bitch!” Jake was out of the saddle and running to the deserted calf. He yanked off his shirt, bent over the dark heap on the ground, and began rubbing it, wiping away the membrane. The calf gave a feeble gasp. Jake tipped the head back and thrust his hand down the throat, pulling out mucus. He lifted the calf to its feet, shouting at Kelsey, “Here! Hold him up! I’ve got to head that wild one off!”
Hurriedly Kelsey dismounted, went to the calf, and put his hands on it. The calf felt warm and damp. He watched Jake ride after the heifer, which ran in circles around the other heifer and her calf. She kept bellowing, and the long bloody afterbirth dangled from her. Then Jake’s horse was right on her flank, darting to head her off, swerving with incredible speed, anticipating her every move, working her farther and farther away from the calf she wanted to claim. Kelsey saw that Jake was taking the wild-eyed heifer toward the barn. He looked at the wobbly calf and didn’t know what to do. Then he gathered it in his arms and started walking toward the corrals, the old saddle horse following. The calf bawled weakly. From it rose the humid, rank, yet strangely sweet odor of birth. It was a smell could turn a man’s stomach, Kelsey thought, but it was the smell of life. The sun came over the east mountain range of the Park, and its light and warmth fell over him and the new calf.
Around him the cattle stirred, some getting up from where they had lain among the sagebrush, some taking a step or two and stretching, some appearing to notice him for the first time and moving away. The pinkish-red light of the sun touched them and stained the tops of the mountains behind the long ridge back of the ranch house. And a small wind came out of the south, bringing the fragrance of woodsmoke, telling him that Hilder was up and had started the cookstove in the kitchen. He saw Jake waiting for him at the corral gate, and he shifted the calf in his arms and walked faster.
They put the calf with the heifer in a box stall in the barn. “If she don’t claim him,” Jake said, “we’ll have to feed him skim milk.” Then they walked toward the house. Jake’s hand rested for a moment on Kelsey’s shoulder. “You got a good initiation, kid.”
Kelsey looked at the stains on his clothes. He remembered the feel of the calf and the way the hair had curled on the top of its head. And he thought how quick was the beginning of life—out of darkness, like the sun bursting over the mountains. “It was fine,” he said, more to himself than to Jake.
The men were at the breakfast table. There were beads of water on Dalt’s thick, slicked-down hair. Hilder’s face was redder than usual from bending over the hot stove. Tommy looked up from his place at the head of the table, and Kelsey felt the coldness in his small black eyes. “If you expect to stick around here,” Tommy said, “don’t let me catch you actin’ the cowboy. You get on the end of a shovel where you belong—and stay there.”
Hilder and Dalt looked down at their plates. Jake took off his hat and smoothed the top of his bald head. “Shucks,” Jake said mildly, “it’s no skin off’n your nose, Tommy. Work day ain’t even started. What’s wrong with the kid givin’ me a hand?”
“You run the cattle,” Tommy said shortly. “I run the ranch, see? I’ll decide what he does and when.”
Jake shrugged. “Some people act like they been hit in the ass with a sour apple.” He reached for the tin washbasin. “Come on, Kelsey. Let’s clean up.”
Kelsey’s face was hot. Did Tommy have to speak so sharply to him before all the men?
Two weeks later Kelsey sat in the bunkhouse with Dalt and Jake; he spent every free moment in the bunkhouse, for that was the only place he could see Jake and talk with him and be free of Tommy’s curt tongue and sharp eyes.
The rain made no sound on the dirt roof, but Kelsey could see it streaking down the fly-specked window. Jake had taken off his yellow slicker and was shaking it. “Keeps on rainin’, a man’ll have web feet,” Jake said.
“It won’t,” Dalt replied. “It’ll turn to snow. Now’s the meanest time in this country. A man’s sick of winter and achin’ clear down to his guts for warm weather. And what kind of summer we got here anyhow? Not much, I’ll tell you. Like an old-timer said, North Park’s nine months winter and three months late fall. And spring—I haven’t seen any of it.”
“Up here at eight thousand feet,” Jake said, “spring’s bound to be mostly a notion a man carries in his mind.” He eased his feet close to the round black heating stove. His boots were wet, and they began to steam. A roaring sound came from the stove, rising and falling with the gusty wind. “Got a few more calves this mornin’,” he added. “Hell of a day for those young cows to be havin’ ’em.”
Kelsey stopped whittling on a match. “Jake, if you were starting a cattle herd what would you buy?”
“She-stuff. It multiplies fast.”
“A man can’t get anywhere working for wages,” Kelsey said. “I’ve got to get cattle.”
Jake squinted at him and smiled. “You got the curse of ambition, kid. All depends on what a man wants, I guess. Now me, I wouldn’t own a cow for love or money. Oh, I like ’em. I feel good bein’ around ’em, but let somebody else worry about the market, how many are gonna die with blackleg, and if there’s enough hay to get ’em through the winter.”
“How much hay does it take to winter a cow?”
“A man oughta figure roughly two tons in this country.”
Dalt got up and stood with his back to the stove. “These ranchers in the Park been cuttin’ that short by a damn sight. They’ll end up with too many cattle for the feed they got.”
“They’ve got by,” Jake answered, nodding in the heat.
“Yeah? Well it could happen right here; if Monte Maguire keeps buildin’ up the cow herd, we could lose half of ’em in a tough winter.”
“Ah, hell,” Jake said. “I won’t buy that.”
“Ranchin’s tough up here,” Dalt went on. “Ask some of the Laramie Plains men what they think about raisin’ cattle in North Park. They’ll tell you it’s a lot easier out their way. They don’t put up much hay; the plains bare off with the wind, and a cow brute can rustle most of the winter. They don’t get the snow we get, and it don’t stay on the ground; a cow can find grass.”
Jake sat up straight. “Just because you think the Laramie Plains is a banana belt compared to the Park, don’t figure Wyoming’s foolproof, either. Parts of that country are just as tough as here, and they’ve had some blizzards would curl your whiskers.”
“It’s still an easier way of ranching.”
“Yeah? And what cattle top the markets? The Park cattle. And you know why? Because they’re heavier; they weigh more at market. And another thing, when a cow has to rustle grass she’s a weaker cow, and her calf’s weaker and gotta be tailed up when it’s born instead of standin’ strong.”
“Don’t get your dander up, Jake. I wasn’t figurin’ on tellin’ you anything about cows.”
“The trouble is,” Kelsey said, frowning, “a man would have to go deep in debt to own a ranch and cattle.”
“Shucks, kid,” Jake said, grinning, “a man ain’t livin’ till he’s in debt. Never really
