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“Seven. Hattie’s behind her.”

“I see her.”

Hattie was thirteen, a big rangy red cow out of Mick Bateman’s oldest line, with one horn tipped and the other gone. She came up the alley slow, the way she did everything now, stepped off the dirt onto the concrete apron, and her hind end went out from under her.

She went down with a sound he felt through his boots. Her front end came up fine. Her back end didn’t come, and she lay there with her head up and her hind legs out behind her doing nothing.

Owen was over the panel before she quit trying. He put his hands on the hip and moved the leg, and it moved wrong, loose where it had no business being loose. He got his phone out and called Gary.

“Gary. Owen. I’ve got a thirteen-year-old cow down on my apron. Hip. Out or broke, I can’t tell which, and it doesn’t matter which.”

Olivia stood at the ramp with the chalk in her hand.

“Yeah. That’s what I’ve got.” He listened again. “I know it. Thanks.”

He put the phone in his pocket, went to the truck, got the rifle from behind the seat, came back and stood at the cow’s head. Hattie looked up at him with her one horn on the concrete. He put the muzzle where it went and did it.

The sound came back off the barn. The cattle in the cull lot went to the far fence. He worked the bolt, put the empty in his pocket, walked to the truck. He hadn’t looked at Olivia. He hadn’t asked her.

She was where she’d been, with the chalk. “You didn’t ask me.”

“No.”

“That was my daddy’s cow.”

“I know whose cow she was.”

“You didn’t look at me. You called Gary and you went to your truck and you never turned your head.”

“There wasn’t anything to ask.” He put the rifle behind the seat and shut the door on it. “Gary said what I already knew. She wasn’t getting up off that concrete. I wasn’t going to stand over her twenty minutes while you got used to it.”

“I didn’t need to get used to it. I’ve seen a cow down.”

“You’ve seen one down. You haven’t put one down.”

“I would have.”

“With what?”

“Daddy’s rifle. It’s in Mama’s closet. It shoots.”

“You’d have stood there.”

“I’d have stood there one minute. Then I’d have done it.” Her voice didn’t rise yet. “One minute, Owen. You couldn’t give me one.”

“No. I couldn’t.”

“You do that.” The chalk snapped in her fingers. “That, right there. You do the thing before I can have a say in it. You’ve been doing it since February.”

“Somebody had to.”

“Somebody. Not you. Somebody.” She came off the ramp. “Eight weeks you’ve hauled my cattle and fed my cattle and pulled my calves, and I’ve stood on your catwalk taking orders on my own daddy’s cows⁠—”

“It’s my alley.”

“—it’s your alley, and they’re my cows, and you know them better than I do.” Her voice went up. “You know them better than I do, Owen. You knew Hattie’s hip before you touched it. You knew the roan’s bag in February and I had to look twice.”

“I’ve had my hands on them longer.”