**Part 2**
Chapter Five: The Fan
One day in July, the fan quit and Moose wouldn’t eat.
We keep a big box fan hanging in the corner of his pen. Show steers get hot. Their hair is long and thick and they’re carrying a lot of weight. When it’s ninety-five degrees in Nebraska in July, they need air moving or they quit eating.
I came out for the ten o’clock feeding on a Wednesday night. Ninety-one degrees at ten at night. The air was like a wet blanket.
The fan wasn’t running. The motor had burned out. I could smell it.
Moose was standing in the corner of the pen with his head down. Breathing hard. The bunk was still half full from the afternoon. He hadn’t touched it.
I didn’t know what to do.
I called Cooper’s name. He didn’t come. He was asleep. He’d been up since five.
I stood in that pen in Brent’s boots and stared at that steer. Breathing hard. Not eating. Two weeks before the county fair.
If he went off feed now, he’d lose weight. Maybe fifty pounds. Maybe more. All the work. All summer. Every rinse.
I sat on the water tank and told my husband I didn’t know what I was doing.
Out loud. In the dark. With the barn light buzzing over my head and the bugs going crazy around it.
“Brent,” I said. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Nobody answered. Of course nobody answered.
“I don’t know how to fix a fan,” I said. “I don’t know what to do when he won’t eat. I don’t know if he’s sick. I don’t know if I’m feeding him wrong. I don’t know anything.”
I started crying.
“You were supposed to be here,” I said. “You were supposed to do this part. I was supposed to bring lemonade to the fair and sit in the bleachers and clap.”
I sat there on the edge of that water tank in Brent’s boots and cried. Really cried. The way I hadn’t let myself cry at the funeral, because Cooper was watching.
Then something wet pushed into my shoulder.
That steer pushed his wet nose into my shoulder.
Moose. Twelve hundred pounds of him. He’d come over from the corner of the pen without me hearing. He stood there next to the water tank and pushed his big white face into my shoulder.
Not hard. Gentle. The way he used to push Brent when Brent was scratching his neck.
I put my arm around his face. I held on.
He stood there and let me.
Then he walked to the bunk and cleaned it up.
Every bite. All the afternoon feed and the night feed together. He ate it all. Standing in the hot pen with no fan, at ten-thirty at night.
I sat on the water tank and watched him. Wiping my face on my sleeve.
When he was done, he licked the bottom of the bunk. Then he walked back over to the corner and lay down.
The next morning, before I went to work, a new fan was hanging in the corner of the pen.
A big one. A sixty-inch barn fan, the kind they use in dairy barns. Running. Blowing cool air across the whole pen.
I didn’t buy it. Cooper didn’t buy it. We didn’t have the money.
There was a receipt from the Cedar Bend Co-op stuck to the fence post with a piece of baling wire.
Sold to: Mike Olson. 60-inch barn fan. $389.00. PAID.
Chapter Six: The Weigh-In
He weighed in at the county fair at 1,342 pounds.
The Platte Valley County Fair. The last week of July. At the fairgrounds on the east edge of Cedar Bend, with the big white livestock barn and the show arena with the pipe rails and the grandstand where they have the tractor pull on Saturday night.
We hauled Moose in on Wednesday morning. In Brent’s stock trailer, behind my pickup. Cooper rode in the back with him, so he wouldn’t be scared.
Weigh-in was at nine. A long line of kids and steers waiting to cross the big scale at the end of the barn.
Cooper led him on. Moose stood perfectly still.
The man at the scale, a retired banker named Herb, looked at the readout.
“Thirteen forty-two,” he said.
Cooper turned around and looked at me.
I had Brent’s green notebook in my back pocket. I took it out. I opened it to the page from April. Brent’s handwriting at the bottom.
Guess for fair: 1,340.
Brent had guessed 1,340 in April.
Two pounds.
Cooper looked at the notebook. Then at me. Then at the scale.
“Two pounds,” he said. “He was off by two pounds.”
“Your dad was good at guessing,” I said.
Cooper took the notebook out of my hand. He took a pen out of his pocket. And under his dad’s guess, he wrote:
Actual: 1,342. You were right, Dad.
The steer show was Friday afternoon.
Three o’clock. In the big arena. Nine steers in the market steer class. Then the champions from each class would come back for the Grand Champion drive.
Cooper was up early. Five a.m. In the barn, at the fairgrounds, with Moose. Rinsing. Brushing. Blowing. Fitting. Trimming the hair on his legs with Brent’s clippers.
I helped. In Brent’s boots. Holding the halter while he worked.
Mike was in the barn too.
His son Logan had a steer in the same class. A black crossbred named Tank. Logan’s pen was three down from ours.
Mike and Logan were fitting Tank. Mike was working on the legs with his own clippers. He didn’t look over at us. Not once all morning.
But I saw him look at Moose. When he thought nobody was watching. Standing in the aisle, holding a can of adhesive spray, just looking.
Parents don’t walk into a 4-H class.
Everybody knows that. It’s a rule. Not written down anywhere, but everybody knows it. The kids show. The parents stand at the rail. You can help in the barn. You can fit the steer and wash him and clip him and blow him out. But when it’s time for the ring, the kid goes in alone.
That’s the point. That’s what 4-H is. Head, heart, hands, health. The kid does it.
So I knew I’d be standing at the rail. In the bleachers. Clapping.
That’s what I’d always thought I’d be doing.
Chapter Seven: One Lap
At two-forty-five, the steer show was about to start.
The arena was full. The bleachers on both sides. People standing three deep along the pipe rail. Farm families. Town families. Old men in seed caps. Kids in FFA jackets.
The nine steers in Cooper’s class were lined up in the warm-up area behind the big gate. Nine kids in white show shirts and jeans and boots. Holding their show sticks. Their steers groomed and fitted and gleaming.
I was standing at the gate. Just outside it. Where parents stand, to wish their kid luck before he goes in.
The superintendent stood in the middle of the ring with a microphone.
Dean Schmeckpeper. Sixty-two. He’s run the beef show at the Platte Valley County Fair for twenty-six years. He’s a big man with a white mustache and a voice like a combine starting.
“Good afternoon, folks,” he said. “Welcome to the market steer show.”
The crowd clapped.
“Before we get started,” Dean said, “I’d like to ask everybody to take a moment.”
The arena went quiet.
“Most of you knew Brent Olson,” Dean said. “Brent showed steers in this ring for eight years, when he was a kid. He won Grand Champion in 1998. He came back every year after that to help with the show. He hung the banners. He ran the scale. He stood right over there at the gate and told every nervous kid to breathe.”
He pointed at the gate. Where I was standing.
“We lost Brent in May,” he said. “He was forty-one.”
The whole arena was silent. Not a sound. Not a kid. Not a cow.
“He’d want us to have a good show,” Dean said. “So let’s have one. For Brent.”
Then he looked at me at the gate.
He didn’t say anything for a second. He looked at me. He looked down at my feet. At Brent’s brown Red Wings, three sizes too big, with the white scuff on the right toe.
He lowered the microphone. He walked across the ring to the gate. He stopped in front of me.
“Jamie,” he said quietly. “One lap. Then the rail.”
I didn’t understand.
“Dean, parents don’t go in.”
“I know the rule,” Dean said. “I wrote half the rules for this show.” He looked at my boots again. “One lap, Jamie. With your boy. For Brent. Then you go to the rail.”
He held the gate open.
Cooper looked at me. He was standing right behind me with Moose on the halter.
“Mom,” he said. “Come on.”
I walked into that ring in Brent’s brown boots, three sizes too big.
Hot July afternoon. Ninety-three degrees. The sun coming through the big open doors at the end of the arena.
Soft wood shavings underfoot. My boots sank into them. The wool socks in the toes squished.
A white barn behind the pipe rail. With the 4-H clover painted on the side. And a big banner hanging over the door: PLATTE VALLEY COUNTY FAIR, SINCE 1911.
Cooper led Moose in his white show shirt, his dad’s show stick in his hand.
Brent’s show stick. A long aluminum stick with a curved hook at the end, for scratching the steer’s belly to keep him calm. Brent got it when he was ten. He used it for eight years. He kept it in the barn on two nails over the door.
Cooper took it down the morning of the fair. He didn’t ask. He just took it.
I walked beside them. On the left side of Moose. Where I always walked down the lane at home.
We went around the ring. Slowly. The way Cooper taught me. Steer’s head up. Steer’s feet moving. Nice and easy.
The crowd didn’t make a sound.
I could hear the fans in the barn. I could hear the shavings under Moose’s hooves. I could hear my own breathing.
I could hear somebody in the bleachers crying.
I looked at the rail once.
Halfway around. On the far side of the ring. By the gate where the steers come out.
Mike was leaning on the pipe in his seed cap and tan work shirt.
Logan was beside him with Tank, waiting to go in. But Mike wasn’t looking at Logan. He was looking at me.
Not smiling. Not frowning.
Just watching.
He watched me walk his brother’s steer around that ring in his brother’s boots. His face didn’t move. His hands were on the pipe rail. His knuckles were white.
I looked away.
I finished my lap and stepped out.
Dean held the gate. I walked through it. I went to the rail. I stood there.
I didn’t trust my legs. I held on to the pipe.
Chapter Eight: The Judge
Nine steers in the class.
The judge was a man from Iowa. Tom Riggins. A cattle feeder from Atlantic, with a big operation and a reputation for being fair and blunt. He’d judged the Iowa State Fair twice. He wore a straw cowboy hat and jeans and a pressed blue shirt.
He stood in the middle of the ring and watched the nine steers walk around him. He didn’t say anything. He just watched.
Then he had them line up. Nine steers in a row, side by side, facing the bleachers.
The judge put his hand on every one.
He walked down the line. He stopped at each steer. He put his hand on its back and ran it down the spine. He grabbed a handful of hide over the ribs and felt it. He squeezed the tailhead. He looked at each steer from the front and the back and the side.
He talked to every kid. Asked them questions. How much does he weigh? What are you feeding him? How long have you had him?
When he got to Cooper, he stopped longer.
He put his hand on Moose’s back. He ran it down slowly. He grabbed the hide over the ribs. He pinched it. He moved his hand to the brisket. To the flank. He felt the hair.
“How much does he weigh?” he asked Cooper.
“Thirteen forty-two, sir.”
“What’s he eating?”
Cooper told him. The ration. Every number. Out of his head, without looking at the notebook.
The judge looked at him for a long moment. Then he moved on.
Cooper set Moose up square, just like the lane.
That’s what you do when the judge is looking. You set the steer’s feet. All four of them. Square under his body, like a table. You use the show stick to tap his feet into place. You keep his head up.
Cooper did it perfectly. The way he’d done it every night all summer, at the end of the lane, by the mailbox. With me standing behind him in Brent’s boots.
Moose stood there like a statue. Head up. Ears forward. Not moving a muscle.
The judge walked to the end of the line. He stood back. He looked at all nine for a long time.
Then he walked to Logan’s steer. Tank. The big black crossbred. The biggest steer in the class. Thirteen ninety.
He tapped Logan on the shoulder. He pointed to the head of the ring.
The judge pulled a big steer to the top.
The crowd murmured. Logan led Tank to the head of the ring, where the class winner stands. Mike was at the rail. I saw his face.
He didn’t look happy. He looked at Logan. Then at Cooper, still in the line, holding Moose.
The judge walked back down the line. Slowly. Looking at each steer again.
Then he stopped in front of Moose.
He stood there for a long time. With his hands on his hips. Looking.
He handled him one more time.
He walked up to Moose and put his hand on his back again. Ran it all the way down. Felt the ribs. The hide. The hair. He walked around to the other side and did it again.
He stepped back.
He pointed at my son and waved him past all eight.
Past Logan and Tank. To the very head of the ring. To the top.
Cooper didn’t move. He just stood there. Holding the halter. Like he didn’t understand.
The judge waved him again. Harder. Come on.
Cooper led Moose forward. Past the line. Past the other seven steers. Past Logan, who stepped Tank back to make room.
To the head of the ring. In front of the bleachers. In front of everybody.
The crowd went crazy.
I couldn’t hear anything. Just noise. People standing up in the bleachers. Clapping. Yelling. Somebody whistling.
I was holding the pipe rail so hard my hands hurt.
Then the ringman handed the judge the microphone.
The judge took it. He held it for a second, looking down at it.
He looked down the line at Cooper and started to talk.
Chapter Nine: What the Judge Said
“I’ve been judging steers for thirty-one years,” Tom Riggins said.
His voice came out of the big speakers on the barn. Deep and slow. Iowa slow.
“Most of the time, I can tell you about a steer in about ten seconds. How big he is. How he’s built. What he’s going to grade on the rail.”
He looked at Moose.
“And most of the time,” he said, “I can tell you about the people who fed him in about thirty.”
The arena got quiet again.
“This big black steer,” the judge said, pointing at Tank, “is a good steer. Big. Powerful. He’s got more muscle than anything else in this ring. Somebody’s going to want him on their feedlot.” He nodded at Logan. “Good job, son.”
Logan nodded back. Mike, at the rail, didn’t move.
“But this red steer,” the judge said.
He walked over and put his hand on Moose’s back.
“This red steer,” he said, “was fed every single day.”
I stopped breathing.
“I can feel it,” he said. “In his hide. In his hair. A steer that gets fed on time, every time, at the same hour, with the same ration, carries his flesh different. Even. Smooth. All the way down.” He ran his hand along Moose’s side. “No soft spots. No hard spots. Nothing missed.”
He moved his hand to the hair.
“And this hair,” he said. “This steer’s been rinsed three times a day. All summer. I’d bet my truck on it. You can’t fake this hair. You can’t buy it. You can only earn it, one bucket of cold water at a time.”
He turned to Cooper.
“Son,” he said. Into the microphone. “Who fed this steer?”
Cooper looked up at him. At the judge. At the microphone.
Then he turned around. He looked out over the whole arena. At the bleachers. At the rail.
He found me.
“My dad picked him out,” Cooper said. His voice was very clear. “In October. And we fed him together till May.”
The judge waited.
“My dad died in May,” Cooper said. “In the field. He was forty-one.”
The arena was dead silent.
“And then my mom fed him,” Cooper said. “Every day. At five-thirty in the morning and ten at night. She came home from the school on her lunch break to rinse him. She’d never fed a steer before. I taught her.” His voice cracked. “She wore my dad’s boots. Every day. Because they were his.”
The judge looked at Cooper for a long time.
Then he looked out at the rail. Where I was standing. In Brent’s boots.
“Ma’am,” he said into the microphone. “Are you this boy’s mother?”
I couldn’t speak. I nodded.
“Come back in this ring,” the judge said.
Dean opened the gate.
I walked back in. In the shavings. In the boots. Every step squished. I walked across that ring to my son and stood beside him, next to Moose.
The judge looked at me. At my face. At my school cook polo shirt. At Brent’s boots, three sizes too big, with the white scuff on the right toe.
“An old feeder told me something when I was younger than your boy,” he said. Not into the microphone now. Just to me. Quiet. “He said, feeding cattle isn’t a man’s job or a woman’s job.”
My breath caught.
“It’s an every-single-day job,” I finished.
He looked at me in surprise. Then he smiled. A slow, crooked Iowa smile.
“Somebody’s been telling you the truth, ma’am,” he said.
He raised the microphone again.
“This is my class winner,” he said. “And he’s going to be hard to beat in the champion drive.” He handed the microphone back to the ringman. Then he turned back to Cooper and me and held out his hand.
He shook Cooper’s hand. Then mine.
“Your husband,” he said quietly, “would have been proud of both of you.”
Moose won Grand Champion Market Steer at the Platte Valley County Fair.
Forty minutes later, in the champion drive. Against the winners of all six classes. The judge walked down the line of champions three times. Then he walked straight to Cooper and slapped Moose on the hip so hard it echoed.
The crowd was already standing before he did it.
