The Tally Book At The Pen Gate

“I’m going to keep roping,” I said. “And I’m going to keep counting. Let the ranchers count the calves. Sooner or later, one of them is going to want to know who caught them.”

She did not like it. She said so. But she put the seed packet in her jacket and took my hand, and we stood there watching our girl pat dirt over the radishes with both palms like she was tucking them into bed.

“All right,” Jenna said finally. “But I’m not going to pretend for him forever, Riley. I want you to know that.”

“I know it,” I said.

That evening, with the sun going down red over the west pasture, I took the tally book out on the porch and went back through the spring.

Six brandings so far. I had every date, every brand, every calf.

Then I turned to the back page, which had always been blank, and I started a new column. Date. Brand. Paid.

And I wrote ninety dollars beside each of the six dates, because that was what I had been paid, and Grandpa said you do not lie in a tally book.

Easter was hard. I will not pretend it was not. Chad carved the ham at his mother’s table and told a story about a calf that got loose at Bev’s and ran through the vaccine table. Everybody laughed. I laughed too.

Then he leaned back and said, “Riley’s coming along. I keep him on the easy end of the pen so he gets his reps. Another season and the old-timers will be asking for him.”

Jenna set her fork down so carefully that I was the only one who heard it touch the plate.

I put my hand on her knee under the table. Her grandmother asked me to pass the rolls, and I did.

I want to be fair to Chad here, because I know more now than I knew that Easter. He was behind on the payments on his own place.

He had lost a good part of his calf crop in a March blizzard the year before, and the bank had his operating note on a short leash.

I believe he told himself that his sister’s husband ought to be glad of the work.

I believe he told himself that I was new, that he had made the calls and built the crew, and that the difference was his to keep. People can talk themselves into a lot when the bank is calling.

None of that made it right. Taking a man’s wages and telling his employers he is not worth them is wrong, no matter what is behind it.

But I knew he was a person and not a cartoon, and I tried to keep that in front of me.

So April went by. I roped at Arlo’s place on the creek, at an outfit north of the river with a Rafter T brand, at two places on the Cheyenne breaks.

I roped on cold mornings with frost on the corral rails and on warm ones with the meadowlarks going.

Every night I did the same thing. I counted the marks, totaled the calves, drew the brand at the top of the page, and wrote ninety dollars on the back page beside the date.

Some days I caught a hundred and forty calves. Some days, when Chad roped too, I caught ninety and he caught forty.