Smedley Ranch
I was born in Faith, South Dakota, to a ranchin’ family. Ridin’, ropin’, all’a that’s in my blood. I didn’t have any brothers – just a handful of sisters – so I was taught to help out with the stock as soon as I was able. Now, some of those sisters of mine weren’t all silk and glass. They could be as tough as a first-time mother away from her calf. But I still picked my wrestlin’ partners from out of the corral rather than the house, and I think Ma preferred it that way. She had a thing about stuff like that.
I never got into the rodeo circuit. Watched my fair share, but I didn’t like the idea of puttin’ myself out there like that. What I could do was practical. Other people doin’ otherwise with the same didn’t bother me none, but it wasn’t for me. Ma insisted on good schoolin’, so I did the best I could by her. I wasn’t the best at it, but I wasn’t the worst either, so she couldn’t complain too much. I went off to Brookings and lent myself out as a hand while I studied there, just so Ma and Pa could put more money into the ranch.
It wasn’t a big fancy place, you see. It wasn’t a bunch of sticks tied together neither, but it needed every spare penny we could toss into it. And I didn’t want to be the one hurtin’ that. Ma did her best to pick up where school’d left off for my sisters, insistin’ that if I was gonna run the ranch someday, I needed to have schoolin’ outside’a what she and Pa could provide. Emily, the one just a year younger’n me. didn’t like that idea. She was all about equal rights and new ways of thinkin’ that Ma just didn’t understand, but in an act of protest, she and Kate, the sister under her, went off to California to learn about all the problems women have and how society and the media just keep knockin’ ‘em down. I miss Em and Kate, but they do write me now and then. Always good to hear from ‘em.
Education and Interlopers
Me, I got a degree in Animal Studies from South Dakota State. Served me well in workin’ on the ranch, but there’s just some things you can’t learn from books. Sarah and Lucy, the last of what womanly kin I had younger’n me, were inclined to climb the social ladder in a more traditional way. So when they each married a Hoskin’s brother, things on the homestead took a turn. Pa was ill, and Ma spent all her time carin’ for him. But when Darrell and Allan became family, they decided the way I’d been runnin’ things wasn’t good enough. See, they came from money. They wanted to do all these technologically advanced things on the ranch that we just weren’t outfitted to do. That, and they weren’t the nicest boys my kid sisters could’a hitched up with. Still, they were family, so I bit my tongue.
But there’s only so much any one man can take. It was like I was back in school again, slavin’ away for someone else’s profit when the ranch should’ve been mine. That name on the gate? It said Smedley, not Hoskin. So one night after I’d had a bit too much to drink, I spelled it out for ol’ Darrell and Allan. Things got a little rough, and to spare the feelin’s of my kid sisters, I went easy on ‘em. They weren’t so conscientious a’that sort of thing, so I limped outta there with what clothes I had on my back and what money I hadn’t drunk up already in my pocket. I was lucky Carson ran after me.
Carson’s my dog. Been my dog ever since I got back from school. Guess I should’ve mentioned that previous. Carson’s mama decided she was gonna use our barn to whelp her pups in, and our own dogs new it was a danger to fiddle with a bitch about to whelp. So they let her stay, but they sure weren’t happy about it. Poor thing was so tired and sickly that she didn’t make it, and only Carson survived outta the litter. Ma named him after Johnny Carson, since when he was little he did all manner’a funny stuff around the ranch, and she loved tellin’ stories about ‘im. I can’t recall exactly how he became my dog, but he did all the same. So much so that he ran out after me after the Hoskin boys tossed me. He’s a good dog.
Darker Days Dawning
I worked my way from ranch to ranch doin’ what needed to be done. Now, that sort’a life is much more historical, really, but for drives and whatnot, there’s few people that will turn down a pair of experienced hands. I learned to live with little and appreciate the small luxuries when I could get ‘em.
Then that bomb went off in New York City. New York’d always been a faraway place for me. I’d read about it and seen it in movies just like people in New York’d done with the West. But when people started talkin’ ‘bout the Evolved and everything, a lot of folks in my neck of the woods got angry. Some of the other hands roped me in to goin’ to a gal’s house one night in the dark. She was somethin’. I don’t even remember what. But people knew. We pulled her out pf her bed, kickin’ and screamin’, and tied her to a fence. Someone jerked off her nightdress, and someone else’d brought an iron up in a kettle. I was one of the guys that held her still while they did it. Marked her like that, right on her thigh just like she was stock.
I ain’t proud’a that night.
They found her a few days later, tied to that same fence. She wasn’t alive enough to tell what happened to her. That might be the only reason why I got away like I did. But I ran that very next day. Grabbed my pay and moved on. Enough drifters like me still wandered about like that, so it didn’t make anybody suspicious.
That lady changed my life just as much as the Hoskin brothers did. I worked my way through farms rather than ranches, helpin’ out with stock just as much as I did fields. It was scary though, always lookin’ over my shoulder to make sure the law hadn’t tracked me down for holdin’ that girl down while they did it.
Back in the Saddle
I met Samson in a St. Louis bar. He needed a hand with a job movin’ crates rather’n cattle or sheep, and he thought I’d be good enough to give it to him. I never asked what was in those crates, but I have a feelin’ the warehouse we took ‘em from wasn’t really expectin’ us. Samson doesn’t lie too well, even for a city boy. Samson’s what got me into the smugglin’ business, and what slowly drew me out to the east coast. It’s an easier run to make there, even if the cities are closer together. And ever since the bomb, people needed a lot of stuff – stuff we could get for ‘em.
Of course, we weren’t the only crew in the business, and after runnin’ in to some rivals, Samson met his end. That left me Samson’s run and regulars. And I lie better than he ever could. Charm, they call it. Besides that, nobody is really wishin’ for death to come to ‘em any earlier than it’s already planned to, so they respect someone who feels likewise and’d rather take care’a things without swappin’ bullets. So it didn’t take long for me to button up the Staten Island racket pretty good.
People in New York need all sorts of things. Medicine. Food. Ammunition. Arms. Even other people. I’m not picky as to the jobs I get, so long as I get paid. I need things too. Like that whiskey. Pass it over, would you?
