Page 39 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight

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hey moved the lambs out to the stall next to Chloe and Red the next day, allowing them to adjust to the temperature change before they’d take them back to the pasture the day following.

It was still wet and windy, and there’d be more storms coming, but there should be a sufficient break for them to get big and strong enough to withstand it.

Grady never had to say any of this to Cole because he knew all this, would’ve been reading the weather as well as city folks read the paper.

Chloe peered over her stall wall at the lambs in the hay beside her and Cole laughed.

“I swear she’s glaring,” he said.

Grady nodded. “She don’t like any change, that one.”

Cole went over to the front of her stall.

She swung her head away from the lambs and went to him.

Grady watched as he hugged her around the neck and she nipped him on the shoulder.

Little friendly nips not meant to hurt, but just saying, I’m allowing this ’cause it’s you, but don’t get too many ideas .

Grady shook his head and told Cole they’d better be heading out.

The green stalks of the crop stood tall through the turned dirt as they drove past the wheatfields, right on the cusp of being in ear.

“Shit,” Cole said.

“I know it.”

“It might not hail.” Cole kept his eyes on the fields whipping by, and they both heard the lying hope in his voice.

Grady started calculating in his head what he’d bring in from the wool, what he had left over from last year and figured he’d break even without a decent crop.

He wondered if his daddy had been right and it was always about recouping the losses from the year before to break even on the next one.

If there really wasn’t a profit to turn, and if there was, it was the bigger landholders making it because they could brace against the bigger blows.

He and Cole didn’t speak again as they crossed his land, repairing fences and checking sheep, not until they came upon the flock they’d taken the lambs from.

“You reckon they wondering where they are?” Cole asked as Grady pulled onto the shoulder to look at them.

Grady watched the sheep, the nearest ones looking at the truck, looking like they were waiting for something.

“I reckon maybe, yeah,” Grady said. “I never thought about it. Another day won’t hurt ’em.”

Cole nodded. “Some people reckon they won’t take ’em back on account of the smell, but I ain’t never seen the mama not come forward.”

Grady nodded. He’d never seen that either.

Sure enough, when they drove out the next day, the sun shining and the sky clear, so clear it was bone-chillingly cold, the ewes at the front of the flock watched them curiously.

Cole was in the back with the lambs and Grady pulled up, opened the gate and drove through.

The curiosity dialed up, more heads lifting, ears pricking up as Cole started lifting the lambs over to Grady.

The first one landed and started bleating—the high-pitched, pealing call of the youngsters—and the older ones started calling back.

His little legs started a shaky canter, and the mama came out of the fold, bleating her deep response and meeting her baby with a sniff and a nudge.

They kept on bleating, high to low, before returning to the safety of the flock.

They got them all down and watched as they picked through the ewes, recognizing and greeting their mothers. Grady folded his arms over his chest, hugged his coat to ward off the cold and kicked his heel up on the bull bar. He pulled out his cigarettes and lit one.

“Can I?” Cole asked. He leaned against the hood beside him, cocked his boot on the bar.

Grady handed him a cigarette and settled in to watch. Cigarette smoke curled in the air alongside the white puffs of their breaths.

“You reckon that’s the one whose baby died?” Cole indicated with the hand that held the cigarette at a ewe on the edge looking around.

“Dunno,” Grady said because he didn’t. He wasn’t sure what sheep thought, and what they got to getting sad about.

“I reckon,” Cole said, dropping his cigarette and crushing it under his boot before leaning down and picking up the butt.

“Can’t save ’em all.”

Cole blew out a breath and huddled close. Grady leaned against him and watched the flock meander out, eating the grass, bleating, the lambs getting down on their elbows to drink from their mamas, the mamas allowing it and eating like it was just another day.

“Some of ’em maybe ain’t worth savin’,” Cole said after a while.

“I reckon that ain’t the point.” Grady hip-bumped Cole and straightened. “Just sometimes you’re in time, and sometimes you ain’t. And that’s all.”

Cole straightened as well and went around for the passenger door. “Damn, it’s cold.”

“You not from around here?” Grady smirked at him over the roof of the truck.

“Shut up.” Cole laughed and blew into his hands. They got in and drove.