The way I met Calhoun, I was sitting in the bar, the only bar we have in town. At the time, I had my heels hooked on a stool talking to Jack, sipping a red beer. Jack glanced over my shoulder toward the door and I felt a draft on my neck as someone walked in. I could hear the jingle of spurs. I remember thinking, Who in the hell wears spurs these days?
Jack chinned a “howdy” to whoever it was. The guy strode in and took a stool to my right. I turned to him as he sat down—turned so as to include—didn’t say anything, just offered to buy him a drink. I figured he was a friend of Jack’s. He thumbed his hat back, motioned for his regular and grunted a “thanks.” A black, sweat-stained cowboy hat rolled just so, I should add. Greasy locks hanging out. I could smell cow shit. The guy wiped some chew-drool off his grey-stubbled chin: a chin scarred—scarred with a purple line from the lip down. Dressed in black from cowboy boots to western cut shirt to neck kerchief, he was. Hard not to notice.
The barkeep slid down a whiskey of some sort. The guy tipped it back, slammed it down.
He bellowed: “Who are we?”
The other two in the bar—down at the other end—twirled around and eyed down at us. We all waited for the answer. The guy stared ahead as if to let the question sink in, straight-backed, hands out and open like he was waiting for the answer.
Then he whispered: “We are our stories.”
Dead silence. And I couldn’t help but think as I stared at him in the mirror behind the back-bar, behind all the bottles, That is pretty Goddamned profound. It was Calhoun. Before the evening was out, I learned Jack had known Calhoun since high school. And that is where this story begins.
A couple of weeks later I happened upon Jack again. He had been tied up hauling corn to the elevator and hadn’t been around much. I was in about the same boat working some ground up. It was beer time and as I got out of my pickup in front of the bar, Jack drew up. He motioned me over to his pickup and rolled down the window. Told me to get in. His dog, Farm Dog—that’s right, Farm Dog, an Australian shepherd—raced around in the back of the pickup happy to see me. I gave it a tussle on the snout as I got in.
Jack was covered with corn dust. Two wet eyes peered out of an ashen face, his Pioneer seed corn cap and red plaid shirt grayed, blue jeans ripped at the knees, smeared with grime. When he spoke his white teeth and red mouth were like an open wound, like a person doing blackface. I guess I wasn’t much better having just finished some field work. We were a pair to draw to as my mother would say.
“Wanna show you something,” Jack mumbled as he pulled out. The whine of the fans circulating air at the grain elevator across the street muffled as Jack rolled up his window. You could feel fall was in the air.
I suggested if we were going very far we should grab a six-pack or two. So Jack pulled around the block and I ran in to grab a couple. Just as I stepped out of the bar the six o’clock whistle let go up at the fire hall and Farm Dog howled, joining the rounds of protesting dogs across the village. The shrill siren and eerie baying knifed a nerve, made me hunch my shoulders as I got back into Jack’s new Ford 150, so new it still had in transit signs. And then the whistle died down, the howling gave out. We took off, rumbled across the railroad tracks, cracked a couple of Bud Lights, and headed south.
Nothing was said. We headed down east canyon road. Jack got over damned near into the ditch for an eighteen-wheeler coming into town to dump corn. It was someone in a Diamond T. All we could see of him was a ball cap with a toothy white grin peering out the cab. The dust so thick we couldn’t see a thing for a quarter mile after we passed.
“Goddamn it,” Jack sputtered as the dust cleared. “Look at that pit in my windshield from that asshole. He owes me a keg of beer. The son-of-a-bitch.”
“That pit was there before,” I said and tipped my beer, looking out the side to ignore his stare.
I was wondering where we were headed. But I thought, Hey, we’re beered up so we’re good. Then again it was a little strange Jack headed south, he farms north. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking. Just wait and see, I was thinking. Let Jack play out his little drama, his mysterious, “I wanna show you something.” I was game and wasn’t going to flinch. He wanted me to ask. I know Jack.
After a swig of beer I choked out, “Ever wonder why they call these canyons, canyons?”
Jack looked over at me like I’d asked why dirt was called dirt. “What the hell you mean?” he managed as he swerved to miss a pheasant scurrying across the road.
The speedometer read seventy I noticed. We were clipping along on a winding gravel road most folks took at forty. That was another thing about Jack. He wanted his passengers nervous, saying something about his driving. I wasn’t going to say a word and took a long swig.
“Well, look around,” I went on. “Does this look like the Rocky Mountains to you? An outsider would giggle themselves silly. Canyons? Hell, this is a holler, a dell, a glen, at best a valley.”
“A dell, eh?” Jack said as he took a swig and looked around at the hills we were passing through as if to measure what I’d said. “A dell you say,” he said absently like he was trying to speak French. “Like the farmer in the dell, right?” He chuckled deep to let me know he thought I was full of shit. He took a swig.
We both went quiet. Sliding through curve after curve, leaping across narrow bridge after narrow bridge, with the fence posts on both sides of the road whipping past in a blur, we made our way south. I noticed Jack taking looks out at the pastures, the hills. It made me do the same. The question seemed to have him thinking, had both of us thinking. I cracked a couple more beers with my good hand, the one with all its fingers, and handed one to Jack.
I was wondering if he was seeing what I was seeing. Some folks look at these hills and wonder how many cow-calf pairs could be run. That’s probably Jack. I see scenes to paint, walks to take. But like Jack, I always checked the fences. How the guy handled fencing over that creek, up over that hill. Are the wires tight, the posts in a straight line?
As we were rumbling along I was composing in my mind a scene to paint of the plum bushes with hues the color of eggplant, the black-trunked ash trees, the dark green cedars, and the blue-stem grasses with traces of browns and reds, the cat-steps on the hill sides, a crow’s nest high in a cottonwood. A bobcat, a mountain lion was what I was hoping to see up one of the draws we passed. I turned back and gulped a couple swallows of still crispy beer and let out an awhhhh and a belch.
We were coming up on the Henniker place, which meant we were coming up on Highway 18, a graveled east-west highway across the middle of barren hill country. It starts to get a little strange down in here. But Jack was bent on something. I still wasn’t going to say anything. I just took a swig and looked around at the changing landscape wondering what was up. Jack and I farm north of town where things are a little different. The land is flat, the soil black-rich, irrigated.
Jack pulled up to the stop sign, checked both ways and crossed 18, and we headed on south. He held his hand out for another beer. I crushed his empty, tossed it on the floorboard, and got another one myself. I looked around. Now it was going to get interesting.
“Ever wonder how these folks make it down here farming these hogbacks?” I was referring to the way they farmed the ridges of the hills, pastured the canyons. Most of it was dry-land, made a crop about every third year. The other years the crop just dried up and shriveled away. It was a hard way to make a go of it. Jack didn’t say anything, just nursed his beer and barreled on down the road. I harrumphed a chuckle to myself; folks from these parts spend the winters out in the barn straightening nails trying to save a buck.
The farmsteads got fewer and fewer. The roads back into most of them were two dirt wheel tracks leading to the top of a hill where an unpainted house, a sagging barn, and a tilted windmill stood. The corrals looked like a string of fallen sticks. Maybe a lone car was parked out front, the only thing with paint in the whole scene. Most of the places seemed abandoned, even the cars. Made me wonder who the hell lived up in those places. Meth came to mind.
We passed a sign tacked to a fence post: Gilgrist for President. It didn’t ring a bell for me. I turned to see Jack’s reaction. When I turned back there was another sign on a post: Spics, Niggers & Liberals Shot on Sight. I squirmed back and forth in my seat and leaned forward a bit to get a better look at what was coming up. Jack did the same, pulling himself up by the steering wheel, looking around. It was just more country road but it seemed different.
“Okay,” Jack eased out as he slowed down and peered around, “this is Calhoun country.” He hesitated, surveying around as we idled along almost at a walking pace, then he said, “Get my forty-five out from under the seat here.” He slapped the seat. “See if the clip is full, loaded, and make sure it’s on safe.” Then he looked at me. “And don’t blow my Goddamned foot off doing it.” Jack knew I wasn’t much for guns.
We eased along the road for a mile or so, not saying anything, just looking around. I got a couple more beers out, checked the sack for how many we had left. Jack pulled himself up and took the beer without taking his gaze of the tops of the ridges on both sides. He cleared his throat and jerked the bill of his cap to one side like some kid on TV. With Jack this always meant something was up. He broke the silence. “So before we get to his place, let me explain a thing or two about what we’re getting into.”
I don’t remember everything Jack mentioned at that point. Wasn’t paying all that much attention really. Those signs we passed had me thinking, looking for others. But apparently Calhoun was an outstanding student in high school. Honor roll, that kind of thing. A hellion for sure, but smart. Brought up right. Parents real Bible thumpers I guess. But anyway, when he got out he started a business of some kind. Something his dad had been involved in. He turned it into something big according to Jack. Something big. He was a success. Then things went to hell and he has been working cattle for his neighbors pretty much ever since. Holed up in these hills. Well, to say the least, turned out there was more to the story than I first took to heart.
We crossed over a small wooden bridge that rattled and clapped as we passed over it. Jack pulled to a halt. “The drive to his place is just up ahead.” He chinned for me to look on down the road. Jack popped open his door and had one foot out when he turned back and said, “Let’s put Farm Dog up front with us. Calhoun has a bunch of throat-ripping junkyard dogs.” We both took the opportunity to take a piss.
Then Jack got Farm Dog out of the back and up front with us. She promptly knocked Jack’s beer off the dash, so happy to be up front. We cleaned things up best we could. I cracked another beer for Jack and we headed for the turn up to Calhoun’s place.
“Ever notice how people who have failed at some point in their lives get into conspiracy theories?” Jack—his cap still turned sideways, his face still ashen with corn dust—looked over at me as he finished the question. He was about to turn in at the drive. I didn’t say anything. But I remember thinking, I hope there are two ways out of here.
We began the climb to the top of the hill, up to Calhoun’s farm yard. Like the other places we’d seen from the road it was junked up. The barn was leaning. Fireweeds head tall had taken over the place. The chicken coop and hog barn, as best we could see them, were ghosts of what they once were. Nothing was painted. Abandoned farm equipment was sitting around here and there where it was last parked and never used again. Everything stuck up out of the sea of fireweeds like debris floating with the tide. We passed a corral with horses in it as we pulled in. Sure enough, a couple of German shepherds came bounding out of nowhere, jumping up on the doors of the pickup, snarling at the windows. Farm Dog went bullshit. Jack swung around and parked in front of the house. The pickup was nosed downhill toward the corral of horses, the road out of there.
The house? It was a strange sight. I leaned forward to get a good look at it. It was in perfect condition, just like it must have looked when it was first built back in the twenties. It just didn’t have any paint. It was eerie. There was the rose trellis, the wooden swing on the screened in porch. Perfect. Just no paint. Beyond the porch probably a living room leading to a dining room on into a kitchen and most likely some bedrooms tucked along the sides and then a basement and a back door. Most of us grew up in something like this.
But let me get to what happened next. It was dusk and there was a light on in the house. The German shepherds continued to raise hell. We were sitting there with our beers in hand looking at the house. Jack, with his cap still cocked to one side, had laid on the horn a couple of times hoping Calhoun was home and would come out. Just as I was about to take a sip of beer there was the Goddamnest bang on the window on my side. Farm Dog jumped. I spilled my beer all down my front. Jack whipped around and grabbed for the pistol. There stood Calhoun outside the pickup window without a smile on his face and with an AK-47 in his hand.
Well . . . after all was said and done, after Calhoun recognized Jack, he penned the dogs and we were invited to come inside.
Now I don’t mean to exaggerate, but I might as well have been sitting at Nazis headquarters in Normandy on D-Day. The room was red and black with swastika flags and other regime regalia. Framed photos of Jesus and President Trump hung on the wall. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there. The place reeked of weed. Calhoun—outfitted all in black, cowboy hat pulled down tight—had taken his favorite chair, which had the hint of throne about it, and Jack and I were seated like school boys answering to the principal.
For sure this guy was holed up . . . alone, angry. Scared even.
It looked like he was in hell to me.
We all had a beer. It was awkward.
“So . . . what’s going on?” Jack finally mustered and raised his beer as if to say, Here’s to ya. His cap was on straight now.
Calhoun stared at Jack through a set of John Lennon sunglasses, rapping his fingernails on the arm of his chair. He had the look of someone who knows he has a victim. “Same ol’ shit Jack,” Calhoun allowed, “just a different day.” Like a rattlesnake he was eyeing Jack, waiting for his move.
I just kept my nose out of it. Jack and Calhoun touched on one thing and then another. You know, the weather, how the folks at home are, ever see so-and-so, that sort of thing. I gandered around the room best I could without Calhoun catching me doing it. I could tell Calhoun knew we were in over our heads and should never have shown up. He was just waiting. He was like a dog waiting for the prey to get up, start to run.
It didn’t take long for Jack to pick up that Calhoun was waiting. There was going to be a price to pay to get out of there. I could tell, and I could tell Jack could tell. If Jack thought he could have got away with it he’d have turned his cap to the side. That was Jack. But then there was Calhoun.
And Jack began to run. “Well, I guess we might as well head back, got chores to do yet,” he said. The prey got up out of his chair. I stood up more than ready to go. Calhoun just sat there looking at us. Then he got up and we all three moved toward the door, Jack and I making small talk, thanking him for the beer, that kind of thing. Calhoun didn’t say a thing, just followed us out the door.
I didn’t think much of it at the time. But looking back it should have raised the hair on the back of my neck. As we reached Jack’s pickup, Calhoun made his way around us and ended up between us and the pickup like he was going to open the door for Jack to get in. I was about to go around to the other side to get in. Calhoun turned back to us as he reached the pickup. Then he just leaned against the door, an arm slung inside the open window, and stared at us. Farm Dog raced around inside, sniffing Calhoun’s neck, wagging its tail. Calhoun paid no-never-mind, as we say in these parts. Jack and I stood there with a thumb hooked in the belt wondering what was up. But I think we both knew the price was about to be paid.
“You guys think you know the way back to town?” Calhoun eased out.
Neither of us said a thing. I knew no matter what we said it wasn’t going to do any good. I just didn’t know what was next.
“Then start walking,” Calhoun said as he slipped the pickup out of gear and gave it a shove to get it started rolling down the hill toward the horse corral. Jack made a go for the pickup to try to stop it, but Calhoun stepped in his way. Jack and I watched the pickup, Farm Dog dashing around inside. Calhoun never took his eyes off of us, just waited for the crash.
The pickup went through the corral boards, down into a hole, and smashed into the water tank for the horses sitting just inside the corral. There was a hell of a noise, as you can imagine. Boards flew, water from the tank shot in the air. The horses bucked to the other end of the corral. Then it went quiet. Dust drifted from the scene in a cloud. I couldn’t see Farm Dog. The back end of the pickup stuck out of the corral, the front end down in the hole, the hood about where the corral boards used to cross. I glanced over at Calhoun. He was still just looking at us: looking at us with a slight smile, hadn’t moved a muscle.
And then the damnest thing. One of the horses came trotting back and nosed around the wreck. The next we knew it began to hoof it over the hood of the pickup and out of the corral. And sure as hell the other horses began to follow. The racket, the clamoring, like horses stumbling and sliding out of a barn on fire, made Calhoun break his stare to see what the hell was happening. Jack made a dash for the pickup. I followed and got there just as the last horse stumbled across the hood and was out. Farm Dog stuck its head out the open window.
As Jack and I stood there looking after the horses as they stampeded down the road out, Calhoun sauntered up. We all three watched the horses disappear over the hill into the dusk of night. And then we heard the first one cross the wooden bridge, then another, then another, then another, then another.
“How many did you get?” Calhoun asked.
“Five,” Jack said.
“That’s what I got,” Calhoun said.
“So they’re all heading in the same direction,” Jack said.
I turned to look at the two, thinking, Jesus Christ, we’ve got this situation on our hands and these two yahoos are carrying on like they’re sorting cattle, getting a head count.
Jack broke from the trance of looking after the horses and began to clear the boards away from the pickup. He got in and cranked it over. It ran. He was able to back it out and get it up on the road. Then he got out to check the damage. We all three stood in silence looking at the hood. It was smashed clear in. It looked like a big bowl with all kinds of scrapes and dents. The fenders were all hacked up also. Jack didn’t say anything, just motioned for me to get in. Calhoun stepped back a bit and we pulled out; Farm Dog happy to see us.
We were about out of the yard when Jack skidded to a stop and backed up. He was looking at Calhoun’s John Deere tractor parked by the road. He fished for the pistol and brought it up. He came down on the right rear tire and squeezed off a round. It echoed up and the canyons. Then did the same on the other rear tire. The air hissed; the tire fluid squirted. Jack turned his cap sideways and pulled out.
We weren’t far down the road, headed back north when we came upon the horses. They were still cantering along the road, tails up, ears pricked, snorting. Jack eased his way around them, making sure he didn’t run them into the fences. Then he stuck his hand out for a beer.
Jack leaned my way a bit while looking down the road. “Did I mention he doesn’t much like people showing up at his place?” I was looking at him when he said it. He looked over at me. Big grin, hat sideways, eyes shining from the dash lights. It was pitch dark out, there was lightning in the west, and we still had chores to do when we got home. I took a swig of my beer and thought back on what Calhoun had said that time in the bar. We are our stories.
*
Learn more about Douglas on the Contributors’ page.
Douglas’s short story collection, One with Bird, was published in 2017 and is available here.
Submissions for the Best in Rural Writing Contest are already open. Find more details here.
(Photo: Simon du Vinage/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
Sunday, April 13th, 2025 1pm EST/ 6pm GMT
The first online writing seminar of the year, “The Ol’ He Said, She Said: Writing Stronger Dialogue” will look at how to create more natural-sounding dialogue, as well as improve the mechanics around speech. The seminar is free for WRITER or SUPPORTER subscribers, or $15 for everyone else. More information can be found here.
- South of 18 by Doulgas K. German - March 27, 2025