house.
In the barn, Skylar put on his leather sheep shearing chaps and took an electric cutter to Buster’s hair. Unbeknownst to Buster, he had an audience peeking in through the workshop window—Destiny Stumplehorst and her three sisters.
“The missus doesn’t want you to call her ‘Mommy,’ unnerstan?”
“Yessir.”
“You can call me Pop if you want, though.”
“Okay, Pop.”
“But don’t call me Pop around the missus.”
“Whatever you say, Pop.”
After Skylar had buzzed Buster all the way down to the scalp, Buster reached up, touched the top of his head and whistled.
“Jiminy Christmas!”
Skylar then instructed Buster to take off his clothes and stand against the cinder block wall. Skylar let him have it with the fire hose. The girls outside watching had to cover their mouths as they squealed with laughter at the sight of their newly adopted naked brother. Destiny had to pull Charity’s hair to get her out of the way so she could get a good look. The girls were all dumbstruck by the size of Buster’s johnson—which, even under the duress of freezing cold water, gave the impression of a Slinky making its way down a flight of stairs.
Satisfied he’d loosened all the grime and vermin from Buster, Skylar proceeded to burn his clothes, hat, and boots. Buster was given a new pair of Carthart workman’s pants, a shirt, two pairs of skivvies, two pairs of socks, and a pair of White’s Packers.
“You’ll sleep with the other fellers in the bunkhouse.”
As they walked outside, the Stumplehorst girls scrambled out of the way.
“People in town tell ya we’re rich?”
“The Dominguezes always tole me not to listen to what people said in town.”
“Well, we’re not rich. So get that outta your head right now.”
“Yessir.”
“And be don’t be goin’ around here losin’ tools or throwin’ em on the ground. And don’t take a whole handful of toilet paper when you wipe your ass. It’s a waste of money and it clogs up the septic.”
“Yessir.”
The bunkhouse was a drafty old wooden building that leaned over on its hip as if it had been waiting a long time for a bus. Buster adjusted his clothes in his arms so he could offer his hand to Skylar and say what Sheriff Dudival had told him to say when the time was right.
“Mr. Stumplehorst…wanna say ah ’ppreciate the op-por-too-nit-ty.”
Skylar looked at him and didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He shook his hand without saying anything. It was his wife’s idea to put him in the bunkhouse. If it had been up to him, he would have put him in the house. But it wasn’t up to him. He just hoped that Buster wasn’t going to resent the accommodations.
The men awoke at four thirty in the morning. They washed and dressed in the dark. They were then made to stand outside in the corral and hold hands while Mrs. Stumplehorst administered the Morning Prayer. Anyone who overslept or dodged the prayers was not eligible for breakfast. Every couple of weeks or so, a man from Delta came down and randomly tested their urine. Any man caught playing a musical instrument, drinking, playing cards, reading an X-rated magazine, or talking to her daughters was summarily fired. The men, of course, hated her, but like her own husband, they had no other place to go.
Buster opened the bunkhouse door and stepped inside. There was only one electric light bulb hanging from the apex of the rafters. The board and batten structure was heated by a potbelly stove in the corner. Either everyone was too lazy or too tired to stoke it. There were ten men in their cots, ages twenty-five to forty-five. The air was blue from tobacco smoke and stunk from clothes, body crevices, and feet that may not have been washed in months. The men turned to look at Buster then looked away, disinterested. They were doing a variety of things—one cowboy was stitching a torn bridle, another man was sitting on another’s back squeezing a cyst that the other man couldn’t reach himself. Some were just laying there with their eyes open