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Show c?<3 ferent; and Dad let the incident go, another time, another place, ended now. Glancing up to the sun, he frowned and slid out his watch. "Huh, later'n I thought. Come on, boys, let's get finished up here." He took the next calf. She was between two branded ones and he dropped the rope in and over her head as slick as a trick roper, holding her while she threshed on the end of the rope, pulling back, her head up and out. The last calf was mine and Dad told me to hurry it up, but it was hard to separate her from the others and, though I was throwing better than Henry had, I wasn't having any luck and every time I missed I could feel Dad's impatience rising. "Come on, Billy, we got chores to do," he said tightly, and I began to miss worse. It was the opposite of my first one, and the harder I tried, the wider I missed. When I remembered that both Henry and Dad had had bad luck and no one had pushed them, I got mad and then I couldn't hit anything. Still, I was surprised to see Dad whirling the other rope. It flashed out, circled the calf's neck and stopped its run so abruptly, Dad bracing himself and heaving back, that it went down and he was on it and had it tied with the other end of his rope before I could move. Neither he nor Henry looked at me. I stood there while Henry brought up the dehorners, and then the A iron, and I smelled burning hair. I moved then, over to the fire where I squatted on my heels. When Dad straightened back, tossing the iron aside, I pulled a straight iron from the fire and carried it to him. He leaned forward again, brushing the hide with his gloved hand, and over his right shoulder I saw that he'd been hasty and that one of the legs of the A was not firm enough. I knew he would get it with the straight iron, and I suppose he was irritated with himself and so even more hasty. Anyhow, he reached back without turning his head, the back of his glove nudged the hot end of the iron, and before I could pull it back, he grabbed it. I let go and stood there, unable to say a word. I kept thinking he would drop it immediately and that the glove would protect him, and I couldn't speak. When he brought the iron around to use it he saw but couldn't immediately understand that he was holding the wrong end, and not until the full blast of the heat penetrated his glove did he rear up and back like a horse from a rattlesnake, not just dropping but 236 |
