Fiction: B-B Ranch (a short story)

Larry Bailie helping a friend put
up some fence in the Everglades

By Larry Bailie

My Aunt Pat and Uncle Dutch Bailie had a cattle business called the B-B Ranch, in a place in the middle of nowhere way out north of Naples called Corkscrew. They had no children, although she had a boy from her first marriage named Jimmy who was away in the Navy. Around Christmastime, my dad told me we were going to Uncle Dutch’s ranch to pick up meat for the family. I, being the oldest at the ripe old age of eleven, would go with him to help.
    It was 1964, and in the eyes of my sisters and brothers I was both envied and respected. I got to go to the ranch, but the ride was long, brutal, and boring. To most people. To me, it was and always would be an adventure. We left the next day, well before dawn.
    The trip started with an early morning stop at my grandma’s fish house, down by Naples Bay. The sun was still not showing in the east when we got there. We packed two wooden “fish boxes” halfway full of ice from the huge chipping machine there. I could barely hold up my end of the boxes as we loaded them in the truck. We headed north on US 41 with still no morning light.
    Somewhere north of Estero we got off the highway to the right and headed east, looking for the sunrise. Finally, I could see beyond the old Ford’s headlights. I knew a little bit about this part of the trip and I pointed out things I recognized to my dad, a particularly fancy ranch gate or one of the pump stations that sat at the conjunctions of the canals. He just nodded, and said “Pour me some coffee, son.” I poured for him from the Thermos he always brought on trips. He wasn’t much of a talker until his second cup.
    The paved road was behind us, and we were into the part of the trip my family called the “washboard.” It was lime rock, mined from the pits that dotted the landscape back then. Over two thirds of the roads in southwest Florida at that time were built of this same treacherous material. It rutted, puddled, and pot-holed, and the joke was that if you went over thirty miles an hour, you would only land every twenty feet or so.
    By now the sun’s full light was right in our eyes. We were glad it was dry; when it rained, the washboard was a slimy, muddy mess. Yet that presented another problem. Dust. More than dust; it was a lime-rock cloud that trucks and cars pulled along with them like a seine net dragging behind a boat. A swirling tube of nose-clogging white dust followed you like an annoying little brother you couldn’t duck. The rule on the washboard was if a vehicle approached, you would both slow down to give the other driver a break from it, and some folks would wave or tip their hat. Dad was a hat-tipper. He usually wore a Minnesota Twins ball cap, but today he was wearing his nice grey Stetson.
    I loved the trip to Uncle Dutch’s ranch. They also had a home in Bonita, on the old creek that the locals said had been dug by Indians to get out to Bonita Bay. It was under huge oak trees and had an outbuilding full of old stuff we loved to play in. A washing machine as old as Methuselah sat in a corner, and we would watch in fascination as Aunt Pat fed laundry through the yellowed rollers.
    As we drove into the tall trees, the ever-present canals followed the road on one side or the other. All kinds of birds stood along the shores or in the water, wood storks, herons and ibis. Now and then turkeys could be seen up ahead, “dusting” themselves in the road, but the second they saw you they were gone like a fart in a hurricane, scooting back into the Everglades. A few alligators sunned themselves on the banks, warming up for the morning hunt. We saw small herds of cattle, and now and then a few deer. We were getting close to the ranch turnoff and Dad said to keep my eyes peeled, he didn’t want to miss it. It was one of his jokes, and kind of like a test for me. He had spent a good part of his childhood at the ranch, and we both knew there was no way he would miss the turn.
    Dad, my brother Clay and I had been out there about six months before. The phone had rung in the middle of the night, which almost never happened unless it was bad news. This time it was kind of a mix of good and bad; Uncle Dutch was calling to say one of the young bulls had been struck by lightning, and to come out early and maybe salvage some meat. The young bulls would get up on the berm by the ditches in a rainstorm and act all bull-like, bellowing in anger, fear, lust, who knew? Lightning strikes were common; Central Florida has one of the highest numbers of lightning strikes in the world. We did get out early, before the sun was up. They had the steer already hung up in one of the cooler sheds, where beef was butchered and stored. Just like this trip, we had humped fish boxes packed with ice from Grandma’s, and as Uncle Dutch and Dad cut partially-burned flesh from the animal we packed it into the ice. The smell was heavenly, just like a steak sizzling.
    Around mid-morning on this day, a white pickup came barreling up the road into the B-B ranch. It took a while, it was a long road, and we were all wondering who it could be. Five families ran cattle in Dutch’s four sections, and it could have been a member of any one of them. A section is a square mile, about six hundred and forty acres, and four of them can hold one hell of a lot of cows. Dutch’s place was open range and had sweet grass, a family of grasses that are very good cattle feed. They grow in wet and loamy soil, and in that part of Collier County Florida, the swamp is never far away. Every year the families would gather for a winter round-up, and I longed for the day, just a few years hence, that I could go on that trip too. There was no shortage of white pickups around there either, so who the driver was could be anybody’s guess. Dutch stayed quiet, which was his nature unless he was sitting around a fire telling stories about the old days. I looked forward to those times.
    It turned out to be Aunt Pat’s son Jimmy, who sometimes worked with Dutch and my dad on the ranch. Lots of back-slapping and handshaking. He’d gotten leave from the Navy and was home for Christmas. I’d heard Dad and my uncle talking one time, about how Jimmy had gotten in some trouble with the law, and was given the choice of the military or a year or two at the Graybar Hotel. Many young men back then chose service over jail time. It looked to me like Jimmy had benefitted from his decision; he was tanned and fit.
    The butchering of the steers was done soon enough, with extra help from some cowhands Dutch had called in from over Immokalee way, and we all washed up. The extra hands got their pay and took off for home, looking to buy last-minute gifts for families waiting on them for Christmas, too. Aunt Pat was known to cook a great meal, and today was no exception. Plus, she’d made a bread pudding for dessert, my favorite.
    When we’d finished, we were all sitting around the open kitchen and Aunt Pat disappeared for quite some time. Uncle Dutch was in his chair next to my dad and I got close, thinking a story might be coming. Dad asked why he was so quiet, and he said “Just tired, and taking time to remember some things.” This was a very good sign a story was on the way. Pat came back out with an armload of presents and put them under the tree. She came back with another bundle for Dad and me to take home. Every year it was the same gifts from them, drums and drumsticks and horns you could blow like bugles. It was his standard joke for Dad, knowing we would drive him nuts for weeks until the cheap toys broke or we lost interest.
    Dutch sat back in his chair and my dad asked him how Christmas was going for him. Leaning forwards and resting his arms on his knees, he looked at us all and picked out a gift from under the tree. “It was going just great,” he said, as he handed me a box wrapped in red paper, “until Jimmy showed up and Pat scratched my name off all the presents and wrote Jimmy’s on them!” I looked, and sure enough, it was like he said. I must have looked stunned because my dad and uncle were laughing so hard they were crying, and Jimmy and Pat joined in.
    It was a long ride home. I never did get that story.

Copyright © 2023 by Larry Bailie Larry Bailie was born two days after Saint Patrick’s Day in 1953, has been married for 47 years, and has two daughters and two grandchildren, who are his joy. Currently a realtor, Larry has worked in construction and run landscape crews. Traveling the Americas has given him many stories to relate, which he started journaling in 1968, but he has always returned to Florida, where he has gardened, surfed, fished, and explored the Everglades.