The Cadence of Grass by Thomas Mcguane Page B

moderately sloped pasterns nicely domed around the frog that took a size-aught shoe and never split out a nail or chipped when he was barefoot, but left a rounded, nearly burnished edge. Evelyn liked to step back from him after he was saddled. He looked like such a little cow horse, though he wasn’t so little and at three, tipped a thousand pounds on the Fairbanks Morse cattle scale whose wiggling floor and clanging weights gave him new doubts about the state of the world.
    Cree kept one eye on the dreaded cattle, and when one or another picked its head up to look at him, its face dusted with alfalfa particles, he gained speed. Evelyn just sat deeper and let him run it out. When at last the edge seemed to be off, she slumped down and let him stop.
    “I think that ring-eye’d look at your colt,” Bill said.
    “Don’t see a ring-eye.”
    “It’s just rubbed off around her left eye, got a little ridge of hair between her shoulders, mud two inches up her left ankle, frosted ear tip and low headset to her tail, peeled brand. Between the flattop and the bonnet.”
    “Oh, yup, got her.” Evelyn twisted in her saddle to study this particular heifer. She saw what Bill liked, something in the way she glanced at the horse from her place by the hay bale, gentle and alert. Evelyn walked her horse toward the cattle, and they began swinging to the far side of the hay to better watch the horse. With all these faces looking at him, Cree seemed lighter on the ground. One high-headed, slant-eyed yearling took this moment to lope around them, and it was all Evelyn could do to keep her colt from bolting for the gate. Despite Cree’s intermittent losses of nerve, Evelyn was able to separate a heifer. Once the yearling was driven off by itself and the herd was well behind him, Cree’s confidence returned. The cow ran to the left and he followed easily with her, then stopped as though chilled. When the cow headed the other way, he rolled smoothly through his hocks, turned around and rated her speed. At this point, deciding she was in earnest about returning to the herd, the cow ran straight at the colt and made a series of wild dodges that carried Evelyn around the pen, running, stopping, sliding as though on skates, feeling all the while the ambition rise within her shy young horse as he discovered new ability at every jump. When the cow gave up, she reached down to pat his neck, then rode him away. The cow went back to feeding. “That will do,” said Evelyn, lifting the gate latch from her saddle and swinging it aside.
    “Good,” said Bill.
    They rode through a big pink patch of cheatgrass, and detoured around some lilacs that indicated a vanished homestead cabin while Evelyn awaited the inevitable comment.
    “He was great,” said Bill Champion.
    “But what?”
    “It could be you’re riding him a little tighter with your left leg, I dunno, seems like it’s a little easier for him to go the other way. I’m not saying it’s so, I’m saying think about it. Maybe you’re not turning your own head as good that way and he’s feeling it especially when that cow gets a little bit behind your left shoulder. I was sure pleased you let that cow pull you from place to place, seems like you were a little ahead of him with your spurs last time, just a hair. Also, when he gets to feeling doubtful, go on ahead and just drive up to your cow and see if you can’t sink the hook that much more. I noticed once or twice you did that, he started to melt real pretty like he was a hundred percent ready for anything she wanted to throw at him.”
    “What if you’re wrong about my left leg?”
    “I could be, I sure could be. In that case you’re gonna have to bump him from the other side and make him give you that rib. Either way he has to bend identical either direction or he’s gonna get beat by that cow the first turn around or the hundredth. It’s there. But don’t get me wrong, you got you a good scald on your colt