“Checking the pasture quality. We’ll move the cows if it’s too eaten down. They need fattening, and this is a great way to do it. We’re lucky to have pasture. Most operations use feedlots exclusively, but we have the acreage to feed summer beef without having to maintain so many pens.”
“Is it better?” Jake asked.
“Some think so, the cows exercise more and you have a leaner, more marbled product, less overhead, but it’s labor intensive according to the big outfits, having to move the herd the old-fashioned way.”
“Old fashioned?” He had always assumed cows were in a big field and ranchers herded them. He had so much to learn.
“With horses and punchers, you know? Not through a chute into a big truck.” Liz smiled as she slouched in the saddle, her eyes roaming the horizon in front of them. “Honestly? The beef is so much better when it hits market, and we get a heftier price per pound on the hoof when we advertise as grass-fed.”
Jake brightened because this was he knew something about. The food industry had latched onto the niche of organic and free range, and if you served grass-fed beef and dairy products, customers flocked in. People assumed it was healthier for them, tasted better, had fewer chemicals and hormones, all that bullshit that the media said to stay away from.
“So these are all grass-fed? Costs restaurants an arm and a leg to serve premium ingredients like that,” he remarked. Liz looked at him, tilting her head, and he knew he’d caught her off guard.
“Yeah. Truthfully, not on purpose,” she replied. “It’s cheaper this way for us, don’t have to buy as much haylage and corn. Tan noticed a couple of years ago that people were bidding up lots at auction for beef that was pasture-raised, and he went with it. He calls it his ‘hippie beef.’”
“Smart,” Jake remarked, and a new picture of his brothers formed in his mind. They were tied to this place not only by their ancestry, but by their passions, and their life-long learning with their feet planted firmly on the ground that gave them their livelihood. From Brady’s know-how of ranch operations to Tanner’s understanding of trends in the market, they had a history and knowledge of the ranch that was more than he could ever have. Jake mentally measured his own footprint in the restaurant industry as he sat quietly on Sandy, her head dropped to crop at the grass, her tail swishing the odd bug away.
His career as a chef wasn’t small, but his influence in the restaurant industry felt transient and temporary, easily forgotten in the constant change New York seemed to nurture. There wasn’t permanence in it like the longevity this ranch held for his brothers, giving them the impetus to make it work no matter what.
He wanted to live up to his West name and ensure that the next generation could sit here on a horse and look out over the land the way he was. The thought hit him like a punch in the gut. Was it his legacy too? Was he overthinking it again? It was a confusing mess.
What was crystal clear was that this was home for his brothers, for Peony, Liz, the crew too. They’d known nothing else. His father had, in the oddest of ways, given him the chance to see and understand it all, and he was finally getting it. Tanner’s anger made sense.
This was as heavy as learning that his dad had looked for him, and Jake added it to the tally of baggage he would have to deal with at some point.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself, and Liz looked at him questioningly.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just getting stiff,” he lied, and stretched his back.
Tanner had remounted while they were chatting and had disappeared from view over a small dip in the land. Fast hoofbeats made Liz stand up in the stirrups, her body tense, a squawk of alarm coming from her. Tanner and Chip reappeared, galloping up the hill. His face said it all. Something was wrong.
“What is it?” Brady asked.
“The cattle. They’ve broken through the far side fence. Looks fresh. We have to go before they make the soybean fields across the creek,” Tanner barked, turning his horse and galloping back the way he came. Brady spurred after him immediately.
Liz turned to Jake, her face grim as her horse fidgeted to leave and catch up to them. “You up for this? We can send you back. Gonna be a lot of new thrown at you all at once, Jake. It’s—”
“You can probably use me. Just show me what to do—if nothing else I can put Sandy in there, and she’ll take care of me, right?” Jake interrupted, and hoped Liz would agree. If he wanted to learn, this was the way to do it. Trial by fire, so to speak.
Liz examined him a moment, obviously debating whether he should be there, then nodded curtly.
They turned their horses together, and Jake grabbed for his saddle horn again as they took off at a gallop to follow Tanner and Brady back down the hill.
Chapter Twenty-three
Liz caught up to Tanner as he reached the fence line. It had been trampled into the mud, the lines of the wire snapped in two. There were no cows here now, but the manure was still fresh, so they couldn’t have gotten far.
“Was the water hole dry?” she asked, looking back at the small marshy slough they’d dug out to water the cattle.
“Nope. Coulda been somethin’ spooked them,” Brady called as he loped back from checking just that. Jake was close to the fence, looking down at the end of the page-wire panel still attached to the post, his forehead furrowed.
“When a fence breaks does the wire break in the same place all the way down?” he asked suddenly.
“What do you mean?” Tanner snapped, and legged Chip over to see.
“The squares in this fence are broken in the same place all the way down, right in the middle, the ends are sticking out, right? If the cows pushed the fence, wouldn’t it look more random, like it, uh, tore? Wouldn’t the posts be all bent over from the cows pushing on it?”
