That's not a good sign, Tobin told Tessa, gesturing toward the dog. Is it usually right? Has been for as long as I can remember. She looked at the sky. She didn't know how to read weather the way they did.
Didn't have the years of accumulated observation that turned cloud patterns and wind direction into a language. But she could see the quality of the light. And she could feel what the air was doing to her lungs when she breathed it. And she didn't need experience to know that it felt like the air before something. She went back to the house and went over the auction logistics for the fourth time.
The six steers needed to be in Mil Haven by the morning of November 3rd. The drive was a day and a half if the weather held. If it didn't hold, if a storm hit during the drive, the options narrowed fast, and none of them were good. She sat with that problem for an hour. Then she went and found Calder.
He was at the East Pen checking on the conditioning animals his own routine with them, which he'd started about a week after she'd started hers, not because she'd asked him to, but because he decided the auction was happening regardless. And he might as well make sure the animals were properly managed. If the weather turns before November 3rd, she said, "What's our window for moving the steers safely? " He looked at her. Then he looked at the sky in that particular rancher way that covered multiple variables simultaneously. 2 days, maybe three if it holds light.
What do we lose if we move them early? Conditioning time. 3 days early, you might see some weight shift. Nothing serious. What do we lose if we wait too long and get caught in a storm on the drive?
The steers potentially or the people driving them. He said it flatly without drama. Just the calculation. So, we need to watch the next 48 hours and be ready to move early. Yeah, he said.
That's what we need to do. She nodded. She started to go. Tessa. She stopped.
He was still looking at the sky. You're asking the right questions, he said, not warmly. Not like a compliment, like a notation. Like she'd gotten a calculation right and he was confirming the answer. I've had good teachers, she said.