Plainsong (6 page)

McPherons.

They had the cattle in the corral already, the mother cows and the two-year-old heifers waiting in the bright cold late-fall afternoon. The cows were moiling and bawling and the dust rose in the cold air and hung above the corrals and chutes like brown clouds of gnats swimming in schools above the cold ground. The two old McPheron brothers stood at the far end of the corral surveying the cattle. They wore jeans and boots and canvas chore jackets and caps with flannel earflaps. At the tip of Harold’s nose a watery drip quivered, then dropped off, while Raymond’s eyes were bleary and red from the cow dust and the cold. They were almost ready now. They were waiting only for Tom Guthrie to come and help, so they could finish this work for the fall. They stood in the corral and looked past the cattle and examined the sky.

I reckon it’s decided to hold off, Raymond said. It don’t appear like it wants to snow anymore.

It’s too cold to snow, Harold said. Too dry, too.

It might snow tonight, Raymond said. I’ve seen it happen.

It’s not going to snow, Harold said. Look at the sky over there.

That’s what I’m looking at, Raymond said.

They turned back to surveying the cattle. Then without saying anything more they left the corral and drove to the horse barn where they backed the pickup into the wide sliding door of the bay and began to load the vaccination guns, the Ivermec, the medicine vials and the cattle prods into the back end. They lifted the smudge pot in with the other gear and wired the tall blackened smokestack to the sideboards, and returned to the corral to the squeeze chute and set the equipment out on the upended wooden telephone spool they used for a table. The smudge pot they stood upright on the ground near the chute and Harold bent over stiffly and held a match to it. When it ignited he adjusted the flue so it gave off heat, and its smoke rose black and smelling of kerosene into the wintry air, mixing with the cattle dust.

They looked up at the sound of a truck out beyond the house: Guthrie’s pickup just turning off the county road. It came on around the house and the few outbuildings past the stunted trees and pulled up where they stood waiting. Guthrie and the two boys climbed out in their winter coats and caps.

Now who’s these hired men? Harold said. He looked at Ike and Bobby standing beside their father.

I brought them along, Guthrie said. They said they wanted to come.

Well I just hope they’re not too costly, Harold said. We can’t afford any city wages. Tom, you know that. He was speaking soberly, in a kind of mock quarrelsome voice. The two boys stared back at him.

I can’t say what they’ll charge, Guthrie said. You’ll have to ask them.

Raymond stepped up. What say, you boys. What’s this going to put us back today?

They turned toward this second old man, younger than the other one, his face raw looking and grizzled in the cold air and his dirty cap pulled down low above his dust-bleared eyes. How much you going to charge us to join this escapade? he said.

They didn’t know what to say. They shrugged their shoulders and looked at their father.

Well, Raymond said. I reckon we’ll have to negotiate it later. After we see how you manage.

He winked and turned away and then they understood it was all right. They walked over to the chute and stood at the makeshift table and looked at the vaccination guns and the boxes of medicine vials. They inspected it all and felt cautiously of the dehorner, its sharp cupped blood-encrusted ends, and they edged up to the smudge pot and held out their gloved hands to its gassy heat. Suddenly one of the cows bawled from inside the corral and they ducked to see through the boards to tell which one it was, and the cattle were milling around waiting for what was to come.

The men went to work. Guthrie climbed into the corral and immediately the cattle eyed him and began to shove back against the far side of the lot. He walked steadily toward them. The cattle started to herd and shift along the back fence, and he ran up swiftly, cutting off the last two animals, a black heifer and an old speckle-faced cow, and turned them back out across the trampled dirt. They tried to double back, but each time he flapped his arms and yelled at them, and finally they trotted suspiciously into the narrow alley that fed into the chute. From outside the alley, Raymond jammed a pole though the fence behind them so they couldn’t back out and then he jabbed the heifer with the electric prod and it made a sizzling sound against her flank, and she snorted and leaped into the squeeze chute. He caught her head in the head-catch and she kicked and crashed until he squeezed the sidebars against her ribs. She lifted her black rubbery muzzle and bawled in terror.

Meanwhile Harold had taken off his canvas jacket and pulled on an old orange sweatshirt that had one of its sleeves scissored off, and he had greased his bare arm with lubricant jelly. Now he stepped up behind the chute and twisted the heifer’s tail over her back. He fit his hand inside her and pawed out the loose green warm manure and shoved in deeper, feeling for a calf. His face was turned skyward against her flank, his eyes squinted shut in concentration. He could feel the round hard knot of the cervix, the larger swelling beyond. He rotated his hand over it. The bones were already forming.

Yeah. She’s got one, he hollered to Raymond.

He withdrew his arm. It was red and slick, spotted with mucus and flecks of manure and little threads of blood. He held his arm away from his body and it steamed in the cold air, and while he waited for the next one to come in he stood near the smudge pot beside the two boys to warm himself. They looked at his arm in fascination and then looked up into his old reddened face and he nodded at them, and they turned to watch the heifer in the chute.

While his brother had felt inside her for a calf Raymond had checked her eyes and mouth, and now he shot her in the hip, high up with the two vaccination guns, injecting her with Ivermec against lice and worms, and lepto against aborting. When he was done he opened the chute and she jumped out crow-hopping, kicking up loose dirt and hard clods of manure, and she came to a stop in the middle of the holding pen where she swung her head around, bawling forlornly into the wintry afternoon, and slung a long silver rope of slaver across her shoulder.

Raymond jumped the next one, the old speckle-faced cow, into the chute and caught her head and tightened the sidebars, and Harold stepped forward and lifted her tail and cleaned out the green flop and went in with his hand and arm, feeling. But there was nothing to feel; she was empty. He wiggled his fingers, feeling for what was supposed to be there, but there wasn’t anything.

She’s open, he hollered. She must not of stuck. What you want to do with her?

She always had good calves before, Raymond said.

Yeah, but she’s getting old. Look at her. Look at how gaunt she’s taken in the flank there.

She might stick the next time.

I don’t want to put any more feed in her, waiting to see if she’s going to, Harold said. Pay for that all winter. Do you?

Leave her go then, Raymond said. But she was a good mother, you have to say that for her.

He swung the gate open ahead of her and released the chute, and the old cow trotted out into the empty loading pen from which she would be trucked away, and she raised her speckled face, sniffed the air and turned completely around and stood still. She looked nervous and displaced, jittery-looking. The black heifer in the holding pen on the other side of the fence bawled at her, and the old cow trotted over to the rails where they stood, separated by the fence, breathing at one another.

From the smudge pot the two boys watched it all. They stamped their feet and flapped their arms in their winter coats, warming themselves and watching their father and the old McPheron brothers in their efforts. Overhead the sky was as blue as just-washed café crockery and the sun was shining brilliantly. But the afternoon was turning even colder. There was something building up in the west. From far off over the mountains the clouds were stacking up. The boys stayed near the smudge pot, trying to keep warm.

Later, when there were only a few of the cows and heifers left to test, their father came over to the fence near the smudge pot. He blew his nose thoroughly on a blue handkerchief and folded it and put it back in his pocket. You boys want to come in here and help me? he said.

Yes.

I could use you.

They climbed the fence and dropped down into the corral. The remaining cattle shied back, eyeing them, nervous and jittery, their heads lifted alertly like antelope or deer. The air inside the pen was thick and made the boys want to cover their noses and mouths with something.

Now. Watch me, their father said. They’re excited already. So don’t do anything unnecessary.

The boys looked at the cattle.

Stay even with me. Spread out a little. But watch they don’t kick you. That’s the way they’re going to hurt you. That tall red cow there particularly.

Which one is she? Ike said.

That old tall one, Guthrie said. Without any white on her front legs. See her? With that chewed-off tail.

What’s wrong with her?

She’s gotten spooky. You want to watch her is all.

The boys stayed even with their father. They moved fanwise across the corral. The cattle began to shift and bunch, piling back on one another; they wheeled and massed against the back fence. Behind them a board cracked. Then the cattle began to string out, sliding along the rails, and at the last moment their father rushed forward and yelled at them and lashed out with a thin braided whip and popped an old frosteared cow across the nose and she skidded in the dirt and snorted, then wheeled around. Behind her there was a young white-faced heifer that turned with her.

Guthrie and the boys headed these two across the corral. The boys kept spread out beside him, and the animals trotted ahead kicking up spurts of dirt and dust from the trampled ground, and then at the mouth of the alley the young heifer got frightened and turned back.

Head her, Guthrie shouted. Don’t let her get past. Turn her.

Bobby flapped his arms and hollered, Hey! Hey!

The heifer glared at him, her eyes white-rimmed, and then she whirled around and her tail went up and she bucked once and kicked and then rushed on into the alley, crowding past the old cow that was already there in that narrow space. Raymond jammed the pole through behind them.

All right, their father said. You think you can do that?

What do you mean?

Just do that every time. Bring two in at a time. But be careful.

Where will you be? Ike said.

I need to help up front, Guthrie said. Raymond’s getting tired. It’s too much for one man to do. And that second cow there has a horn that needs to be taken off. He looked at the boys. Here, you can have this.

He handed the thin herding whip to Ike who took it and hefted it and swung it limberly back and forth over his shoulder. He snapped the end of it at a clod of manure. The clod jumped.

What do I get to use? Bobby said. I ought to have something too.

Their father looked around. All right, he said. He called at Raymond: Let me have one of those hot shots out there.

The old man brought one of the cattle prods and handed it over the fence. Guthrie took it and demonstrated it to them, how to rotate the handle and release the little button so it would give a charge. See how you do that? he said. He poked it against his boot toe and it sparked. He handed the cattle prod to Bobby, and Bobby examined it and touched it against his shoe. It sizzled and he jerked his foot back, then he glanced up at them and there was a surprised look on his face.

I get to use it too, Ike said.

Trade off with it, Guthrie said. You can swap the whip with him. But don’t get carried away. It’s just if you need it. And anyway you have to be close enough to even be able to use it.

Does it hurt them? Bobby said.

They don’t like it, Guthrie said. It gets their attention for sure. He put his hands on their shoulders. So. All set?

I guess so.

I’ll be right out here.

He climbed out of the corral and joined the McPheron brothers at the chute. They brought the heifer in and Harold tested her. She was carrying a calf and Raymond shot her twice in the hip and let her out into the holding pen with the others. Then they brought the cow in, and after she was tested and vaccinated Guthrie wrapped his arms around her head and pulled her head violently to one side, her neck stretching tight, her eyes wild and frantic, while Raymond fit the sharp ends of the dehorner over the malformed horn. It was a hard ugly thing, twisting out from where it had been cut off unsuccessfully once before. He clamped down with the dehorner, twisting it, applying pressure on the grips, and finally cut through. The horn dropped off like a piece of sawed wood and left a white dishedout tender-looking place at her skull. Immediately the blood spurted out in a thin spray, making a little puddle in the dirt. Guthrie held on to the cow’s head and she bawled, rolling her eyes in panic, fighting him, while Raymond shook out powdered blood-stop into the cut, and the blood soaked it up and trickled down her face. He shook out more powder and pressed it in, mixing it with his finger, and they released her into the holding pen and she went out tossing her head, with a line of blood still dribbling along her eye.

In the corral the two boys worked hard with the remaining cattle amidst the dirt and swirling dust and they managed to line two more into the alley, and the men began to work on them. But one of the cows turned up open. They released her into the separate loading pen with the old speckle-faced cow, and the two animals nosed one another and stood facing the direction they’d come from.

That’s another one never stuck, Harold said.

Maybe you ought to let old Doc Wycoff breed them, Guthrie said. With his A-I.

Sure. We could do that, Raymond said. Only he’s kind of steep.

That makes me think, Harold said. Didn’t we ever tell you about that time Raymond and me walked in on him?

If you did, Guthrie said, I don’t recall it.