Eleven Heifers on the West Eighty

He got out slow. He looked at the new posts running straight as a string over the hill. He looked at eleven red heifers on the far side of it. Then he looked at me.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning.” Cole walked up to the wire and put a hand on the top strand, like he needed to be sure it was real. “I’ve got forty steers on these trailers. I’ve got a hundred and sixty acres rented here. Who put up this fence?”

“I did.”

“And who are you to do it?”

“I’m Jim. I’m Russ’s brother.” I said it as plain as I could. “The east eighty is his. The west eighty is mine. Our dad left it that way, and it’s in the courthouse that way. You’re welcome to stop at the register of deeds and look. You don’t have to take my word.”

He did not say anything.

“I told Russ in March I’d be using my half this year,” I said. “I told him to tell you. I can see he didn’t.”

“No,” Cole said. “He did not.”

“That part is on him. But I’ll tell you what’s on me. I should have called you myself. I told myself it was his place to talk to his own renter. The truth is I didn’t want to drag you into a family matter, and I’ve done it anyway, standing here at seven in the morning with your cattle on wheels. I’m sorry for that.”

Cole took his hat off and ran his hand over his head.

“Six years,” he said. “I’ve paid your brother forty-eight hundred dollars every spring for six years. Every dime, on time. I never was late once.”

“I know you weren’t.”

“So tell me something, mister.” He put the hat back on. “Whose grass have I been paying for?”

“Half of it was his,” I said. “Half of it was mine.”

“And what did you get out of it?”

“A tax bill every December.”

I watched that land on him.

“I asked him,” Cole said. His voice was low. “The first year. I asked him straight out who owned the place, because my granddad taught me you never turn a cow out on a man’s ground without shaking his hand first. Russ said it was the family’s and he spoke for the family.”

He looked out across the wire at my heifers.

“Six years I’ve had cattle on your grass and never asked your leave. He made me a part of that. I never agreed to be a part of that.”

“You didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t make me like it.”

“Here’s what I know,” I said. “Russ’s eighty is his to rent, and it’ll carry twenty of your steers same as it always has. The well’s on that side, and the corral. Put twenty through that gate. The other twenty I don’t have an answer for yet. But I took the day off, I’ve got a truck and a trailer, and I’ll stay with you until we find one.”

It turned out I did not have to find it.

The old flatbed was already coming down the road at ten miles an hour. Walt had been on his porch since five o’clock, and there is not much on that road he misses.

He pulled up, rolled the window down, and looked the whole thing over: two loaded trailers, one new fence, eleven heifers, three men not saying anything.

“I figured,” he said.

He looked at Cole.