Myra tugged on her gloves, flipped up her jacket collar and stomped into the barn. She should probably apologize, but really, if he thought one ran a ranch sitting by a fire drinking coffee, the Flying Owl would be in shambles before spring thaw.
Marching to the back of the barn, she led Cayenne, a sorrel mare, out of her stall and had the saddle on and cinched as Zeke appeared in a Boston Red Sox ball cap. His ears were gonna freeze, but he’d learn. “You get the black gelding,” she told him. “His name is Ember. Saddle’s on the rack. Bridles are on the wall peg.” She took one down and settled it over the sorrel’s head.
He flashed her a glance, as if he had something to say, but then yanked up the saddle, smoothed the blanket over the gelding’s back and settled the saddle as easily as if it were an everyday occurrence. Same with the bridle.
In silence they left the barn. Zeke mounted while Myra closed the barn door, then she, too, swung into the saddle.
Zeke let her lead. As they moved from a trot into a canter, he pulled alongside. “Feels like we’re in the middle of a snow globe. Is snow usual this time of year? Will it last? At supper Eric said the weatherman predicted mountain snow. Your dad scoffed.”
“The almanac shows it could last a few days. It’s early. As a rule, the first snowfall is late September or early October. If this is a harbinger of what’s to come, it could wreck winter-wheat crops.”
“Do you raise and sell wheat, too?”
“Ranchers raise, cut and bale wheat, grass and alfalfa for cattle feed. Lose a crop and you either have to buy grain at outrageous costs or sell stock you can’t afford to feed at a loss.” It was plain he didn’t know diddly-squat about ranching. Maybe Jewell was right, maybe he’d opt out. She wasn’t a fan of feeding the greater herd by hand this early in the season. But if it made him leave, she’d say, let it snow.
They reached the foothills where her stock huddled in a cut between the hills that blocked the windblown snow. Myra rode past them, uncoiled her rope, swung it around and yelled “Hi yi yi” several times. Startled, the animals bolted away from the noise.
“What do you want me to do?” Zeke called.
“Watch for stragglers. Make noise to bring ʼem back into the fold. I see some have my neighbor’s brand. We’ll take them in. He can collect them when it’s convenient. Hank Watson runs the Bar W. He’s kindly volunteered to truck my yearlings—uh, your yearlings—to market shortly. If you see the slant R brand, that’s Dave Ralston, your other neighbor. He’s a good guy to know. He rents out his baler. A ranch this size can’t afford to buy one.”
Zeke bobbed his head.
Myra noticed he rode well, and he brought in a number of strays as they rode down the hillside and made their way to the large enclosure. Subconsciously she’d hoped he’d screw up.
As the ranch came into sight through falling snowflakes, Myra raced ahead, hopped off Cayenne and opened the gate.
Without asking, Zeke hung back and drove the cattle through.
“Phew,” he said, swinging down to help Myra shut the gate. “I see they’re pawing up the snow to get to grass. Good they know to do that.”
“Yep. The snow is slacking some, but we still have to take hay out to the main herd. We’ll go put our horses up, hook the big tractor to the flatbed and load up twenty or so bales.”
“Okay.”
Myra couldn’t help but notice he sounded unsure. Maybe she should let him stop for coffee. On the other hand, if she kept the pressure on, by nightfall he could give up.
“Just unsaddle Ember. I’ll brush both horses down and feed them later. We need to get the hay distributed while it’s light.”
Again Zeke followed orders.
Myra fetched the tractor and hooked up the flatbed. Backing the trailer into the barn, she climbed a ladder to the hayloft and began tossing down large bales.
“Do you need assistance?” Zeke asked, squinting up at her.
“You could straighten them on the trailer. If I don’t have to do it at the end of pitching off twenty bales, it’ll save us time.”
He stepped up on the trailer and that was the first time Myra noticed he greatly favored his left arm. She heard him grunt as he hefted the heavy bales one-handed. For someone her size—and at five-seven she wasn’t petite—moving bales took knowing how to leverage the weight. Obviously it was the same for a man with an injured arm. She debated telling him to leave the stacking for her, after all. But she didn’t want to insult him. When she left, the work would all fall on him unless he hired help. Maybe he had a disability pension that would help cover costs. She and Gramps hadn’t had extra money to work with.
“I’ll drive the tractor this time because I know the route,” she said once they were ready. “You can sit on the bales. See, I’ve fitted one like a chair so you won’t bounce off.” She’d thought Zeke might laugh, but he had begun to look weary. And a dense fog had settled down, covering the mountains.
“Feels like we’ve landed on an alien planet,” Zeke hollered after she fired up the tractor and drove into the whirling mist.
So he did have a sense of humor. Myra tossed him a smile over her shoulder.
It took about half an hour to reach the pasture where the Angus heifers milled about on either side of a coulee. A bull stood in the brush beyond the fence. Stopping, Myra took her cutters out of the toolbox welded onto the tractor. Crawling back across hay bales, she cut one open, stood and spread hay into the draw. Big, snorting, drooling cows immediately jockeyed for access to the new hay and began to eat.
Taking his cue, Zeke snipped open the next bale and manhandled it farther along the natural trough. “Listen, this will go quicker if you drive the tractor and I do the bales.”
Taking pity on him, because Myra saw it wasn’t easy for him to do the lion’s share while favoring one arm, she said, “We can take turns. I’ll drive the length of this coulee. There’s another like it a few hundred yards over nearer the stream. We’ll catch it on the return trip. Oh, wait. Can you drive a tractor?”
“I learned to drive anything with a gas pedal and a steering wheel in the army, and we had to improvise if either of those pieces got shot out.”
She hid a grimace but nodded. It’d been over a year since her grandfather had been able to help her with any of the heavy chores. Working in tandem with Zeke cut the time by more than half what she’d thought it would take to attend to the herd.
“How many cattle did we just feed?” he asked as she broke apart the last bale.
“A hundred fifty, plus or minus any that wandered off or were taken down by coyotes. There are close to a hundred moms with yearlings that we put in the grassy pen by the barn. Those youngsters will be sold before true winter sets in. You calve in the spring, sell in the fall.”
Zeke looked around at the snow falling in earnest. “This isn’t winter?”
She rolled her eyes. “Far from it. For a Montana winter you’re talking snow too deep to trek through. Once the calves are shipped, you’ll bring the main herd down to pastures around the barn. Even then it can snow so hard you’ll have to take grain out on a sled. Every day you’ll break the ice on the water troughs.”
He hunched over the steering wheel and followed their earlier tracks back to the barn. Parking, he let the motor idle. “What next?”
“I’ll store the tractor and see to the horses. Then I’ll go in and start supper. Why don’t you go on to the house and get settled. I cleared out Gramps’s bedroom and put fresh sheets on the bed and towels in the bathroom. It’s the room to the right of the living room. My bedroom is at the back of the house. I could pack up and head out tonight, but with this storm I’d rather wait until