Her father smiled openly now.
“Forty.”
“No.”
“Fifty.”
The teenager’s stomach tightened.
Her father looked away deliberately.
The dealer said:
“Fifty thousand.”
“For ninety coughing auction calves.”
The girl whispered:
“They’re not coughing much anymore.”
“Exactly.”
She thought.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
The dealer’s face hardened.
“You’ll regret that.”
“Maybe.”
“Market can collapse.”
“Yes.”
“Vaccine could mean nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Feed could eat all your profit.”
“Yes.”
“You could lose half.”
“Yes.”
He stared.
“You really don’t care?”
“I care.”
“Then why?”
The teenager looked toward the pasture again.
“Because I bought cattle.”
“Not lottery tickets.”
The dealer went silent.
She continued:
“If I sell because people suddenly think there’s a story attached, I’m doing the same thing everybody did when they thought coughing made them worthless.”
The dealer frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does to me.”
He shook his head.
“Fifty thousand.”
“No.”
He drove away angry.
Her father waited until the pickup disappeared.
Then said:
“I would’ve sold.”
The girl stared.
“What?”
“At fifty?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You said they were yours.”
“I could’ve used advice.”
“You had advice.”
“What?”
“Market can collapse.”
“Feed can eat profit.”
“You heard him.”
She glared.
Her father smiled.
“You want me to tell you whether you made the right decision?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
She hated that.
He continued:
“Ask me in five years.”
The fever swept south.
Within another week, twenty-two ranches had reported illness.
The county veterinarian stopped counting individual phone calls and began grouping them by road.
Some herds were lightly affected.
Others were devastated.
Young calves suffered worst.
High fever.
Coughing.
Rapid breathing.
Secondary bacterial pneumonia.
Not every death was directly from the virus.
That was part of what made respiratory disease complicated.
A virus weakened the system.
Bacteria took advantage.
Weather added stress.
Transport added stress.
Poor nutrition added more.
One cause became many.
The teenager’s ninety calves remained isolated.
None developed the outbreak strain.
Their blood titers remained strong.
The university researchers were excited.
The teenager was not.
She had started hearing stories.
A rancher west of town lost nineteen calves.
Another had a yearling down.
A family that went to church with her mother had stopped the disease in older cattle but lost almost all of their late summer calves.