Part 4
“Then come out,” Janice said.
She stepped back with her daughter into the outer passage and secured the access gate behind them. Amos remained in his pen, watching their movement. Janice told Mick they were stopping before he could begin opening the route.
“How long?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“I’ve got another pickup this afternoon.”
Janice looked at the empty dock, the truck he had brought ninety miles, the new gravel she had paid to have spread before daylight. Then she asked him to call his next customer.
“Charge me for the wait.”
Mick took his phone to the cab.
Mara put the cloth on the porch bench. Her fingers stayed curled after she had let it go, and Janice wanted to take them in her own hands. She kept her hands at her sides instead.
“I thought it would be different with the gate gone,” Mara said.
“Do you want to leave?”
“No. I want to help. I just can’t stand there and look down that line.”
Janice considered the positions they had marked. “Would you be comfortable at the connecting gate? I could take the square.”
“Maybe.”
“We can look without moving him.”
Janice picked up the cloth, and they walked back with Mick after he finished his call. Mara tried the gate controls from the protected side, several steps away from the old alley, and stayed there while Janice took the other position. They checked their sight lines and revised the plan before bringing Amos out.
When they were ready, Janice looked across to her daughter. Mara nodded once, then opened the connecting gate.
Amos approached the blue square at his own pace. From behind the barrier, Janice moved along the lane he had practiced entering the previous afternoon. His shoulder passed the new gravel, and his head turned toward the space where the red gate had been.
He stopped there. Janice waited, keeping the square within his sight, while he nosed the end of a panel and examined the unfamiliar opening beyond it. Nobody came up behind him.
Mick stood at the trailer’s rear-gate controls. Graham remained outside the work area with both hands in his coat pockets; he had moved when Mara asked him to clear Amos’s view. The hay tub secured toward the front of the trailer gave the bull somewhere visible to go.
At the foot of the ramp, Amos lowered his head. Janice’s elbow began to ache from holding the square steady, and she shifted her grip without lifting or fluttering it. She could see a line of pale hair beneath his horn where the scrape had healed.
He set one forefoot on the ramp, took it off, and looked sideways. Janice had an urge to supply the small push that would finish the job. She moved the cloth back into the center of his view and waited while her arm tired.
Amos tested the ramp again.
This time he brought the second foot up and climbed into the trailer, each step placing more of his weight on the floor. Janice stayed outside beside the slatted upper section until he was fully inside, then lowered the cloth.
Mick closed and secured the rear gate. Mara checked that the loading lane was clear before signaling to Graham, who came forward to complete the handover. Only after the barriers were secured did Janice leave her position.
She leaned against the porch post and tried to fold the cloth. Her hands were trembling, making the corners difficult to match. Mara took the other end and brought it toward her, and between them they folded it into a small uneven square.
Before starting the engine, Mick asked everyone to step back. They watched Amos brace as the motor caught, then settle into a wide stance; Mick waited to be sure he remained steady. The truck pulled out slowly, with enough room for the long turn onto the road.
Janice watched until it passed the leased pasture.
She had imagined this moment with Amos staying at her fence, and even now, after everything it had cost to get him aboard, she wished she could call the truck back.
Mara stood beside her. “Do you want me to stay a while?”
“If you’ve got time.”
“Until three.”
They went inside and ate at the office table. Janice put away the boarding papers to make room for their plates.
By the following April, the old receiving yard was still closed. Janice had leased more of the ground and sold equipment she would not need again; reopening even part of the business remained a calculation that did not quite work.
She and Mara drove to Westridge on a bright, windy Saturday for the visit they’d arranged a month earlier.
Amos was in a large paddock adjoining the farm’s handling pens. His care still required experienced people, visible cues, and careful planning. Further assessment had supported managing him for severe hearing loss; nobody at the college had offered to make him an ordinary, easy bull.
The farm manager met them at the outer fence. He pointed out Amos’s shelter and explained where visitors could stand, then left them on the protected walkway while he finished a feed round.
Amos noticed them before they reached the viewing area. He lifted his cream-colored head and watched, a strand of hay caught across one horn. Janice laughed under her breath at the familiar untidiness.
“What?” Mara asked.
“He used to stand like that all afternoon.”
She raised her empty hand where he could see it. Amos approached partway, paused, then turned his head toward Mara. Her daughter lifted a hand too, and for a little while he stayed facing them.
Janice did not know whether he recognized their faces. When he turned toward the fresh hay arriving at the far feeder, she lowered her hand.
They sat on the bench outside the walkway. Mara opened the bag of sandwiches she had brought, and Janice moved over to make space for it between them.
“They put mustard on yours,” Mara said. “I told them not to.”
“I can scrape it off.”
“Take mine. I haven’t bitten it.”
Janice started to refuse, then accepted the sandwich her daughter held out. Mara tucked the loose wrapping under the bag so the wind would not take it, and stayed beside her while she ate.