“What’a youse talkin’ bout?” Bucky placed meat-flecked hands on his hips, feigning shock.
“I doubt this will come as a surprise, but there’s laws against selling illegal hides and pelts,” Roper answered.
“I don’t sell nothin’ but what I’se got government permits for. There ain’t no law agin trappin’ an I know, there ain’t no law agin making deer sausage or salami any more’n there’s a law agin you makin’ that awful homemade wine of yours, Rube.”
“You’re right,” Ruby agreed. “But there is a law against poaching and you can’t sell wild game in Utah and you can’t transport it across state lines either.”
“I don’t do neither,” Lee declared brashly, wiping his hands on his Levis. He finally had the mixing tub two-thirds full of ground meat. “I make meat products for my own use and when I do occasionally do a little retailin’, I just charge a small processin’ fee, no charge at all for the meat. You know, for my time and the pork filler. Nobody gives me free pig meat.”
“Some might call that splitting legal hairs,” Roper concluded as he looked over Lee’s shoulder, eyeing the tub.
“Or some might just call it plain bullshit,” Ruby said.
“You can’t make bulls out’a bullshit,” Bucky replied.
“Jesus,” Ruby said, crossing herself in the traditional Catholic way. “Just once, I wish you’d make some sense.”
“Well it’s no more bullshit than those cougar hides you bring in for me to sell. I suppose you got a permit for all them?”
“I thought you just sold your own trappings,” Roper said, breaking into a disarming grin that seemed to instantly expunge the sadness from his eyes and fill the empty hollows of his cheeks.
“I have a right to protect my calves,” Ruby retorted quickly, ignoring Roper.
“Is that what you call it?” Lee sneered. “It’s just fortunate, I guess, that one cat hide brings youse more money than a whole yearlin’ calf on the hoof.”
Plainly irritated, Ruby turned and stomped away, weaving around clumps of floor debris. A half dozen rapid steps and she was clear across the one room cabin, another half dozen and she was quickly back.
“If it’s so risky, why do you fence them? And why is it you always have fresh sausage meat year around?”
“I have my sources,” Lee said, unperturbed. Deftly he cut a slab of pork loin and began pushing it in the hopper with one hand and grinding with the other. “You need to add a third of pork, venison doesn’t have enough fat.”
“It’s September eighteenth,” Ruby persisted, “a full month before hunting season. How is it you’ve got fresh venison?”
“Like I said, I got my sources. Hell, Rube, you’re part Injun. You of all people ought’ta know not everyone needs a huntin’ license.”
“I’m a quarter Cherokee, you know the Trail of Tears. Not related to the local Indians.”
“The trail of what? Well anyway, that’s almost like being part Injun.”
Ruby shook her head in disbelief then added, “so the Utes just give you their meat?”
“More like sell it. Navajos too.” The mixing vessel was now full and Lee used a large manual mixer to blend the ground pork and venison. “Looks good, huh?” he said, smiling through his stained picket-fence teeth.
“So the Indians sell you their deer meat,” Roper said thoughtfully. “But when you retail, you just charge for processing and not for the meat. Sounds like you’d need an extra high processing fee just to break even.”
“S’mantics,” Lee said, adding some sage and red pepper, “word games. I’ll fry up some fresh and let youse try it. S’on sale to my friends, youse know.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet it is,” Ruby snickered.
“Just need to add my secret spices,” Bucky divulged as he retrieved a Mason jar from the cabinet directly behind him. Opening the jar, he took a pinch of what appeared to be a mixture of various kinds of dried leaves, pulverized them by rolling back and forth in his palms then sprinkled the flakes on the ground meat.
“Smells like sage,” Roper suggested.
“No, it smells more like sagebrush and after a good rain,” Ruby declared, as the piquant musky odor diffused through the cabin.
Suddenly the over head lights flickered off then came back on for a moment then abruptly went dead.
“Generator’s outta gas,” Bucky announced as he pulled a gas can from the cabinet under the sink. “This won’t take but a minute.”
Bucky disappeared out the kitchen door and five minutes later the lights flickered back on. Bucky reappeared at the door then went back to his sausage bowl.
“Well, I’ve gotta be going, anyhow,” Roper said. “Cows won’t move themselves.”
“Are you moving them off the Fifty down to the Bench already?” Ruby asked.
“Nah, just moving them from my East Spring pasture to my Tank Springs pasture,” Roper explained. “You know, BLM makes me rotate every two months.”
“Seems awful early,” Ruby insisted, looking puzzled, “I’m not rotating mine for at least another month.”
“Yeah, but with the drought, my feed’s mostly gone,” Roper answered. “Your pasture probably is in better shape.”
“Brisco ask you to move early?” Ruby asked suspiciously.
“Nah,” Roper replied. “Feed’s just gone. Cow’s can’t eat dirt.”
“This is way early,” Ruby persisted. “You’re going to run out of winter pasture way before spring.”
“Just have to sell some early.” Roper shrugged.
“Who’s this guy, Brisco?” Bucky interrupted, mashing the sausage into patties and grabbing a frying pan out of the sink. “I’ll cook youse up a batch.”
“He’s the new head of the BLM,” Ruby replied,” and he’s a she— Judith Brisco. She took over for Egan.”
“Can’t say that I’m sorry,” Roper said, sitting back down on the stool again. “Didn’t much like Jon Egan. Never knew where he stood.”
“Well,” Lee said, dropping meat patties into the sizzling hot skillet. “This is just the beginning, mark my words. First they’ll ask you to move early, then they’ll ask you to voluntarily drop allotments, then they’ll just seize ‘em. Be just like the little Battle of the Bighorn.”
“Nobody asked me to move,” Roper replied, a hint of irritation laced his voice, “and I’m not moving all three hundred and fifty. Anyway, I don’t see any similarity to the Little Bighorn.”
“If they restrict my allotment, I won’t be able to make it.” Ruby frowned and removed her black Stetson, then untied the red-checkered bandana that bound her coal-black hair. “Not the way beef prices are droppin’.”
“You an Roper ought’ta go on and join up outfits—less overhead and youse are across-the-fence neighbors anyway,” Bucky advised. “R and R ranching, sounds good.”
“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” Ruby said, still fussing with her hair.
“Not that complicated. Youse two are already shackin’ up anyway, ain’t you?” Bucky Lee sneered.
“No!” Roper blushed, quickly averting his copper blue eyes to the