‘A West Texas Walkabout’

Photographer James T. Cunningham is a New York-based writer and visual artist who has been creating digital art and photography for over 15 years. His work explores the intersection of image and narrative, blending visual storytelling with a strong literary voice. In addition to his extensive background in visual arts, James is a published author and poet, bringing a multidisciplinary approach to his creative practice.

     A West Texas Walkabout

     Cade McAllister had a six hour drive ahead of him across the remote deserts of West Texas, much to his anticipation and his father’s consternation. “Don’t expect much from that woman,” Kyle McAllister, Cade’s hardscrabble, no nonsense father, had warned him the night before with a trace of emotion in his otherwise brusque and husky voice, as if he was sending his son off on a walkabout through the bush country of Australia. But this was West Texas, not Australia, and Cade would be venturing in the air-conditioned cab of a brand spanking new Ford pickup truck, not barefoot with a spear in his hand. This morning the president of the Contreras County Ranchers Association, about the most highly respected man for miles around, Kyle McAllister could only kick randomly at a few of the stones in his driveway with the toes of his polished Tony Lamas and squint into the morning sunrise as he watched his twenty-two-year-old son climb behind the wheel of his shiny new F-150. “She hasn’t been involved in any part of your life, nor mine, for that matter, in years. Now that you’re a college graduate that don’t mean that you can expect too much from people. I just don’t want to see you get yourself all worked up like you have in the past when it comes to Dixie Mae. She waltzed outta here when you were eight and you know damn well that she hasn’t really given a hoot about any part of your life since. Nor anyone’s, for that matter. But if you want to waste your time hightailin’ it all the way up there to San Angelo that’s your business. I ain’t about to stop you. Couldn’t even if I wanted to.  I didn’t buy you this truck just so you can go gallivanting all over hither and yon on some wild goose chase but, like I said, that’s your business. I guess ya’ gotta do whatcha gotta do. When you get back we’ll go right to work on this ranch… like we planned. We got a lot to get done, especially with you having all of that highfalutin book learnin’ between your ears”.

     On the front seat beside Cade sat a paper bag with what he knew would be frijolos con queso burritos, his favorites, prepared by Ana Marie, the woman, if the truth be told, who had raised him after his mother left Dos Pesos, Texas for, he guessed, greener pastures…more than likely long before that. Cade couldn’t remember much of anything about his biological mother. But there stood Ana Marie, the closest thing to a mother he’d ever known, in the doorway biting at her lip and wringing her hands as Cade turned the ignition on the new truck. 

     “I’ll be back in a day or two,” said Cade. “And tell Ana Marie to stop her frettin’. I ain’t runnin’ off to find myself or nothin’ like that. And I ain’t gonna join the circus. It’s just somethin’ I gotta get done. If not now…I’m afraid never.”

     Kyle McAllister blinked, nodded then turned back toward the hundred year old stone ranch house his own grandfather had built on the property a century ago. The stern, stone-faced rancher didn’t look back as he clambered up the steps to the porch then stepped inside and closed the heavy, hand-made oak door behind him, though Cade could see Ana Marie watching everything through the front window, still stewing.

    All I want to do is ask the woman a few questions, Cade told himself five minutes north of Dos Pesos and the Double Tree Ranch. She is my mother, after all. For better or for worse. He unwrapped his first burrito, still warm, and rolled leisurely through the familiar dips and twists on State Highway 1129. I just need to know if she’s happy…and did she ever regret leavin’ me behind when she skipped town for God knows what. Did she ever think of me on Christmas mornings like I thought of her. Or on my birthdays. Pa was good. Real good. Generous…and he raised me properly, but I could only wonder what it would have been like to have two parents instead of Pa and Ana Marie. I guess I’ll know soon enough. What if she doesn’t even know who the heck I am? It’s been more than a dozen years. I sent her an email but she didn’t respond. I’ll just show up on her doorstep and announce “here I am, ready or not” and see what the heck happens. She should be proud of me…a college graduate and all. She should. But who knows?

     When he reached the intersection with I-10, halfway through his second burrito, Cade turned east toward Ft. Stockton and became another jumping bean in all of the hubbub of semis and SUVs and sedans trekking out into the unknown. Cade had begun to have second thoughts. What kind of can of worms am I opening? This woman knows things only she could know, about my Pa, about my family, about me. Pa never wanted to talk about the past. He always said “what’s past is past”. Did he have a reason? And she might just have an axe to grind. And why would I take her word over Pa’s? All I know from the little my grandmother told me is that Dixie Mae McAllister was a headstrong young woman who turned more than a few heads when she went into town. Who am I to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong?

     Compared with Dos Pesos, San Angelo was a metropolis. More than fifty-thousand people with traffic comin’ and goin’ to beat the band, traffic lights going on and off like Christmas ornaments, people honking at him as if he was some sort of rube. Cade was accustomed to twelve-hundred sleepy-eyed folks in Contreras County, then the two-thousand students at Sul Ross State University in tiny, yet comfortable, Alpine, Texas. More like San Antone or Austin than what I’m used to, Cade grumbled to himself as he did his utmost to locate the Keystone Apartments on Locust Street in the confusing maze of the city, the last address he had for the woman, given to him begrudgingly by his father. “It’s all I’ve got”, his father had told him. “This address and an email address. Ain’t got no phone number or nothin’ else. It’s the best I could come up with.” Cade had his doubts, but what the heck.

     The frail, emaciated woman who answered the door winced then crinkled her nose like an old crone in a Disney cartoon when Cade told her that he was looking for Dixie Mae McCallister.

     “I’m Dixie Mae Slack,” she said in a booze-infested voice. She chuckled. “I used to be Dixie Mae McCallister, but that was a long time ago. I’m just Dixie now. Dixie Slack.”

     This can’t be, thought Cade. This woman must be ten years, maybe fifteen years, older than Pa. “Well,” said Cade slowly, “my name’s Cade McCallister and I might just be your son”. Or your grandson, he wanted to add.

     “Land sakes,” she cackled. “I had a boy named Cade. Good Lord, I can’t believe it.” She turned her head back into the apartment and called to someone. “Earl,” she shouted, then coughed. “You won’t believe it but my boy Cade has come for a visit. Do ya hear me, Earl?” She turned back to Cade. “Pay no attention to Earl. He can’t hear nothin’ no more. Only what he wants to hear.” 

     Cade nodded.

    “Earl,” she again called into the darkness. “We got company. It’s my boy from down there in 

Dos Pesos.” She turned back to Cade and grinned a yellow-toothed grin. 

     Again, Cade nodded then looked down at his ropers and the layers of dust and grit on the linoleum floor.   

     “Earl and me was just fixin’ to have our afternoon refreshments. Would you like to come in and join us. The place is a mess what with each of us on disability and all. But this sure as shootin’ is a welcome surprise.”

     “Yes, ma’am,” said Cade. “I’d like that.”

     The room was drearier than the boy would’ve thought possible. Ash trays, overflowing, everywhere, empty beer cans (Coors, of course) on the floor and on the arm of nearly every chair and a bottle of something else tipped over on the torn and tattered sofa. T-shirted Earl sat silhouetted in a recliner against the front window. The apartment smelled of cigarettes, beer and sweat.

     “So, you’re Cade. Good Lord, let me get a look at you. I ain’t seen you since you were a tadpole”. The woman motioned for him to sit on the sofa. 

     “No, ma’am, I guess you haven’t.”

     “Can I get you a beer? Or something stronger.”

     Cade gulped. “Maybe a glass of ice water?”

    “We don’t got no ice,” grunted Earl. “The freezer’s on the fritz. We got beer and we got tap water.”

     “Water’s fine,” said Cade.

    “Are you hungry?” asked his mother. “We’ve got Cheetos. We’ve got Fritos. I think we still got some Lay’s potato chips, if Earl ain’t ate ‘em all. And we had some peanuts. If I could find ‘em. The place is a mess, but it’s hard to get by on workman’s comp. Even if it is for two,”

     “No, ma’am.” Cade adjusted his body on the sofa. “Ana Marie gave me burritos to eat on the way up here.”

     The woman chuckled. “Is that old battle-axe still kickin’? She was hell on wheels back when I lived with your old man.”

     “Yes, ma’am,” said Cade. He smiled. “She still runs the house like a drill sergeant.”

     The woman sniffled. “I shouldn’t complain none. She was always good enough to me. More than good enough.”

     The glass of water had a residue of something mucky caked at the bottom, calcium lines from previous contents gave hint to previous users and the water itself smelled like the oil rigs that speckled the hills and ravines of the Permian Basin. Cade took one sip then set the glass on the arm of the sofa.

     “I just have some questions I’ve always wanted to ask you,” said Cade. “But first, let me catch you up on my life. I went to school at Milam Elementary right there in Dos Pesos, then high school at Travis High. I played second base on the baseball team and made pretty good grades. Pa wanted me to go to A & M but I chose to go to Sul Ross in Alpine.” He paused and looked at his mother, then to Earl then back to her again. He couldn’t gauge their interest level. “Well,” he continued, “I graduated from college last week and thought I’d look you up. And, here I am sittin’ in your livin’ room.”

     “What did you study at that school in Alpine?” asked Earl.

     “I made up my mind I should major in Agricultural Business. And Sul Ross is respected for their Ag program.” Cade chuckled. “They’ve even got one of the best rodeo teams in the country…for small colleges.”

     Earl grunted. “How much book learnin’ does it take to sit on the back of some untamed horse and get your brains shook up? That don’t sound like much of a college to me.”

     Cade shrugged. “That’s just the rodeo team. I never did anything like that.”

     “Well, then, what’s Agricultural Business?” asked Dixie. “Seems to me ya’ plant things and watch ‘em grow or ya’ buy some goddamned cattle and let ‘em graze. They’ve been doin’ that since the Bible times. And we’ve been doin’ just fine with things that way.”

     Cade smiled. He’d heard much of this before. “Yes ma’am. I’ll just be able to help Pa run the Double Tree more efficiently, with less waste and more bang for the buck.”

     “And your old man will put up with this?” asked his mother, her eyes now little more than narrow slits as she took a swallow from her second Coors.

     “It was partially his idea.”

     The three sat in silence for what seemed an eternity. Cade assumed the beer was doing its magic on his hosts. Finally, he said, “Mom, or should I call you Mrs. Slack? Mom, why did you leave my father…and me? Was he mean to you?”

     She laughed. “Your father couldn’t be mean to no one. You must know that as good as anyone.”

     “Yes, ma’am.”

     She looked out through the frayed sheer curtains onto the parking lot of the apartment building then turned back to Cade. “Cadie,” she said. “If you come all the way up here lookin’ for a villain, I ain’t gonna give ya’ one.” She paused “When I married your father I was twenty-four-years-old. I was drop-dead gorgeous, or so a lot of the boys thought. Your father was one of ‘em. Well, we moved into that grand old ranch along with your grandparents and everything was hunky dory. You came along when I was twenty-eight. You were a surprise to both of us.” She grinned, several teeth missing on the sides of her mouth. “Oddly, your father took to raising a child like a duck takes to water…but for me it was like an out of body experience. Oh, I went through all the motions. And your grandmother and, of course, Ana Marie, were there to do more than their share.”

     “Did you call me Cadie? I don’t remember that.”

     Earl chortled. “You’re better off not remembering somethin’ like that. It sounds a little prissy.”

    “You shush, Earl. It does not. He was a boy, for cryin’ out loud.” Dixie Mae took a deep breath. “Then, one day…not all in one day, but over time…I began to realize this wasn’t the life for me. It was the perfect life for most women, just not for me. I went to a doctor in Ft. Stockton and he told me that I was sufferin’ from depression and gave me some pills that made me feel funky. Your father and the others did all they could to help me get through it. Shoot, I wasn’t depressed. Not one bit. I was just tryin’ to be someone I wasn’t and I didn’t like that someone one bit. And that damaged the way I felt about you. I didn’t resent no one. Other than that good mother and wife I was pretendin’ to be. One day I packed a suitcase and left.” She again stared out onto the parking lot. “I’ll bet your father has filled your head with evil notions about me.”

     “No, ma’am,” said Cade. “He never said much of anything about you…other than you were pretty and that you wanted a life different from ranch life. Nor did my grandparents ever say anything bad about you. I’m afraid I made up any of the bad stuff. Then, at other times, I blamed my father for your leavin’.” Cade sniffled. “I guess I was the one lookin’ for a villain.”

     “Cade, it’s hard to explain this, but I’ll try. I just felt nothin’ back then. I didn’t resent no one, Especially not you. Your father was a good man. I had a good life, but I felt absolutely nothin’.”

     “Well, did you ever think about me?” asked Cade. “On my birthday? Or at Christmas?”

     “At first, I did,” said Dixie Mae. “But did I pine away for you all those years? I wish I could give you that. But it weren’t like that at all. Cade, I’ve been married three times. I drink too much. I smoke too much. I eat nothin’ but junk food…and it’s cost me.”

     “But you’re smart,” said Cade. “You could do whatever you want.”

     “Don’t you get it?” She shook her head then lit another cigarette. “I’m doin’ exactly what I want.” She looked across the room at Earl as if he was someone who’d just dropped in on this conversation. “And there’s one more thing you should know. You’ve got a sister. A half-sister bein’ raised by her grandparents up in Lamesa. Her name’s Cynthia Lynn Brewster. She’d be sixteen, I think. I done her just like I done you. Only her father was a no-good roughneck. He was nothin’ like your father. I don’t have an address for her but I’m sure you could find her somehow.”

     Cade entered Cynthia Lynn Brewster into his iPhone. He looked up and grinned sheepishly, as if he was now a part of something unseemly.

     Dixie Slack laughed. “I’d bet your father never told you how him and me met. Did he?”

     Cade shook his head. “No, ma’am. He didn’t.”

     “We were both in San Antonio at the state Cattlemen’s Association convention, or some other nonsense. My own father was a pretty well-to-do rancher, in his own right. I was there with him. Well, your father was about the best lookin’ man I’d ever laid eyes on and, like I told you, I was quite a looker myself. You wouldn’t know that now.” 

     “He don’t want to hear none of that ancient history,” grumbled Earl.

     “You just mind your own business, Earl. This ain’t no concern of yours.” Dixie lit another cigarette, though one still burned in her ashtray. “Well, we’d noticed each other the night before at registration and at the get together in the lobby of the hotel we were at. At least I’d noticed him. I’m pretty sure he’d noticed me. But that second night in the ballroom of that hotel he come over and asked me to dance.” She chuckled. “We danced the night away. We didn’t have time for no one else. It was just the two of us.” She grinned, then coughed as if her lungs were ripping out of her. “You don’t smoke, do ya’?”

     “No, ma’am.”

     “Good for you,” she said. “Don’t ever start. Do you chew?”

     “I have, back in high school. But I stopped.”

     “Don’t you ever do it again,” chided Dixie. “Tobacco’s a killer.”

     “Yes, ma’am.”

     “Like I said, your father and I made a dashing pair on that dancefloor. You’re father’s quite the dancer. You probably didn’t know that.”

     “No ma’am. He doesn’t go out much anymore.”

     She shook her head. Cade noticed how thin her hair was. Thin and stringy.

     “No, I’m sure he don’t. I ain’t sayin’ it was love at first sight, but it was close to it. Do you got yourself a girlfriend, Cadie?”

     Cade blinked. “No, ma’am.”

     “And he won’t get one if you keep callin’ him Cadie,” snorted Earl.

     “I’ll call him whatever I good and well feel like callin’ ‘im, Earl. You don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.” She turned back to Cade. “No gal’s caught your fancy yet?”

     “I dated in high school…and a lot in college. I’ve just got a lot to do on the ranch and expectin’ some girl to come back to Dos Pesos with me is askin’ a lot. There are the girls I went to high school with…”

     “You’ll end up with some Mexican girl with that attitude,” said Earl. “How would your old man like that?”

     Cade took a deep breath. “Well, sir. Most of the girls I knew in high school were Mexican so that’s who I dated. Also, in college. It never bothered Pa none. When my grandparents were alive I suspect it took some gettin’ used to on their part but they never said anything to me.”

     “I’m afraid I’m a little on Earl’s side on this one,” said his mother. “In my day the whites didn’t mingle with the Mexicans. It was somethin’ your father and I used to bicker over. He didn’t think it made no difference. But I was from Del Rio where it made a big difference. And the thought of me havin’ Tex-Mex grandchildren…well, it bothers me. It might work good in food, but not in children.”

     “Yes, ma’am,” said Cade. “A lot of folks feel that way…but things are changin’.”

      “Not around here,” said Dixie through a cloud of smoke. “Not around here they ain’t.”

     Cade McCallister had a six-hour drive through the darkness of the West Texas deserts ahead of him. Before he left his mother’s apartment he’d asked if there was a McDonalds on the highway headed south. Earl, his mother’s husband, or whatever, piped in, “Don’t go there. The only reason anyone goes there is the food is cheap.” His mother seemed to agree. “It is pretty low class. Mexicans and worse.”

     Cade calculated that he could pull through the drive-thru and be on the highway with a Big Mac and fries, drive straight into the night then wake to one of Ana Marie’s huevos con chorizo y papas breakfasts. I went lookin’ for answers but I ain’t at all certain I got any. It was all as baffling as some of the philosophy and literature classes I took at Sul Ross. But, like the classes, it was a challenge. And I didn’t really find a wrongdoer, he thought as he gulped his first swig of Coke. He’d open the burger and fries once he got safely out of town. I didn’t know I was lookin’ for one. Earl’s no villain. He’s just a buffoon. Like so many fools I grew up around. I suspect villains have a way of finding you. You don’t have to go lookin’ for ‘em. One way or the other they’ll make themselves known. It’s the heroes who aren’t so easy to recognize. 

     Cade McAllister turned up the stereo in his new truck and headed south. Waylon’s telecaster twanged as the rebel sang a song about Hank Williams, the sun would soon set then Cade would have to make his way through the darkness. But the road was well-marked and he was ready to follow it wherever it took him. That was how he’d lived his life so far and he saw absolutely no reason to change things now.

David Larsen is a writer who lives in El Paso, Texas. His stories have been published in numerous literary journals and magazines including Cholla Needles, The Heartland Review, Floyd County Moonshine, The Mantelpiece, Oakwood, The Words Faire, Canyon Voices, Change Seven, Literary Heist, Aethlon, Coneflower Café, The Raven Review, Voices, Dark Winter Literary Magazine, Mobius, The Griffel Literary Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Review, El Portal and October Hill Magazine.