"She won't get trampled. We'll watch her." I hope I sound more confident than I feel.
Sierra appears a few minutes later, and I have to admit she followed instructions. The fancy shirt is gone, replaced by a plaint-shirt. Her jeans are still too nice, but at least they're practical. She's pulled her hair back in a ponytail and ditched any jewelry I saw earlier.
"What do you need me to do?" she asks, approaching the fence.
Mason looks at me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have.
"We're separating the calves from the main herd," I explain. "Need to vaccinate them, check for any health issues, tag the new ones. You're going to help move them from the main pen into the sorting chute."
"Okay. How do I do that?"
"Slowly. These aren't pets. They're livestock. They outweigh you, they're stronger than you, and if you get in the wrong position you can get kicked, crushed, or gored." I wait for her to back down, to say this isn't what she signed up for.
She just nods. "Got it. So where do I stand?"
I show her the position along the fence line, explaining how we're going to funnel the calves toward the chute. "Your job is to keep them moving in the right direction. Use your arms, make noise, but don't get directly behind them. If one of them kicks, you need to be out of range."
"Arms out, make noise, don't get kicked. Understood."
Mason opens the gate, and the chaos begins.
Cattle aren't graceful creatures at the best of times, and young ones are even less so. They bellow and jostle, uncertain about the change in routine. Colt and I work from horseback, cutting out the calves we need and steering them toward where Sierra stands.
The first calf approaches her section of fence, and I watch to see what she'll do.
She spreads her arms wide like I showed her, waving them. "Come on, baby. This way. That's it."
The calf, surprisingly, moves in the right direction.
Then another one comes, bigger and more stubborn. It tries to turn back toward the main herd, and Sierra doesn't hesitate. She steps into its path, arms up, making herself as large as possible.
"Not that way! Go, go!" She waves her arms vigorously, and the calf startles, heading toward the chute.
Two more calves follow. She's actually doing it. Herding cattle like she's done it before, even though I know she hasn't.
"Not bad," Mason calls to her. "Keep that up!"
She grins, and even from horseback I can see she's enjoying this. Her cheeks are flushed, hair escaping her ponytail, boots already covered in mud and worse. She should look ridiculous.
Instead, she looks... engaged. Present. Like she belongs here, even though she doesn't. It unsettles me more than her being useless would have.
We work for the next hour, moving calves through the system. Sierra doesn't complain when one of them splashes her with filthy water from the trough. Doesn't shriek when another one nearly steps on her foot. She just dances out of the way and keeps going. When I tell her to move to a different section of fence, she does it without argument.
By the time we have all the calves sorted, she's covered in dust and sweat and probably smells like livestock. Her nice jeans have mud streaked across them, and there's a smudge of dirt on her cheek.
She looks better than she did in the pressed shirt and clean boots this morning.
"Good work," Mason says, and he sounds genuine. "For someone who's never done this before, you did well."
"Thanks." Sierra's breathing hard, leaning against the fence. "That was intense. How many calves was that?"
"About forty. Small batch." I dismount from Ranger, leading him toward the fence. "Now comes the hard part."
Her eyes widen. "That wasn't the hard part?"
"That was the warm-up." Colt grins. "Now we vaccinate, tag, and check them. You game?"
She straightens. "Absolutely."
