The Calves That Topped the Fall Sale

Jan wasn’t with him. She’d stayed home with a cold, Kelsey told me later. I think if she’d been there, she might have sat with us.

Roger’s steers came through about ten thirty.

They were good. I want to say that as plainly as I can. They were good black steers, big-framed, about 580 pounds, and they came into the ring in two drafts and moved around the shavings like they owned the place.

Dwight said, “Here’s the Fischer steers, folks, always a good set,” and started the chant, and the bidding went quick and clean, and they sold at $3.10 a pound.

That’s a good price. That’s $1,798 a head. The men around Roger nodded. Roger nodded once at the ring and sat back.

Then I waited.

An hour is a long time in a sale barn. Set after set came through. Mixed calves, heifers, a pen of red baldies, a few bred cows somebody was selling out. Kelsey came back with coffee and sat on the other side of Ella. I drank half of mine and forgot about the rest.

Around eleven thirty, Ella said, “Is it almost time?”

“Almost,” I said.

“Can I hold it up now?”

“Not yet. When they come in.”

She unrolled the cardboard just a little bit, peeked at it, and rolled it back up. Her lips were moving. She was practicing something.

At 11:40 the gate on the right side of the ring swung open and my steers came in.

I’ll remember that picture the rest of my life. Twenty-one black steers walking into the shavings together, quiet, heads up, not a one bawling. They were so close in size and color that they looked like one calf and a mirror. They stood together in the middle of the ring and looked up at the crowd like they were curious about it.

The weight came up on the board. Twenty-one head, 582 pounds average.

Ella was already standing up. I put my hand on her back.

Dwight read my notes off the sheet into the microphone. “Here’s 21 black steers, home raised, one bull, two rounds of shots, weaned 45 days and bunk broke. Let’s go, boys, where do you start?”

He started the chant at $3.00.

I’d never been good at following an auctioneer. Walt used to laugh at me about it. That day I could hear every number like Dwight was standing right next to me saying it slow.

Two order buyers on the front rail went after them. One in a gray vest, one I couldn’t see well under a straw hat. Every time one of them raised a finger the other one nodded right behind him.

$3.10. Roger’s price. I heard somebody behind me say, “There it is.”

$3.15.

$3.20.

$3.22.

I couldn’t feel my hands. Kelsey had both of hers wrapped around my arm, and I could feel her fingernails through my coat, and I couldn’t feel my own hands at all.

$3.25.

There was a little pause. The man in the gray vest looked at his phone, then looked back up.

$3.28.

Dwight held it. “Three twenty-eight, three twenty-eight, all done?” He looked over at the straw hat. The straw hat shook his head.

The gavel came down.

Then Dwight did a thing I’d never heard him do in five years of sitting in those bleachers. He leaned into the microphone and slowed way down.

“Folks, those are Tyler Brandt’s calves,” he said. “Weaned 45 days, two rounds of shots, and he does it every year. That’s the top of the day on steer calves this weight. Good job, son.”