“Hot? You boys think
this here weather is hot? You
jest don’t know, do you?”
“What do you
mean, Windy?” said Doc.
“Wellsir, back
in the old days, you know,
when we was younger, there came upon us here in the valley
a hot-em-up wave
that tried to kill us. Your folks ever tell you ‘bout the
wreck at the river
with me and Old Man Jenkins?”
Didn’t
look like anyone had.
“Pass that
syrup over, will ya, Steve?
Thanks. Well, the hot-em-up started off slow, you know
they do that sometimes.
Little stuff like burnin’ up your hands jest grabbin’ a
brandin’ arn.”
“Well,
sure,” Doc said, “if you’re dumb
enough to grab a branding iron, you’re going to get
burnt.”
“This here
was the handle of the
brandin’ arn, Doc, not the part in the fire.”
“Oh, I
see. You were wearing gloves though,
right?”
“Couldn’t
stand to have them on. Too hot.
And sweat? Never saw nothin’ like it.
Old
Man Jenkins sweated so much his boots filled up with sweat
and it cooked his
toes to a perfect parbroiled brown.”
“Did he
eat them, Windy?”
“Naw. We
had plenty of mountain oysters
around, you know how it is, and he said he hadn’t had a
shower in a while, so
they probably wouldn’t taste that good anyway. So he kept
them.”
“They
didn’t fall off?”
“They thought
‘bout fallin’ off. Thassa fact.
But sometimes ol’ Mama Nature knows how to help an ol’
cowboy. Yessir, thass
what saved Jenkins’ toes. Had a terrible freeze that night
and jest froze them
toes back in place.”
Nature,
and Windy’s stories, sometimes defy
history.
--------
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