The Day Daddy Sat at the Rail

Pam had our check ready by one o’clock. Fourteen head on Lloyd Ahlquist’s ticket. I checked it against the tally twice at the window before I let go of it.

We walked out to the trailer. Dennis came with us because he had parked by the pens.

The wind had come up and it was cold enough to make your ears ache, and the empty trailer smelled like cattle and wet straw.

Kyle was standing by the fender.

He had his hands in his coat pockets. He looked like he had been standing there a long time, maybe the whole time we were in the café.

His ears were red from the cold. He did not look at me. He looked at Daddy.

“Lloyd,” he said.

Daddy stopped walking. “Kyle.”

Kyle took his hand out of his pocket. He had a check in it, folded in half.

He unfolded it and held it out. His hand was not steady, and I am not sure it was only the cold.

“It’s two thousand,” he said. “It’s all I’ve got. I emptied the account. I know it’s not near what I owe.”

Daddy did not take it right away. He looked at it, and then he looked at Kyle’s face.

“I didn’t come here to have anybody feel sorry for me,” Kyle said. “I came to say it. I took your calves. I lied to you about it on the phone twice. I told myself you’d never miss them, and I told Shelly that to her face, and that was the worst thing I ever said to anybody.”

He swallowed. The wind was pulling at his coat.

“When my cows went, I didn’t want anybody to know how bad it was. Not Dad. Not you. I’d rather have done anything. And then I did that.”

He shook his head. “I’d like to work off the rest. Your west fence is bad. I saw it in the spring. I can do it Saturdays, and evenings until it gets dark too early. I’ll do it until you say it’s paid.”

I did not say anything. I have to be honest about that. There were about forty things I wanted to say and every one of them would have felt good for a minute.

I held on to the trailer fender and I kept my mouth shut, because it was not my turn.

Dennis did not say anything either. But he moved. He came and stood next to me, close, and he put his hand on the small of my back, and he stayed there.

He did not step toward his son and he did not step away from him.

Daddy took the check. He folded it once and put it in the breast pocket of his barn coat and buttoned the pocket.

“West fence is a mile and a quarter,” he said. “Four strands. Half those posts are rotten at the ground.”

“Yes sir.”

“You’ll need a post driver and a stretcher. I’ve got both.”

“Yes sir.”

“You’ll start Saturday. Seven o’clock. Not seven fifteen.”

“Yes sir.”

Daddy looked at him a while longer. Then he looked at the pickup, the old Ford with the bench seat, and he looked at me.