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The
Snubbing Post
by Nick Fryar |
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“The Snubbing Post”
is a story of beginnings by Nick Fryar, ex-submarine sailor, ex-cowboy,
ex-Jack-of-all-trades, a presence and personality bigger than life,
generous to a fault, author of several novels and a handful of stories,
warm friend, now prematurely dead, alas, of lung cancer at the beginning
of the new century.
From where it stood, in the middle of the cow
lot, and from where he stood, six steps in from the gate by the
water tank, he could see it plainly. He had good eyes. His whole
family did except for his father who only had one. And he could
still shoot the eye out of a jackrabbit forty rows away. Not running
though, he was too old for that. He wondered a moment about growing
old. Somehow it seemed a shame, but at the same time, even at his
age, it put a certain value on things. If he had forever to do whatever
it was he was going to do, he might never get around to it. So what
he was doing now, which was looking at the snubbing post, had to
be done now and could not be put off.
It was early afternoon and the sun that caused
the shine of rope burns, as well as the shadows of the grooves,
also played its daily summer game deepening the tan across his back.
New Mexico summer made men of boys, his mother said. The winters
made men of men, his father added. But that was another thing, he
thought, as his eyes searched the knotted cedar post trying to squeeze
a visual history from it and cause his pencil to forget completely
the lines of the notebook and reproduce exactly what he saw. He
would be an artist someday – before he died.
But before his pencil moved, before he took that
first step that would eventually lead him to be someone that would
be named, titled, so the whole world would know, he had to be sure.
What was it he wanted to appear on his last year’s science
notebook? Did he want, as he had thought, to reproduce exactly what
he saw? If he did, there it was standing five foot two inches tall,
just his height, and fourteen inches through. All he had to do was
draw it like he saw it and he’d be done. Even with the burns
and shines and nicks and horn-scars, it shouldn’t take long.
He could have it done and still have time to catch old Roany up
and ride over to Carl Leon’s and be back by milking. Just jump
right in like a quick dawn October dip into the horse tank to get
the blood running. Maybe it was that easy. Draw it quick and get
it over with! Get on with the business of being an artist! No sense
in waiting. Heck, he thought, in about three years, probably, his
mother and father could sell the farm and they could all move somewhere
where milk cows and hog slopping and plowing and cultivating and
harvesting and picking and getting up at five and going to bed at
nine because you were so tired could be somebody else’s and
all any of them would have to do would be just wait until he cranked
out another picture. Wasn’t that all there was to it?
Maybe it wasn’t that simple, he suspected.
Maybe if he were going to be an artist he’d have to show more
than what he saw. He could do that by taking its picture. And who
would want a picture of an old scuffed up snubbing post? Maybe somehow
he’d have to show more than what he saw. A combination of what
he saw and what he knew might be what he was interested in. The
sun had moved down to the small of his back and the shadow of the
post had moved a little farther across the dunged-floor cow lot.
By dusk it would climb the fence and find freedom on the horizon
just at dark. He’d watched it a hundred times, he guessed,
leaving the earth forever to be replaced by another member of its
family the day after. Which shadow could he paint? And the post
… He remembered when they put it in, his dad and old Henry
Hartsfield, he’d been too young, and how deep they’d dug
the hole. “Oughta be down five and up five,” his dad had
said. “Down five and up eight,” old Henry shook his head.
“Five up’s as high as I want it,” his father had
argued. “S’all she’ll be come three foota cow shit.”
Old Henry made his point. So now it was five up and eight down,
and sturdy. Hadn’t it held that 1800 pound Angus bull that
had tossed him up against the barn before they snubbed him down?
That old bull was nothing but mean and muscle doing his best to
get back and finish the job he’d started, which was to deny
the world one artist, but the post held. It didn’t even quiver.
And that was just once. Never mind how many cows
– how many herds – had burned hands and lariats around
that snubbing post. How many beef steaks and pounds of hamburger
had it held for branding, de-horning and castration. How many yells
and curses had echoed back from that old snubbing post? And of the
men and women on the end of the rope, what about them? What about
their flour sack shirts and skirts and hand-down shoes, their home-made
bonnets and their loves and hates and all the rest? What about his
brother Jim, who lost his arm when the horse, the rope and the post
got all mixed up and he shot himself the next year?
How could he paint all that, he wondered, as he
watched the shadow climb the fence and wander over the horizon.
Maybe he’d become a submarine sailor, he thought, as he headed
for the gate to let in the cows for milking.
Published in Back Bay View, November 1979.
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