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Show FICTION: A Short Story EONS 6 IONS | Johnny's Up in the Rocks has been drawn and quartered 6 y developers and the good citizens of Radium are angry... By Chinle Miller Johnny Allred paused one last time to look the place over--the old stone ranch house, the spring with its leaky stock tank, the leaning bunkhouse made of old railroad ties--all of it once his. Settling down into the hard metal seat, he pushed the stick forward, dropped the blade of the old D4 Caterpillar bulldozer, and got to work. This would be the last time for him, now that the place was sold--his last few days working the Allred Ranch, the 2 Lazy-4-U. Spittinga wad of brown chew out and nearly hitting his beat-up Texarkana cowboy boots, he stomped on the left brake, turning the old yellow machine toward the corrals. He'd worked this place for years, all his life really, channeling the spring, making a nice flat spot for the cattle loading chute, that kind of thing. He’d gradually put the place in order, making it one of the nicest spots around, a pleasant ranch with big Fremont cottonwoods protectively bending over the old house. To the locals, the mesa was called "Johnny’s Up In the Rocks," shortened from the original | He was early. He collapsed into a seat in the front row of the County Council room, . ignoring the "Reserved" sign. A few other people began trickling in. The room soon filled. Maxine Townsend sat down in Row 11 and began working on what would be her 47th afghan--she was getting bolder, this one being a gold and black zigzag pattern. Her husband, Jerry, sat next to her, waiting for the meeting to begin, cracking walnuts, nudging the hulls under the seat ahead of him with the toe of his Herman Survivors. Gary, the publisher of the local paper, squeezed Jerry’s shoulder, sat down next to him, and asked, "Hey Jerry, were you at the Allred Ranch auction yesterday? I wanted to go but "Johnny’s Place Way Up There on the Mesa in the Redrocks." That particular Johnny had been his crusty old grandfather, who had homesteaded the place long ago. Ironically enough, Johnny thought, all his work had contributed to the place’s downfall. Who .would’ve thought this redrock-strewn mesa would have fallen into the greed of somebody who didn’t know a gnat’s ass from a jackass? He spat again, this time with more force. And now, as part of the sales agreement, he was supposed to keep working on the ranch even though he didn’t even own it, cleaning up some of his hundred-year-old "junk" and hauling out the old composted piles of cow manure from the corrals. Hell, those piles were so old they didn’t even smell unless you stirred them up. Besides, cow manure should be part and parcel of.a cattle ranch. He spat again indisgust. As hefurned the old Cat in through the corral gate, he accidentally caught the edge of the blade on a brace, pulling an old juniper post out of the ground. He cussed and jumped off the machine. Johnny was bitter, even though he was now a wealthy man. The damn bank was the one who'd told him he had to come back and clean up the place, not the new owner. Shoot, the new owner had told him that he liked the "rustic" look of the ranch and wanted to preserve it. That was, of course, back when the bastard was still trying to deal ditectly with Johnny, writhing around Johnny like a rattlesnake high-centered on a prickly pear. Johnny pulled himself back up onto the Cat and commenced pushing manure from one pile into another. Who would've thought that this redrock-strewn mesa would have fallen into the greed of somebody who didn't know a gnat's ass from a jackass? He spat again, this time with more force. Rotten and green underneath, the odor made him take out his bandanna and wrap it around his face. The stronger the smell of methane got, the more combustible Johnny’s temper got until he was ready to explode. In the course of scraping the corral, he managed to pick up a tangle of old barbed wire and get it twisted in the edges of the blade. Trying to lift it off, he cussed the fool who'd left it there, probably his own long-gone father, then ‘gave up and put the old machine in reverse. As he backed up, the involved mass (probably collectible barbed wire in places like Santa Fe, if he’d only known) pulled tighter. Johnny gunned the Cat, and finally his right track found traction, the whole shebang jerked backwards, and the barbed wire pulled free, followed by a thundering crash--it hadtaken the corner post of the barn with it. The wire had been wrapped around an old cable which had somehow mysteriously been joined to the hundred-year-old building. : Johnny sat there in awe for a minute, then drove over to the barn, attached a chain to the other side of the wobbling structure, and commenced to "clean up the place." After all, that’s what they'd wanted. It took most of the day to raze the old house, scatter the old posts of the corrals, and finish off the barn. He never did get around to spreading out those manure piles - but shoot, without the corral, they now looked like Indian burial mounds, so maybe the new owner could capitalize on that. Finallyfinished, he grabbed a handful of rabbitbrush seed and threw it to the breeze, which blew it around the rubble that just this morning was the historic Allred Ranch Headquarters. "There, I done cleaned up and reclaimed the place, you damned sumsabitches rich weasels," he said, forgetting for a minute that he himself was now a millionaire. As he drove the old D4 slowly down the steep hill, he looked back only once. That was to study the huge boulder that had sat poised over the road for a thousand years or more, ready to roll anytime. Johnny drove back up the hill and let ‘er rip. KKK The difference between John Allred and the man who'd bought the Allred Ranch was that Johnny had gotten rich by accident. He really hadn’t ever thought about it much, other than to wonder once in awhile what it would feel like not to worry about blizzards each spring during calving--and then there were the bank payments he'd had to start making when cattle took a dive on the market. As he parked his old white Ford pickup in front of the County Courthouse, John wondered if a million dollars stacked up would reach to the moon. had to cover that story on those women running around half-naked to save those trees up on the mountain. I sure hated to miss the auction." : : "I bet you did," grinned Jerry. Gary asked, "Is it true you boys bid the place up to over a million?” Jerry, knowing everything he said was fair game for the morning news, answered, "Maybe." Gary smiled, "God knows none of you boys have a nickel in the bank. What did you do, sell those collectible old pickups you all drive? Man, you must’ve been damn sure that city boy wanted the place." Jerry replied, "We were." He cracked another walnut and’ smiled, recalling the feeling of reckless abandon they‘d all had at the bidding table, an abandon that they’d never feel again, that they’d yearn for, but that would never be matched in their weekly poker games. The crowd waited until finally, an hour late in a ploy to get people to leave, the development team arrived. ; The man who’d bought the Allred-Ranch sat down in the front row, two seats from John, who was now right in the middle of a cadre of lawyers from New York. Johnny looked tired, the dust and dirt on his clothes contrasting with the expensive suits around him. He had oil on his right sleeve from the D4 Cat--the oil tank sat on the right fender and always leaked, slowly dripping onto the driver. . The meeting was called to order, and the first hour was devoted to a Power Point |