Heart of a Shepherd

Heart of a Shepherd Read Free Page A

Book: Heart of a Shepherd Read Free
Author: Rosanne Parry
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trail. I take a couple more sniffs, but I still don't smell anything but air.
    We put a few miles behind us before we find some of our cattle in a meadow just up from Strawberry Lake. There's about two dozen red-and-white Here-fords and their calves, bunched up in two groups. Dad and I move in to look them over. We've been findingpinkeye in some of the calves, so Dad brought the medicine along. I ride around the near group, and Dad takes the other. I look in both sides of each white face. Sometimes I have to shout and wave my coil of rope to get one of the cows to turn her head. My group's all clear, and I'm glad of it. A cow doesn't like eyedrops any more than I do.
    Dad takes one last look at the cows and then checks the ground to make sure they aren't tearing it up too bad. There's about a week's good pasture left, so we move on.
    It starts warming up after we get out of the heights. I peel off a shirt. Dad rides behind me, thinking his own thoughts, not talking to me. He's been like this all month. Every minute he's not working the land, he's doing some army paperwork or learning Arabic. Sometimes, even when I'm talking to him, it feels like he's already on the other side of the planet. I have a million things I want to say. I don't even know how to start.
    About a mile further on, we hit the steepest part of the trail and the last open spot of mountain pasture. This meadow has Black Angus, and they are more spread out than the Herefords were. Right away I can tell there's a problem, because I can hear a calf cryingfrom somewhere, but I can't see a calf that isn't mothered up. I ride slowly around the meadow, looking under clusters of huckleberry bushes and around boulders where a cow might hide her calf right after birth. I don't see anything, and Dad is hanging back, so I guess he wants me to figure this one out on my own.
    I look the cows over again, and there's one with her udder nearly down to the ground. She hasn't been suckled in hours. I give Spud a nudge, and we go take a look at her. She's standing by a long line of boulders where the meadow drops off to a gully that was a creek in the spring, but now it's just a dry wash. I peek over the edge, and there's the calf standing in the rock-strewn gully, bawling. If she's been down there all morning, she's dehydrated and exhausted by now.
    No way am I tall enough to lift her up over the rocks. About a hundred yards downhill, there's a gap where I can get Spud and me down in the wash and walk the calf out. I look back at Dad, but he doesn't even nod. I guess this really is my call.
    I work Spud down into the dry creek bed. Good thing she's small and steady, because it's really narrow and rocky in there, and hot with the noonday sun. We get about halfway to the calf when Spud starts acting up. She stops, backs up a few steps, and tosses her headlike she's trying to look at me and say, “Whose stupid idea was it to ride up this gully?”
    I hate when she acts up and Dad's watching. I talk smooth to her and give her a little slap on the butt with my rope, and then she moves clear up to the edge of the higher bank so that blackberry branches snag on my shirt and break off and stick to my jeans.
    “Hey, Spud, no fair!” I growl at her. Still, she's moving, so I don't complain too much. We come up on the calf, and she shies away from us. Good thing there's nowhere for her to run. She's a scrawny thing, maybe only a few days old. I toss a loop over her head, thankful I don't have to rope this calf from a run because the truth is, I'm not much good at roping. I tie her off to my saddle horn, tell Spud to stay, and walk over to check her. She's really dirty, and she has cuts and bruises from her fall. I feel her leg bones all the way down, and they're sound.
    “Come on, baby. Let's go find your mama.” I give the rope a tug, and the calf stretches her neck forward but she doesn't move.
    “Come on now. Mama's waiting.” I walk behind her and give her a shove from the back

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