Titans by Leila Meacham Page B

Harris, the foreman, her father’s longtime and most essential hand. Hurriedly, he’d helped her prepare a concoction of milk and mash for the calf to suckle from a “banana bottle,” so named because of its curved shape. It was a glass container with two openings at either end, one smaller for attaching a rubber nipple and the other larger for adding food. It was perfect for feeding motherless calves, and a large improvement over the awkward and unsanitary nursing contraptions used in the past.
    “Wouldn’t surprise me none,” Wayne said. “Ain’t no denyin’ a mama’s natural instincts when it comes to her offspring, be she human or animal.”
    That drew Samantha’s startled attention. Her father’s words— Her parents didn ’ t want her, and they gave her away— stuck with her still, if banished to the netherland of memory. A thought flashed in her head never considered before. What if… like the mother cow, circumstances beyond the control of her real parents had forced them to give her up? There could be many reasons… poverty, illness, approaching death, an excess of offspring. Maybe it wasn’t that her natural parents hadn’t wanted her; they’d simply been unable to provide for her. It wasn’t uncommon in hard times for parents who couldn’t care for their children to leave them by the wayside in hope that somebody would come along who would give them a good home. Maybe… her real parents missed her and would like to know that she was loved and well looked after.
    “Wayne, do you recall anything about my birth?” she’d asked. She had never gone to her parents with those “inevitable questions only normal to an adopted child.”
    A wary look had crossed his face. “Can’t say I do, Mornin’ Glory. I just remember the morning the bunkhouse was informed a baby girl had been delivered to the Gordons in the middle of the night.”
    “Why in the middle of the night? Was I a secret?”
    “Well, now, if you’d been a secret, the news of you comin’ to us wouldn’t have been shouted to the whole world the next mornin’, now would it? Why do you ask?”
    “Just curious.”
    “Well, it’d be a good idea to keep your curiosity between you and me. Your folks might not understand it.” He’d squinted an eye at her. “You comprehend what I’m sayin’?”
    Clearly, Wayne was right. Her father would feel threatened and betrayed, her mother rejected. They would interpret her curiosity as dissatisfaction with them, and Samantha wouldn’t have them feel that way for anything in the world.
    “I understand,” she’d said, rubbing the ears of the baby steer. He had finished feeding and was bawling for his mama. “Wayne, I don’t want this little fellow ever sold. He’s to be allowed to live out his life on the ranch eating all the grass he wants.”
    “I imagine your daddy will have a say about that, Mornin’ Glory. He ain’t one to offer free grass and water without somethin’ in return, and this little fellow is money on the hoof.”
    “He’ll understand.”
    Her father had heard her out in silence and finally, after considering her carefully from behind his massive oak desk, cleared his throat of something rough that had stuck there. “All right, daughter,” he said. “It’ll be done. But how will you identify that dogie from the rest of the herd?”
    “I’ll paint the tips of his horns red.”
    “I suppose you’ll give the critter a name.”
    “Yes,” Samantha said. “I’m going to call him Saved.”
    Her father smiled in understanding and approval of her choice. He nodded. “Saved. That’s a fine handle. I’ll let the boys know.”
    That had been the last time Samantha had spared a thought to the questions of her birth. At fifteen, she’d been almost grown. She remembered thinking that she was too old and it was too late for the people who’d given birth to her to come looking for her. Her life was set. She had her parents and wished for no other. Neal Gordon no