Chapter 324

Earlier in the Morning on Carla's Farm

During the last months, Carla had been buying calves, yearlings, cows and a bull to replace the herd that she had been forced to sell off to pay for her dead husband's hospital bills. With the influx of Jeff's money and the settlement with the hospital and insurance company, she was now financially able to reestablish her herd, but she wanted quality, and was buying with that in mind. Some of her new herd had come from the sale of early fall calves that several ranchers were getting rid of to keep from feeding through the winter. Some were bred cows, while others were open, and she had also purchased a number of quality, young heifers. In addition, she had gotten a deal on a number of yearlings of both sexes that ranged from a year to a year and a half old.

More than half of her new stock had come from a lady who owned a large ranch. She had decided to retire, and her grown children wanted no part of ranching, so she was selling off her cattle and was thinking about renting out the pastureland. She confessed that she was tired of snow, and might even move to someplace that remained warm the year round.

Carla had bought other cattle at auctions as well. These, she would fatten and sell when prices were up. Other cattle with a good bloodline, like the ones that came from the lady rancher, Carla would keep for her breeders to continue to reestablish her herd. She still needed to buy more cows and heifers, but she was biding her time to get quality cattle at the best price she could find. She certainly had plenty of feed stored to feed her new herd, even after beginning to sell her excess when feed prices had begun to rise come full winter.

During the last few weeks, the quiet farm/ranch was changing. Although she had automatic feeders, hay had to be replaced in the racks that were spread out across her pastures, and if the ponds were frozen solid, as was generally the case this deep into winter, even in this protected valley, heated water troughs had to be seen to, among the myriad other things that must be done on a working farm/ranch.

The phone rang. "That's probably Diana calling to find out when we're going to be there," Carla said, as she grabbed a dish towel to dry her hands before answering the kitchen phone.

"Mom," Jessica responded when Carla answered.

"Yeah, Baby," Carla said, her body tensing, "What's wrong? I can barely understand you. The phone is breaking up. Where are you?"

" ... back pasture ... creek ... ttle out."

"How many?" Carla asked, having totally missed that part. But she had to ask again before Jessica could understand her question.

"All ... pasture," came the broken response.

"All in that pasture?" Carla repeated, beginning to really worry since there were more than fifty older yearlings in that section.

By then, Fred was standing beside Carla who had put the phone on the table and turned it to speaker. "Where's the break?" Fred asked as he leaned over to speak near the phone.

" ... creek ... tree ... down ... nce."

"Shit," Fred said, then asked, "You on horseback or snowmobile?"

" ... Molly."

"Why is she on horseback when we have snowmobiles?" Fred wondered aloud.

Carla glared at him before saying, "There is some rough terrain in that section. Horses can go where nothing else can, and the ridges will be mostly free of snow because of the wind." And she loves to ride, went unsaid.

Carla barely hesitated as her mind worked furiously. Then turning back to the phone, "Brenda, Audrey and Angel will be on snowmobiles. I'll be on Abby. Fred can open a section of fence in a convenient area so we can drive the cattle back through. Try to keep them from scattering any more until we can get there."

Carla had to repeat twice before Jessica understood and the indignant reply came back in the clear. "I know that, Mom."

"Crap. I shouldn't have said that. She knows as much about herding cattle as I do," Carla muttered to herself. Then on the phone, "We'll be there as soon as we can."

Fred had pulled on his coat and was headed for the mudroom to put on his boots when Carla grabbed his arm. "No, Baby. Take the time to dress for the cold. We're going to be out there for a while. If it were just calves, we wouldn't have much trouble, but those yearlings will be happy to let us chase them all over. They'll flounder in the deeper snow, though, and the snowmobiles will be in their element there. On the ridges and rough areas, the cutting horses will show their worth. With all of us working together, it shouldn't take too long.

"Go tell the others to put on their snowmobile outfits and get ready to go, please. I'll fix us a couple of thermoses of coffee. Might as well go prepared in case this should take longer than I anticipate." Repeating what Fred already knew, "You probably need to take the ATV that we use for fence mending. If the break is actually on the creek, we'll cut the fence at a more convenient place to get the cattle back inside. After we open a gap, you can go on to fix the original break while we're rounding up the yearlings. Hopefully, by the time you have the break fixed, we'll have all of them back inside."

Fred was pleased with his assignment, even though he might wind up getting his feet wet in the process, assuming the fast-moving stream wasn't frozen solid. He certainly knew how to repair fence, and as far as he was concerned, just about anything was preferable to riding a horse while it chased cattle. He hadn't had a lot of success with a snowmobile, either. ATV's worked in the summer, but there were a lot of places where they were practically useless in the deep snow. What little practice he had in moving cattle from one place to another was mostly just following Carla and Jessica as they worked the animals with their horses. Away from the barns and in deep snow, the women used snowmobiles, and he had helped move the cattle from one pasture to another, but in the corrals and smaller fence enclosures, the horses did the work, and seemed to love doing it. If Carla wanted to check one of the cattle for some reason, either she or Jessica cut that one animal from the rest – and made it look easy. When he bragged on them, both women looked at each other and chuckled. "That's why they call them cutting horses. We just point our horse toward the animal we want, and the horse does the rest," Carla had said with a grin.

Fred had hugged them. He, for sure, knew it wasn't quite that simple. He could stay on a horse under normal conditions, but these women made it look as if they were sitting in a rocking chair while the horse darted first one way, then the other, stopping abruptly and whirling around as it separated the selected animal from the rest.

Fred knew that if he did manage to stay on while the horse did its work, it would be because he had a death grip on the saddle horn. The ATV and an assignment of fence repair worked just fine for him. As long as they were reasonably close to each other, the helmet radios would work, and Carla could direct Audrey, Angel and Brenda to assist Jessica and her if the animals were in the deep snow areas.

When they left, they were all dressed for the cold, and Carla gave Fred one of the thermoses while she kept the second one. "That's a big area, and, thanks to Jeff, we own it all, but this could take a while."

Before they got to the barn, Carla touched her husband's arm. "I didn't mean to be bossy. If you had rather take a snowmobile, I can cut the fence where we need it, then fix the break at the creek after we get the cattle back in."

Fred smiled down at her, knowing she was attempting to appease his ego, but he thought that her original idea was a damn good one. Chasing fifty or more head of half-grown cattle in the snow, scattered over what well could be a very large area, wasn't going to be easy – at best.

"No, Baby. I'm good with what you have laid out. When I get through with the fence, I'll come help with the ATV – if you still need me. I can ride a bit, but as you're well aware, I'm not worth a shit on horseback working cattle. All I manage to do is frustrate the horse. When we get there, I'll open a gap where you want it and then fix the break by the creek while you gals get the yearlings back in – and it won't hurt my feelings one bit not to have to chase those friggin' animals," he finished with a chuckle.

In the barn, Fred put gas in a chain saw and made sure the chain oiler was full. Three pulls and the saw fired up. After revving it a couple of times, he shut it off and put it in the bed of the ATV. Collecting a can of gas, rope, staples, hammers, a fence puller, hole digger, and two fence posts that he lashed to the small bed, he added a pair of leather gloves from the shelf to help handle the barbed wire and perhaps save his hands a bit. He was ready to go.

Audrey, Angel and Brenda on the snowmobiles, could have been to the area in short order, but there was little use, since there probably wasn't a gate close to the area and Fred would have to cut the fence for them to get out.

When they got to the location where they could see Jessica, Carla chose a place and Fred cut the fence, pulling the wire back out of the way to form a gap, then as the women fanned out into the field after the cattle, he followed the fence on down to the creek. When he got there, he was pleased to see that the break wasn't directly over the mostly-frozen stream, but only near the edge of it. When the tree had fallen, it had smashed all four wires down to the ground and had jerked them loose from the three closest posts. Jessica had cut the wire so she and her horse could pass safely. He didn't see any blood or hair on the barbed wire, so he assumed that the yearlings had managed to cross the downed fence without cutting themselves.

As he got off his ATV, he smiled as he thought about his teenage wife. She loved to ride Molly, but though Jessica was young and more beautiful than she realized, she was a farm girl at heart. Her saddle bags generally contained a couple of claw hammers, wire cutters and staples. There was always fence to ride and check. If she found a break or sagging wire, she fixed it if at all possible. If she needed wire or posts, she came home, got the ATV and the tools she needed, and returned to complete the repair.

How did I ever get so lucky? he wondered as he fired up the chain saw and went to work on the downed tree. Not only did I get the love of my life back after she died, but I got Carla, Jessica and Audrey as well. Then, thanks to that ass she was married to, I got my Angel back, too. Make that dead ass, after he pissed off Brenda.

Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be making love to my daughter, but the Matthews instantly accepted her as my wife, and so did Audrey, Carla, Jessica and Brenda. Shit. How did an old fart like me ever wind up with five beautiful women for wives? Of course, Brenda is my age, but she looks mid-twenties or less, as do the others, and all I have to do to get a hard-on is to look at any of them. Thank you, Little One, he thought with an unconscious grin.

With the tree cut into manageable sections, he dragged them out of the way with the ATV. After splicing the wire, he re-strung the fence, pulled it tight with the wire pullers and nailed it to the posts.

By the time he had returned to the area of the fence that Carla had chosen to open, most of the strays had been herded back into the pasture. Stopping well back, he sat watching as the last group of cattle was herded through the gap – all but one that is. One half-grown steer suddenly turned and made his bid for freedom. Quickly outmaneuvering the three snowmobiles, he charged along a windswept ridge mostly clear of snow, but Jessica and Molly were soon in hot pursuit.