Cowboy Take Me Away

It All Comes Out

The Baker's had a very nice ranch home and ranch in general. They were a very traditional family, with a Victorian and ranch styled home. They were very humble and often kept to themselves, but their boys kind of rebel against that. They like to sneak out and go to parties and dance with any girl they can get. They're not man whores, but just like to impress girls. I really didn't have a problem with them. 

They greeted us at their gate to the pasture, which they had kindly opened it already for us to get our horses through. "Hey guys, thanks for coming." The Baker dad, Richard, happily smiled at us. 

"No problem, neighbor." My dad greeted back. 

"All right let's get started shall we?" Richard says, as we all walk our horses into the pasture. "So I was thinking that Colby, Cheyenne, and myself will take the north pasture, Caleb and Walker will take the west, and Ryder and DaKota will take the east." 

I look at Ryder and he offers me a small smile as I lead my horse to him, man this is gonna be awkward. "Hey Ryder." I say to him as I reach him. 

"Hey DaKota, long time no see." He says with a chuckle. 

"Yeah, I guess we've been pretty busy." I'm sure we both know I'm lying about being busy these months, but he plays along with me. "How are you?" I ask him. 

"Can't complain, I'm sitting second in my circuit right now with my big old dumb brother ahead of me." I laugh at this. Ryder and Walker competed in saddle broncs. 

"Well congrats on that." I say as I look ahead of me, the cattle starting to be in my vision. 

"What about you? You still compete?" He asked me, looking at me. 

"Eh, from time to time, not as much as I used to." I look back at him and he nods. "I'm real busy with the diner and school."

"A vet right?" He cocks his head curiously. 

"Right." I smiled surprisingly, how could of he remembered that?

"I don't know if I've ever told you, but your diner is one of the best."

"I appreciate that, thank you." I smiled genuinely, it felt good to smile like that. 

The calf 'merred' in Ryder's grasp as I punched the tag through it's ear, and then I released the clamp and Ryder let the calf go. After it went back to its luring mama, I charted the information on the chart and slid it back into Ryder's saddle bag. Despite the cold temperature, I was having a lot of fun tagging with Ryder. We were joking around the whole time and doing stupid things, it really took my mind off everything. 

"Okay, we have one more." He said as we looked around at the mamas and babies. "And lets make it fast, because it's freaking cold!" I let out a laugh and agreed with him. 

I mounted on Scarlet and loped to find the last untagged calf, hiding with all the other tagged calves and their moms. I found it and Scarlet did her job cutting it off from the others and then Ryder hopped off and tackled it to the ground. I grabbed the kit and quickly wrapped the halter around the calf and got the scale and Ryder held up the calf and I wrote down the weight and sex. I grabbed the tag and applied it to the clamp, found the spot on it's ear, and then I used all of my strength to tag the calf. 

As the calf was 'merring' from the corner of my eye I saw the mother getting closer and closer, and I still wasn't done with the clamp. It still hadn't clicked. "DaKota watch out!" Ryder yelled as I looked up at saw the cow charging at me. 

Then Ryder's body flung over mine and safely pulled me away from the calf. His body was now over mine as we were both looking at the spot we were just at, where the cow was licking it's baby. "I guess I should of warned you we call her Mama Bull." Ryder chuckles and I look at him and start to laugh.