The Heifers She Bought in the Sandhills

“You must be the cattle buyer,” he said.

Kinley shook his hand like she’d been told to and looked him in the eye. “Yes, sir. Kinley Brandvig.”

“Brandvig,” Ivo said. “Good name. Your grandpa sold me a bull once. Best bull I ever owned.” He turned to the pens. “Come on. Let’s go look at your heifers before somebody else falls in love with them.”

They were in a pen by themselves at the end of the row. Two black heifers, heavier than the calf at Sterling by a long way, with that deep look young bred heifers get in the fall. One was a shade bigger and longer bodied. The other was smaller and deeper, with a wide, kind face.

Kinley went to the rail and just stood there.

“They’re beautiful,” she said.

“They’re good,” Ivo said. “Beautiful is for horses. These are good. Look at their feet. Look how they stand. That’s a cow that’ll last you twelve years.”

He showed her how to look at a heifer, the way somebody once showed him. The width through the hips. The way the rib springs. How the eye looks, calm or wild.

“A wild one’ll tear up your fences and teach her calves to do the same,” he said. “These two are quiet. That’s the Lund cows. Dorcas never kept a wild one in forty years.”

They stood at that rail together for a long time, the old man and the girl, talking about cattle like nobody else was there.

I went to get Kinley her bidder number. The clerk was a young woman with a toddler on her hip and a cash box under the table. She wrote Kinley’s name down and asked how old she was.

“Fourteen,” I said.

“Then she’s good for the last two lots,” the clerk said, and smiled. “Dorcas will be glad. She was worried nobody’d bring their kids this far.”

The sale went all morning and into the afternoon. Cows first, then pairs, then the bulls, then the machinery. I watched Ivo buy six of the older bred cows and a pile of hay. The prices were strong. Dorcas Lund’s cattle were known.

I saw Dorcas once, early on. She was standing by the house, a small woman with white hair under a wool scarf, watching her husband’s cows go through the ring one by one. A neighbor woman had her arm around her shoulders.

I thought about what it must be like, watching forty years go out the gate in one afternoon. I thought I’d better not look too long.

It was nearly two o’clock when the auctioneer cleared his throat into the microphone.

“Folks, we’ve got two more lots, and Mrs. Lund has asked that these two be sold to youth bidders only, at no more than eleven hundred dollars a head. That’s eighteen and under. Moms and dads, I’m going to ask you to keep your hands in your pockets.”

People laughed, and then they did something I didn’t expect. They moved. The ranchers along the rail stepped back to let the kids through, the way you’d make room at a funeral.

There were four kids bidding, as near as I could tell. A tall boy in an FFA jacket. Two sisters who couldn’t have been more than twelve, standing with their dad behind them. A girl about Kinley’s age with a ponytail and a pink cap.