by Kate Whitsby
The cattle started coming back through the gap and milling around on the plain. They nibbled the leaves of the scrub and the occasional clumps of grass. “Something’s different about this herd,” Jude remarked. “They look different from the cattle I’ve worked with on other ranches.”
Allegra spoke up. “That’s because they’re part Brahmin. We use a Brahmin bull. You can see the cows and calves that come from him.”
“But some of them are regular Longhorns,” Jude returned. “I recognize them.”
“That’s right,” Allegra told him. “We started with a base stock of Longhorn cows and bred them with the Brahmin bull. We still have a few of the original Longhorns, but most are a mixture.”
“What possessed you to go and do a thing like that?” Jude asked. “What’s wrong with Longhorns?”
“Nothing’s wrong with them, “Allegra replied.
“Then you should have used a Longhorn bull,” Jude maintained. “You should keep the line as pure as possible.”
“Why?” Allegra asked. “What’s a pure line good for?”
“When you sell them,” Jude explained. “You get more for purebred Longhorns than for some crazy mongrel mixture. Besides, Longhorns are the best suited to the dry conditions than other cattle breeds.”
“They might be better suited than Jerseys and Angus breeds,” Allegra replied. “But Brahmins are suited to dry conditions, too They might be even better than Longhorns. And the slaughterhouse buyer buys our cattle by bulk carcass weight. He doesn’t care what breed they are. All that matters is that they reach the sale yards alive.”
Jude narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t know about that.”
“If you don’t believe me,” Allegra shot back. “You can ask the buyer yourself the next time we see him. That’s what he told me, and he’ll tell you the same thing. And I’ll tell you something else. Mac Foley, who runs the ranch just next to ours, loans us his Brahmin bull every year at no charge, so we get our cows bred with no cost. If we wanted a Longhorn bull, we would pay top dollar for him, or else we would pay a fee to hire him every year. So it saves us money to use the Brahmin.”
“I always favored Longhorns myself,” Jude grumbled.
“Maybe you always favored Longhorns,” Allegra acknowledged. “I’m not saying Longhorns aren’t good. But the Brahmin bull fits our circumstances, and the animals we get by crossing the two breeds are just as good, if not better, than purebred Longhorns. So that’s why we use them.”
“I still don’t like it,” he muttered.
Allegra snorted. “You don’t have to like it.”
Alma caught Amelia’s eye and saw a flash of amusement cross her younger sister’s face. Allegra had nailed Jude neatly. To punctuate the conversation, she wrapped her reins around her saddle horn and pulled her rifle out of its leather case at her side. She jumped down.
“I’m going over to the target range,” Allegra announced. “Who’s coming with me?”
“Aren’t you going to guard the cattle?” Jude asked.
“We take turns,” Allegra told him. “All three of us don’t have to sit here doing nothing the whole time. It’s Alma’s turn to guard them. She’ll call me if anything happens and she needs me to come back.”
“I’ll come with you.” Amelia nudged her horse over next to Allegra’s. She slid down from her saddle and tied both horses to the branch of a tree a little way away. She took out her own rifle and the two sisters walked away toward a gulley behind the hill.
After they left, Jude turned to Alma. “What are they going to do over there?”
“Allegra likes to practice shooting during the slow times,” Alma told him. “She’s become really good with all that practice. Why don’t you go with them? It will be a lot more interesting than sitting up here with me.”
Jude shook his head. “I’ll stay with you. It’s probably a lot safer for me than going off into the desert alone with those two. They might shoot me and leave me in the gulley for the coyotes.”
Alma chuckled. “No, they wouldn’t. At least, they wouldn’t unless I told them to.”
“I see,” Jude replied. “Are you sure you wouldn’t tell them to?”
Alma smiled. “Not yet, anyway. But you’re not makin’ any friends around here by telling them how to manage our herd. We’ve put a lot of work into this herd, and we’ve gone to a lot of trouble to figure out what works best for them. You just got here. Do yourself a big favor and just watch and learn. You might find out we know what we’re doing after all.”
Jude frowned. “I don’t want to watch and learn, especially not from….” He shut his mouth without finishing his sentence.
Alma understood him. “You mean, from a bunch of women? That’s okay. I understand how you feel. But think about it. Even if you plan to take over this ranch some day, you need to learn about the local conditions and the ways of managing this herd that work best for our animals. You might not like to learn from women, but just give yourself some time to take it all in. That’s all I’m saying.”
Jude kept his mouth closed and didn’t argue with her.
Alma nodded over her shoulder. “Come over and sit under the tree with me for a while. This could be one of the only chances we have to be alone. Let’s sit and talk for a while until they come back.”
She kicked off her stirrups and jumped down from her saddle. She tied up her horse with the others and sat in the shade. Jude hesitated, frowning down at the cattle on the plain. Then he dismounted and joined Alma under the tree.
Chapter 20