Chapter One

Our first summer on the ranch up in the high country of Central Oregon, Peter and I were cage-trapping feral cats one by one and having them cut if we liked them, killed if we didn't. Up there in stock country, cutting animals wholesale is a common and necessary practice, although it's not usually cats. Nor is it always coldhearted: Horses sometimes get what's called cut proud, which means a cut gelding can still get hard and mount fillies. He's got no sperm but he's got his pride.

    A lean, sunburnt horsewoman named Faith Gaines told me about proud cuts. She was a local veterinarian, so I figured she knew. Faith was doing our cats in exchange for Peter's legal advice. She said to me one day, "Those good ol' cowboys wait until a stallion's had sex and then they cut him, so he keeps the male menace in him, menace to cow a steer with, the horse is absolutely carryi ... read full excerpt from Geography of Saints ebook