Ol’ Scoops Clancey got a hold of one of these right after he bought the old Hart place north of town.  It was an unusual choice for a ranch implement, but then Scoops was not one to worship at the alter of convention.  He’d just shrug it off when folks around Fort Stockton   suggested he follow a more ‘accepted’ way of doing things.  “Life is all about perspective,” he’d tell them.  “The sinking of the Titanic was a miracle to all the lobsters on board.”  Tough to argue with that logic.

Scoops got in on the emu craze back in the day and used the Willys CJ-2A Maul Jeep loader to scoop up all the emu droppings, bag ‘em and then sell them to Rusty over at the Rusty Hammer Hardware Store to sell for fertilizer in the spring.  The smell of it would burn your nostrils like cheap whiskey burns your throat, but the effect it had on the local rose bushes was indisputable.

When the demand for emu meat and oil petered out, he and Hank, his ranch hand loaded them all up into a trailer, hitched up to the Jeep and turned ‘em loose outside of Marfa.  He turned his efforts towards something less trendy and more profitable and put in a hundred acres of marijuana plants.  Folks told him it was risky.  They told him he’d be smarter to put in a winery, like everyone with more than six acres in Fredericksburg had done.  He’d say, “You know the difference between booze and weed?  Five drunk people will start a fight.  Five stoned people will start a band.  I’m doing this for everyone.”

He seemed to be making a pretty good go of it.  That’s when it got tricky and the authorities in Austin got involved, because after all, success is to the government what laser pointers are to cats.  One day a black Ford Galaxie pulled off the highway and down the long gravel driveway to the modest ranch house Scoops lived in.  Scoops wandered out onto the front porch and let the screen door slam closed behind him.  He had a tall lemonade in his hand, but didn’t offer one to the agent.  The two of them walked slowly over to where the Jeep and the Ford were parked in the shade of a old pecan tree out front.

“Could you please tell me how many employees you have and how much you pay them?” the investigator asked Scoops as he leaned up against the Galaxie and wiped his brow of the sweat rapidly accumulating there.

“Hank is my ranch hand.  Been with me nearly six years.  I pay him $1,200 a week, plus free room and board,” Scoops told him as he took a bandana out of his back pocket and wiped some left over emu dung off the big yellow loader.  “The cook has been here a little over a year.  I pay him $900 a week and free room and board.”

The agent took out a small spiral-topped tablet and was jotting some notes down.

“And then there’s the half-wit.  He works ‘bout 18 hours a day.  Never a day off.  Does about 90% of the work around this place.  He only makes about $50 a week and pays his own room and board, although I do buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday.  He’s been known to sleep with my wife, occasionally.”

“That’s the guy I want to talk to!” the crew-cut wearing investigator said.

“You already are,” Scoops replied.

If you ever have to swerve to miss an emu on the highway outside Marfa, stop at Scoops’ and he’ll give you just what you need to settle your nerves.  Maybe give you a ride in the Jeep.