Not Look Back

All this happened, more or less. The memories still come flooding back now and then—of my dad, the hired hand, Jack, the dusty ranch we called home. Sometimes I question whether what I did was right, but it doesn’t matter. What happened is done, buried in the desert dust of New Mexico.

***

It all started the day my dad busted his arm. He was saddling his horse, when our hired hand, Jack, shot off a .22 rifle up by the house. This spooked the horse, and it took off running. This wouldn’t have been such a terrible thing, but my dad’s arm was caught up in a strap. So when the horse took off running, it dragged my dad right along with him. He was only dragged a dozen or so yards, but the damage was done. From that day on, my dad’s twisted limb of an arm was bound to his side in a home-stitched sling.

Nobody blamed Jack for what happened. He was a good man, although a bit slow having grown up in a family of migrant workers. Although close to twenty years older than me at the time, we were still close. Often times, would give me a hand in my share chores at the end of the day.
Anyways, that didn’t hold back the heated exchange of words eventually came between him and my dad. I’d seen it coming since the day my dad first busted his arm.

It all started with Jack: “I get done twice the work, for the same damn pay…”

”But,” my dad had said, “As far as I’m concerned you’re the same hand I hired four years ago, and so your pay ain’t changing.”

Perhaps things could have gone differently if my dad could have simply said the truth, but for his own pride there was no way he was letting on to Jack that in fact he couldn’t afford to increase his pay. In the months after his arm was busted in the accident, the ranch hadn’t been doing as well. Two people weren’t enough to handle a herd of cattle, and the animals were slipping away from us. With three it only just manageable, but now my dad couldn’t ride, and instead spent most days bound to the family rocking chair on the porch. He didn’t speak much anymore; he just sat there.

So it wasn’t no surprise to me the day Jack packed up his horse and took off down the dusty road. I remember him as he rode away--his horse, packed as full as it was when he arrived four years ago, and he himself, disappearing into the dust and mirage of the road. That was the last I ever saw of the man. My dad had even made it off the porch for the occasion. When Jack was gone, my dad put his good arm around me, declaring, “We’ll be all right, son.”

I knew this wasn’t true, but I wasn’t sure if my dad knew it. Day after day, he continued to sit in his chair, smoking his pipe, with a smug look of satisfaction spread across his face in a small smirk. I almost wished I was with him in whatever dreams his head was off in. But I wasn’t. I was stuck in reality; although in that reality I did about as much work as my dad did. Really I had given up hope, and spent the days strutting around the ranch in utter defeat.

One evening my dad spoke up as I was stepping up the steps to the porch. His eye’s on the sunset, he said wistfully, “One day, son, this Ranch will be yours, just as it was once my father’s.” At those words, I slammed the door behind me as I went into the house.

That night I stared at the dark ceiling for what seemed like forever. My heart was beating hard. Around what I assumed to be midnight I packed a bag with my spare shirt and shorts, and some of the remaining food left in the kitchen. I then snuck out a few bucks from under my dad’s mattress as he snored loudly, and then snuck out.

Before stepping off the porch I decided to sit for a moment in by dad’s rocking chair. It was old and weathered, and creaked more than I wanted it to, but it was nice, and comfortable. I sat for a time in that nice and homely chair, looking out into the darkness. Maybe that was where a person ought to drop a tear, but I didn’t. Instead I thought about the day Jack left, walking down the road, not looking back. I decided I wouldn’t look back either.