I'll make sure he gets in front of the right buyers, she said. Calder looked at the pen for another moment. You really think this auction is going to work? I think it's the best option we have, she said. I'm not going to tell you I'm certain.
I'm not. That's the first honest thing you've said to me about it. I've been honest with you about all of it. No, he said you've been confident. That's different.
He turned away from the fence. I know the difference because I do the same thing. You perform confidence when you're not sure because if you admit you're not sure, people stop following you. He paused. I'm not saying it's wrong.
I'm just saying I recognized it. She stood very still for a moment. You're not wrong. I know. He walked back toward the barn.
She stayed at the fence and looked at the split-eared steer and thought about what it cost a 22-year-old boy to say something that honest to a woman he'd spent 6 weeks trying to push out of his father's house. It cost him something and he'd paid it anyway. She filed that away, too. The first real crisis came on a Wednesday, 14 days before the auction. It had nothing to do with cattle.
Milo fell. He was in the barn loft doing whatever 9-year-old boys do in barn lofts when they think nobody's watching. And he came down wrong on a loose board and dropped about 6 ft to the lower level. Hollis found him and got Tessa first, not Warren, not Calder. Hollis, who came running to the house and hit the door with his shoulder and said, "Milo's down.
He's conscious, but his arm looks wrong. She had done first aid, not professional training, not a course she'd learned from a farm wife in Missoula who'd had six children, and a husband who worked with heavy equipment, which is the same education really. She knew what a broken arm looked like, and she knew what to do before the doctor arrived. She was in the barn in 2 minutes. Milo was sitting against the post with his right arm held against his chest and his face the color of old chalk.
He was not crying. That was the part that scared her. A 9-year-old not crying when he's broken his arm is either very tough or in a kind of pain that's pushed past tears. And she couldn't tell which this was yet. She crouched in front of him.