Bless the Beasts & Children by Glendon Swarthout Page A

squeeze pen. There, letting legs down, they sat like bumps on a log as what they had seen sank in. The enormity of the task hunched their shoulders. To liberate the herd they must get it through two pens: the squeeze and one of the big ones. Three gates had to be opened: one between the section in which the herd was now held and the squeeze pen; a second between the squeeze pen and a large; and a third in the outer wall of the large, which opened onto the range. And through those gates they must hoo-hah or sweettalk thirty tons of critters as mean as sin and twice as jumpy as they were themselves.
    Cotton found some dried blood on his nose and peeled it off, thinking. Then he said it wasn't as tough as it looked. Here was how. The second and third gates they could open safely now, no sweat. He'd stay here on the squeeze pen by gate one. The rest of them would go back outside the way they came, around the corner to the section where the herd was. That would turn the buff toward them and away from him. Then he'd jump down, open number one gate into the squeeze pen, climb up again, and when they saw he'd done that here, all five of them should climb the pen wall above the herd, suddenly, together, and lean over and not holler but wave headgear and kick the crossbars and that ought to stampede the herd out past him and out the last two gates.
    "Okay," he said. "Got it?" He knew they were petrified. "Okay," he said decisively, "Teft, you open two and three gates on your way. And for God's sake, when all of you get over there, when I jump down to open this one, give me time to get up again before you guys go up the wall. And remember, this is what we're here to do. Okay, everybody move on out."
    Nobody budged. He despaired. And then, of all unlikelies, Lally 1, on the end and more afraid his little brother would steal the show again than he was of the buffalo, took off on hands and knees and the rest followed.
    Cotton watched them go. With this bunch, you never knew who or why or what next. They were as bad as buffalo. He watched Teft drop, open number two gate on the opposite side of the squeeze pen, climb to the catwalk again, crawl to the outer wall and open gate three. Then they disappeared into the night.
    He tried to time them around the corner and along the wall. They'd be slow, he was sure of that, knocking knees and dragging tails. Then movement in the herd clued him. He stood up, sensing rather than seeing. It seemed to him the animals had wheeled, facing the wall away from him. He heard them snuff and stomp. Clouds had closed down and he could not tell, but they must be there now, revving themselves up to assault the wall, the herd acted like it. He pulled his helmet chinstrap tight. He crouched to jump. He tried to whisper Geronimo but his mouth was dry.
    He jumped. The gate was secured with a chain and drop-bolt. The instant his bootheels hit dirt he reached for the chain and jerked the bolt and grabbing a crossbar swung the gate wide and in the same frantic sequence of movement leaped for the opposite wall and flew upward hand over hand and toe over toe before he got a horn up his rear.
    Things happened so fast that Cotton nearly fell off the catwalk. On the wall over the herd he thought he saw the flap of hats. Then he heard milling and that awful rumble and the hats vanished and there was a crash and splinter of wood and he thought, oh God they've smashed right through the pen wall. Then below him a bull and two cows tried to batter through the gate he'd opened and the whole squeeze pen swayed and he did fall, flat, flinging arms around the planks as the damnfool animals rushed through gate two into the big pen and instead of taking the last gate and cutting the scene wheeled and rammed right back through his gate and back into the original pen with the rest of the herd.
    If Cotton could have, he'd have cursed loud enough to wake George Armstrong Custer. If he'd had cry time, he'd have flooded the pens with