Dust motes danced in the light that slanted in from the auction barn windows. The place smelled, predictably, of straw and of cattle. Two men sat midway up the bleachers within easy sight of the auctioneer platform. The older one wore a straw cowboy hat and a lined denim coat. He fussed with a small notebook and the listings. The other sipped coffee and watched the drovers open gates to let a handful of leggy Angus calves in. Two of the calves raced in, bucked a little. Each calf wore a sticker on its left hip with large numbers stenciled on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou buying?\u201d straw hat asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMaybe. Got a marker for a few heifers. One good bull calf. You?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHalf dozen replacements and the usual order for Southwest Meats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSay, you seen Bob Pallas around?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCan\u2019t say I have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The auctioneer began a spiel and the two men kept their hands down. The calves were walked clockwise around the pen with the drovers walking with them. There were a few laughs when one calf followed a drover close enough to send a tongue at the man\u2019s back. Buying of the bull calves was quick, most within twenty dollars of one another. Then the calves were shooed out a gate and back to the holding barns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few more men climbed into the bleachers and sat. The straw hated man nodded to a few. There was a pair of women in heavy coats dressed like enough to be sisters. He watched them too but they never looked his way. Big women. Looking again, he figured one was the daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three drovers each led a young cow into the barn. Holsteins, so they were easy to handle and came along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLook there at number 3228. See the one with the wide blaze on her face?\u201d coffee asked straw hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah, I see her. Tall. Nice stance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of Ty Enslow\u2019s herd. That fella over in Spring Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI heard of him. Pretty good grade cattle. Holsteins, nothing registered. Lives out on County R. That him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s him. Got fifty-six head. One of those old-fashioned guys, uses a bull instead of artificial. I been buying his heifers for twenty years now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy\u2019s that?\u201d Straw hat was intrigued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe got a good herd, no, a really good herd for unregistered. Anyway, long time back I bought one of his heifers on how she looked. Got her for my son-in-law when he and Bonnie first got to dairying. Anyway, it was his best cow. I tell you, my son-in-law got done right by me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe still milking?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSon-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNaw, he took the buy-out. Drives a forklift at a pallet factory.\u201d He raised his hand over his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow much was that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou ain\u2019t gonna get her for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know, but now I\u2019m in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Raise, counter. Wait. Counter. The auctioneer spoke faster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou still on her?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYup.\u201d He raised his hand again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGeez, who you buying her for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMaybe Irving. I dunno, maybe me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re kidding. You think that much of this Enslow fella?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI do. \u201c Raised his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou ever meet him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEnslow? Once. I saw him at a county fair. Somebody pointed him out to me. Nice fella. Looked a lot like Dan Petroskey. Remember him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI do. Great auctioneer. Real gentleman.\u201d He raises his hand, holds up three fingers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHey, you got her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI did.\u201d He drained his coffee cup and put the cup on the bleacher seat. \u201cI remember Dan Petroskey for a story I hear about him. Maybe you heard this story, stop me if you did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSeems he was doing a farm auction a ways back. One of those killer auctions where they sell everything\u2014livestock, implements, hay, kitchen stuff and kids\u2019 clothes. Everything. Anyway, Dan was standing at a table of stuff\u2014junk, really, old canning jars and boxes of bolts and string. Up to this far the auction had been slow. Not much action, lots of lookie-looks. A real sour day. So Dan is standing at this table and he knows the farmer and his wife are watching him. Dan wants to sell this stuff but he knows he just can\u2019t. So he stands there a minute and looks at the stuff. Junk. He\u2019s drinking coffee from a paper cup and it\u2019s empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2019Folks, he says into the mike, the next part of the sale we\u2019ll do bingo style. Anybody who\u2019s had coffee from the ladies at the concession\u2014and you know it\u2019s good coffee\u2014has a cup with numbers on the bottom. You all see that? Well only people who have a coffee cup can take part in this next sale. We\u2019ll take a break here for ten, fifteen minutes so if you don\u2019t have a coffee cup yet, go and see Dorie.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2019Get a sandwich while you\u2019re there. I recommend anything but the ham-and-cheese \u2018cause that\u2019s my favorite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy now Artie, his assistant, is wondering what\u2019s going on. He looks over at Dan who just shakes his head. Dan stays at the table and moves things around to make six separate piles. Then after fifteen minutes he takes the mike and says, Okay then, the first lot up for sale can only be bid on by folks who got coffee cups that have a three or six in the numbers on the bottom. Who\u2019s got em?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA buncha people raise their cups and some people start looking in the trash cans. Dan starts the bidding. Wouldn\u2019t you know, the stuff went through the roof. He knew that if only a few people are allowed to bid, they will. Makes them feel special. No time flat, he sold all that junk. That\u2019s Dan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other man nodded. \u201cWhat ever happened to him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCar wreck. Got head-on with a pickup full of kids out racing. Killed outright.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh, man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah. That\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next up, bull calves. Dust whirled, lazily found places to set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dust motes danced in the light that slanted in from the auction barn windows. The place smelled, predictably, of straw and of cattle. Two men sat midway up the bleachers within easy sight of the auctioneer platform. The older one wore a straw cowboy hat and a lined denim coat. He fussed with a small … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/mateus-bandeira-rWkq8xO8F_U-unsplash.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":835,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions\/835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Travis Stephens was raised as a cowboy–the milking kind. Our cows were Holsteins and not a brand or horn among them. Still wondering, when I drive around California, is that a ranch or a farm?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"