Plainsong by Kent Haruf Page B

upended wooden telephone spool they used for a table. The smudge pot they stood upright on the ground near the chute and Harold bent over stiffly and held a match to it. When it ignited he adjusted the flue so it gave off heat, and its smoke rose black and smelling of kerosene into the wintry air, mixing with the cattle dust.
    They looked up at the sound of a truck out beyond the house: Guthrie’s pickup just turning off the county road. It came on around the house and the few outbuildings past the stunted trees and pulled up where they stood waiting. Guthrie and the two boys climbed out in their winter coats and caps.
    Now who’s these hired men? Harold said. He looked at Ike and Bobby standing beside their father.
    I brought them along, Guthrie said. They said they wanted to come.
    Well I just hope they’re not too costly, Harold said. We can’t afford any city wages. Tom, you know that. He was speaking soberly, in a kind of mock quarrelsome voice. The two boys stared back at him.
    I can’t say what they’ll charge, Guthrie said. You’ll have to ask them.
    Raymond stepped up. What say, you boys. What’s this going to put us back today?
    They turned toward this second old man, younger than the other one, his face raw looking and grizzled in the cold air and his dirty cap pulled down low above his dust-bleared eyes. How much you going to charge us to join this escapade? he said.
    They didn’t know what to say. They shrugged their shoulders and looked at their father.
    Well, Raymond said. I reckon we’ll have to negotiate it later. After we see how you manage.
    He winked and turned away and then they understood it was all right. They walked over to the chute and stood at the makeshift table and looked at the vaccination guns and the boxes of medicine vials. They inspected it all and felt cautiously of the dehorner, its sharp cupped blood-encrusted ends, and they edged up to the smudge pot and held out their gloved hands to its gassy heat. Suddenly one of the cows bawled from inside the corral and they ducked to see through the boards to tell which one it was, and the cattle were milling around waiting for what was to come.
    The men went to work. Guthrie climbed into the corral and immediately the cattle eyed him and began to shove back against the far side of the lot. He walked steadily toward them. The cattle started to herd and shift along the back fence, and he ran up swiftly, cutting off the last two animals, a black heifer and an old speckle-faced cow, and turned them back out across the trampled dirt. They tried to double back, but each time he flapped his arms and yelled at them, and finally they trotted suspiciously into the narrow alley that fed into the chute. From outside the alley, Raymond jammed a pole though the fence behind them so they couldn’t back out and then he jabbed the heifer with the electric prod and it made a sizzling sound against her flank, and she snorted and leaped into the squeeze chute. He caught her head in the head-catch and she kicked and crashed until he squeezed the sidebars against her ribs. She lifted her black rubbery muzzle and bawled in terror.
    Meanwhile Harold had taken off his canvas jacket and pulled on an old orange sweatshirt that had one of its sleeves scissored off, and he had greased his bare arm with lubricant jelly. Now he stepped up behind the chute and twisted the heifer’s tail over her back. He fit his hand inside her and pawed out the loose green warm manure and shoved in deeper, feeling for a calf. His face was turned skyward against her flank, his eyes squinted shut in concentration. He could feel the round hard knot of the cervix, the larger swelling beyond. He rotated his hand over it. The bones were already forming.
    Yeah. She’s got one, he hollered to Raymond.
    He withdrew his arm. It was red and slick, spotted with mucus and flecks of manure and little threads of blood. He held his arm away from his body and it steamed in the cold air, and while he