A'rustlin' in the breeze!

Those of you expecting the next 'Dead Reckoning' episode might be a little surprised to see this, but there's a story behind it!  Yesterday, a group I belong to ran a competition.  The idea was that they supplied a paragraph and you had to complete it.  This was the paragraph:

“All alone in a remote copse.  Perfect for reading.  I settled against the trunk of an old oak and was soon lost in my book.  Rustling.  The sound of rustling distracted me.  I looked up.  Astonished.  Directly in front of me was…”

Which was rather nice, and elicited a lot of pleasant and poetic responses.  Unfortunately, as I have a rather literal (not to say, lateral) train of thought, my suggestion was:

"...a hundred head of cattle! A dust-dashed cowboy rode up, nodded, spat companionably and grunted "You ain't seen me, right?" before the whole carnival thundered away."

And, to my surprise, this was one of the winning entries.  Well, that then started me thinking about what might have happened next, and once that happens, I just have to write it all down, hence:

 

“Silas?”

“Yup!” Silas answered, laconically.  He was entirely focused on his finger which was helping him to spell out the more difficult words in the ‘Funnies’ section of the Sacramento Interrogator, his weekly aptitude test.

“Silas, there’s a cow looking at me through the kitchen window”

“We live on a farm, Martha” Silas pointed out.

“We live on an arable farm, Silas!” Martha retorted, “I should be able to see the waving wheat, which sure smells sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain!  All I can see is cow, and it sure don’t smell sweet”

“Ah, yeah, right” Silas shifted awkwardly on the kitchen chair.

“Ah, yeah, right what?” Martha had turned to face him, with her hands on her hips, a sure sign of impending trouble.

“I meant to tell you ‘bout that” Silas managed a weak grin.

“Just what did you mean to tell me?”  Her expression was thunderous.

“See, you’ll laugh when I tell yer” Silas offered, hopefully.  Martha’s expression gave no impression of approaching merriment.  “It’s like this.  Jake and Eli, they bet me five bucks, in the saloon last night…”

“Five bucks?  You ain’t got five bucks!”

“I know, that’s why I had to win the bet!” Silas said, somewhat aggrieved, “anyhow, they bet me I couldn’t rustle a few cattle, so I had to show ‘em, didn’t I?”

“Rustle a few cattle?  You’ve been stealing cattle, just for some stupid wager?” Martha looked astounded.

“Not stealin’” Silas shook his head, furiously, “no siree, not stealin’, more…movin’”

“What do you mean, movin’?”  She looked at him, suspiciously.

“Well, like I say, I ain’t fixin’ to keep ‘em, just wanted to show I could do it, and I did!” He looked triumphant, a look that didn’t survive long in the glare of Martha’s fixed expression.

“How many of them are there?” Martha raised an eyebrow and looked back, out of the window, “I can see, lessee now, five, six, seven…oh my Lord, they’re all over!”

“Yeah?” Silas squirmed again.

“How many did you st…move?”  Martha fixed him with a steely glare, again.

“Well, y’see, I kinda set out for one or two…” Silas stared hard at the kitchen table, as if hoping that a smart answer might appear amongst the ‘Funnies’.

“Yeeees?”  Martha was tapping her foot, now.

“And I got one or two, only, the others…well, y’see, they didn’t want to be left behind, kind of thing…”

“How many are there?”

“I ain’t no good at countin’,  an’ numbers, an’ suchlike, you know that Martha” Silas whined, “I tried countin’ ‘em but they kept shiftin’ ‘round…”

“How many!” The foot tapping had reached quite a high tempo by now.

“I guess a hundred, mebbe more” Silas looked the picture of misery.

“You know, I can believe that, ‘cause I can’t see the Wilson’s Barn from my window no more, ‘cause of all these cows” Martha leaned out of the window, a little, to try to get a fix on the Barn but was rewarded with a large tongue licking her ear.

“Ah, well…” Silas squirmed some more.

Martha spun around and stared at him, “What do you mean, ‘Ah, well’?”

“Well, y’see, I ain’t never moved no cattle ‘afore” Silas fiddled with a page of the newspaper, “only, what I did learn, pretty quick, was, they don’t go much for goin’ round stuff”

“Goin’ round stuff?  Like what?”

“Like the Wilson’s Barn” Silas admitted, miserably.

“You mean…oh Lord!  Not their Barn!” Martha looked aghast.  Silas nodded, slowly.  “That’s only a mile or so from the Plunkett place, I sure hope they didn’t hear anything” She chewed her bottom lip in agitation.

“No, I don’t reckon they heard nothin’” Silas took a deep breath, and ploughed on, “on account of how…well, y’know how they had that fine two-storey farmhouse, the Plunketts’?”

“Yeah, it’s mighty fine.  Gwen Plunkett invited me over for coffee, only yesterday”

“You might want to give that a few days” Silas suggested.

“Why’s that?”

“Like I said, it was a fine two-storey place…”

“What do you mean, ‘was’?” Martha looked at him, suspiciously.

“Well, it’s kinda…ground level, now” Silas admitted.

“What is?”

“All of it” Silas mumbled.

“Oh no, not the Plunketts’” Martha crashed onto a seat opposite Silas and put her head in her hands.

“It ain’t like yer can steer them, y’see?” Silas explained, “which is kinda odd, given they’re called ‘steers’ an’ all” He observed, thoughtfully.

“We’ll have to move” Martha sobbed, “and after everything I’ve done here!  My little Rose Garden”

“Ah, now that ain’t gonna be a problem, not no more”  Silas shook his head.

Martha looked up at him, with deep suspicion, and raced back over to the window.

“My Rose Garden!  Where’s it gone?”

“Well, look at it this way” Silas suggested, helpfully, “you said as how it lacked manure…well, it sure ain’t lackin’ no more, now is it?”

“They’ll hang you for this, Silas, you know that, don’t you?  Cattle rustling!”

“Not if we get ‘em back, we can say they…strayed!”  Silas suggested.

“WE?  I ain’t gettin’ ‘em nowhere, no how!  They’re your problem, Silas!” Martha breathed, heavily, “you an’ your no-account friends, drinkin’ an’ gamblin’”

“I got the five bucks!” Silas pulled a crumpled note from his back pocket, triumphantly.

“I’m leavin’ you, Silas” Martha grabbed a carpet bag and began piling things into it.  She snapped it shut and marched toward the door, “Don’t you have anything to say?” She asked, in a choking voice.

“Watch yer step, it’s kinda messy out there” Silas advised, solemnly.

Normal service, with the next 'Dead Reckoning' episode, will be resumed, tomorrow abw