He raised his hand. She raised hers. Then the trail curved and the ranch was behind them, and ahead of them was a day and a half of frozen ground and the auction at Mil Haven and everything riding on it. At the rear of the column, watching the cattle's backs and the horizon alternately, Tessa pulled her heavier gloves tight and kept moving. The bitter root was white in every direction.
It was cold and beautiful and very serious, and she was in it. The drive took a day and a half, as Calder had calculated, and it was not comfortable. The first day was manageable cold, steady work, the kind that settles into a rhythm after the first 2 hours and becomes almost meditative if you let it. The steers moved well on the hard-crusted snow, the split-eared one maintaining his position at the front with the calm authority of an animal that had apparently decided leadership suited him. Tessa stayed at the rear and watched and learned things about cattle movement that no ledger had ever taught her.
The way a group of animals has its own collective mood, its own shifting weather, and the way you read that mood, not by looking at any one animal, but at the whole shape of the group. By noon of the first day, her back hurt. By afternoon, her feet were numb inside her boots, despite the extra socks she'd put on at Calder's instruction. By the time they made camp at a sheltered spot near a stand of timber, she was tired in the deep way that comes from sustained cold and sustained alertness at the same time. She did not say any of this.
EMTT built the fire. Calder checked the steers where they'd been tethered. Tessa heated the food Warren had packed, not elaborate, not warm for long, but food, and they ate it without much conversation because they were tired and because the kind of work they'd been doing all day doesn't leave a lot of space for talk. Afterward, Calder said four more hours tomorrow. We'll hit Milhaven by midm morning.
What's the auction timing? Tessa asked. Livestock goes at 1:00 in the afternoon. We'll have time to register and get them settled. She ran the logistics through her head.
Registration requires the ownership papers and the breeding records I brought. I'll handle that when we arrive. The auction manager is a man named Fetcher. Calder said he's run this event for 12 years. He's not warm, but he's fair.
Don't try to sell him on the animals. He'll form his own opinion, and that opinion will be better than anything you tell him. Understood. The buyers from Helena usually arrive by 11:00. There are two in particular, a man named Altus Crane and his partner whose name I don't know who buy for a large spread east of the divide.
They pay top dollar for the right animals. If they're interested in the split ear, don't indicate that you've noticed. Just let it happen. She looked at him. You know the auction buyers.