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“He had moral concerns.”

“He’s a bull.”

“That’s an ugly stereotype, Wy.”

“The buyers are waiting.”

“The buyers are eating Boone’s brisket and drinking our coffee. They’d wait through Christmas.”

Wyatt looked at my shoulder too.

I hated being related to observant people.

I hooked the sorting stick over the panel and ducked through the side gate before either brother could make a federal case out of an ache I’d been managing since half the folks in that barn still thought rodeo meant wearing a good buckle to a dance.

The sale barn held June heat like a grudge. Dust floated gold in the blades of sun cutting through the high windows. Cattle shifted in the pens behind the ring, panels clanked, and the auctioneer’s voice rolled through it all, quick as hail on tin.

Folding chairs filled the packed dirt floor in uneven rows. Ranchers from across the valley sat in seed caps and clean jeans, sale books folded against their thighs. A few buyers had come in from farther out, judging by the plates I’d seen on the trucks lining our gravel drive. Men leaned toward one another, talking pedigrees, feet, shoulders, birth weights, and grass as if the future could be bred cleanly enough to prevent surprise.

I knew most of them.

More important, I knew which ones wanted to be known.

A man near the center aisle had spent the morning pretending not to look at Lot 14’s page. He had circled the bull’s weaning weight hard enough to nearly cut the paper. Another buyer two rows back had asked Boone three separate questions about the dam and then said he was “just curious,” which was rancher language for I want him and don’t want you to know.

I took the aisle slow, shaking hands, touching chair backs, stopping where I needed to stop.

“How’s your grass?” I asked one buyer.

“Coming.”

“That means bad.”

“That means coming.”

“Sure. And Wyatt’s a carefree spirit.”

The buyer snorted, but his eyes stayed on the ring gate.

Good.

At the back, Earl Hansen occupied two chairs with one body and a canvas coat he didn’t need. His seed cap sat low over his eyes.

“Cash Calloway,” he said. “You finally decide to work?”

“I’m decorative, Earl. Different department.”

“Lot Fourteen’s got too much frame.”

“You said last year’s bulls were too compact.”

“Last year was dry.”

“Does changing your mind that often make you dizzy?”

Earl squinted at me, sincere enough to be dangerous. “You boys should’ve put another fifty pounds on him.”

“He’ll add it at your place if you keep feeding cattle like they’re beloved house pets.”