A good sheepherder

I decided to change my story to no longer include this bit of writing, but I thought it was well written. So I put it here so it will see the light of publication before it gets scrapped forever.

Austin Holt was a good sheepherder. He would sit with his two dogs, Max and Holly, under the shade of a tree or in the door of the sheep wagon, seemingly in a sleepy daze. But in reality, he was watching. Watching the thousand little points of fluffy white that grazed along the hillside. Watching the grass and sage and bush as it was methodically trimmed down. Calculating how much forage would be left at the end of the evening, and how much this stretch of rangeland would allow for continued grazing. Each day he would mount his horse, Jess, and ride a few miles this way or that, checking the brush and the watering spots. Then he would return to his sheep wagon and watch. He watched for signs of coyote or bear, the enemies of sheepherders and sheep alike. He watched for clouds building in the afternoon sky that would warn of a thunderstorm and would necessitate an early bed down of the sheep. All this Austin watched, along with his dogs, day after day, alone in the hills of Idaho and Montana.

            As a sheepherder, so much depended on the nature of the land around him. So much was counting on the rainfall and the wind, the hunger of the predators for sheep and the hunger of the lambs for dewy grass. It all was a balance, a delicate tally of wins versus losses, man versus nature. He knew this, and knew how to haggle and bargain and win the argument with the hills that lay silent around him.

            Sheepherding was a tradition for him. His father was a sheepherder, before becoming a farmer. His grandfather had owned sheep as well as cows, back in the early days of western agricultural expansion. His great-grandfather was a just a peasant back in Scotland, but the country peasant ways meant that sheep were necessary for wool, and wool for spinning and weaving into clothing for the family. Beyond that, he didn’t know how many generations of Holts had raised sheep. Every single one, he imagined, for sheep seemed as natural and necessary to life as was a breakfast of bacon and biscuits.

            Now, however, in addition to the care for sheep, modern amenities had allowed Austin to expand his knowledge of the world. He knew many theories behind why Kennedy was assassinated; he knew that the Apollo program was in a race to the moon; he knew that Vietnam was a bad idea but supported the soldiers just the same; he marveled over electronic fuel injection and lasers and the short-wave radio that brought him all this information. And yet, knowing more and more about what America was up to and what the other nations were saying and even what editorials in the local paper said, he was more than content to watch his band of sheep and gaze at the hills day after day.