**Part 1**<\/p>\n
Nine Hundred Dollars<\/p>\n
Nine hundred-dollar bills came across the top board of the steer pen.<\/p>\n
It was the third Saturday in June. Six-thirty in the evening. The sun was low over the cornfield west of the barn, and the light came in sideways through the gaps in the boards, gold and full of dust.<\/p>\n
My brother-in-law stood on the outside of the pen with his forearms on the top board. He was holding the money out in one hand. Folded once down the middle. Fanned a little, so you could see it was hundreds.<\/p>\n
He held them out like he was paying for seed corn.<\/p>\n
\u201cNine hundred,\u201d Mike said. \u201cCash.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t looking at me. He was looking at Cooper.<\/p>\n
My son was standing in the middle of the pen with a full bucket of feed in his hand. Five gallons. Rolled corn and pellets and a scoop of the supplement Brent always added. He\u2019d mixed it himself, from the notebook, the way he\u2019d done every evening for six weeks.<\/p>\n
Moose was standing at the bunk, waiting. Twelve hundred pounds of red-and-white Hereford, with his white face turned toward the bucket and his ears forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cLogan can finish him out,\u201d Mike said. \u201cTake him over to our place this week. Feed him with ours. Show him at the county fair in his name.\u201d<\/p>\n
He glanced at me. Finally.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo man was left to feed it right, Jamie,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cooper was standing right there with a full bucket.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say a word.<\/p>\n
He just set the bucket down. Slow and careful. On the packed dirt by the bunk. Like it was full of eggs.<\/p>\n
Then he stood there with his hands at his sides. Thirteen years old. In a feed-store cap that used to be his dad\u2019s, too big, the brim pushed down over his eyes.<\/p>\n
Moose put his nose in the bucket and started eating. Loud. Nobody else moved.<\/p>\n
Mike is Cooper\u2019s only uncle.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s Brent\u2019s older brother. Forty-four. He farms the other half of the Olson ground, four miles north, with his wife, Deb, and their two boys. Logan is fifteen. Tyler is twelve.<\/p>\n
Mike taught Cooper to drive a four-wheeler. Mike took him fishing at Johnson Lake every Fourth of July. Mike stood in the cemetery in May with his hand on Cooper\u2019s shoulder while they lowered his brother into the ground.<\/p>\n
That boy had already lost enough men for one year.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t going to make him lose another one in a steer pen over nine hundred dollars.<\/p>\n
I said no to the money and let the show ring answer for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re keeping him,\u201d I said. \u201cCooper\u2019s showing him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike looked at me for a long time. Then at Cooper. Then at the money in his hand.<\/p>\n
He folded the bills back up. He put them in the chest pocket of his work shirt. He snapped it shut.<\/p>\n
He took his forearms off the top board. And he walked off. Back to his pickup in the yard. He didn\u2019t say goodbye.<\/p>\n
Cooper watched him go.<\/p>\n
He stood in the pen with his hands at his sides until Mike\u2019s pickup was all the way down the lane and out onto the county road. Until the dust settled.<\/p>\n
Then he picked up Brent\u2019s notebook off the fence post where he\u2019d set it. A green spiral notebook from the Dollar General, with feed amounts and weights and dates written in Brent\u2019s square handwriting.<\/p>\n
He opened it to the evening\u2019s page. He wrote down how much Moose ate. In his own handwriting, under his dad\u2019s.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say anything about his uncle. Not that night. Not for a long time.<\/p>\n
Chapter Two: Moose<\/p>\n
Brent and Cooper had picked that calf out at weaning, the October before.<\/p>\n
We run about sixty cows on our half of the Olson place, outside Cedar Bend, Nebraska. Commercial cattle, mostly black. But Brent kept eight registered Hereford cows because his dad did, and his granddad did, and because he liked the way they looked standing in a green pasture.<\/p>\n
Every October, when the calves came off the cows, Brent and Cooper would walk the weaning pen together. Looking for the one.<\/p>\n
Last October, they found him.<\/p>\n
A red-and-white bull calf, with a white face and a white blaze running up between his eyes. Big-boned. Long through the middle. Calm. Brent said he had the best disposition of any calf he\u2019d ever raised.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at him, Coop,\u201d Brent said. They were leaning on the pen together, the two of them, same lean, same boots on the bottom board. \u201cHe\u2019s not scared of anything. He\u2019s just standing there taking it all in. Like a big old moose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper laughed. \u201cMoose.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was his name.<\/p>\n
They fed him and walked him all winter.<\/p>\n
Every morning at five-thirty, before Brent went out to do chores and before Cooper caught the school bus. Every evening at six, after supper. They\u2019d mix his feed in the barn from Brent\u2019s notebook. They\u2019d brush him. They\u2019d halter him and walk him up and down the lane in the dark with a flashlight.<\/p>\n
In January it was eighteen below. They walked him anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteer doesn\u2019t know it\u2019s cold,\u201d Brent said. \u201cHe just knows if you show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brent kept everything in that green notebook.<\/p>\n
The ration was on a co-op receipt, stapled to the inside cover. Pounds of corn, pounds of pellets, pounds of supplement. How much to feed at what weight. When to step up.<\/p>\n
And every week, Moose\u2019s weight. Brent ran him across the livestock scale at the co-op in town every Saturday morning. He wrote it down.<\/p>\n
In April, at the bottom of the page, Brent wrote: Guess for fair: 1,340. Then he underlined it twice.<\/p>\n
Then Brent\u2019s heart quit at forty-one, in the middle of planting.<\/p>\n
May the ninth. A Thursday. He was planting corn on the south quarter. Mike was supposed to be there, helping. Running the tender truck, keeping the planter full of seed.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t. He\u2019d gone to the sale barn in Kearney that morning to look at a pen of feeder calves.<\/p>\n
Brent planted alone.<\/p>\n
Mike was the one who found him.<\/p>\n
He came back from Kearney at two in the afternoon. He drove out to the south quarter to check on the planting. The tractor was sitting in the middle of the field, idling, with the planter down.<\/p>\n
Brent was slumped over the steering wheel.<\/p>\n
Mike pulled him out of the cab. He did CPR in the dirt between the rows for twenty-two minutes until the ambulance came out from Cedar Bend. The paramedics told me he never stopped. They told me they had to pull him off.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t matter. The coroner said Brent was gone before he hit the steering wheel. An arrhythmia. A heart defect nobody ever knew he had.<\/p>\n
Forty-one years old.<\/p>\n
The planter was still half full of seed when they hauled the tractor home. Nobody finished that field for nine days.<\/p>\n
Then the neighbors came. Twelve of them, with their own tractors and their own seed. They planted the south quarter and the north quarter and everything else in one Saturday, while I sat in my kitchen with a casserole dish somebody brought and didn\u2019t eat it.<\/p>\n
Mike ran the tender truck. All day. He didn\u2019t stop for lunch. He didn\u2019t come in the house.<\/p>\n
Chapter Three: Every Single Day<\/p>\n
I am a school cook.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m the head cook at Cedar Bend Public Schools. Kindergarten through twelfth grade, all in one building. Three hundred and eleven kids. I\u2019ve been doing it for fourteen years.<\/p>\n
I can feed three hundred kids a hot lunch by eleven. Chicken and noodles. Taco salad. Sloppy joes and tater tots. I know how much flour makes how many rolls. I know which kids need seconds and which kids take food home in their pockets on Fridays.<\/p>\n
I did not know how to feed a steer to finish.<\/p>\n
I grew up in Lincoln. My dad was a mail carrier. My mom was a bank teller. We had a cat.<\/p>\n
I met Brent at the state fair when I was twenty-two. He was showing a heifer. I was eating a corn dog. He walked his heifer past me and she sneezed on my corn dog, and he was so embarrassed he bought me another one, and that was that.<\/p>\n
I learned a lot about cattle in fourteen years of marriage. I can pull a calf. I can doctor pinkeye. I can read a feed tag.<\/p>\n
But feeding a show steer is something else. It\u2019s a science and an art and a religion. Brent knew it. His dad knew it. I\u2019d always just watched.<\/p>\n
Cooper did.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I found out. Two weeks after the funeral. When I came out to the barn at five-thirty in the morning, because I couldn\u2019t sleep, and found my son already there.<\/p>\n
In the dark, with the shop light on. Mixing feed. From the notebook. Weighing every scoop on the old hanging scale.<\/p>\n
He had his dad\u2019s notebook open on the fence post and the ration on the co-op receipt.<\/p>\n
He looked up when I came in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can do it, Mom,\u201d he said. Before I could say anything. \u201cI know the ration. Dad showed me all winter. I know when to step him up. I know how to weigh it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He poured the feed into the bunk. Moose came over and started eating.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can do it,\u201d Cooper said again. Then his voice cracked. \u201cI just can\u2019t rinse him and hold him at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I learned.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all. I just learned. The way I learned to make chicken and noodles for three hundred, the way I learned to pull a calf. One day at a time.<\/p>\n
Cooper taught me. Thirteen years old, standing in the barn in his dad\u2019s cap, telling me what to do.<\/p>\n
Feed at five-thirty and ten.<\/p>\n
Five-thirty in the morning, before I left for the school kitchen. Ten at night, after I got home and made supper and checked homework. Weighed out on the hanging scale. Every scoop.<\/p>\n
Rinse at noon, three and six.<\/p>\n
You rinse a show steer to keep him cool and to train his hair. Cold water from the hose, all over, every inch. In the summer you do it three times a day. Noon, when it gets hot. Three, when it\u2019s hottest. Six, when it starts to cool.<\/p>\n
I drove home from the school at noon on my lunch break, every day, all summer, to rinse that steer. Twelve minutes each way. I ate a sandwich in the truck.<\/p>\n
Brush the hair up, blow it dry, walk him down the lane.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the evening. After the six o\u2019clock rinse. You brush the hair against the grain with a stiff brush, so it stands up. Then you blow it dry with a big blower that sounds like a jet engine. So the hair trains to grow up and out, so he looks fuller.<\/p>\n
Then you put the halter on and walk him. Down the lane to the mailbox and back. Twice. To keep his legs strong. To teach him to walk slow and set his feet square when you stop.<\/p>\n
Cooper led. I walked behind with the show stick, the way he showed me.<\/p>\n
An old neighbor told me one thing that summer.<\/p>\n
Elmer Pruss. Eighty-four. He farmed the quarter across the road from us for sixty years. He showed steers at the Platte Valley County Fair from 1952 to 1958. He still had his purple ribbons in a frame in his living room.<\/p>\n
He came over in June, in his old Ford pickup, and leaned on the steer pen and watched me rinse Moose. He didn\u2019t say anything for twenty minutes.<\/p>\n
Then he said, \u201cYou\u2019re doing it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing, Elmer.\u201d<\/p>\n
He spit tobacco juice in the dirt.<\/p>\n
\u201cFeeding cattle isn\u2019t a man\u2019s job or a woman\u2019s job,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an every-single-day job.\u201d<\/p>\n
He got back in his pickup and drove home.<\/p>\n
I wrote it on a piece of masking tape and stuck it to the inside of the barn door.<\/p>\n
Chapter Four: The Boots<\/p>\n
Brent\u2019s work boots sat on the back step after the funeral.<\/p>\n
Brown leather. Red Wing. The pair he wore every day for six years. Creased across the toes and worn down at the heels. Scuffed white on the right toe where he always kicked the tractor tire.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d left them there on the morning of May ninth. He\u2019d put on his other boots, the rubber ones, because it rained the night before and the field was muddy. These were sitting right where he left them, on the back step, side by side.<\/p>\n
Nobody moved them. Not for weeks.<\/p>\n
Size twelve. I wear a nine.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d walk past them every morning, going out to the barn. Every night, coming back in. Sitting there on the step. Waiting.<\/p>\n
People from church kept asking if I wanted help going through his things. His clothes. His tools. Mike\u2019s wife, Deb, offered twice.<\/p>\n
I said not yet.<\/p>\n
One day I put them on and stuffed the toes so they\u2019d stay on.<\/p>\n
It was the second week of June. Raining. My own boots were soaked through from the noon rinse. I came back in the house to change my socks, and I walked past his boots on the step.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know why I did it. I just did.<\/p>\n
I sat down on the step and pulled them on. They were huge. My feet swam in them. I stood up and they nearly fell off.<\/p>\n
So I went in the house and got two of his old wool socks out of his drawer. And I balled them up and stuffed them in the toes. And I put the boots back on.<\/p>\n
They stayed.<\/p>\n
Cooper came out of the barn. He looked at my feet.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t laugh.<\/p>\n
He looked at those boots for a long time. Brown leather. Scuffed white on the right toe.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad would think that was funny,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I wore them every day after that.<\/p>\n
To the barn. To the pen. To the rinse rack. Down the lane with Moose. Every single day.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d clomp across the yard in them like a little kid in her daddy\u2019s shoes. I tripped a few times. Once I fell flat on my face in the mud by the water tank.<\/p>\n
Cooper helped me up. He was laughing so hard he couldn\u2019t breathe. The first time I\u2019d heard him laugh since May.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom,\u201d he gasped. \u201cYou look like a clown.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour dad would think so too,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d take a picture,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cAnd put it on Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then we both stopped laughing, at the same time. And stood there in the mud.<\/p>\n
Mike saw me in them once.<\/p>\n
He drove in on a Tuesday in late June to drop off a part for the swather. I was in the pen, rinsing Moose. In my school cook clothes, black pants and a white polo, and Brent\u2019s brown boots.<\/p>\n
He stopped at the edge of the yard. He looked at the boots.<\/p>\n
His face did something. I couldn\u2019t read it.<\/p>\n
He set the part on the porch and drove away without saying a word.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
**Part 2**<\/p>\n
Chapter Five: The Fan<\/p>\n
One day in July, the fan quit and Moose wouldn\u2019t eat.<\/p>\n
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\u2019re carrying a lot of weight. When it\u2019s ninety-five degrees in Nebraska in July, they need air moving or they quit eating.<\/p>\n
I came out for the ten o\u2019clock feeding on a Wednesday night. Ninety-one degrees at ten at night. The air was like a wet blanket.<\/p>\n
The fan wasn\u2019t running. The motor had burned out. I could smell it.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t touched it.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know what to do.<\/p>\n
I called Cooper\u2019s name. He didn\u2019t come. He was asleep. He\u2019d been up since five.<\/p>\n
I stood in that pen in Brent\u2019s boots and stared at that steer. Breathing hard. Not eating. Two weeks before the county fair.<\/p>\n
If he went off feed now, he\u2019d lose weight. Maybe fifty pounds. Maybe more. All the work. All summer. Every rinse.<\/p>\n
I sat on the water tank and told my husband I didn\u2019t know what I was doing.<\/p>\n
Out loud. In the dark. With the barn light buzzing over my head and the bugs going crazy around it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrent,\u201d I said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody answered. Of course nobody answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how to fix a fan,\u201d I said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do when he won\u2019t eat. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s sick. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m feeding him wrong. I don\u2019t know anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
I started crying.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were supposed to be here,\u201d I said. \u201cYou were supposed to do this part. I was supposed to bring lemonade to the fair and sit in the bleachers and clap.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat there on the edge of that water tank in Brent\u2019s boots and cried. Really cried. The way I hadn\u2019t let myself cry at the funeral, because Cooper was watching.<\/p>\n
Then something wet pushed into my shoulder.<\/p>\n
That steer pushed his wet nose into my shoulder.<\/p>\n
Moose. Twelve hundred pounds of him. He\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n
Not hard. Gentle. The way he used to push Brent when Brent was scratching his neck.<\/p>\n
I put my arm around his face. I held on.<\/p>\n
He stood there and let me.<\/p>\n
Then he walked to the bunk and cleaned it up.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I sat on the water tank and watched him. Wiping my face on my sleeve.<\/p>\n
When he was done, he licked the bottom of the bunk. Then he walked back over to the corner and lay down.<\/p>\n
The next morning, before I went to work, a new fan was hanging in the corner of the pen.<\/p>\n
A big one. A sixty-inch barn fan, the kind they use in dairy barns. Running. Blowing cool air across the whole pen.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t buy it. Cooper didn\u2019t buy it. We didn\u2019t have the money.<\/p>\n
There was a receipt from the Cedar Bend Co-op stuck to the fence post with a piece of baling wire.<\/p>\n
Sold to: Mike Olson. 60-inch barn fan. $389.00. PAID.<\/p>\n
Chapter Six: The Weigh-In<\/p>\n
He weighed in at the county fair at 1,342 pounds.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
We hauled Moose in on Wednesday morning. In Brent\u2019s stock trailer, behind my pickup. Cooper rode in the back with him, so he wouldn\u2019t be scared.<\/p>\n
Weigh-in was at nine. A long line of kids and steers waiting to cross the big scale at the end of the barn.<\/p>\n
Cooper led him on. Moose stood perfectly still.<\/p>\n
The man at the scale, a retired banker named Herb, looked at the readout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThirteen forty-two,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cooper turned around and looked at me.<\/p>\n
I had Brent\u2019s green notebook in my back pocket. I took it out. I opened it to the page from April. Brent\u2019s handwriting at the bottom.<\/p>\n
Guess for fair: 1,340.<\/p>\n
Brent had guessed 1,340 in April.<\/p>\n
Two pounds.<\/p>\n
Cooper looked at the notebook. Then at me. Then at the scale.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo pounds,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was off by two pounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour dad was good at guessing,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Cooper took the notebook out of my hand. He took a pen out of his pocket. And under his dad\u2019s guess, he wrote:<\/p>\n
Actual: 1,342. You were right, Dad.<\/p>\n
The steer show was Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Three o\u2019clock. 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s clippers.<\/p>\n
I helped. In Brent\u2019s boots. Holding the halter while he worked.<\/p>\n
Mike was in the barn too.<\/p>\n
His son Logan had a steer in the same class. A black crossbred named Tank. Logan\u2019s pen was three down from ours.<\/p>\n
Mike and Logan were fitting Tank. Mike was working on the legs with his own clippers. He didn\u2019t look over at us. Not once all morning.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Parents don\u2019t walk into a 4-H class.<\/p>\n
Everybody knows that. It\u2019s 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\u2019s time for the ring, the kid goes in alone.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the point. That\u2019s what 4-H is. Head, heart, hands, health. The kid does it.<\/p>\n
So I knew I\u2019d be standing at the rail. In the bleachers. Clapping.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what I\u2019d always thought I\u2019d be doing.<\/p>\n
Chapter Seven: One Lap<\/p>\n
At two-forty-five, the steer show was about to start.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The nine steers in Cooper\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
I was standing at the gate. Just outside it. Where parents stand, to wish their kid luck before he goes in.<\/p>\n
The superintendent stood in the middle of the ring with a microphone.<\/p>\n
Dean Schmeckpeper. Sixty-two. He\u2019s run the beef show at the Platte Valley County Fair for twenty-six years. He\u2019s a big man with a white mustache and a voice like a combine starting.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood afternoon, folks,\u201d he said. \u201cWelcome to the market steer show.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd clapped.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we get started,\u201d Dean said, \u201cI\u2019d like to ask everybody to take a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arena went quiet.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of you knew Brent Olson,\u201d Dean said. \u201cBrent 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed at the gate. Where I was standing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost Brent in May,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was forty-one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The whole arena was silent. Not a sound. Not a kid. Not a cow.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d want us to have a good show,\u201d Dean said. \u201cSo let\u2019s have one. For Brent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he looked at me at the gate.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t say anything for a second. He looked at me. He looked down at my feet. At Brent\u2019s brown Red Wings, three sizes too big, with the white scuff on the right toe.<\/p>\n
He lowered the microphone. He walked across the ring to the gate. He stopped in front of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cJamie,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cOne lap. Then the rail.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cDean, parents don\u2019t go in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the rule,\u201d Dean said. \u201cI wrote half the rules for this show.\u201d He looked at my boots again. \u201cOne lap, Jamie. With your boy. For Brent. Then you go to the rail.\u201d<\/p>\n
He held the gate open.<\/p>\n
Cooper looked at me. He was standing right behind me with Moose on the halter.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom,\u201d he said. \u201cCome on.\u201d<\/p>\n
I walked into that ring in Brent\u2019s brown boots, three sizes too big.<\/p>\n
Hot July afternoon. Ninety-three degrees. The sun coming through the big open doors at the end of the arena.<\/p>\n
Soft wood shavings underfoot. My boots sank into them. The wool socks in the toes squished.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Cooper led Moose in his white show shirt, his dad\u2019s show stick in his hand.<\/p>\n
Brent\u2019s show stick. A long aluminum stick with a curved hook at the end, for scratching the steer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Cooper took it down the morning of the fair. He didn\u2019t ask. He just took it.<\/p>\n
I walked beside them. On the left side of Moose. Where I always walked down the lane at home.<\/p>\n
We went around the ring. Slowly. The way Cooper taught me. Steer\u2019s head up. Steer\u2019s feet moving. Nice and easy.<\/p>\n
The crowd didn\u2019t make a sound.<\/p>\n
I could hear the fans in the barn. I could hear the shavings under Moose\u2019s hooves. I could hear my own breathing.<\/p>\n
I could hear somebody in the bleachers crying.<\/p>\n
I looked at the rail once.<\/p>\n
Halfway around. On the far side of the ring. By the gate where the steers come out.<\/p>\n
Mike was leaning on the pipe in his seed cap and tan work shirt.<\/p>\n
Logan was beside him with Tank, waiting to go in. But Mike wasn\u2019t looking at Logan. He was looking at me.<\/p>\n
Not smiling. Not frowning.<\/p>\n
Just watching.<\/p>\n
He watched me walk his brother\u2019s steer around that ring in his brother\u2019s boots. His face didn\u2019t move. His hands were on the pipe rail. His knuckles were white.<\/p>\n
I looked away.<\/p>\n
I finished my lap and stepped out.<\/p>\n
Dean held the gate. I walked through it. I went to the rail. I stood there.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t trust my legs. I held on to the pipe.<\/p>\n
Chapter Eight: The Judge<\/p>\n
Nine steers in the class.<\/p>\n
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\u2019d judged the Iowa State Fair twice. He wore a straw cowboy hat and jeans and a pressed blue shirt.<\/p>\n
He stood in the middle of the ring and watched the nine steers walk around him. He didn\u2019t say anything. He just watched.<\/p>\n
Then he had them line up. Nine steers in a row, side by side, facing the bleachers.<\/p>\n
The judge put his hand on every one.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He talked to every kid. Asked them questions. How much does he weigh? What are you feeding him? How long have you had him?<\/p>\n
When he got to Cooper, he stopped longer.<\/p>\n
He put his hand on Moose\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much does he weigh?\u201d he asked Cooper.<\/p>\n
\u201cThirteen forty-two, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s he eating?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper told him. The ration. Every number. Out of his head, without looking at the notebook.<\/p>\n
The judge looked at him for a long moment. Then he moved on.<\/p>\n
Cooper set Moose up square, just like the lane.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what you do when the judge is looking. You set the steer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Cooper did it perfectly. The way he\u2019d done it every night all summer, at the end of the lane, by the mailbox. With me standing behind him in Brent\u2019s boots.<\/p>\n
Moose stood there like a statue. Head up. Ears forward. Not moving a muscle.<\/p>\n
The judge walked to the end of the line. He stood back. He looked at all nine for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then he walked to Logan\u2019s steer. Tank. The big black crossbred. The biggest steer in the class. Thirteen ninety.<\/p>\n
He tapped Logan on the shoulder. He pointed to the head of the ring.<\/p>\n
The judge pulled a big steer to the top.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t look happy. He looked at Logan. Then at Cooper, still in the line, holding Moose.<\/p>\n
The judge walked back down the line. Slowly. Looking at each steer again.<\/p>\n
Then he stopped in front of Moose.<\/p>\n
He stood there for a long time. With his hands on his hips. Looking.<\/p>\n
He handled him one more time.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He stepped back.<\/p>\n
He pointed at my son and waved him past all eight.<\/p>\n
Past Logan and Tank. To the very head of the ring. To the top.<\/p>\n
Cooper didn\u2019t move. He just stood there. Holding the halter. Like he didn\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n
The judge waved him again. Harder. Come on.<\/p>\n
Cooper led Moose forward. Past the line. Past the other seven steers. Past Logan, who stepped Tank back to make room.<\/p>\n
To the head of the ring. In front of the bleachers. In front of everybody.<\/p>\n
The crowd went crazy.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t hear anything. Just noise. People standing up in the bleachers. Clapping. Yelling. Somebody whistling.<\/p>\n
I was holding the pipe rail so hard my hands hurt.<\/p>\n
Then the ringman handed the judge the microphone.<\/p>\n
The judge took it. He held it for a second, looking down at it.<\/p>\n
He looked down the line at Cooper and started to talk.<\/p>\n
Chapter Nine: What the Judge Said<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been judging steers for thirty-one years,\u201d Tom Riggins said.<\/p>\n
His voice came out of the big speakers on the barn. Deep and slow. Iowa slow.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the time, I can tell you about a steer in about ten seconds. How big he is. How he\u2019s built. What he\u2019s going to grade on the rail.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at Moose.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd most of the time,\u201d he said, \u201cI can tell you about the people who fed him in about thirty.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arena got quiet again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis big black steer,\u201d the judge said, pointing at Tank, \u201cis a good steer. Big. Powerful. He\u2019s got more muscle than anything else in this ring. Somebody\u2019s going to want him on their feedlot.\u201d He nodded at Logan. \u201cGood job, son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Logan nodded back. Mike, at the rail, didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this red steer,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
He walked over and put his hand on Moose\u2019s back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis red steer,\u201d he said, \u201cwas fed every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can feel it,\u201d he said. \u201cIn 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.\u201d He ran his hand along Moose\u2019s side. \u201cNo soft spots. No hard spots. Nothing missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He moved his hand to the hair.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this hair,\u201d he said. \u201cThis steer\u2019s been rinsed three times a day. All summer. I\u2019d bet my truck on it. You can\u2019t fake this hair. You can\u2019t buy it. You can only earn it, one bucket of cold water at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned to Cooper.<\/p>\n
\u201cSon,\u201d he said. Into the microphone. \u201cWho fed this steer?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper looked up at him. At the judge. At the microphone.<\/p>\n
Then he turned around. He looked out over the whole arena. At the bleachers. At the rail.<\/p>\n
He found me.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad picked him out,\u201d Cooper said. His voice was very clear. \u201cIn October. And we fed him together till May.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad died in May,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cIn the field. He was forty-one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The arena was dead silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then my mom fed him,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cEvery 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\u2019d never fed a steer before. I taught her.\u201d His voice cracked. \u201cShe wore my dad\u2019s boots. Every day. Because they were his.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge looked at Cooper for a long time.<\/p>\n
Then he looked out at the rail. Where I was standing. In Brent\u2019s boots.<\/p>\n
\u201cMa\u2019am,\u201d he said into the microphone. \u201cAre you this boy\u2019s mother?\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t speak. I nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome back in this ring,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
Dean opened the gate.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The judge looked at me. At my face. At my school cook polo shirt. At Brent\u2019s boots, three sizes too big, with the white scuff on the right toe.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn old feeder told me something when I was younger than your boy,\u201d he said. Not into the microphone now. Just to me. Quiet. \u201cHe said, feeding cattle isn\u2019t a man\u2019s job or a woman\u2019s job.\u201d<\/p>\n
My breath caught.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an every-single-day job,\u201d I finished.<\/p>\n
He looked at me in surprise. Then he smiled. A slow, crooked Iowa smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomebody\u2019s been telling you the truth, ma\u2019am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He raised the microphone again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my class winner,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s going to be hard to beat in the champion drive.\u201d He handed the microphone back to the ringman. Then he turned back to Cooper and me and held out his hand.<\/p>\n
He shook Cooper\u2019s hand. Then mine.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour husband,\u201d he said quietly, \u201cwould have been proud of both of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moose won Grand Champion Market Steer at the Platte Valley County Fair.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The crowd was already standing before he did it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
**Part 3**<\/p>\n
Chapter Ten: The Sale<\/p>\n
The 4-H livestock sale is Saturday afternoon. In the same arena. The kids lead their animals in one at a time, and local businesses and families bid on them.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not really a market sale. It\u2019s a premium sale. The buyers pay way over market price, as a way of supporting the kids. The money goes to the kid. Most of them use it for college. Or to buy next year\u2019s calf.<\/p>\n
The Grand Champion steer sells last. It\u2019s the big one. Everybody waits for it.<\/p>\n
The arena was packed. Every seat in the bleachers. People standing along the rail.<\/p>\n
The auctioneer was Bud Kaminski, who\u2019s auctioneered the county fair sale for thirty years. He stood on a hay wagon at one end of the ring with a microphone.<\/p>\n
The buyers sat in a section of folding chairs right by the ring. The co-op. The bank. The implement dealer. The insurance agency. The feed store. Local farm families.<\/p>\n
I sat in the bleachers with Elmer Pruss. In Brent\u2019s boots.<\/p>\n
Cooper led Moose in at four-fifteen. The last animal of the sale.<\/p>\n
He was wearing his white show shirt again. Clean. With a purple Grand Champion rosette pinned to the pocket. He held Brent\u2019s show stick.<\/p>\n
Bud Kaminski started the bidding.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrand Champion Market Steer,\u201d he said. \u201cShown by Cooper Olson. Thirteen hundred and forty-two pounds. Who\u2019ll give me five dollars a pound?\u201d<\/p>\n
Five dollars a pound. That\u2019s what a Grand Champion goes for at the Platte Valley County Fair, usually. Five, six, maybe seven dollars a pound. Six thousand, seven thousand, eight thousand dollars.<\/p>\n
The co-op raised their card. Five dollars.<\/p>\n
The bank raised theirs. Five-fifty.<\/p>\n
The implement dealer. Six.<\/p>\n
The co-op. Six-fifty. The bank. Seven.<\/p>\n
It went fast. Bud\u2019s chant rolled across the arena. Seven. Seven-fifty. Eight.<\/p>\n
At eight dollars a pound, the co-op dropped out. At eight-fifty, the implement dealer dropped out.<\/p>\n
The bank at nine dollars a pound. Twelve thousand, seventy-eight dollars.<\/p>\n
\u201cNine dollars,\u201d Bud said. \u201cDo I hear nine-fifty? Nine-fifty for this Grand Champion? Going once.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then a card went up in the back of the buyers\u2019 section.<\/p>\n
A white card with a number on it. Held high.<\/p>\n
Bud squinted. \u201cNine-fifty! From the back. Thank you, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked. I couldn\u2019t see who it was. There were too many people standing in front of me.<\/p>\n
The bank went to ten.<\/p>\n
The card in the back went to ten-fifty.<\/p>\n
The bank went to eleven.<\/p>\n
The card in the back went to twelve.<\/p>\n
The bank\u2019s loan officer, a woman named Carol Hughes, turned around in her folding chair to see who was bidding against her.<\/p>\n
She looked for a long time. Then she put her card down in her lap.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwelve dollars a pound,\u201d Bud Kaminski said. \u201cTwelve dollars. Going once. Going twice.\u201d<\/p>\n
He banged his gavel on the hay wagon.<\/p>\n
\u201cSold! Twelve dollars a pound! Sixteen thousand, one hundred and four dollars! A new county fair record!\u201d<\/p>\n
The arena exploded. People standing up. Cheering. Whistling.<\/p>\n
Then Bud leaned into his microphone.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd who\u2019s the buyer, sir?\u201d he asked. \u201cLet\u2019s hear it for our buyer!\u201d<\/p>\n
The man in the back stood up.<\/p>\n
He was wearing a seed cap and a tan work shirt.<\/p>\n
My brother-in-law.<\/p>\n
Chapter Eleven: Mike<\/p>\n
The arena went quiet.<\/p>\n
Not right away. It took a few seconds. People turning around. Craning their necks. Seeing who it was.<\/p>\n
Then everybody knew. Everybody in Cedar Bend knew Mike Olson. Everybody knew he was Brent\u2019s brother. Everybody had heard about the nine hundred dollars across the top board of the pen.<\/p>\n
Small towns. Everybody knows everything.<\/p>\n
Mike stood there in the back of the buyers\u2019 section. He didn\u2019t sit back down. He looked at the ring. At Cooper, standing in the middle of it with Moose.<\/p>\n
Then he walked down the aisle between the folding chairs. To the gate. Dean opened it for him.<\/p>\n
He walked into the ring.<\/p>\n
He stopped in front of Cooper.<\/p>\n
The whole arena watched. Not a sound.<\/p>\n
Mike looked at his nephew. Thirteen years old. In a white show shirt, with a purple rosette pinned to the pocket and his dead father\u2019s show stick in his hand.<\/p>\n
Mike reached into the chest pocket of his work shirt. He took out something folded.<\/p>\n
Nine hundred-dollar bills.<\/p>\n
The same ones. I\u2019d know them anywhere. Folded once down the middle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were yours,\u201d Mike said. Not into a microphone. Just to Cooper. But the arena was so quiet that everybody heard. \u201cI tried to give them to you for the wrong reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
He held them out.<\/p>\n
Cooper didn\u2019t take them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn June,\u201d Mike said, \u201cI told your mom no man was left to feed this steer right.\u201d His voice cracked. \u201cI was wrong, Coop. There was. You.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked over at the bleachers. At me. In Brent\u2019s boots.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd a woman,\u201d he said, \u201cwho was stronger than any man I ever knew. Including your dad. Including me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper looked at the money. Then at his uncle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy\u2019d you want to buy him?\u201d he asked. \u201cIn June? Why\u2019d you want Logan to have him?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike didn\u2019t answer for a long time.<\/p>\n
When he finally did, it came out very quietly. So quietly I almost didn\u2019t hear it from the bleachers.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I wasn\u2019t there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cooper stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMay ninth,\u201d Mike said. \u201cI was supposed to be running the tender truck. On the south quarter. With your dad. I promised him.\u201d He swallowed hard. \u201cAnd I went to Kearney instead. To look at calves. Because I wanted to see a pen of black baldies a guy had. I told your dad I\u2019d be back by noon.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked down at the shavings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got back at two,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd your dad had been planting by himself for six hours. Filling the planter by himself. Lifting fifty-pound bags of seed by himself. In the heat.\u201d His voice broke. \u201cIf I\u2019d been there. If I\u2019d been doing the lifting. Maybe his heart\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
He couldn\u2019t finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I tried to take everything,\u201d Mike said. \u201cYour dad\u2019s half of the ground. I called a lawyer in Kearney in June about buying your mom out of the partnership. At book value. I told myself I was helping her. That she couldn\u2019t run it alone.\u201d He shook his head. \u201cAnd the steer. I told myself Logan could finish him out. That you\u2019d be better off. That I\u2019d be taking the load off you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked up at Cooper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t taking the load off you,\u201d he said. \u201cI was trying to put my brother back together with my own two hands. Because I couldn\u2019t stand that I wasn\u2019t there to hold him up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooper stood there in the middle of the ring.<\/p>\n
Then he reached out. Not for the money.<\/p>\n
He held out his dad\u2019s show stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad always let you scratch Moose\u2019s belly,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cWhen you came over. He said you were the only other one who knew where Moose liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike stared at the show stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo ahead,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n
Mike took it. His hands were shaking.<\/p>\n
He stepped up beside Moose. He reached the curved end of the show stick under the big steer\u2019s belly. Right in the middle. Right where Brent always did.<\/p>\n
He scratched.<\/p>\n
Moose\u2019s eyes closed. His head came down. He leaned into it.<\/p>\n
The whole arena watched a grown man scratch a steer\u2019s belly with his dead brother\u2019s show stick, crying, in the middle of a show ring.<\/p>\n
Nobody said a word.<\/p>\n
Chapter Twelve: Three Pairs<\/p>\n
The check came three weeks later. From Mike. Made out to Cooper Olson. Sixteen thousand, one hundred and four dollars.<\/p>\n
Cooper wanted to give it back. Mike wouldn\u2019t take it. Cooper wanted to put it in the bank. I made him put it in a 529 college savings plan, with the State of Nebraska. NEST, they call it. The money grows tax-free.<\/p>\n
All except nine hundred dollars.<\/p>\n
Mike made him keep the nine hundred in cash. Separate.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor next year\u2019s calf,\u201d Mike said. \u201cPick him out yourself. At weaning. In October.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike called the lawyer in Kearney back. He tore up the buyout papers. Then he called a different lawyer. A woman in Holdrege who does farm estate law.<\/p>\n
She drew up a new partnership agreement. Olson Brothers Farm became Olson Family Farm. Mike and Deb on one side. Me on the other. With Brent\u2019s half of the ground held in trust for Cooper, until he\u2019s twenty-five. Me as trustee.<\/p>\n
Mike runs most of the machinery work. I run the cows, with Cooper. We split everything. In writing. On paper. Signed by everybody. The way Brent always said we should, and never got around to.<\/p>\n
In October, Mike and Cooper walked the weaning pen together.<\/p>\n
I watched them from the house. Through the kitchen window. Two of them, leaning on the pen. Same lean. Same boots on the bottom board.<\/p>\n
Mike pointed at a calf. Cooper shook his head. Cooper pointed at another one. Mike tilted his head, like he was thinking. Then nodded.<\/p>\n
A red-and-white Hereford. A heifer this time. With a white face and a white star on her forehead.<\/p>\n
Cooper named her Elmer. After old Elmer Pruss. Elmer laughed so hard when he heard it that he had to sit down on his porch.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a girl,\u201d he said, wheezing.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo?\u201d Cooper said. \u201cFeeding cattle isn\u2019t a boy\u2019s job or a girl\u2019s job. It\u2019s an every-single-day job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike comes by every Saturday morning now. To help weigh Elmer on the co-op scale. He brings Logan and Tyler. They write the weights in a new notebook. A green spiral one from the Dollar General.<\/p>\n
Cooper\u2019s handwriting first. Then Mike\u2019s.<\/p>\n
In November, I bought myself a pair of boots.<\/p>\n
Red Wing. Brown leather. Size nine. From the Cedar Bend Co-op, where Brent bought his. The man behind the counter, Arnie, has sold boots to Olsons for forty years. He fitted them himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout time you got your own,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I wore them home. I put them on the back step.<\/p>\n
Next to Brent\u2019s.<\/p>\n
I thought I\u2019d put Brent\u2019s away then. In the closet. Or give them to the church clothing drive, like Deb kept offering.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
They sat on the back step next to mine all winter. Two pairs. His, size twelve, scuffed white on the right toe. Mine, size nine, new and stiff.<\/p>\n
Then in March, one morning, I came out at five-thirty to feed and there were three pairs.<\/p>\n
Brent\u2019s. Mine. And a pair of muddy rubber boots, size eleven. Cooper\u2019s.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d grown. Three sizes since last summer. I hadn\u2019t even noticed until I saw them sitting there in a row.<\/p>\n
Size nine. Size eleven. Size twelve.<\/p>\n
I stood on the back step in the dark for a long time looking at them.<\/p>\n
Then Cooper came out behind me. In his pajama pants and a hoodie. Yawning. With his dad\u2019s cap on.<\/p>\n
He looked down at the boots. All three pairs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom,\u201d he said. \u201cCan I try them? Dad\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re still too big,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know,\u201d he said. \u201cJust to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sat down on the step. He pulled off his rubber boots. He pulled on Brent\u2019s brown Red Wings.<\/p>\n
They were still big on him. But not by much. A size, maybe. He could keep them on without stuffing the toes.<\/p>\n
He stood up. He walked across the yard in them. Toward the barn, where Elmer was bawling for breakfast.<\/p>\n
He walked just like his father. The same long stride. The same slight hitch in the left step, from a knee Brent hurt playing football in 1998.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how he learned that. He was ten when Brent hurt it the second time. He must have watched.<\/p>\n
He stopped at the barn door. He turned around and looked back at me, standing on the step in my own boots.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll grow into them. By next fair. You\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know you will,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
He went into the barn. The shop light came on. I heard him start mixing feed. Weighing every scoop on the hanging scale.<\/p>\n
I stood there on the back step for a long time.<\/p>\n
The sun was just starting to come up over Elmer Pruss\u2019s cornfield across the road. Red and gold. The air smelled like frost and cattle and coffee.<\/p>\n
On the inside of the barn door, I could see the piece of masking tape I stuck there last June. Faded now. The ink running a little from a winter of damp.<\/p>\n
Feeding cattle isn\u2019t a man\u2019s job or a woman\u2019s job. It\u2019s an every-single-day job.<\/p>\n
Then I heard a pickup on the county road.<\/p>\n
Coming from the north. Slowing down at the end of our lane. Turning in.<\/p>\n
Mike\u2019s truck. Six o\u2019clock on a Thursday. He wasn\u2019t supposed to come till Saturday.<\/p>\n
He pulled up by the barn and got out. He was carrying a coffee thermos and two cups.<\/p>\n
He saw me on the step. He held up the thermos.<\/p>\n
\u201cFigured you could use some help,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an every-single-day job.\u201d<\/p>\n
I came down off the step in my own boots. And I walked across the yard to the barn, where my son and my brother-in-law were already arguing about how much corn a heifer should get in March.<\/p>\n
Brent would have thought it was funny. All of it.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d have taken a picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
**Part 1** Nine Hundred Dollars Nine hundred-dollar bills came across the top board of the steer pen. It was the third Saturday in June. Six-thirty in the evening. The sun … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,16,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-inspiration","category-news","category-real-life-story"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25953,"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25952\/revisions\/25953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storyreadin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}