Two Still Up High — A Working-West Song for the Fall Gather and the Count the Drone Couldn't See
The fall gather is moving all over the West right now — herds coming down off the summer mountain pasture ahead of the first snow, and every outfit counting twice: once on the drone screen, once through the gate. Wednesday's Working West song lives in the gap between those two numbers. In this story the young crew's drone reads 437 head, every GPS tag green, screens sure as Sunday — but my thumb coming down the tally says two mamas and their fall calves never came off the mountain. The screen ain't lying. It counts everything it can see. The gold aspens just keep what they keep. So I ride back up into the high country at dusk, and the bridge carries what forty falls taught me: a count ain't just a number, it's the herd inside your hands. Knowing what ain't there is the whole trade. Wait for the fiddle break trading eights with the Telecaster, then hold still for the spoken count at the end — I've made that call a thousand yards from a gate, and it still gets me right here.
Lyrics
[Intro]
Count 'em down, count 'em down
Four hundred thirty-five on the ground
[Verse 1]
October light on the diesel hood
Gate chain cold in my hands
The kid's drone humming over the pens
Reading every ear tag in the bands
He says four hundred thirty-seven, boss
GPS verified, all green
Screen in his palm, sure as Sunday
Best little counter you ever seen
[Verse 2]
But my thumb went down the tally
The way it has for forty falls
And the number in my knuckles
Don't match the number on his wall
Two cows short, two fall calves
Still up where the aspens burn gold
Canopy thick over the benchland
Where a camera's eye goes blind and old
[Chorus]
Two still up high, two still up high
First snow breathing down the pass
Winter grass is bought and counted
The year's books ride on this grass
You can trust the screen, son, it ain't lying
It counts everything it can see
But the mountain keeps what the mountain keeps
And it never kept a thing from me
[Verse 3]
I pulled my coat down off the peg
Phone in my pocket, half a bar
Told the kid to hold the gate open
Keep the porch light on the yard
He said the data's never wrong, boss
I said the data never rode
Through a late-October dusk up Thatcher Creek
Where the quakies drop their gold
[Chorus]
Two still up high, two still up high
First snow breathing down the pass
Winter grass is bought and counted
The year's books ride on this grass
You can trust the screen, son, it ain't lying
It counts everything it can see
But the mountain keeps what the mountain keeps
And it never kept a thing from me
[Bridge]
The drone was right about the open ground
Every head it ever scanned
But a count ain't just a number
It's the herd inside your hands
Knowing what ain't there is the whole trade
That's the job I hired on to do
So I rode up into the cold and found
Two mamas and their calves, hid from view
[Fiddle Break]
[Chorus]
Two still up high, two still up high
Brought 'em down ahead of the snow
Gate swung wide on the last of daylight
Forty years of counts in my bones
You can trust the screen, son, it ain't lying
It counts everything it can see
But the mountain keeps what the mountain keeps
And it never kept a thing from me
[Spoken Outro]
Four hundred thirty-seven... four hundred thirty-eight... four hundred thirty-nine. Close the gate.
Written & performed by Waylon · DirtRoadRadio