Tamarack River Ghost: A Novel

2. Lazy Z Feedlot

15 Lazy Z Feedlot 2 Outside the headquarters office, the smell and the dust rolled over Josh again. He pulled on his hat, adjusted his glasses, and glanced around. Through the dirty haze he saw a skinny, weathered cowboy astride a big white horse. Josh held up his arm. The rider slowly moved the horse closer to Josh. “Name is Josh Wittmore,” Josh said when he reached up to shake the rider’s hand. “Amos,” the man said. His voice was rather high pitched, almost feminine. “I’m foreman of this operation. You get hired?” “I did.” Josh was taken aback for a moment by the foreman’s less-thanbosslike voice. “Know anything about feedlots?” “Nope.” “Can you ride a horse?” “Yup.” “Good. Let’s find you something to ride, then.” Amos swung around in his saddle and yelled, “Charlie, go fetch this guy a horse, and slip a saddle on it. Pick out an easy one—don’t wanna put him in the hospital his first day of work.” Amos laughed at his idea of a joke. In a few minutes, Josh was astride a little bay mare, name of Daisy. “Tell you what,” Amos said. “You just follow behind me and keep your eyes and ears open, probably the best way to learn how this operation works.” “What all goes on here?” Josh asked. 16 Lazy Z Feedlot “Well, it’s pretty simple. We haul in a bunch of feeder cattle, heifers and steers that have been weaned from their mothers and maybe grass fed for a season. Some of ’em weigh six to eight hundred pounds when they git here. We feed ’em for six months or so and send ’em on to market. Most of ’em will be twelve to fourteen hundred pounds when they leave.” Josh was making mental notes, trying to be careful to ask questions a new worker would want to know, but not so many questions that he might arouse suspicion. Amos kept on talking without any prodding from Josh as they slowly rode down one of the dusty, manure-strewn lanes. “We feed a mixture of corn, grain byproducts, and hay. Feed them critters quickly take a likin’ to. Got a lot of crossbreds these days—they seem to put on the pounds faster than, say, your Angus or Hereford. Some of these critters even got a little Holstein blood in ’em. Folks eatin’ their steaks and hamburgers don’t much care what the critter looked like, as long as their steaks are tender and juicy.” Amos laughed; it came out as almost a cackle. Josh saw men on horseback, emptying pens and driving cattle to waiting semitrucks backed up at loading docks. Other men were driving tractors with feed trailers behind, augering feed into the troughs alongside the pens. As Josh made his way with his new boss through the feedlot, he learned it covered some seventy-five acres. His eyes burned from the dust, and the smell of cow manure was almost overwhelming. When he arrived at the lot’s far end, he noticed a lazy little river running but a few hundred yards from the last pen. He could see its dirty brown water from where he sat on his horse, and could also see little gulleys, now dry, from where feedlot runoff had entered the stream. They came up to the riders moving cattle from pens to the loading dock, where a cattle truck was parked. “Wittmore, you work with these guys. They’ll show you what to do,” Amos said. He introduced Josh to the men and told them Josh was new and they should show him the ropes. Before he rode off, he eased his big horse in close to the little bay Josh was riding. “If I hear one damn word from anybody that you’re screwin’ up or goofin’ off, you are outta here. You got that?” He looked Josh square in the 17 Lazy Z Feedlot eye. Amos had small, intense black eyes, sunk deep in his tanned, wrinkled face. “I got it,” Josh said, trying to keep his voice level and unafraid. With that, Amos turned his big horse and trotted off. That was the only conversation Josh had with the foreman that entire first week, so he assumed he was doing OK. Each evening, he returned to his little motel room covered with dust and grime and smelling...