Part 5
Raymond kept the latch down. After a moment, he released it and backed away until Amos could see his whole body.
“Denise. Bring Bess back to the middle.”
She checked the cow’s position and looked at him.
“Will that work?”
“We can try. Easy.”
Bess didn’t appreciate reversing course. She swung her head, planted herself for a moment, then followed Denise toward the barn. Amos watched her. His sides began moving less sharply.
When Denise turned the cow again, he followed along his own lane. He passed the secured sack and stopped with his nose above the ramp bedding.
Nobody filled the pause.
Raymond spoke Amos’s name once.
The bull tested the ramp, shifted forward, and climbed into the trailer. Celia closed the rear gate without letting it slam. She checked the side doors and fastenings before signaling Sylvia.
Denise followed the outer fence back to her father.
“You left it shut.”
Raymond looked at the service gate. “Told you I would.”
She stayed beside him while Grant signed the surrender papers on the truck hood.
Grant held the pen after he finished. Beyond the slats, Amos had turned his good eye toward the open side of the yard. Bess called once from near the barn.
“Dad had plans for him,” Grant said. “Thought everybody would know Osvane because of that bull.” He put the pen down. “About time the name did him some good.”
Raymond wrote the sponsorship check. He checked the amount twice, tore it out carefully, and handed it to Sylvia rather than folding it into his pocket.
“We’ll call after unloading,” she said. “No visits for the first month. He needs to learn the place.”
Raymond began to ask whether a brief stop might be different. He shut the checkbook instead.
“All right.”
The trailer eased down the drive. At the road, a gray ear showed through the slats. Sylvia turned south, and the rig disappeared beyond the trees.
Raymond carried the feed tub out of the empty lot. Hay remained in the feeder, pushed aside where Amos had eaten. He found a broom and began sweeping the bedding away from the gate hinges.
Denise brought a second broom.
They worked from opposite ends until their piles met. Ruth came to take Bess back to the others. At the barn door, the cow paused and turned her head toward the lot. Ruth waited, then clucked softly, and Bess followed her out.
Later, the roof estimates lay between Raymond and Denise on the kitchen table. Her overnight bag was still in the sewing room.
“I’m not telling you the night Mom died is settled,” she said.
He flattened the curled corner of an estimate. “I know.”
“And I can’t keep owning part of this place without being included. I need the figures before things go wrong. I need you to call before you agree to something.”
Raymond listened.
“If you get hurt, I don’t want Ruth being the one who tells me. And when I disagree with you, you can’t just stop answering.”
He almost promised that she would never hear bad news from anybody else again. Then he looked at the roof estimate, with its allowance for damage they wouldn’t know about until the old material came off.
“We’ll start here,” he said, turning the page toward her. “Then work out how many cows I can manage now. Not how many I used to.”
Denise picked up a pen. “Together?”
“You heard me.”
She wrote Saturday, 9 a.m. beside the roofer’s number. Raymond reached for the phone and put it on the table where they could both hear.
A bare walnut branch brushed the refuge office roof when Denise parked there five months later. March had stayed cold. Raymond zipped his coat before stepping out, and Denise waited rather than hurrying ahead.
Tavren spread over a hundred and eighty hilly acres. Double fencing divided the pastures. Sylvia met them by the quarantine barn, though Amos no longer lived there. After quarantine, he had moved into a divided pasture beside two elderly steers.
The old hoof injury was gone; the damage to his left eye remained. Before stepping into the adjoining lane, staff called to him from his right. Every move followed a route he knew.
“He still takes planning,” Sylvia said as they walked. “We keep our routine, he knows what’s coming. Change it carelessly and we’ll have trouble.”
Amos stood at a hay ring some fifty yards away. Raymond stopped at the visitor barrier, keeping the distance he’d agreed to.
He said the bull’s name.
Amos lifted his head. He turned until the right eye faced them, hay caught along one side of his mouth.
Raymond waited with his gloved hands resting on the outer rail.
The bull came at a walk. He stopped well short of reach and breathed toward them, his loose ears moving. Raymond didn’t stretch out a hand.
“Bess is still getting into feed she hasn’t earned,” he told him. “Roof’s done. You wouldn’t recognize the inside of that barn on a rainy day.”
Denise stood close enough that her sleeve touched his. Her phone stayed in her pocket.
“The old lot’s empty,” Raymond said.
One of the steers called from the hay. Amos turned an ear, looked toward the sound, and eventually walked back. Raymond watched until he lowered his head beside the other animals.
At the car, Denise held out her hand for the keys. Raymond gave them to her and settled into the passenger seat.
He rested his hands on his knees. When she reached the end of the refuge drive, he watched the pasture through his window and let her choose the turn.