Mountain Town: Clayton
Mountain Town: Clayton
By Ivory Harlow
I.
Clayton shifted forward slightly on his horse as it descended the rocky slope. He slacked the reins and held them low, trusting Shane to move slow and careful into the canyon. It had been years since rode the horse into the most remote part of the Bar T Ranch, but Shane was sure-footed and confident- He seemed to remember the way.
It was the eve of Thanksgiving. Clayton Tibbs had just stormed away from the big house, leaving a full table of appalled family members in his wake. After 15 years of putting up with their disrespect for him and disregard for his life’s work, he didn’t have it in him to sit through another hoax of a holiday.
The late afternoon air was still a temperate 55 degrees F. But this time of year temps plunged after sundown. It’d be 40 degrees overnight camping in the canyon. In his rush to flee the Thanksgiving scene, he hadn’t thought to grab cold weather gear. Only his old barn coat and worn black Stetson. Clay’s dark hair had grown out to the point it made short waves around his ears. He was currently sporting a three-day beard, black with pepper gray. He had ignored his wife’s insistence on getting “cleaned up” before the holiday gathering. Now he was glad he hadn’t. The facial hair would help keep him warm tonight.
When Clay reached the canyon, he immediately began gathering materials to build a fire. He would need the fire for light and heat when the sun went down.. Mountain Town is a Certified Dark Sky Reserve. If that wasn’t enough to make it difficult to navigate the terrain, the 220 foot descent into the dark canyon made it dangerous.
As a kid, it scared Clay to be down there after dark. He put on a brave face when he was a teen sneaking down there to drink beer and smoke with his rowdy friends. At 43 years old, the darkness no longer scared him, but shining a light on the truth of what his life had become, did.
When he’d collected sufficient brush and old mesquite for a fire, Clayton placed several sticks on the ground to build up tinder. He lit the fire and slowly added kindling, then larger pieces of wood. Soon the fire pumped out heat. Clayton warmed his hands as he watched shadows dance on the canyon walls. The firelight flickered in his dark eyes.
Clayton hardly touched his turkey dinner before leaving the big house. He grabbed a bag of beef jerky from the saddlebag to stave off hunger pangs. It was going to be a long night of hunting the hunter, with nothing but his thoughts and feelings of inadequacy to occupy his mind.
II.
The mountain lion moved methodically towards a young calf grazing at the edge of the field. She had been hungry for days, waiting and watching the herd of grazing cattle from a perch on the rimrock of the canyon. Her belly was concave, and she looked wasted.
The calf’s mother would aggressively defend her baby if she saw or heard the lion approach. The lion waited until dark, then, camouflaged by golden native grasses, she slunk low to the ground towards her prey. Its muscles lengthened and retracted with every step as she crept closer and closer.
The lion pounced from behind and clamped her powerful jaw down on the calf’s throat, severing its spine. It took every bit of strength she had left to heave the 80 lb body into the treeline, towards the canyon.
III.
The Bar T Ranch in Mountain Town had been in the Tibbs family for 150 years. Clayton had spent his entire life there, aside from the 4 year hiatus he spent getting a degree in range management from Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Upon graduation, he could not wait to get back to the ranch, which he would run with his father for a decade until Clayton senior retired and passed the reins to junior, just as granddad did to him.
Now, Clayton stood on the big house’s front porch drinking coffee. He wrapped his fingers tightly around the mug. It was a cold early November morning. He stood on the stoop, watching black vultures soar over the Bar T at great heights. From the looks of it, they were trying to locate something in or around the canyon.
“Tonight is the town hall. You said you’d come.” Thallia opened the front door a few inches to remind him. She wore an expensive silk blouse tucked into a calf-length pleated skirt with kitten heels that made her calf muscles pop. She had a sleek blond bob that fell right at her chin, and intense Nordic blue eyes.
She must have one of her committee meetings this morning, Clayton thought, eyeing his wife appreciatively. Their marriage might be shit, but he still desired her as much as he did on their wedding day, which had occurred on this very ranch.
Thallia had never held a job. But she had her hands in every major campaign and initiative in Mountain Town- much to Clayton’s puzzlement. She coordinated the Mountain Town Farmers’ Market, though they lived on a ranch that produced commercial beef, not a direct sales farm. She was an advisor to the Chamber of Commerce, but didn’t know a thing about business or management. Thallia sat on the school board even though they didn’t have kids. On Sunday, Thal arrived two hours before church service to set up the sanctuary, sit through the sound test, and offer refreshments to parishioners arrived. She stayed late into the afternoon to clean up the Sunday School classrooms. Thallia was always the last to leave- often after the pastor himself. To the best of Clayton’s knowledge, his wife did not enjoy any of the activities. She complained endlessly about Mountain Town and the very people her volunteerism benefitted. She resented the demands on her time, and how everyone seemed to “want” something from her. Mostly, it came out as Thallia feeling angry at everything, everyone, and nothing in particular.
“The Town Hall. You’ll be there?” Her words jolted Clay back to her attention. He could tell from her tone that she expected him to back out, like he always did. She was right. Listening to town figureheads gloat and gossip was the last thing he wanted to do after a long day wrangling horses and cattle. Unlike Thallia, Clay didn’t care to put on the appearance he was anything he was not, such as interested in civic and community affairs.
Clayton’s grandad was the first, and only Tibbs, involved in local politics. Besides running the ranch, Grandpa Tibbs served as the County Commissioner until his retirement in 1984.
“Tibbs used to be a prominent name in the community,” Thallia lectured. “Don’t you feel a sense of duty to live up to your name?” She asked cooly.
The jab showcased her as a martyr for Tibbs' name. It struck Clayton’s nerves. “None what-so-ever.” He said nonchalantly.
Thallia rolled her eyes and huffed off. They both knew she kept herself busy to avoid dealing with things that should actually matter to her, such as their marriage. Clayton wasn’t innocent. He did the same working on the ranch. He didn’t even attend church with Thal because “No day of rest on a ranch.” In reality, he could not stand in front of God and everybody with Thallia on his arm, wearing a fake smile. He could, at the very least, do it at the Town Hall meeting- for her.
That afternoon Clayton rushed in from the barn, took a quick shower and put on a clean pair of jeans. He grabbed his coat and black Stetson, and sped out the door. 15 minutes later, he pulled his truck into City Hall. The meeting had already started. He actually felt pleased he shaved two minutes of drive time off, the time it typically took him to get to town. But his smile faded the moment he walked into the room and saw Thallia’s disapproving frown at his tardiness.
“We need to stop privatization of our public Postal Service!” Ed, the Mountain Town Postmaster, was the first person on the agenda. Clay did not think there was a thing the small rural town of 3,325 could do to save the U.S. Postal Service from inevitable demise. He couldn’t remember the last time he used a stamp. He had been using electronic bill pay for 20 years. Thallia was moderating the meeting. The procedure was to allow the speaker to speak for his or her allotted time, regardless if they said anything worth listening to. Clay tried not to nod off while Ed rambled.
Next, they reviewed candidates that filed declarations to run for local positions: School district, water district, hospital district.
Finally, Thallia introduced the last item on the agenda. “The city of Mountain Town wishes to establish an easement for a new road/ direct route into the city.” She described the location of said easement.
Clayton felt his face flush with heat as he realized it would cut through the Bar T Ranch. His wife should have at least mentioned the proposed easement to him in private before she announced it in a public forum.
Thallia solicited input from attendees.
“The new road will be good to drive traffic to local businesses,” the Mountain town Chamber of Commerce Director said.
“It will shorten the distance and time it takes for emergency services to reach rural residents and the state and national parks,” the fire chief chimed in.
“Don’t forget the hospital,” the candidate running for the hospital district added. The last agenda item revealed his candidacy was unopposed. Clearly, he felt the job was already his.
“The land is in a rural area, outside the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the municipality, so Chapter 232 of the Texas Local Government code applies,” Thallia stated matter-of-fact.
Clayton didn’t know the regs, but he knew Mountain Town officials needed his permission to cut through his ranch, and he wasn’t giving it, regardless of his wife’s involvement and intentions in the matter.
The Bar T Ranch is structured as a C Corporation in which Clayton and his father owned shares, and he was the only one who could make decisions about the property. The structure offered robust separation between personal and business assets. His granddad had insisted on the added protection. Despite C corps are subject to more government oversight, have higher legal fees, and more reporting responsibilities than other entities. Clayton had thought it was overkill, but now he was happy for Grandpa Tibb’s business savvy and foresight.
Clay was distracted for the rest of the meeting. He rushed out of the room the moment the meeting was adjourned to avoid questions from city officials, who undoubtedly thought he was on board with his wife. She got herself into the mess. She’d have to get herself out.
He was back at the big house, had kicked off his boots, turned the TV to ProRodeo, and downed half a beer by the time Thallia got home.
Clayton wasted no time confronting her. “Did it not occur to you to bring up your plan to cut through the Bar T before you went on public record?” he asked accusingly. Anger raged in his dark eyes. He hated feeling duped, betrayed, disrespected…
Thallia sighed as she hung her coat and purse in the entryway. “You wouldn’t have heard me out. At least you had to listen at the meeting,” she explained. “I hope hearing how a new road will benefit the whole would open your mind to the idea.”
“That’s bullshit,” he laughed. “You thought hearing how granting the public access to my land would benefit townsfolk would make me sympathetic to your cause?”
Thallia stood with her hand on her hip. “You don’t even care what I think about it benefitting the town?”
“Nope.” Clayton took a swig from his longneck bottle. Thallia looked wounded. “Sorry. Access is not yours to give.”
“Not legally,” she admitted. “But as your wife, you don’t care what I think?”
“Not about this doll.”
Thallia stomped away in a tantrum. Perhaps I should care… Clayton thought, feeling a pang of regret for his bluntness. The easement would win him points with both the town leaders and his wife. He was just so tired of being pushed around, ignored, disrespected. Pushing aside his own interests seemed impossible when he felt so alone.
Clayton heard Thallia turn the shower on upstairs. It confirmed he was on his own for supper. He went to the kitchen to scrounge for food, tossed a bag of popcorn into the microwave, and grabbed a second beer from the fridge. Clay frowned at his sad supper, but it was too late to boil water for spaghetti or preheat the oven and put in a frozen pizza. He felt the same about his failing marriage; too late to start something different and ultimately, too far gone to save.
IV.
A week after seeing the vultures, Clayton found the calf carcass. He bent down to study the remains. He kicked a partially consumed leg bone, noticing many of the largest bones had been partially consumed. The calf’s digestive tract was completely intact, drug a short distance from the rest of the body. It raised suspicion the hunter was a mountain lion. Lions and other wild cats are obligate carnivores, meaning they will not eat the digestive organs of herbivorous prey.
It was rare, but not unheard of for mountain lions to prey on cattle. Clay could only remember one incident of cattle predation on the Bar T. He was eleven years old at the time and had only seen cartoon lions in the Disney movie. When his grandad told him there was one on the ranch, and asked if he wanted to hunt it, the notion of a real lion on the ranch was magical. AS they packed their guns and gear, Clayton imagined he and grandpa were heading out on a West Texas safari.
“Texas is the only state that doesn't prohibit hunting mountain lions. We can hunt any time, by any means, and in any quantity, to keep our livestock safe.” Grandpa always explained things to Clayton, as if departing knowledge he’d need to run the ranch when he was gone.
As they awaited dusk, his grandpa told him a story about an old mining camp, 80 miles from the Bar T. “Quicksilver miners stayed in a tent city there. A mountain lion stalked them at night, picking off miners one-by-one. They baited, posted night watchmen, and set traps, but the mountain lion persisted,” grandpa tsked.
“What happened?” Clayton’s eyes were wide.
“Eventually they shot it, but not before the lion killed and ate a dozen men.”
“Could that happen to us out here?” Clayton swallowed hard, scanning the ledges of the canyon walls as they made their way down.
“Not likely. Mountain lions mostly avoid humans. They eat deer and elk. Predation on cattle is rare, but once they get a taste, they keep killin’ until you kill them- just like the man-eating lion in the tale.”
They located tracks near what grandpa called the “hot spot” on the southwest slope leading to the canyon. Cattle often grazed there in the afternoon shade. They set up cover in the thicket.
Clayton scanned the area with his grandpa’s night vision scope, but it was grandpa who ultimately spotted the lion and fired the .223 Remington rifle that took it down. He remembered the look of satisfaction on grandad’s face as he patted young Clay on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go see what we got.”
The men approached the limp animal with caution. It looked larger close-up. “150 lbs I’d say,” grandpa nodded his approval. They radio’d Clayton’s dad to meet them at the canyon’s edge with the utility vehicle. Clayton strained to help his father load the dead weight. All the while, grandpa made Clayton’s role in the take down sound much more than it was to his dad. Clayton beamed. Standing over the dead lion with his dad and grandpa, Clay felt like a man among men. Pride swelled in his chest. It was as if at eleven years old he had crossed the threshold from boy to man.
Grandpa suffered a fatal heart attack a few years later. Clayton relished the memory of his grandpa, who he truly admired.
Snapping back to the present, Clayton mounted a game camera to a tree in the canyon. He could monitor the camera through an app on his phone, which would notify him anytime it detected movement. The best-case scenario was that the mountain lion would not kill again, but grandpa’s words echoed in his mind, “once they get a taste, they keep killin’ until you kill them.”
V.
Thallia hosted Thanksgiving at the Bar T every year. Clayton’s parents came from town, of course. As did Thallia’s entire family. Her parents drove 9 hours from their posh mansion in Highland Park, the most expensive and elite neighborhood in Dallas. Her sisters, their husbands and SUV loads of kids ranging in age from 4 to 14, also came to the ranch to celebrate the holiday.
Clayton’s father-in-law Fred was an orthopedic surgeon at Baylor University Medical Center. His mother-in-law Bunny was a Dallas socialite. One of Thallia’s sisters married a nurse anesthetist, the other an aerospace engineer. Clayton’s profession as a rancher did not meet Fred’s expectations. The surgeon had never tried to hide the fact he thought Thallia deserved more, a better man.
Never-the-less, Clayton aimed to plaster a smile on his face until they packed up and went back to Dallas where they belonged. The fake smile faded the moment Bunny brought up children, specifically Thallia and Clayton’s lack of them. They had been through several rounds of failed fertility treatments before they gave up the dream of having a family. Clayton wasn’t sure how much Bunny or his sister-in-laws knew about it, but Bunny’s comments let on she knew a lot more than he wished.
“You can always adopt,” his mother-in-law suggested. “You remember Ashley, one of dad’s nurse practitioners? She and her husband adopted a sweet child from Russia. A little blonde boy with gray eyes…” Bunny hinted they should adopt a white baby.
“I’m going to feed,” Clayton excused himself, feeling both disgusted by Bunny’s comment and embarrassed by her broadcasting it to a room full of relatives.
Clayton saddled Shane and rode out to replace the batteries in the game camera. He had caught the animal on camera twice since he set it. He looked up at the faint gibbous moon in the still light sky. Tonight the moon would be 99% full. Granddad said that the best hunting is as the moon transitions in and out of full. because moon magic makes animals and fowl restless. Now Clay knew it was because the greater illumination allowed them to feed well into the night.
Not that it mattered. Thallia prohibited hunting while her family was visiting. He would be captive to listen to Dr. Fred and his brother-in-laws’ banter. Clayton rode back slowly, and lingered in the barn as long as he could until Thallia’s text ordered him to the big house for the Thanksgiving meal.
Clayton crept in and filled the only vacant seat at the table.
“Will you give the blessing?” Thallia asked Clayton’s father.
“Happy to.” He smiled, then began, “Lord, we thank you for this meal. Please bless the food we eat, the family gathered today to share it, and those no longer with us this Thanksgiving,” he finished. The passing of dishes and clanking of flatware began.
“How has the cattle business been this year?” Thallia’s father asked. He did not direct the question to Clayton, rather, he asked Clayton senior.
“The Bar T locked in contracts before prices for choice steer hit a high in August. We bled a little for that, but overall prices for choice steer have been good this year.” Though he’d long retired from ranching and moved to a house in town with Clay’s mom, Senior kept his finger on the pulse of the market. He was a simple man who gave straight answers without reading too much into Fred’s prying for incriminating information. It wasn’t his fault. Senior was a good ol’ boy who thought the best of people. His statement to Thallia’s father was honest, too honest, in Clay’s opinion. Unlike Clay, Senior talked to the man the same unguarded way he talked to his buddy ranchers. Ranchers understood the tradeoffs of contracting at a set price, or risk plunging prices, and an over-saturated market when it came time to sell. Thallia’s father did not.
“Can’t store cattle,” Clay defended. “We grow them to contract stipulations, and go to market when they make weight. More than one economic factor affects beef prices. It’s impossible to predict when prices will hit a high.”
“Not impossible…” Fred scoffed, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve made a lot of money trading futures. It’s essentially the same thing.”
“Trading futures instead of stocks provides me the advantage of high leverage and allows me to control my assets without bettin’ the farm.’ I benefit from speculation gains instead of losing out because of them,” He said smugly.
“Cattle aren’t cryptocurrency,” Clayton said through pursed lips.
“Didn’t say they were.” Fred was curt. “I’m saying there are ways to capitalize on market fluctuations instead of losing money because of them. Wouldn’t you agree that’s a better outcome?”
Clay didn’t answer. It took every ounce of his willpower to keep his cool.
The mood around the table was tense.
“Well, I don’t know about y’all but I’ve been dreaming about pumpkin pie for dessert all day,” Clayton’s mother changed the subject, attempting to defuse the growing tension.
Fred didn’t give up. “Well, I suppose you’ll never starve out here. All the discounted beef you can eat.” He smirked.
“How about I don’t tell you how to fix spines and you don’t tell me how to raise cattle?” Clay rose from the table. His tall, strong frame towered over the guests. “If you’ll excuse me,” he discarded his napkin on top of his barely touched Thanksgiving dinner.
A hush fell over the room as Clayton left. He grabbed his barn jacket off the hook and headed outside without looking back.
Soft neighs and nickers greeted Clayton as he walked past several stalls to re-saddle Shane. He’d finished loading hunting gear in the saddlebags by the time Thallia slid open the barn door. She was seething.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded. Shane’s ears shot back, sensing the tension.
“The canyon.”
“You’re just going to disappear into the canyon, on Thanksgiving, after all of that,” she whirled her hand toward the big house.
“Our families deserve an apology for your outburst.”
“Not going to apologize,” he said matter-of-fact.
“Because?” Thallia glared at him. She honed in on his response, not her father’s instigation that preceded it.
“I have nothing to apologize for. Your dad is a dick. He never thought I was good enough for you. Hell, maybe I’m not, but that doesn’t give him the right to talk down to me in my house, on my ranch.”
“My dad is smart and successful. Have you ever considered dad might trying to help you, not talk down to you?”
Clayton cocked his head to the side. “Honestly Tal, you remind me more and more of him as the years pass.”
Rage shone in her eyes.
“You prance around, waving a do-gooder agenda…you’re just trying to help after all. What you really want is to burn down this town, this ranch, our marriage.”
Thallia took a step back, offended.
Clayton leaned back, satisfied. He mounted the horse and clucked his tongue, telling the horse to go forward.
“There is only so much a man can take, Thal,” Clayton hollered over his shoulder as he rode out of the barn.
VI.
Mountain Lions are solitary, elusive, and stealthy. It was unlikely Clayton would come across the cat happenstance. He scanned the rimrock areas for telltale signs of lion activity. Lions often bed in or on rocky areas, up high, where they can see danger approaching. There was a faint smell of wild cat urine in the canyon. Though Clay could smell the cat, he need not worry if it could smell him. Mountain Lions aren’t sensitive to human scent. However, they have exceptional hearing and vision and can detect humans from a long distance.
He moved closer to scratch markings on the enormous trunk of a madrone tree. The slim superficial lines were definitely claw raking as opposed to bears’ larger and deeper marks or deer rub. Clay examined the ground around the area for tracks. It took a while to locate a cat heel imprint, with two lobes on the top of the heel and three lobes at the base of the heel. He followed the footprints until he found a solid track in which he could clearly see the left and right hind feet near the corresponding impressions made by the front feet. Got him now. Clayton smiled, adjusted his rifle sling on his shoulder and followed the beast.
Clayton navigated the rocks, trending through juniper stands, ducking under the occasional Emory oak and stepping over dozens of tinajas as he made his way deeper into the canyon. His Clayton’s eyes adjusted to the dark, enough to stay on the lion’s trail and not lose his footing. He established a hunting stand in an area with fresh scat- both lion and deer- knowing the hot spot was well within the lion's territory. Rock outcrops and Mountain Laurel camouflaged the stand. He sat completely hidden for an hour, watching and listening for signs of life.
As he waited, the peace and quiet of the canyon eased away the tumultuous day of events and resulting high emotions. His shoulders dropped. He rolled his head forward, then turned it side to side to release the tension. A gush of chilly night air hit the only exposed skin on his face. His sleepy mind drifted to Thal, asleep in their bed, back at the big house. How nice it would be to climb in next to her, share the warm, comfortable space and silence, and breathe the same air without fighting. He had forgotten how to be with his wife without putting his guard up. Laying down his defenses was a small thing he could start that just might save his marriage.
A rustling noise jolted Clayton out of the dream state. He lifted his gun and peered through the night vision scope. At first he couldn’t locate the source of the sound, because he was looking for a big cat. But after hearing the rustling again, he refocused and saw one, two, and then three cubs roughhousing on a rock rim about 50 yards in the distance. All this time Clayton had assumed the lion was a male. Now that he thought about it, it made more sense for a mother lion to take out a vulnerable calf, which was easier to pursue and had fattier meat than the scraggly mule deer on the property, especially if she was nursing cubs.
Clayton lowered his rifle. Now that he understood what was behind the lion’s actions, he couldn’t kill her, even to guard his own livestock. He rose from his hiding place, slowly, to not disturb the cubs. Clay slung his gun over his broad shoulder and backtracked out of the canyon, leaving behind what he’d perceived as threats to destroy him. He was going home.
The End
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