Chapter 64 Back to Doing Seminars
“There ya go, sweetheart,” he called out softly. “One more time to get his shoulders through.” She strained and pushed one more time, grunting as she put an intense effort into the task. Evan tugged, working with her, and the shoulders came through. Once that happened, the rest of the body slipped out in one long, slippery motion.
Bob had already moved to the head of the heifer and pulled the leather string on the rope to pop the “break-away” hondo on the rope when he saw the shoulders break through. The heifer was let free. Evan quickly began slipping the chains off the calf’s feet. The heifer had already turned and was sniffing the baby, which had just been brought out of her womb.
“There ya go,” Evan cooed. “Look what you just did.” The slippery, white head of the baby raised to look around at the new world while his mama began to clean him off. Evan slipped out of the gate to the pen and let nature take over. His part in helping things along was over.
“Let’s go get some breakfast,” Bob said. “You’ve put in a pretty long night.”
“A cup of coffee and a dozen eggs would hit the spot,” Evan replied. He stepped into the bathroom that had been added onto the calving shed to wash his hands and arms in the deep sink that had been put in there for that purpose. In the past, he had washed up plenty of times with a jug of tepid water. In temperatures that were below freezing, the task was sometimes a daunting affair. The modern rancher, however, had built a calving barn and put in the comforts. Something the old timers would have thought was frivolous. Evan was all for many of the old-time ways, but on a cold morning in March, it felt good to have warm water to wash in and the shelter of the shed to keep out the cold. They discovered that the barn didn’t need any heat. The body heat of a couple of dozen heifers kept the barn pretty comfortable.
“Let’s head to the cafe,” Bob said. “I don’t want to wake Mattie.”
“Alright,” Evan said, following Bob out the door to get into his pickup. Evan wintered his horses on Bob’s place in exchange for a little work. He helped Casey and Bob feed every morning and took his turn in the nighttime rotation during calving season. With three people, it was easier on all of them. One of them would go to bed early and get up at 2:00 a.m. and look for problems, and keep watch until 4:00 a.m. One of them would stay up until 2:00 a.m., pass things off, and then sleep in until 8:00 a.m. The other would go to bed at a normal time and get up at 4:00 a.m. Evan had gotten up at 4:00 and had joined Bob as he was putting the heifer into the calving pen.
Calving was one of Evan’s favorite times of the year. Helping the cows bring new life always filled him with a sense of pride that could not be replaced with any other feeling in the world. He had helped hundreds of cows give birth since he had been old enough to help, which was somewhere around seven years old. He knew how the satisfaction of helping bring the baby into the world could penetrate through the exhaustion of being up all night. Bob had been up since 2:00 a.m., but he was as fresh as if it were the middle of the afternoon. He would go right on through the day without thinking of how tired he was. Likely, he would take a little nap in his recliner after lunch, but for the most part, a rancher learned early on that calving season was a time when one went without sleep.
Evan had spent the winter helping feed cows in the morning, working a few colts in the round pen inside the barn at his place near town, and writing. He was preparing his script for doing his seminars the next summer. He would help the ranchers get the cattle turned out and get things pretty well straight for Casey to take over his summer job and then start doing seminars. He didn’t want to completely give up riding in the summer, but he also had come to realize that he needed to open his world up a little bit and be around people more. It might help him be able to have a normal relationship.
As spring moved into summer, the rancher’s workload increased. The cattle would need to be off the meadows in the valley so that the ranchers could begin to irrigate and grow hay for the next winter. As soon as the cattle were turned out onto the range, Evan gathered his string of horses and started them out on the trail to the homestead. He was back in the saddle every day from that point on. He took in the fresh smells and fresh signs of spring in the mountains. The aspen trees were fully leafed out in the valley below, but up high, they were merely producing buds. The spring grass in Evan’s pasture was just getting a good start, and he held back his mares until it was in better condition.
Ryan gathered Evan’s supplies and drove the pickup up to the ranch, and started setting things up. He was shocked when Evan gave him a ride back to town, so that he could keep the pickup at the homestead. Since his accident, he was a little bit more aware of how keeping the pickup was a necessary evil. It would have been handy when Alexandra had gotten stranded as well, although he would have also missed out on those sweet moments that were forced upon them due to their being isolated, sweet moments that were forced upon her as well. He wondered if she would have ever even considered riding and getting to know him had they not been isolated. It wasn’t the first time it had occurred to him that the “relationship” that he and Alexandra had experienced was one of convenience more than anything else.
He tried to remind himself of that on regular occasions, but something deeper argued the point. It was a deeper yearning that was almost the same as “the call of the wild” that he had felt when he was in New York continued to nag at him despite his efforts to dismiss the feelings that he had for Alexandra. Then there was the problem with Grace that he had to consider. Things between them had taken their separate paths, and Evan had moved on from the place that he had been in when they were together. It seemed impossible that they had been in love, and yet, he still felt a bond with her as well. He probably always would have some feelings for her; he just didn’t want to have her back in his life only to watch her walk away again. He didn’t need nor want to deal with that sharp pain again.
He hoped that Grace had only been experiencing a moment of loneliness when she had called him last fall. Maybe she wouldn’t call. As the first part of summer passed by without a call from her, Evan forgot her again and went on about his business. He had even put Alexandra out of his mind as he worked on the ranch. In June, he did a couple of weekend seminars that were well received. More than anything, it helped sell his books and was an opportunity for people to have their books autographed.
By July, he was having to offer a half-dozen seminars over a single weekend, and he was getting more and more invitations. His book sales began to skyrocket, and his popularity was to the point of getting out of hand. He was turning down offers from people who were trying to steal him away from dates that he had already set up. He held fast, telling those who were most eager to have him at their event that it wasn’t about the money, that he had made promises to other people that he would keep.
“But Monte Vista is only a fourth of the size of our fair,” the man on the phone said. “I’m offering to double your regular fee, and I can promise you at least four times the number of people in your audience.”
“No,” Evan replied and hung up the phone. It probably wasn’t the best way to do business, but he had already repeated himself a half dozen times, and the man was not listening. He began to wonder if the seminars had been such a good idea after all.