It was the morning of roundup, the day everybody and their neighbours brought the cows in from the lease. The first snow of the year had fallen the night before, a light but slippery skiff on the grass.
I’d grown out of my hand-me-down cowboy boots, so I just put thick socks inside my rubber boots. That must be why the other riders eyed my borrowed horse and then looked at me funny.
Up in the southern Alberta foothills, the creeks were running icy cold and clean. The trees were showing bare spots, stark against blue sky, and their feet were speckled with golden leaves. My wheezy horse stumbled through them, tripping over roots.
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The cattle were ready, more or less, to come home for the winter, because the boss cows had memories of feed delivered instead of foraged. The calves were starting to grow their shaggy winter hair, their babyish faces getting fuzzy around the jawline.
The cattle mooed softly and snuffled as they moved along the trail, periodically issuing neck-stretching bawls that echoed off the higher hills.
Some of the trails were narrow and rocky, and my horse sent pebbles skittering down ravines as he shuffled along.
The bush was dense in places, despite the falling leaves. My horse ran my head into a tree branch and then got his tail caught in a rosebush while we fumbled around looking for stray calves.
He splashed clumsily through each stream, soaking my pantlegs and slurping noisily when we stopped for a drink.
Once we reached open ground, the cattle picked up speed, sensing an end to the journey and full feed ahead.
My horse, heaving lusty grunts every time I dug in my gumbooted heels, awkwardly jogged after the herd, skidding on every turn. We were the last to eventually arrive at the corrals, coming in at a painful trot that stopped abruptly as he jammed my leg against the fence rail.
We got all the cattle sorted, counted and loaded by the end of the day. By then my horse, which I’d left tied to the fence, had undone the knot and stretched out on the ground with the saddle still on. I think he was snoring.
“I’ve gotta hand it to you,” an old cowpoke drawled, as he eyed the spavined steed. “You’re one brave cookie.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I’d never ride that horse over a trail like that. Everybody knows he can’t keep his feet. And besides, the darned thing’s got heaves. Didn’t they tell ya?”
