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"She hasn't learned a thing in her life."

"Watch her."

Forty-six walked into the chute and stood like a church pew, and Brody laughed out loud, and Olivia said, "Two," and chalked it and didn't look at either one of them.

"Man from Big Spring bid on the roan Thursday," Brody said, to the next cow. "Out of pity, I think. Owen took his money."

"I took the sale barn's money," Owen said. "He bid it. That's how it works."

"He bid it twice."

"Then he wanted her."

"Nobody wanted that roan, cousin. He wanted to be seen bidding on a Bateman cow."

"Then he paid for it."

"Forty-eight," Olivia said. "Somebody call the age."

"Forty-eight's a nine," Brody said. "Two. Sorry, Liv. Two?"

"Two."

"Fifty. She's Mabel's out of the year it hailed."

"Fifty's a six," Brody said. "One?"

"One. She'll be the best cow in it."

"She's got her mama's head," Owen said.

"She's got her mama's temper. Mind the stick."

"I've minded it six years."

"Brody, bring me the last of those threes."

"Coming."

"Appreciate it."

"Did you hear that, Liv? He appreciates it."

"I heard it."

"I've known that man my whole life. He's never thanked me for a thing in his life. Not one."

"Bring the cows, Brody," Owen said.

"Yes sir."

By the tenth head she'd quit having to think about her hands and started having to think about her face. Brody talked. Owen answered him plain and short, and gave her nothing but the tag and Olivia. Brody asked her which lot, which order, whether she wanted the pairs first, in front of him, over and over, and Owen let him. Polite about it. It fit him like a borrowed shirt.

She wasn't asking him anything. She'd asked in the barn, she'd asked at the wall, and she'd got her answer both times. She was going to stand here and be looked at and see what he did. She knew what that made her. She was tired enough that it didn't matter.

"Mabel," Owen said.

They'd worked down to the far pen. He'd gone and got her himself, the big old brindle cow with eleven calves behind her and this year's at her flank, and he walked her up the alley slow, his stick low, talking to her the way he talked to a cow, and Brody stood back and let him.