“Lem had worked at odd jobs and in the mines,” Dan said. “Now and then he and Anna would do a little prospecting. Anna found a claim that showed a little color. Lem worked alongside his squaw a couple weeks, but it was a back breaking job and Lem quit it. But Anna kept digging and one day she came up to their shack with a piece of ore that was almost pure gold. Anna’s find made them rich.
“I reckon money does things to people. Anyway, it didn’t take Lem long to get rid of Anna. He gave her enough so that she could take it easy. Then he pushed off to the city to live high, wide, and handsome. I see Anna now and then. She’s not jolly like she used to be. Lem has always wanted Jack to get rid of Mary and come to the city. In fact, Jack told me once that Lem offered to give him half of his money if he would do that. But Jack said, to hell with the city. He’s the happy go lucky sort. Big, good looking, and lazy. His old dobe under the cottonwood tree and the water running by with plenty of outdoors—that suits Jack.”
We found, as Dan had predicted, that everybody in the country had come to Jack’s party. A long U shaped table was placed outside under the shade of a tree. From nearby pits came a tantalizing aroma of barbecue. A keg of bourbon encircled with glasses stood beside a bucket of dripping mint. Cigars and cigarettes were on top of the keg and Jack saw that his guests were always supplied.
There was an orchestra with capable musicians, Jack occasionally pinch hitting for the bull fiddler when the latter took time out for a drink or a dance. But when the snare drum player wanted his bourbon, Jack was like a kid pulling doodads from a Christmas tree. “It will last a week,” Dan said. “A few may pull out after a day or two, but others will take their places.”
“This must have cost Jack a year’s labor,” I said. “I told him that once,” Dan laughed. “He asked me what else would a fellow work a year for.”
Jack’s views of life and things were Mary’s, except that Mary knew lean years come and if any provisions were to be made for them she would have to make them. She tended the goats and the sheep, cut the deer and the mountain sheep into strips and hung them high, where the flies wouldn’t get them, to cure in the breeze. If Jack wanted to throw a party, so did Mary. “... Big party ... kill fat steer. Five sheep. Heap good time....” To Jack’s everlasting credit, be it said that whatever Mary did, suited Jack.
“Oh, him fine man,” Mary would say. “Like home. Play with children. No get mad....”
There may be somewhere in this world a morsel approaching Mary’s barbecued mountain sheep, but I’ve never tasted it.
Jack told me later that the best meat is that from an old ram with no teeth. “He hasn’t eaten all winter, because his teeth won’t let him cut the hard, woody sage and being starved when spring comes, he gorges on the new sacatone. He fattens quickly and his flesh is tender.”
While Dan and I were walking about, a long limousine came across the valley and parked behind a screen of mesquite well away from the house and the guests. Dan and I happened to be nearby as a big, dark man expensively tailored stepped out. A lady fashionably dressed remained in the car.