Part 7
“The goslings are here,” Wade said. “What do you need me to do?”
Ellen took her jacket from the hook. “Carry water. Slowly.”
He carried it slowly.
The Mercer brooder stood in a converted lambing shed near the shared boundary, close enough for Noah to hear an alarm from his bedroom but far enough from the cattle lot to introduce the animals in stages. Ellen had marked the partition plan on a copy of Mabel’s old sketch. Noah built it himself. Wade held boards where he was told and did not improve the design after Ellen left.
Forty-two goslings moved beneath the heat plates, bright-eyed and unsteady. Noah sat on a low stool with feed in his palm. Clara occupied a folding chair outside the bay, a thermos between her boots. When Wade entered with the water pan, the goslings startled at his stick.
“Set it down and wait,” Ellen said.
He did. Within a minute, the nearest birds returned to the feed. One pecked the worn toe of his boot.
A broad-backed gosling caught the edge of the tin scoop and pulled. Noah reached to take it away, then stopped when Ellen raised one finger. The gosling dragged the scoop through the bedding until it tipped and spilled a thin line of feed. Wade laughed before he could contain it.
For an instant, Ellen heard Mabel in the sound. This time she did not turn toward an empty doorway. She handed Wade the small broom and showed Noah how much feed to replace.
The extension office printed Lena’s bulletin over the winter, presenting the Avery observations as one case rather than a universal answer. Six ranches joined the two-year field project; Ellen taught brooder records, and Luis taught fence inspection and night response.
For Noah, Ellen copied Mabel’s pages with every wide margin, blue correction, and recorded loss intact. She refused a clean typed version. The copy went into a plain black binder on the Mercer feed shelf; the leather ledger returned to Ellen’s kitchen, too fragile now for brooder dust and spilled water.
The drought had not fully broken. Ellen’s herd was smaller than it had been two years earlier, and Wade would never again manage the Mercer place without Noah. The old gathering gate stayed in use, but the chain hung on a nail when it was open, visible to both sides.
At five each morning, Noah walked the goslings through the brooder lanes. Wade came often, though not every day. He learned to shorten his stride so the birds did not scatter around the stick. By the fourth week, they followed both men, but their tightest line formed behind Noah.
Ellen watched the first pasture walk from the gathering gate. On her side of the fence, the white-shouldered gander stood among the older flock. He was nearly thirteen now and slow to rise, his once-gray mark faded almost white. When the goslings called from the Mercer lane, he answered once and went back to grazing.
The young flock met cattle through pipe panels just as Ellen’s had. A Mercer heifer approached too quickly on the fourth afternoon, and the goslings bunched against the back rail. Wade took one step toward the pen.
“Wait,” Noah said.
Wade stopped.
Noah turned the heifer with a feed tub and ended the session early. He did not force a success for the sake of the people watching. The next day, he brought an older cow that had spent the drought among Ellen’s geese. She lowered her head to the young flock, breathed over them, and returned to her hay.
Wade looked at Ellen across the panels. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” she said.
Wade came to stand beside Ellen. “You want coffee?”
“Yes.”
He handed her Clara’s thermos cup without comment.
Ellen had brought the ledger under her arm. She opened it on the gate rail to the page where Mabel had left half a column blank. Beneath her mother’s pencil and Ellen’s first blue correction, she entered the South Meadow alarm from the previous August.
August 6, 2022. Flock sounded at south boundary. Coyotes first seen: 11:38 p.m. Old gate opened: 11:47. Forty-seven pairs crossed. People, panels, trucks, and light moved them. No predator loss. Pasture cost recorded separately.
She read it once, then closed the brass clasp.
On the Mercer side, Noah turned toward the new grass. Forty-two goslings hurried after his boots, divided around a patch of sunlight, and joined into one line again beyond it.