Following the news of Mattie's pregnancy, Granny Jane had arrived at the Morgan ranch on a freight wagon with a trunk full of clothes, both men's and women's, which she wore indiscriminately, three cast-iron skillets, a Winchester slide-action 10-gauge shotgun, and four pounds of plug tobacco. She moved into the family, the kitchen, and the authority of the household easily and immediately, sending Sebe into a brooding silence on the front porch of the house, where he remained nearly constantly, except for dinner and supper.

When Jeff broached the idea that it might be time to sell the ranch and leave Texas and head west, Granny Jane simply declared the idea passed, with Jeff, Will, and Mattie in agreement with her. Sebe held the deed to the ranch, but he had no power to enforce his will over this new coalition that had arranged itself around the goddamned Powers and that was headed, or at least voiced, by Granny Jane, though Sebe was never sure whether ideas originated with her or with Jeff.

The first time Sebe had stood up to her and tried to enforce the idea that since he was the eldest male and held deed to the ranch, his was the natural, legal, and God-given authority for the ranch, Granny Jane had pulled the 10-gauge Winchester from the corner of the dining room where she kept it, jacked home a shell, and said, “Jeff don't care. I don't care. And this shotgun don't care what in hell you think about how to run this place.” He moved out to the front porch with a bottle of sour mash and glared hard at the horizon. That and eating were his main occupations for the remainder of their time in Texas.

It was the natural stupidity of cattle that made for most of the work on a ranch. Cows couldn't figure what to eat that wouldn't kill them, wouldn't stay together, and wouldn't stay put. Jeff looked over the herd, riding slowly through them, trying to identify his cattle by brand. He found four of them together and a couple more some fifty rods away. But the rest were scattered among the neighboring cattle. He kept riding, picking out his beeves, driving them over to the others, only to have them wander off somewhere else to be rounded up again.

It was getting late, and he needed to get them back to his small ranch before the broker came by tomorrow. Finally, in exasperation, he cut fifteen cattle, eight of which were his own, and headed them back across the hills toward home. Three others just followed behind. The cattle were all branded, and he reckoned that the broker could sort them out, crediting each ranch with the proper amount.