"Cassie Sashay, she can whup anything. Naw, I don't mean fist-whuppin'. I mean she has the angel's eye for the rope. Never saw her once draggin' back a lasso with daylight through it. Charlie can say Amen to this, he's seen it. "Now y'all be scratching your heads once I'm out with this, but it's gospel truth down to the last letter. You hear me out, no guffawin' or that... "I took to likin' Cassie. Don't think she ever gave me much thought, but I met her for a lunch or two down at the bend in the river where the cliffs hang way out over the river. "She had her rope there, flicking it back and forth. Rope got in the way of me sayin' nice things to her, but that's the way it is. I kept tryin' though. Then she up and says, 'I have a new trick. Want to see it?' "'Sure,' I says. She pulls me over to the mud flats and we hunker down under a weeper. She's cut the hanging branches down about head high, so she has a good clear take for the river. She has some kind of net thing over her lasso. "She gets her rope ready and we wait. The swallows are skimmin' for water. All a sudden she flicks that rope out. There's a swallow trying to dodge it. But right in it he goes, and flops into the water. "Now shut your trap, I'm not done! She drags it in, pulls the swallow out of her net, straightens a few feathers, and lets it go. And that's the gospel..." |
