Michael the Basque

Petaluma, California

 

     Orville and I were rolling wire off a cliff and into Mazzoni's draw on the morning of the Fourth of July. The other option was to be in the main ranch house helping the boss prepare for the gala party to be thrown that afternoon. Orville was a buckaroo, good with horses, wore his pants tucked into his boots, and didn't take kindly to stirring marinade or folding paper napkins. I'd seen a couple of holidays come and go on the ranch. Risking a hernia was better than listening to three performance artists inventing the ultimate wine cooler.  

     Orville’s companion was a raven named Bro that he incubated and hatched somewhere in the Musselshell country of central Montana. Bro was full-fledged and could fly but seldom took wing, preferring instead to ride on Orville’s right shoulder, who’s shirt pockets were always full of sunflower seeds and Bro helped himself. They both dipped Copenhagen. Orville changed shirts often.
     By mid-afternoon we tired of watching rolls of wire bouncing down through the boulder patch and sat in the shade discussing the fact that we hadn't died young after all when the big triangle dinner bell on the ranch house porch called us to make an appearance at the party. We hopped in the work truck and granny-geared down off the precipice.
     In keeping with the theme of the week, the guest of honor at this party was Michael the Basque, a seventy-five-year-old retired sheepherder who was a living library of sheep information. ("No be ‘fraid sheep. We be lucky. Sheep no bite.") I had partied with Michael the Basque and warned Orville to go light on Michael's "sheepy punch," which did bite, being composed of equal parts of Wild Turkey, vodka and lime Koolaid.
     Michael was a good, honest, generous person but he packed around a couple of minor personality quirks. One was in his choice of dogs. He kept Chihuahuas, bred the critters, and was usually  accompanied by six or eight of the yappy, asthmatic, hairless, little speed bumps. He taught two of them to bark at Jesse Jackson on television. 
     His other flaw may have evolved from his having been born on the French side of the Pyrenees. When he was half-full of sheepy punch and there was a human female within forty acres, Michael the Basque transformed into Michael the Somewhat Crude.
      The party included three gallons of sheepy punch, two types of guacamole, hillocks of mutton kabob, a spud salad, pasta in several permutations, and rice-o-rama, all garnished with a first-rate assortment of human females. 
     Michael fired up his act. The first installment involved going behind his truck and rearranging his clothing so that a stick and a glove took the place of his left arm and hand. He began with a whirling dance, singing the French national anthem and accompanying himself on stick fiddle. At the apex of emotion in the song, when the French nation was surviving all turmoil, Michael stopped whirling and stood in front of the women in his audience. Out of the fly of his green gabardine came his left index finger, which conducted the rest of the song. Ah, that wacky sheepherder humor. Orville and Bro turned their backs to the stage.
     The second act involved a pantomimed sheep castration where Michael, with the assistance of his dogs, jumped a phantom lamb, flipped it over, cut the scrotum with an imaginary knife, then stretched out the testicles, bit the chord in two with his Medicare teeth, and came up smiling. His tongue pushed a big lump in his cheek.
      Things backfired on Michael. As he stood up with the pretend sheep oyster in his mouth, wide-eyed and checking for hardening nipples in his audience, Bro crapped down the back of Orville’s shirt. That lit a nerve in Michael the Basque's stomach. He gagged and sprayed second-hand sheepy punch all over the food table. The domino effect set in, and half the guests began to wretch. Bro took advantage of the confusion to attack the Chihuahuas.
     That ended the party. By the time the mess was sorted out, Michael the Basque was passed out in the front yard, his dogs were locked in the chicken coop, the guests were in their cars headed out of the ranch, and Orville had packed his gear bag, drawn his wages, and split for Montana.