GUNNISON, COLORADO: COWS OR CONDOS?

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The truck rumbles into the pasture, a bovine maternity ward. Here a gawky newborn nuzzles its mother; there a fetal head and two hooves peek from the hindquarters of a cow that's ambling, wholly unconcerned, through the field. Sage grouse--a preposterously showy endangered species--strut and preen on the hillside. While Duane tours the scene in his pickup, his son Brad works from the saddle of a quarter horse. They stop to watch as a cow lies down, her calf beginning to emerge. Finally, with perfect timing and great effort, the cow clambers to her feet and lets gravity deliver the newborn. It is motionless. Duane watches closely as the mother licks mucus from its face. At last, the calf shudders to life; Duane smiles. "Now, tell me," he says, sweeping a leathery hand past cow and calf, up beyond his sage hills to the peaks of Fossil Ridge. "How much did they say this place is s'posed to be worth?"