Jedidiah comes around on occasion to help on roundup,

and run cattle through the chute. One look at Jed’s

enough to put the fear of God in a man on account of he’s so big

and raw-boned and weathered and tough as beef jerky.

He’s also big-hearted, and there’s nothin’ he likes more

than tellin’ stories and pullin’ pranks—

I reckon Darly Boy can attest to that.
I guess what I’m sayin’ is appearances can deceive.

Jed’s a hard man, but he’s got laugh lines dug deep

and a shine in his eyes. Jed was raised country,

and I don’t believe he’s ever set foot inside a Walmarts

or a doctor’s office, though he has been stitched up

by the vet more than once. He’s cowboyed all his life,

and he ain’t afraid of a thing, only he don’t like workin’ cattle

in close confines. It sets him on edge.

When it comes to corral work he’d just as soon

be on the outside lookin’ in. Which is fine by me.

Jed worked at the sale barn in town ’til it went belly up,

and those cattle would come in the ring half crazy or better

and I expect that’s what done it.

Jed used to play it pretty rough. So I’ve heard.

As I heard it from him there might be somethin’ to it.

He said his first wife wasn’t worth shootin’, but his second wife

is a peach. Regina says she took the wander out of him.

I could tell stories on Jed’s horse named Horse

that he taught to jump into the back of a pickup truck,

which ain’t the usual way, or the story he told

on some ole boy that sold his wife for a nickel a pop

behind the roadhouse back in the day. But that ain’t

what I mean to tell. I mean to tell about the day

Colt got his finger mashed. I already told how Mr Stricker

and Regina and me and Colt were workin’ cattle,

how Jed and Laura were sittin’ on their horses

outside the corral watchin’ when it happened—

how that steer hit that gate, and how it slammed back

mashin’ Colt’s finger against the pipe fence.

What I didn’t tell was what Jed said after seein’ Colt’s fingertip

hangin’ by a thread, and the color of Colt’s face.
Jed said, I wish it'd happened to me, and he it said it low,

he never intended anyone to hear it except I did,

he wanted to take the pain off of Colt simple as that.

A man might sit through a month of Sunday sermons

and never hear such compassion in a man’s voice.

That's the story, and it happened just like that.