Blue sky, golden grass, tall sagebrush, mountains capped white behind. Chores done. Coffee in the sun room. He looks out across the south pasture. The tips of the tall sage quiver. The wind picks up the flags along the fence line, tugging at the screw lock chain links that hold them to the wire. The Stars and Stripes is up all the time, frayed at the edge. And the other. It’s been up since the election. Inside, a catalog open on the table. Maybe he’ll buy a new bull this year. He needs new genes. The best bulls make small calves that grow fast. Easy on the heifers, good for the pocketbook. Lot 42 has a two-year-old Simmental out of a high-altitude herd near Meeteetse. Good EPDs. Clean trich test. Should sire calves with a good frame and some thickness through the rib. He could go Angus. Tried and true. Good growth, good marbling, the sale barn in Billings knows what to do with a black calf. They’re nervous bulls, though. 2200-lbs and twitchy. His wife likes the Herefords. Red body, white face. She’s the one who has to move them when he’s at work in town, and Herefords are calm. She has made this point before, and she is not wrong. But the Simmental interests him. Supposed to be a good high-altitude cross. He’s never tried Simmental. He takes a sip of coffee. He’ll figure out the bulls later. The books come first. He closes the catalog and pulls the receipts toward him. The manila folder and the stack of printouts from the ranch supply account. He does the books every winter. Coffee, calculator, the table clear of everything except the numbers. He starts with what he knows. What he earned. What he spent. What the government says he owes and what it says it owes him. He’s not fast, but he’s careful. He keeps everything. His wife would tell you he keeps too much. But the numbers should tell a story that makes sense, and every year they do, more or less, and he files the return and writes the check or waits for the refund and keeps up with the work. This year, the numbers don’t. Not the income side. That’s fine. The calves sold. The cattle market was decent. He’s not complaining about what came in. It’s what went out that puzzles him. Act I. The Books He pulls the ranch supply printout and starts down the column. Fencing wire. He bought forty rolls in April, just like every spring. Last year, it was eighty-two dollars a roll. This year, one hundred and twelve. He looks at the number again. More than a hundred dollars for a roll of barbed wire. He writes it down. Moves on. The wheat didn't do much this year. It never does much. But he keeps the pivot running on the acres along the creek because his father did, and some years it pays for itself. Fertilizer. He spreads it on the hay meadows every spring. It’s not optional. You either feed the ground or the ground doesn’t feed the cattle. Last year, he paid four-eighteen a ton. This year, six-oh-five. He doesn’t know why. He didn’t ask. He just paid it because it was May and the hay meadows need it. Diesel. Up. Not as bad as the wire, but up. The bulk tank at the co-op, the same co-op his father used, the price on the board was higher every time he filled. Cake. Protein supplement for the cows in winter. Soybean meal and corn and molasses pressed into blocks or poured into troughs. The soybean price is tangled in something he doesn’t follow, something about China buying from Brazil now. He doesn’t get it. If there are more soybeans here, shouldn’t the price go down? And the cake is up twelve percent. The cows don’t eat less because Washington has some trade policy thing going on. Salt and mineral. Up, but not much. Vet supplies. Up. The squeeze chute he’d been pricing, the old one is twenty years old and the headgate sticks. The base model went from eighty-five to ninety-eight hundred between March and September. The better ones double that. He didn’t buy it. He’ll fix the headgate again. He adds the column. Adds it again. He’s careful. The number is right. He just doesn’t like it. He moves on. The calves brought good money. Nearly four ten a hundredweight, last year they only brought three twenty. The expenses ate the money the calves brought. Not all of it. He’s not broke. But wire is one-twelve, and the hydraulic chute is twenty grand. The space between what came in and what went out, where the bull purchase is possible, where a good squeeze chute is possible…the margin got thinner. And he doesn’t know why. If live weight cattle prices are near record highs, and he’s a cattle rancher, his margins should be good. That’s not true. He knows why. Everything cost more. He just doesn’t know why everything cost more. He’s heard the word tariff. He’s not sure how it connects to fencing wire in Wyoming. The president says the tariffs are on China, on Europe, on countries that have been ripping America off for decades. That sounds right to him. He voted for the man, and he’d vote for him again, and he’s not the kind to second-guess a thing just because it costs him. Everything worth doing costs something. But he’s looking at the numbers. One-hundred-twelve dollars for a roll of wire that was eighty-two dollars a year ago. He didn’t buy the wire from China. He bought it at the ranch supply in town. Same place he always buys it. Same wire. Same clerk. Different price. He pulls the form toward him. He knows taxes. He’s paid them his whole life. Income tax, line by line. Property tax on the ranch. Self-employment tax, which he doesn’t love but understands. Sales tax on everything he buys in town. These are visible. They have names. They have lines on the form. He can argue about them if he wants to. He can vote for people who promise to lower them. He knows what he pays and who he pays it to. He looks at the form. There should be a line for what he paid this year that he didn’t pay last year. The wire. The fertilizer. The diesel. The cake. Somewhere between the ranch supply store and the US Treasury, someone added a cost to everything he buys, and he’d like to know where to put it. There is no line. He looks again. Schedule F. Farm income and expenses. He can deduct the wire and the fertilizer as business expenses, sure. He always does. But that’s not what he’s looking for. He’s looking for the tariff tax. The one built into the price of the wire. The one that made one-twelve out of eighty-two for the wire. It isn’t there. There is no line. No box. No schedule. He paid it. He has the receipt, but according to the United States government, the tax does not exist. The president says foreign countries are paying. The rancher doesn’t know what schools say. He knows what the ranch supply store says. The receipt is in his hand. He suspects he paid the taxes and not some merchant in China. If someone in China paid it, why are all his expenses up so much? He could write a letter. To the IRS. To his congressman. To the president. He could ask: if I didn’t pay this tax, who did? And if I did pay it, where do I file for the refund? He won’t write the letter. He knows what would happen. The same thing that happens when he calls the Forest Service about his grazing allotment or the BLM about the lease. Nothing. A recording. A form letter. Silence. He shipped seventy-eight steer calves in October. Around six weight and slick. They had had good feed. The check was north of one hundred and ninety thousand. It was yellow. He left it on the dashboard of the truck for three days before he could get to the bank. For someone who lived in town, it was a lot of money. A winning lottery ticket, enough to buy a life. But the ranch is not a savings account; the ranch is a mouth. He paid the bank. He paid for the diesel and the fertilizer. Then he paid for the wire. When he finished writing the checks, the money was nearly gone. He went out to the barn. The squeeze chute was there in the shadow. It was the old manual one. Same chute his dad ran. He wanted the hydraulic chute, but didn’t buy it. His shoulder hurts when he works this manual one. Sharp pain that did not go away. He would pull the handle anyway. The wire was tight on the posts out in the wind. The cattle in the fields. The work remained. He puts the receipts back in the folder. Closes the form. The books are done. The numbers are the numbers. He’ll file the form and write the check. Get back to the work. He opens the bull catalog again. Lot 42. The Simmental. His wife will say Hereford. She’s probably right. But he’s never tried Simmental, and a man ought to try a thing before he decides against it. Maybe he should wait until next year, though. Outside, the flags pull at the chain links along the fence line. The Stars and Stripes, frayed at the edge. And the other. The wind is stronger now. It’s always stronger by afternoon. Neither one comes down. Act II. The Check A few weeks later, a letter. USDA. He doesn’t get much mail from Washington. The Forest Service, sometimes, about the grazing allotment. The BLM about the lease. Forms and fees and notices that say nothing and require a signature anyway. This one is different. It says he’s eligible for a payment. One-time relief. He reads it twice. Trade disruptions. The letter doesn’t use simple language. Retaliatory tariffs from foreign nations disrupted commodity markets. American farmers and ranchers carried a disproportionate burden. The administration recognizes the sacrifice and intends this bridge assistance to ensure the continued viability of American agriculture. There’s a number at the bottom. Calculated from the crop acreage he reported for the drought assessment in August. What they’ll send if he signs and returns the form. It’s not nothing. Seven thousand dollars. Enough to matter. Not enough to fix anything, but enough to notice. He sets the letter on the table. Walks outside. The wind is up. The flags pull at the chain links. He stands there a
