A Ranch Without a Hand by Crystal Taylor

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A Ranch Without a Hand


   I first met Benny in a dive bar one evening after work: his day spent under the sun, mine behind a keyboard. I was 35. He was 65 going on 80, with skin like shedding tree bark. We became fast friends on split pleather stools, rings of condensation from his bourbon and my vodka-sodas, staining the wood over the course of a year. One day, Benny invited me to visit what I came to know as “the show” where he lived and worked as a ranch keeper. 
   As Benny and I approached the property, dozens of waxwings, warblers, chickadees and phoebes feasted under the harbor of a mesquite tree’s canopy—just a sliver of the manicured sanctuary he had carved from the land owned by a wealthy man. From Rover, the ranch’s four-wheeler, Benny showed me the gift of his craft as a hired hand: nurturing living things. We snuck up on the birds, busy under the mesquite, atop Rover, parked about 50 yards back.
   “Now, ain’t that a show,” Benny remarked. His eyes were obscured by a faded hat. His lip curled up, revealing a semi-toothless grin. 
   He tossed binoculars onto my lap, and I zoomed in on a Black Crested Titmouse. Though tiny, it took itself quite seriously, with eyebrows furrowed. The staccato in its squawk suggested displeasure with my gawking. I giggled. That first bird became my favorite, out of what would later become 374 species. Benny often texted me from his flip phone to tell me he’d seen a Kestrel or hawk. I looked forward to stopping by after work. Most days, I was too late to see the Kestrel dive, but we gazed north and hoped for a rare sighting.
   Benny pointed to shelters he’d shaped with pride, and nooks in trees, to spare the running and crawling things.  
   “Now those are what you call, con-doh-miniums” he said, stretching each syllable in his thick Texan accent. 
   He filled pails on the ground with water because, “All living things have a purpose in the ecosystem, except for grackles. They’re pirates and marauders,” he said, while spitting viscously for effect.
   The Cibolo Creek on the horizon once crested waves, but that August, only whispered a trickle. Even the savanna grass succumbed to the heat that summer. Benny’s skin weathered most, as if it could shed like the scales of the spiny lizards we observed on a few boulders from our seats atop Rover.
   After seven years under Benny’s care, the city broke loose like a levy breached. Its suburban blueprints gushed outward into the neighboring counties, lapping the edge of the Cibolo Creek. When the sanctuary owner passed away, his widow downsized. Benny relayed the news he’d feared for a long time. He told me she said that only a fool could deny the offers she was receiving from developers—no longer by the acre, but by the square foot. 
   Benny reassured her, and me, that he’d be fine. His friends in Washington had plenty of work waiting. The lie was convincing to me. After she moved, Benny had no home. He wouldn’t be the only one. The birds, the crawlers, and the four-legged runners would be displaced, too. After bidding day at auction, another man took possession of the land and traded it for a more lucrative view. He would be the one to decide what “show” he would screen, and for whom. The wave of suburbs washed away Benny’s way of life.
   Benny shed his leathered skin, with his own hand: not the spiny kind, but the kind that doesn’t grow back. He abandoned the mesquite, the creek, the land, and me. Seven years’ work and life he breathed into the land was left to entropy. I retched when I learned of my best friend Benny’s passing. I grieved for the Titmice, the Vermilion Flycatchers, Painted Buntings, the Great Horned owls who asked, “Who cooks for you,” each dusk, and the Kestrel.
   I’m glad Benny was spared the sight of what came to pass. I drove by from time to time, only to see houses stacked shoulder to shoulder, swimming alongside condominiums and power lines. Wing to wing, the grackles perched on the powerlines, waiting to plop their own eggs clumsily into House Finch homes. On one of my trips, I saw the Kestrel in mid air. It landed in one of the few remaining trees. It was as magnificent as Benny described, and more-so. Even in the wake of destruction, something beautiful had survived.

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Crystal Taylor (she/her) is a reader, writer and poet from Texas. She is also an avid bird watcher. Her recent and upcoming work lives in Rust & Moth, ONE ART, Book of Matches, and other sacred spaces. She is active on Twitter/X and Bsky Social @CrystalTaylorSA, and Instagram @cj_taylor_writes.

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