Miss Beymer’s Boyfriend
​by Bill Mooney

September 17, 2010  

          It was very early in the morning on the 2nd or 3rd of July.  The Spanish Ranch buckaroos had gathered the Door Key cattle at Jack Creek and were pushing them onto the forest in the Independence Mountains.  When the last calf walked through the gate, that was that.  They would soon scatter to the four winds, never again to ride as a crew.

            It was customary for Kane to take us to the Jack Creek bar and buy a drink.  Marie Kane would show up with the twins so we would all be the perfect gentlemen that we were capable of being.  When we walked out of the bar, I didn’t know it at the time, Ida Mae Mori and her daughter, Linda, were sitting outside and saw us.  A couple of years later I would be working for the Mori’s and Ida Mae herself told me about their conversation.

          “Look, mom,” Linda said, “there’s Miss Beymer’s boyfriend.

          “Where?  I don’t see anybody but the Spanish Ranch.  

          “The one in the brown hat.”  

          “What??!!  You mean to tell me our refined religious school teacher is going with a Spanish Ranch cowboy?”  

          The word spread throughout the valley.  That fall I was invited to a square dance.  I was mailed an invitation to the Christmas play, which I went to.  The next spring I attended the annual picnic at Water Pipe Canyon. 

          I, as a Spanish Ranch buckaroo, had never been invited to a valley social function, but it was OK to invite Miss Beymer’s boyfriend.  Marie was the match maker behind all this and I can visualize Kane in the background saying, “Go ahead and invite him.  As long as she’s there to keep an eye on him, he’ll be all right.”

            Were there ever any hard feelings or grudges about all this?  Never.  I thought it hilarious at the time and I laugh today as I write about it.  

          Dear readers, to be quite truthful about it, in those days I wouldn’t have invited me anywhere either!