Chapter 2: The McCoys

Sam and Ralph devise a plot to steel the sheep

“Mornin’ Ralph.”

“Mornin’ Sam. How’d it go?”

“How did what go?”

“Jesus Sam, your date with Debbie. What do you think?”

“She don’t like to be called Debbie.”

“What did you do?”

“Went to Chelsea’s.”

“Chelsea’s? Chelsea’s Diner? For Christ’s sake Sam, you took her to a diner?”

“That’s where she wanted to go.”

“What did you eat?”

“We split a shake.”

“One straw or two?

“What do you mean?”

“Did you each have a separate straw or did you share one?”

“Shared one.”

“Really. Gonna see her again?”

“Yeah, tonight. After I crush your hopes of stealin’ the sheep.”

“What are you going to do with her tonight? Hang her?”

“Nah. But I’ll tell you Ralph, she didn’t much like him.”

“Who? Her husband?”

“Yeah.”

“Think she hung ’em?”

“Nah, she didn’t hung ’em, but she’d been more than happy to. She told me she hated him so much, she could have shot him.”

“‘Could have’ as in ‘would like to have’ or ‘could have’ as in ‘might have?”’

“That’s what I asked her.”

“Yeah?”

“She said it could have gone either way.”

“That’s pretty funny.”

“Yeah I thought so.”

“Well, good luck tonight Sam. Don’t hang her.”

“Shut up Ralph. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow Sam.”

“Mornin’ Ralph.”

“Mornin’ Sam. Well?”

“It went good. We had a real nice time.”

“What did you do?”

“Went ice skating.”

“Ice skating? Where'd you go?”

“To the ice rink Ralph, where the hell you think? There’s only one in town.”

“Alright, alright. Did you do anything after that?”

“Yeah, we took a walk in the park.”

“You hold her hand?”

“I did, and it was real nice too.”

“She hold your hand?”

“Yeah Ralph, we held each other’s hand at the same time. How else you gonna do it?”

“Alright… Still thinking about time?”

“Not so much lately.”

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t. Wanna think about it now?”

“OK…”

“Well you got to start the conversation Sam, and I’ll jump in as we go.”

“Alright. I wonder if it exists.”

“You think it does?”

“I don’t want it to, but I’m leaning toward it does.”

“Why don’t you want time to exist Sam?”

“Because then I wouldn’t have to think about it all the time. ‘How much time before we can punch out?’ ‘What time’s the game come on?’ ‘What time is it in Hong Kong?’ Stuff like that. Slows you down in life.”

“What does Deborah think about time?”

“I don’t know. I never asked her.”

“What’s she think about the job? She’s got to wonder. Most people think it's just in the cartoons.”

“I don’t know. It’s never come up.”

“Seems like you don’t know much about what she thinks about nothing.”

“Don’t need to. I’m happy about whatever she thinks about everything. So when you gonna start flight school?”

“Started last night.”

“Oh Yeah? How long ’till you get your license?”

“Well, if I train a few times a week, maybe four or five months. Then I can start flying the little ones.”

“Well I’m real happy for you Ralph. I really am.”

“Thanks Sam.”

“Alright, you steal ’em. I guard ’em. I think you’re in the lead so far this week.”

“Last couple weeks, actually. Does that bother you Sam?”

“I been working the job for 28 years. I don’t know what I think about none of it no more.”

“Well, I see two ways you might think about it. One, is that as a veteran of the occupation, you feel you shouldn’t be bested by a newcomer. Or, maybe you’re just getting tired of the work, and it’s time for you to move on.”

“You know, the more I think about it Ralph, the more I think you might be right.”

“About what?”

“Quittin’ the job. We could quit together. Then there’d be no need for you to be stealin’ the sheep, and no need for me to spend half my goddamn life trying to guard ’em. The whole thing’s ridiculous when you think about it.”

“What about the sheep? Can’t just leave them here.”

“I don’t see why we can’t, but alright, I guess we do bear some responsibility for their welfare. Let’s say we took them with us. If we took them one at a time, maybe Samuels wouldn’t notice.”

“Not at first, but he’s got to eventually, no matter how many lug nuts he’s missing.”

“Well, if we took them all at once, how would we get ’em outta here?”

“Good question. Here’s another one: What would we do with them? Slaughter them, cut’em up, pack ’em, and sell ’em? We ain’t got no customer base.”

“Well, I guess we could keep a couple of them. Too bad we don’t like eatin’ them.”

“Deborah like sheep? Maybe she could hang one in the garage.”

“She didn’t hang her husband Ralph.”

“I know she didn’t Sam. So, the guy who owns this place, Samuels…”

“Yeah?”

“What’s his first name?”

“Tom.”

“Tom, huh? Tom Samuels.”

“That’s how he signs the checks.”

“Don’t he got a son who works here too?”

“Yes, he does. You’ve seen him. Wears the same pair of overalls every day.”

“What’s his name?”

“Samuels.”

“What’s his first name?”

“Tom.”

“Tom, huh? Tom Junior… Now here’s something to ponder: What if Tom Junior’s grandfather went by Tom Senior, grandfather on his father’s side. Wouldn’t that make Tom Senior a Tom Junior? And wouldn’t they keep getting more and more junior each generation?”

“I don’t know, maybe there’s rules about it.”

“Tom Junior, huh? Was Tom Junior raised on the farm?”

“Sure was.”

“How about Tom Senior?”

“Born and raised. The Samuels family has owned the farm for three generations, maybe more. The farm is everything to Tom Senior. He don’t care about nothin’ else in life, including Tom Junior.”

“What does Tom Junior think of his father?”

“Hates him. Should too. His father hounds him, calls him an idiot, and works him to the bone. It’s gotta be a miserable life for the boy. Poor Tom Junior.”

“Yeah. Poor Tom Junior.”

“Tom Senior knows every inch of that farm, watches over it like a hawk all the time. All the time except for four days at the end of August when the Samuels go on vacation.”

“Short vacation.”

“Tom Senior wouldn’t go at all if his wife didn’t make him. Nah, he’d be working on the farm every day of his life, keeping his nose to the grindstone ’till he ground the damn thing off and died.”

“Where do they go?”

“Letcher county.”

“Letcher county? What the hell you gonna do for vacation in Letcher County?”

“They visit Mrs. Samuels family. Tom Senior hates going there, but it’s only for a few days and it ain’t too far away from the farm, so he puts up with it. Best chance to get them sheep is while they’re gone.”

“If we can figure out how to steal them and what to do them.”

“Maybe someone else steals them and we divvy up the profits. Them sheep worth a lot of money.”

“Have to be an inside job.”

“Well, Tom Junior does work here on the farm, don’t he?

“Yes he does.”

“You think Tom Junior might like to have a drink now and again?”

“I’ve seen him with a flask.”

“Maybe we take Tom Junior out for drinks to get his opinion on the matter. We suggest to him that if somehow all the sheep disappeared one night, neither he nor us would fret much about it. We don’t know how it happened, and he don’t know how it happened, being as we weren’t there, and he was asleep. Can’t blame the boy for sleeping at night, can you?”

“No you can’t.”

“Ever hear of the Hatfields and the McCoys Ralph?”

“Yeah.”

“Well the Hatfields settled across the Tug River in West Virginia. But the McCoys settled here in Pike County, not far from where we’re standing right now.”

“Yeah?”

“Some of the McCoys are still around, ’least their offspring, and they don’t much like the Samuels, and the Samuels don’t much like the McCoys neither.”

“Yeah?”

“The McCoys are hard to find, but the Samuels are easy to find. The farm’s just sitting there, right out in the open.”

“Yeah?”

“So what if one night the McCoys, ’least what’s left of them, came by and stole the sheep? Hell, we’d help them do it. If Tom Junior don’t know what happened, then Tom Senior don’t know what happened. And if the event were to take place on the weekend, ain’t no way we’d know what happened neither. The sheep be gone, and we could quit our jobs. Hell, we wouldn’t even have to quit ’em; it be a fait accompli.”

“What’s that mean Sam?”

“Means we wouldn’t have no choice in the matter. Our jobs would be eliminated by default.”

“What about Tom Junior?”

“What about him?”

“He needs to get something out of it, more than just being kicked out of the house by his father.”

“I’m not sure he does Ralph, but I’ll make sure the McCoys give him a cut. Them sheep worth a lot of money. McCoys sure be happy to have ’em. Of course, we’d get a substantial finder’s fee. You know what people sometimes call a herd of sheep Ralph? A flock. A flock of sheep. Makes it seem like they can fly, don’t it?”

“Sure does.”

“Guess ours just flew the coop.”

“I reckon they did.”