The Steers She Sorted Into His Pen

Thirty-eight

The last few were all in the back corner. I had to wait a while for them. Biscuit was sweating under her saddle pad by then, and so was I, inside my vest, though the air was still cold enough to see our breath.

“Thirty-five,” Kenna said. “Thirty-six.”

Thirty-seven was tag 9, a steer out of my best cow, the one I bought as a bred heifer the year Kenna was born.

Kenna had named that cow when she was four. She called her Big Mama, which is the kind of name a four-year-old gives a cow.

Big Mama had raised a good calf every year for fifteen years.

“Thirty-seven,” Kenna said.

I checked my book. One more. I rode slowly along the north fence and read every ear, and there it was, standing alone by the water tank, an orange tag reading 61.

A heifer-sized steer, small, but he was mine. I had tagged him on the sixth of April with my fingers so cold I dropped the pliers twice.

I eased Biscuit around behind him. He turned without any fuss, like he was tired of all of it too, and walked out the gate past Merle and up the alley.

Shawna swung the gate south. Ardith swung my pen open. The steer walked in and stood with the others.

“Thirty-eight,” Kenna said, and her voice broke right in the middle of the word.

I looked up at her. She was still sitting on the chute, and she had both hands over her mouth, and her shoulders were shaking.

She is fifteen and does not cry in front of people. She had counted every one out loud, all morning, so that nobody could ever say there was any question.

I rode Biscuit up to the chute and stood in the stirrups and reached up, and she leaned down off the plank side and put her arms around my neck.

Neither of us said anything. Over her shoulder, I could see Royce at the rail. He had his hat off and was holding it in both hands.