Heart of a Shepherd Read online

  “I know. I don't mean if something happens on the ranch. I mean if the Grands get sick or … you know … if something happens with Dad.”

  I let go of Spud's reins and hide my head in Jim's shoulder, because I've been wanting to talk about that for weeks now. The trouble is, there's nothing to say. He'll either be okay or he won't.

  And then Dad comes out of the cabin and ties his gear to the back of the saddle. The boys crowd around him to say goodbye. Dad hugs them and whispers something to each one, and then he stands them up straight. He looks at them as if they are horses he's going to buy, like he wants to memorize every inch of them. Jim and John give him their salutes, and then Dad walks away without a single tear. I don't believe it.

  I duck behind Spud so Dad won't see me cry, and then—thank God!—Frank runs over and hugs me up off the ground and shakes me like a dog with a chew toy.

  “See ya, Brother! Don't do anything stupid while we're gone.”

  I wiggle out of his grasp, knock his hat off, and give him an elbow punch in the stomach. “Don't worry about me. You just try not to cut your head off with that razor in the morning.”

  John's right behind Frank. He puts me in a head-lock and rubs a bunch of tangles into my hair. “Get a haircut, Scruffy!” he says for the thousandth time this summer. Just because his ROTC commander makes him get a military haircut, I don't see why I have to get one. I toss him a few punches, and then the brothers head off to the barn to saddle up their own horses.

  I get up on Spud and start down the trail. Dad just sits there on Ike, looking down the mountains past Strawberry Lake to the high desert flats beyond. If there wasn't the haze, you could see the Red Rock Reservoir at the north end of our ranch, thirty miles away.

  “Dad?” I say, looking over my shoulder. It's not like him to dawdle when there's a full day of work ahead.

  “Do you smell that, Brother?” Dad says.

  I take a sniff, but I don't smell anything special.

  “That's the smell of your home. That's something you are going to want to take with you when you leave us.”

  He gives Ike a nudge with his knee, and we head down the trail. I take a couple more sniffs, but I still don't smell anything but air.

  We put a few miles behind us before we find some of our cattle in a meadow just up from Strawberry Lake. There's about two dozen red-and-white Here-fords and their calves, bunched up in two groups. Dad and I move in to look them over. We've been finding pinkeye in some of the calves, so Dad brought the medicine along. I ride around the near group, and Dad takes the other. I look in both sides of each white face. Sometimes I have to shout and wave my coil of rope to get one of the cows to turn her head. My group's all clear, and I'm glad of it. A cow doesn't like eyedrops any more than I do.

  Dad takes one last look at the cows and then checks the ground to make sure they aren't tearing it up too bad. There's about a week's good pasture left, so we move on.

  It starts warming up after we get out of the heights. I peel off a shirt. Dad rides behind me, thinking his own thoughts, not talking to me. He's been like this all month. Every minute he's not working the land, he's doing some army paperwork or learning Arabic. Sometimes, even when I'm talking to him, it feels like he's already on the other side of the planet. I have a million things I want to say. I don't even know how to start.

  About a mile further on, we hit the steepest part of the trail and the last open spot of mountain pasture. This meadow has Black Angus, and they are more spread out than the Herefords were. Right away I can tell there's a problem, because I can hear a calf crying from somewhere, but I can't see a calf that isn't mothered up. I ride slowly around the meadow, looking under clusters of huckleberry bushes and around boulders where a cow might hide her calf right after birth. I don't see anything, and Dad is hanging back, so I guess he wants me to figure this one out on my own.

  I look the cows over again, and there's one with her udder nearly down to the ground. She hasn't been suckled in hours. I give Spud a nudge, and we go take a look at her. She's standing by a long line of boulders where the meadow drops off to a gully that was a creek in the spring, but now it's just a dry wash. I peek over the edge, and there's the calf standing in the rock-strewn gully, bawling. If she's been down there all morning, she's dehydrated and exhausted by now.

  No way am I tall enough to lift her up over the rocks. About a hundred yards downhill, there's a gap where I can get Spud and me down in the wash and walk the calf out. I look back at Dad, but he doesn't even nod. I guess this really is my call.

  I work Spud down into the dry creek bed. Good thing she's small and steady, because it's really narrow and rocky in there, and hot with the noonday sun. We get about halfway to the calf when Spud starts acting up. She stops, backs up a few steps, and tosses her head like she's trying to look at me and say, “Whose stupid idea was it to ride up this gully?”

  I hate when she acts up and Dad's watching. I talk smooth to her and give her a little slap on the butt with my rope, and then she moves clear up to the edge of the higher bank so that blackberry branches snag on my shirt and break off and stick to my jeans.

  “Hey, Spud, no fair!” I growl at her. Still, she's moving, so I don't complain too much. We come up on the calf, and she shies away from us. Good thing there's nowhere for her to run. She's a scrawny thing, maybe only a few days old. I toss a loop over her head, thankful I don't have to rope this calf from a run because the truth is, I'm not much good at roping. I tie her off to my saddle horn, tell Spud to stay, and walk over to check her. She's really dirty, and she has cuts and bruises from her fall. I feel her leg bones all the way down, and they're sound.

  “Come on, baby. Let's go find your mama.” I give the rope a tug, and the calf stretches her neck forward but she doesn't move.

  “Come on now. Mama's waiting.” I walk behind her and give her a shove from the back like a cow does when she wants her calf to move along. I give her a couple more shoves, and the calf starts walking.

  “That's the way, baby.” I pull on the rope, and she follows me step by step. I get back in the saddle. We ride nice and slow down the wash, with the calf a few steps behind, until we are at the spot where Spud brushed me against the blackberries. Only this time, Spud stops dead and puts back her ears.

  This is not a good sign. I love Spud, but she has her stubborn moments.

  “Come on. Let's go. Git up now,” I say.

  Then I lose my temper and kick her. Spud just snorts, and I am about to kick her again when something about the way she's breathing makes me think she's afraid. I look up at the sky for a thunderhead and along the rim of the gully for cougars. Suddenly, from the ground, I hear the faintest shiver of dry grass in the still air. Before I can even look, Spud rears up and kicks. She bucks me right off. My hat and rope go flying. I come down flat on my back. All the air whooshes out of my lungs. My head is ringing. I still hear the swoosh, and in a second I can see it—a rattlesnake zigzagging through the dead grass, straight at my face.

  I am dying to jump up and run, to scream, to breathe. Spud rears up again and tramples the snake with her front feet. I hear a hiss and a faint rattle—the snake is still moving. Just as I finally pull in a ragged, dusty breath, Dad jumps into the gully between me and the snake with his Colt .45 drawn. He takes aim, but doesn't need to fire. The snake is broken in the middle. It drops its head, struggles to lift it again, and uncoils. A dark line of snake blood rolls downhill in the dust.

  “You all right, Brother?” Dad holsters his gun.

  I nod, even though I've never felt worse in my life. Dad goes after the calf, and I get on my feet and look after my horse. She's a little spooked, and sweaty. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I give her plenty of strokes and soft talk, and when I look up, Dad's standing there with the calf, waiting for me.

  He looks me over for a minute and says, “You're going to be more bruises than body come morning. There's nothing worse than coming off a horse onto rocks. Did you break anything?”<
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  I shake my head, and he puts a hand on my shoulder. “Are you ready to ride on?”

  As soon as Dad touches me, my whole body starts shaking like a leaf. “I've been scared of snakes for a while, but I guess it's going to be a permanent thing after this.”

  “A healthy fear of snakes won't bring you to harm. Might do you some good, if you decide to stick with ranch work.”

  I try to smile, but I'm still shaking.

  “You don't have to be brave,” he says, real quiet. “Neither of us does. A man's life is not so much about courage. You just have to keep going. You have to do what you've promised, brave or not.”

  “But I don't want you to go, Dad,” I whisper, and then I hug him as hard as I can and say it over and over: “Don't go, Dad. Don't. Don't go.”

  And Dad hugs me, and he says nothing, but I can feel him cry.

  OCTOBER

  “Good game,” Grandpa says, and he stands up from the kitchen table to shake my hand.

  I say “Good game” back, just out of habit. It's our usual Sunday night chess game, and I still haven't found a way to beat him.

  Nobody ever beats Grandpa. My brothers don't even play chess with him anymore. Dad beats him once in a while, but Dad's been in Iraq for two months and sixteen days. Grandpa goes to the shelf by the wood-stove in the living room and reaches down the felt-lined cigar box that holds the chessmen. We lay them in, ebony on one side and ivory on the other because you wouldn't want the troops to mingle and then have to kill each other the next day, would you? It would be bad for morale.

  Grandma's got four lamb bottles and a fresh light-bulb waiting for me. She holds up my barn coat and I slide it on, catching a draft of molasses cookies from the left front pocket. I get a wink and a little shove in the direction of the door. Grandma understands about playing chess with Grandpa. I guess she loves all her grandsons the same, but when it comes to chess, it's me she's rooting for. She's got a whole stack of big sisters, so she always says, “Brother, us youngests ought to stick up for each other.”

  Daylight is still hanging over the Strawberry Mountains, but it's dark enough to see Jupiter two fists up from the barn roof. I hear music coming from the hired-man shack. It sounds magical and sad, like something elves would play. Ernesto plays his pipes in the evening sometimes. When he first came, in September, I loved to hear him play. Now I know he only plays on nights when the letter from his kids in Ecuador is late. Usually a letter comes once a week. Every Friday afternoon, when Grandma comes home from her two hours at the little post office in town, Ernesto is waiting, with his hat in hand like it's a sacred moment.

  I know just how he feels, because I hardly ever have a letter from Dad. I know it's a command thing. Battalion commanders are too busy to write. Still, I'm glad it's not my job to tell Ernesto there's no mail from home.

  I slide back the barn door and walk past the stalls in the dark, heading for the warm glow of the lamb crib. I climb over the rails and hop in. A mound of pearl white peeks out of the hay, and I count four noses. They're the bum lambs. That's what you call it when the ewe dies and leaves a baby. It hardly seems fair. Being an orphan is depressing enough without being called a bum too. If I can keep these lambs alive all winter, I'll tag them in the spring and keep them in my own flock.

  I kick the straw around a bit to find a spot that hasn't been pooped on and settle cross-legged in the corner of the pen, leaning back against a hay bale. The lambs aren't supposed to have names—only horses and dogs are allowed to have names—but I call them Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Bilbo. I know better than to call one Sam, because Sam is my favorite Hobbit in the whole story.

  I pull Pippin into my lap. “Drink up now. I want to see some muscle on these ribs.”

  Pippin makes a dive for the nipple. Lambs are the sloppiest drinkers. They jerk their heads around and dribble. I shift Pip to the right so I don't get milk drool in my cookie pocket. I wish there were more than four lambs, because they'd keep warmer in the huddle. It's going to get cold tonight.

  When Pippin's done I tuck him under my knees, but he's got other ideas. He runs in circles for a bit and then starts jumping up on the hay bale and butting his head on the top rail of the lamb crib. Frodo's all for running around too, so I have to hold him snug to get him to drink his formula.

  Frodo has definitely gained a little, but Merry's got a rattle in his breathing. I lift him up and press my ear to his ribs. It's not my imagination. He's got some kind of gunk in his lungs. If he's sick, I should keep him away from the other three, only he'll freeze alone and the others need him for warmth.

  I hate this part of ranching. It's way worse than losing at chess. Animals die, and it feels the same amount of awful every time.

  By the time I'm done feeding Merry and Bilbo, Pippin is tired again. He flops down in the hay, and the rest of the lambs pile in on top of him. I settle Merry in the heap with his nose pointing toward the other lambs’ tails. I put a fresh bulb in the heat lamp and pull it low over them. It's probably not enough. I hop out of the crib and get the bottle of holy water that sits over the barn door. Grandma uses it for the lambing and calving season. She never said I couldn't have some. Grandpa doesn't really hold with holy water and praying to the saints, but he lets Grandma steer the religion around here. I flip up the plastic spout, shake a drop or two on Merry's head, and say Saint Patrick's blessing:

  “Christ in front of me. Christ behind me.

  Christ on my right side and Christ on my left.

  Christ when I go to sleep at night.

  Christ wake me up again.”

  I think about those cougar tracks Grandpa saw yesterday in the hills behind our ranch.

  “Christ in every eye that sees me.

  Christ in every ear that hears me.”

  I trace a cross on Merry's head and then cover him up the best I can with straw. I put the holy water back and slip outside.

  It's wall-to-wall stars now, with nothing to block the view except the empty branches of the big cotton-wood. I lean on the barn door and look up. The Herdsman constellation ought to be rising over by the notches of rock where Starvation Creek cuts through. The bottom half of him is still behind the hills at the north side of our land. I stay to watch him rise, because he's the constellation Dad and me picked to watch over me while he's gone. A second later, I change my mind because it's getting really cold. I pull out my cookie and head for the house.

  Grandpa is finishing up with the sheep. He keeps a gun pretty close when there are cougars around. I don't want him to think I'm sneaking up on him. He'd probably shoot first and check species second. I belt out some Alleluias, spraying cookie crumbs all the way up to the house.

  I reckon my grandpa's the only Quaker member of the National Rifle Association. He's a dead-serious pacifist and the best marksman around. He's gotten coyotes, cougars, and even a full-grown bear. No trophy antlers cluttering up our parlor, though. It's not the Quaker way to shoot a vegetarian.

  It's too bad. Over at the VFW, they make a venison stew that gets me begging for seconds before the bowl's even half empty. We spend a lot of time over at the VFW because Grandma is a veteran of foreign wars. She drove some general in a jeep all over France in the Second World War, and as if that wasn't enough, she maintained the Army Reserve motor pool for about a hundred years. She's got a scrapbook full of pictures and maps and signatures of famous people she's met. The one that's framed and hanging on the wall at the VFW meeting hall is when her general met General Eisenhower right after the Battle of the Bulge. Grandma's the one holding three briefcases, a shoebox-sized radio, and a thermos of coffee. She's tall as any man, with curly red hair and a movie star smile.

  Grandpa hates that picture. “That's no way to treat a lady,” he says.

  Grandma just laughs. “That's exactly the way to treat a corporal.”

  It's my favorite picture because it's plain to see: those generals were winning because Grandma had them all working like a fine-tuned tractor. There's not a mac
hine on our ranch that would dare drop a bolt while Grandma's around. She's got hands like a basketball player, and when she lifts up the hood, well, any truck in its right mind would know she means business.

  The light from the kitchen window makes a square pool of yellow in the front yard, and the shadow from the flag by the front door makes a ghost shape when a gust of air hits it. I walk up the front steps and slam the door quick to keep the warm air in. I slump down on the bench in the front hall, pull off my boots, and hang my coat on the peg between Frank's and Dad's.

  In the kitchen, I leave the empty lamb bottles in the sink. Grandma sits on her rolling stool by the computer and orders cow vaccines online. I pull up a chair at the kitchen table and unwrinkle my fractions homework.

  Grandpa comes in last. I can hear the thump of him taking off his work boots in the front hall. He walks around the corner into the kitchen, leans over to kiss Grandma, and then warms his hands on the china coffeepot before refilling Grandma's mug.

  “Second dinner, Brother? Plenty of stew in the pot,” he says.

  Actually, it'll make third dinner for me tonight, but who's counting?

  “Mhmm,” I say. I get up and bring a bowl to the stove. “Don't you want any, Grandpa?”

  “No thanks.”

  I fill up my bowl and get back to my homework while Grandpa takes out his journal and sits in the easy chair by the woodstove. Deep quiet settles around us. It's too cold for bug noises and too calm for wind noises. Sometimes it gets so quiet at night, I'd swear you can hear the stars twinkle.

  Grandma finishes up her computer business and spins around on her stool. “There's an e-mail waiting for you. Are you done with that math?”

  I give a yes grunt, rewrinkle the page, and tuck it down in the bottom of my backpack, where the wrinkles will get pressed in good. I know I've got them all right, but it's best to keep up appearances.

  Grandma doesn't say who it's from. She just goes into the living room with Grandpa to sit in the reclin-ers and watch the news. I try not to care if it's from Dad. I cross my fingers under the table as I click the envelope on the screen.