CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Maeve motioned for me to sit with her up on a fence that gave us a good view of what was going on but wasn’t actually close enough to get in the way of what the men were doing. I climbed up next to her with a little difficulty, my ankle not excited about lifting my weight like that. Once we were settled, Maeve began to explain what we were watching.
“All these calves need to be treated with vaccines, branded, and castrated before they get too big, so that’s why the men are working so late, and Boog’s here to help. We have several hundred head to get through, and it’s exhausting work.”
The smallish animals were being led down a path between metal rail fences, with encouragement from Ian, to a small, square, fenced-off area set up where Mack was waiting. When the calf made it into that area, Ian would shut the entrance to trap the calf inside a smaller box made of bars. Mack pulled levers to trap its head and then its body.
My heart leaped into my throat as I watched Mack move another lever and then flip the entire calf over on its side in the contraption. The show of brute strength was unexpected and thrilling in a pure animal lust kind of way. “Oh my god,” I half-whispered, unable to tear my eyes away. “What is he doing?”
“He’s getting the bull calf into position so they can do the work on him. That metal box he’s in now is called a squeeze chute. Believe it or not, it calms most calves to be held in it like this.”
“What work are they going to do on him?”
“You’ll see . . .”
Mack opened up a small door near the calf’s neck. Ian came in at the same time and grabbed the calf’s back leg, pulling it out straight.
Angus walked over next with something in his hand, standing over the calf’s neck.
“What’s Angus doing?”
“He’s going to vaccinate the calf and then brand him.”
“Does it hurt?” I asked, ready to cry on the animal’s behalf.
“The vaccination? No, not at all. They inject them just under the skin, like the vet does with a cat or dog. The branding might hurt a little. Usually they just lie there, but sometimes they bawl a tad or kick once. It’s normal. They get up and move on like nothing happened right after, though. They’re tough little buggers. It’s the castration that hurts, but not as much as you might think.”
“Who does that part?” I asked, feeling sick to my stomach again.
“Boog. He gets paid in testes, and he’s as gentle and skilled as they come. We’re lucky to have him, and so are the animals.”
I swallowed with effort, my voice coming out strained. “I think I might have misunderstood. I thought I just heard you say you pay him with balls.”
She chuckled and patted my knee. “No, you heard right. You’ll see why soon enough.”
I didn’t respond because I was quite sure I would never see how testicles could be considered a paycheck. Besides, arguing would be a waste of breath; they obviously worked on a different set of values around here.
The calf kicked a little and then seemed to give up, relinquishing his will to that of the men who held him down. Mack’s forearm muscles flexed under his skin, and his thighs bulged through his jeans with the effort of flipping the calf and operating the machinery. He had the baseball hat on instead of a cowboy hat, and somehow managed to make it look sexier than I would have thought possible. I was definitely sick or something. Every time I looked at him, I felt dizzy and out of sorts.
“What’s the matter, Andie?” Maeve was staring at me.
“Oh, I was just thinking I might have a fever or something. I feel a little light-headed.”
“It’s probably just the idea of castration. It’s not exactly after-dinner conversation, is it?”
Angus walked up with something on a cord and stopped at the animal’s back end.
“What’s he doing now? And do I even want to know?”
“Branding. Some ranchers use ear tags, but we find them a problem when the animals get too high in the mountains. Lots of branches and things for them to catch on, and then we get maggot problems. Plus, they’re easier to remove by rustlers. Branding is easy, quick, and less likely to cause problems later, so that’s what we do.”
Angus pressed the end of the iron into the side of the calf’s upper hip. A huge cloud of smoke rose up to surround Angus’s head, making me really glad I wasn’t close enough to smell the burning hair and flesh. “That poor baby,” I whispered, my hands curling into fists. I pressed them into my mouth, unable to tear my eyes away from the operation. Angus stood and moved out of the way.
“We take good care of our animals, and branding is part of that,” explained Maeve, pride in her voice. “Without it, they’d be easily stolen, and people who steal animals generally don’t take very good care of them.”
I wanted to stay mad at Mack for holding down the calf and allowing it to be hurt like that, but the simple fact is that I like hamburgers. My sense of fairness and accountability told me it was wrong to hate the process and participants when I was a willing beneficiary of it all. “I suppose if you do your best by the animals when they’re in your care, that’s the best you can do.”
“We follow the Temple Grandin methods out here as much as we possibly can. We’re big believers.”
“Temple Grandin?”
“She’s a brilliant scientist who’s done a lot to contribute to the livestock industry and animal husbandry. You should check her out online. She’s a pretty amazing woman.”
“Soooo . . . she has rules or whatever about how to do things?”
“Not rules per se. See, she’s autistic and has a special sensitivity to the world around her, much like cows do, in fact. So she’s able to see the world through their eyes, something ranchers never seemed to be able to do in the past. In our world, cattle are a means to an end. At least, that’s how it used to be. But thanks to her insight and contributions, we’ve been able to find ways to make the animals’ lives here as pleasant as possible while also making a living at raising them for food. It’s a delicate balance, but we like to think we’re getting it right.”
“It sounds fascinating.” I wasn’t lying either. I’d never heard of such a thing, and the fact that it was a woman doing the work of understanding cows for the benefit of ranchers was empowering even just to think about. It seemed like such a man’s world out here. This Temple person must have had an uphill battle on her hands. I admire kick-butt women in general, so I made a mental note to Google her later.
“It is fascinating—it truly is. I suggest you start with the movie that was made about her. It’s powerful. I guarantee you’ll need tissues when you’re watching it. Her work sure caused a lot of heads around here to think differently. Started with Angus many years ago and bled over to several other operations, and the movement grows every year. Right now over half the cattle in our country are raised using methods she discovered and taught.”
“That’s . . . amazing. Really, I mean it.”
“Yes. Temple is an amazing person. Brilliant and compassionate. She reminds us that animals deserve our respect, a decent life, and a painless death. It’s the least we can do. I’ve seen her speak live before. It was quite a whirlwind of energy and information. She’s a real fireball. Makes you proud to be a woman rancher.” Maeve stared out over the operation and nodded silently.
A lump developed in my throat that wouldn’t go away. I turned to face the men and watched as Boog bent over at the animal’s rear legs near its stomach.
“He’s castrating the bull now,” said Maeve in a soft voice. “This part hurts them, but he’s good and he’s fast. It’ll all be over in a minute.”
“Why do they do it?”
“It makes the animal much less aggressive toward the men and the other animals, so it’s a safety issue. And it makes their meat better. They’re being sold for food, so that’s an important thing.”
I nodded absently, focused on Boog. I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but after about a minute he straightened up and dropped what he was holding into a bucket near his feet.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Testicles. He’ll fry them up later and eat them. We’ll have some at the picnic so you can give them a try.” She looked at me. “You’re coming, I hope.”
“You said it’s in a couple days, but I’ll be gone by then.” I left the eating-of-balls comment alone because it would be an ice-cold, snowy day in hell before a calf testicle passed through these lips of mine.
“It sounds like you work a lot of hours, being focused the way you are on your lifeplan and all.”
Her change of subject threw me off a little. “Uhhhh . . . yes, I do work very hard. At least sixty hours a week.”
“Wow, that is a lot. When was the last time you had a vacation? Maybe you’re due.”
I had to think about it for a little while. “I guess it was a couple years ago. And it wasn’t really a vacation.”
“Your trip to Vegas?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I was only there for a day and a half and . . . I didn’t do a lot.” Except get married. Gah! Another lie. When will it end? I felt positively twitchy over my half-truths.
“That’s the last time my boys went out of town too. Well, that’s not exactly right. That’s the last time Mack went anywhere. Ian left for a little while and had plans to take a vacation, but they fell through.”
“That’s too bad. Where was he going to go?”
“Hawaii.” Maeve smiled, but it wasn’t the happy kind; it had too much sadness laced in it.
“Hawaii sounds nice.” My tone was prying, but I didn’t care. I was curious. If anyone needed a vacation, it was Ian. Maybe it would help him change his attitude to go surfing or snorkeling somewhere.
“He didn’t really much care for the idea of Hawaii. He’s not much of a beach person, but it was Ginny’s dream to go there, so he agreed to go.”
“Is that his wife?”
Maeve sighed heavily. “No, Ginny was going to be his wife, but they ended up canceling the wedding just days before it was supposed to happen.”
“Oh. That sucks.” Mack had been to Las Vegas to celebrate that upcoming wedding. It gave me a bad feeling to know I’d been around just before the big break-up.
“It was terrible. A very emotional time for everyone, but especially Ian of course. He still hasn’t recovered.”
“Is that why he’s . . .” I rolled my eyes at myself. I’d almost said, “such a rude jerk?” Talk about a rude jerk . . . yeah, that’s me, the girl sitting here completely oblivious to the feelings of the lady who probably cried a thousand tears over that little left-at-the-altar event.
She patted my arm. “That’s why he’s so sharp is how I like to put it. He wasn’t like that before. He’s a sweet boy underneath the hurt.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’ve seen glimpses.”
She stood, like she was shaking off the memories. “Come on. Let’s go take a closer look.”
I followed her off the fence, not positive I wanted a closer look but loathe to be rude to such a nice lady who was working so hard at making me feel comfortable. If things had been different between us, I was sure we could have been friends. She reminded me a bit of Ruby.
She went to stand at the gate near where they were letting the calves in one by one. I stood next to her, just a few feet away from Mack. He turned sideways, giving me a great view of his face in profile, and I couldn’t stop staring.
“How many left?” asked Maeve.
Angus answered without looking over. “About a hundred, give or take.”
“Will you finish tomorrow?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends.”
She nodded. I was curious what it would depend on, but not enough to ask. I’d already learned way more than I’d ever wanted to about cattle ranching.
I tried to be mad about what I was seeing—the animals’ pain and the almost barbarian practices of branding and castration—but I couldn’t work up that emotion. Instead, all I could feel was admiration and envy. Maeve made it clear that they did their best to make the business of raising cattle for beef a humane operation, respectful of the animal and its sensitivities. I was jealous of the loving teamwork I saw happening here and the easy way they had about them.
Comparing what was going on here to my life back home, I found my world coming up short. The law firm was a highly competitive environment with people just waiting for me and everyone else to screw up, it seemed. Deadlines were strict and ever present, and the workload was enormous. The little demon on my shoulder was ponking me on the side of the head, reminding me that my personal life wasn’t much better. For some reason, being honest with myself was really easy out here, despite all the near lies I was telling Maeve.
Whenever I went somewhere with Bradley, I constantly had to watch what I said, what expression I showed on my face, what impression I was giving off. Here I had a feeling it wouldn’t matter; the MacKenzies were going to like me if I was nice and respectful, and that was that. It wouldn’t matter what clothes I was wearing, where I went to school, how much money I made in a year, or how many hours I billed last month. It was only me they would care about and how I treated people.
It made me sad to imagine them finding out about what I’d done with Mack and about the lies I was telling them about it now. They’d think I’d used Mack and then left him in the dust. They’d tell me to get off their ranch and never come back. I realized as I stood in front of the fence in the twilight-lit evening that I wanted to be liked by them, even though I knew I’d never see them again. The idea that they’d hate me for something I couldn’t even remember doing made me physically ill.
“I’m going to get your room put together. I just need to put some sheets on the bed.” Maeve pushed away from the fence.
“I’ll help you,” I said.
“No, stay. I’ll come get you when I’m ready. I think the boys like having an audience.” She nodded in their direction, and I followed her gaze. Ian was flexing his right arm, trying to get his brother to compare biceps with him. Mack just shook his head and turned away.
I nodded, not even looking at Maeve, fascinated for some strange reason by the scene in front of me. Four cowboys—make that three cowboys and one Wookiee—were gathered inside a pen that had a calf running around in it, kicking up his heels. The little guy was apparently very happy now that he was free of their squeezy machine, even though he’d left his testicles behind. Ian was still flexing, now with his other arm. Mack was shaking his head, laughing a little. Boog and Angus were talking quietly about something. If I’d had a camera, I would have shot fifty photos of them right there. It was like the cover of a magazine. The article would read: “Ranching life in the heart of the mountain valley of Baker City, Oregon . . . idyllic.” I lifted my eyes to the peaks that surrounded the city. They were majestic, barely visible now in the waning light.