“Better order chemicals by the barrel!”
More laughter.
Claire stood.
Her blue dress brushed against her boots.
The older rancher shook his head.
“That bull’s a disaster.”
Claire finally looked at him.
“That’s because you’re looking at the ticks.”
The man grinned.
“What should I be looking at?”
“The bull.”
A few people quieted.
He laughed again.
“Same thing today.”
Claire picked up her purchase slip.
“No.”
She glanced toward the sick animal.
“Not even close.”
The auctioneer called the sale.
“Sold. One thousand dollars.”
The hammer struck.
A rancher nearby whispered:
“She just burned a thousand dollars.”
Claire heard him.
She kept walking.
Her foreman, Mateo Ruiz, waited outside beside the livestock trailer.
He had been working the Garza ranch for seventeen years.
He had worked for Claire’s grandfather before working for Claire.
At sixty-one, he had earned the right to tell her when he believed she had lost her mind.
The moment she stepped outside, he used it.
“A thousand?”
Claire walked toward the trailer.
“Yes.”
“For the tick bull?”
“Yes.”
Mateo removed his hat.
He rubbed the top of his head.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“I love you like family.”
“That usually means something unpleasant is coming.”
“It means I am trying to be respectful.”
She looked at him.
Mateo pointed toward the auction building.
“That bull looks like he slept inside a tick nest.”
Claire opened the truck door.
“Get the quarantine pen ready.”
“You heard me?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And get the quarantine pen ready.”
Mateo stared.
Claire climbed into the truck.
He followed.
“You going to dip him?”
“No.”
“Spray?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
Claire started the engine.
Mateo looked alarmed.
“That animal is being eaten alive.”
“I can see that.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Claire pulled away from the auction yard.
“The vet.”
Mateo relaxed slightly.
“And after the vet?”
Claire looked toward the road.
“We watch.”
Mateo stared.
“We watch ticks?”
“We watch everything.”
He sighed.
“That sounds like something your grandfather used to say.”
“It is.”
Mateo settled back into the seat.
“That man also believed thunderstorms could smell fear.”
Claire smiled.
“He was right about a lot of things.”
“Not thunderstorms.”
“We never proved him wrong.”
Mateo shook his head.
The trailer followed behind them.
Inside it, the bull struggled to remain standing as the truck carried him toward a ranch everyone at the auction believed would soon own one dead bull and one embarrassing story.
Claire did not feel embarrassed.
Concerned, yes.
She had taken a risk.
She knew that.
But risk and stupidity were not identical.
Her grandfather had taught her that too.
José Garza had started with seventy acres, twelve cows, one unreliable truck, and enough debt to make sleep difficult.
By the time he died, Garza Ranch covered nearly seven thousand acres of South Texas brush country.
People liked to talk about his toughness.
Claire remembered his patience.
He could spend an hour looking at cattle without speaking.
He watched birds.
Grass.
Dung beetles.
Clouds.
Wind.
Where cows stood at noon.
Where they refused to drink.
What insects gathered after rain.
Which trees animals rubbed against.
Which weeds appeared after grazing.
When Claire was twelve, she once asked:
“Why do you stare so much?”
Her grandfather answered:
“Because the land talks before it screams.”
She had never forgotten.
Neither had she forgotten another lesson.
Never treat one problem so aggressively that you create three others.
That did not mean rejecting medicine.
Her grandfather vaccinated.