《Lambing Season 》作者：- Molly Gloss【EPUB】

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Lambing Season by Molly Gloss From May to September Delia took the Churro sheep and two dogs and went up on Joe-Johns Mountain to live. She had that country pretty much to herself all summer. Ken Owen sent one ofhis Mexican hands up every other week with a load of groceries but otherwise she was alonealone with the sheep and the dogs. She liked the solitude. Liked the silence. Some sheepherdersshe knew talked a blue streak to the dogs the rocks the porcupines they sang songs andplayed the radio read their magazines out loud but Delia let the silence settle into herand by early summer she had begun to hear the ticking of the dry grasses as a language shecould almost translate. The dogs were named Jesus and Alice. quotAway to me Jesusquot she said whenthey were moving the sheep. quotGo bye Alice.quot From May to September these words spoken incommand of the dogs were almost the only times she heard her own voice that and when theMexican brought the groceries a polite exchange in Spanish about the weather the health ofthe dogs the fecundity of the ewes. The Churros were a very old breed. The O-Bar Ranch had a federal allotment up on the mountainwhich was all rimrock and sparse grasses well suited to the Churros who were fiercelyprotective of their lambs and had a long-stapled top coat that could take the weather. They didwell on the thin grass of the mountain where other sheep would lose flesh and give up theirlambs to the coyotes. The Mexican was an old man. He said he remembered Churros from hischildhood in the Oaxaca highlands the rams with their four horns two curving up two down.quotBuen carnequot he told Delia. Uncommonly fine meat. The wind blew out of the southwest in theearly part of the season a wind that smelled of juniper and sage and pollen in the latermonths it blew straight from the east a dry wind smelling of dust and smoke bringing downshowers of parched leaves and seedheads of yarrow and bittercress. Thunderstorms camefrequently out of the east enormous cloudscapes with hearts of livid magenta and glaucousgreen. At those times if she was camped on a ridge shed get out of her bed and walk downhillto find a draw where she could feel safer but if she were camped in a low place she wouldstay with the sheep while a war passed over their heads spectacular jagged flares oflightning skull-rumbling cannonades of thunder. It was maybe bred into the bones of Churros aknowledge and a tolerance of mountain weather for they shifted together and waited out thethunder with surprising composure they stood forbearingly while rain beat down in hardblinding bursts. Sheepherding was simple work although Delia knew some herders who made it hard dogging thesheep every minute keeping them in a tight group moving all the time. She let the sheep herdthemselves do what they wanted make their own decisions. If the band began to separate shewould whistle or yell and often the strays would turn around and rejoin the main group. Onlyif they were badly scattered did she send out the dogs. Mostly she just kept an eye on thesheep made sure they got good feed that the band didnt split that they stayed in theboundaries of the O-Bar allotment. She studied the sheep for the language of their bodies andtried to handle them just as close to their nature as possible. When she put out salt for themshe scattered it on rocks and stumps as if she were hiding Easter eggs because she saw howthey enjoyed the