Their father looked around. All right, he said. He called at Raymond: Let me have one of those hot shots out there.
The old man brought one of the cattle prods and handed it over the fence. Guthrie took it and demonstrated it to them, how to rotate the handle and release the little button so it would give a charge. See how you do that? he said. He poked it against his boot toe and it sparked. He handed the cattle prod to Bobby, and Bobby examined it and touched it against his shoe. It sizzled and he jerked his foot back, then he glanced up at them and there was a surprised look on his face.
I get to use it too, Ike said.
Trade off with it, Guthrie said. You can swap the whip with him. But don’t get carried away. It’s just if you need it. And anyway you have to be close enough to even be able to use it.
Does it hurt them? Bobby said.
They don’t like it, Guthrie said. It gets their attention for sure. He put his hands on their shoulders. So. All set?
I guess so.
I’ll be right out here.
He climbed out of the corral and joined the McPheron brothers at the chute. They brought the heifer in and Harold tested her. She was carrying a calf and Raymond shot her twice in the hip and let her out into the holding pen with the others. Then they brought the cow in, and after she was tested and vaccinated Guthrie wrapped his arms around her head and pulled her head violently to one side, her neck stretching tight, her eyes wild and frantic, while Raymond fit the sharp ends of the dehorner over the malformed horn. It was a hard ugly thing, twisting out from where it had been cut off unsuccessfully once before. He clamped down with the dehorner, twisting it, applying pressure on the grips, and finally cut through. The horn dropped off like a piece of sawed wood and left a white dishedout tender-looking place at her skull. Immediately the blood spurted out in a thin spray, making a little puddle in the dirt. Guthrie held on to the cow’s head and she bawled, rolling her eyes in panic, fighting him, while Raymond shook out powdered blood-stop into the cut, and the blood soaked it up and trickled down her face. He shook out more powder and pressed it in, mixing it with his finger, and they released her into the holding pen and she went out tossing her head, with a line of blood still dribbling along her eye.
In the corral the two boys worked hard with the remaining cattle amidst the dirt and swirling dust and they managed to line two more into the alley, and the men began to work on them. But one of the cows turned up open. They released her into the separate loading pen with the old speckle-faced cow, and the two animals nosed one another and stood facing the direction they’d come from.
That’s another one never stuck, Harold said.
Maybe you ought to let old Doc Wycoff breed them, Guthrie said. With his A-I.
Sure. We could do that, Raymond said. Only he’s kind of steep.
That makes me think, Harold said. Didn’t we ever tell you about that time Raymond and me walked in on him?
If you did, Guthrie said, I don’t recall it.