Bilgarra Springs (13 page)

‘I’ll let the first lot in, but then you are on your own. You sure you are ok with this?’

Aurora nodded.

‘Yeah. I’ll give it a go.’

He flashed her a grin.

‘No worries.’

Next thing she knew the yard at the end of the run was full of cattle and Cal slid one gate open, waited until the run was full, closed the gate behind the last beast and let one into the crush. Rick was monitoring the laptop and nodded to Cal. It had a tag, had been weighed and Rick yelled out, ‘Sale’. Cal opened the gates at the front of the crush letting it out. Gerry, who had been standing behind and between two other gates, opened the gate to the left and the beast ran through into another large yard.

Cal nodded to Aurora who let one into the crush, he closed the front gate to immobilise it and the process was repeated. This one also went off to the left. Next one through was younger than the others and still quite small. It didn’t have a tag or a brand and needed to be castrated. Cal tagged it, applied little orange rubbers to ensure he wouldn’t grow into a bull, branded him, ran a line of spray for flies down its back and it went through the gate on the right as one that was staying.

Aurora had initially felt a bit sorry for the poor little thing. It had bellowed like mad when the ear tag had been put it. Logic told her that she had her own ears pierced, so it wasn’t a big drama, but she still felt for the little thing. The smell of burning hair from the branding had invaded her nostrils. She had wondered how Cal knew how long to keep the brand there and decided it must be a dose of instinct combined with lots of practice. Aurora was horrified when the little things legs went all wobbly after it was branded. When Cal let it out it had wobbled into the small yard looking a bit lost until Gerry had opened the gate, then it had taken off at speed, which had made Aurora feel better. She decided that being overly emotional about it all probably wasn’t going to do her any favours. Her problem was that she loved animals.

She spent the next hour opening and closing gates and letting beasts in and out. At one point the half a dozen remaining cattle to go into the run hadn’t wanted to move and she had needed to use the branch that Cal had given her. She felt like a bit of a fool for the first few seconds but she then got frustrated enough that she gave the closest one an effective slap on the rump with it. The final one, though, gave her heaps of trouble.

While she had been doing her best to get the last few in, Cal had been doing the gate at the other end of the run and Aurora had that incompetent feeling that she got when she felt useless for letting him down. More out of desperation to hurry up than anything else, and to get the last one in before the few that were already in there backed out, she climbed on the rails on the side of the yard and whopped the remaining stubborn beast on the rump with the branch hard enough to get its attention. It flew around and charged the rails, whopping its head into them with force. The movement had scared Aurora enough to get her to fling herself backwards, which luckily stopped her fingers or arms from getting crushed against the metal rails. She had landed on her bum on the ground.

To add insult to injury, the beast had moved along the rails and was standing with its head inside the run, the rest of its body still outside, effectively stopping the gate from closing. A mixture of embarrassment and frustration had Aurora jumping to her feet, leaning over the rail and giving it another swat on the rump to get it to move forward. As it moved, she slid the gate home.

By that stage the adrenalin from the fright had worn off and she bent over at the waist, resting her hands on her knees. If she was being honest with herself, the steer charging the fence had scared the crap out of her, and her legs had now started to tremble. Cal loped over to her in his long legged way, placing a hand on her shoulder and bending down slightly, trying to get a look at her face.

‘You ok?’

Aurora straightened up and mentally pulled herself together. She was a little surprised that Callan hadn’t moved his hand.

‘Yeah. I hadn’t been expecting that last shit of a thing to do what it did and it scared the crap out of me.’

‘You not hurt?’

She shook her head, aiming for a smile, which fell just short.

‘No, all good. Just my pride bruised and maybe my bum.’

Callan gently squeezed her shoulder quickly before letting go.

‘Wouldn’t worry too much about it. We have all had run-ins one way or another with cattle. Ninety percent of the time they give you no trouble then you get the odd one that is unpredictable. If that one is difficult hopefully it will be one of the ones out of there this afternoon. It can be someone else’s problem.’

Cal’s was clearly looking elsewhere when he finished speaking. Aurora followed his gaze. Two yards over, Keith was watching very attentively, his foot perched on the lower rail as if he would be up and over in a heartbeat if the situation warranted it. He was the last thing that Aurora wanted to deal with at the moment. Aurora figured that if she got back to what she was doing and brushed the whole episode off, Keith may just stay where he was. She looked at Cal who had now returned his attention to her.

‘Thanks.’

‘No worries. You want to keep going or you had enough?’

‘No I’m all good. I’m not giving up.’

Cal flashed her a huge smile.

‘Good on you.’

Aurora’s return smile wavered a little but it must have done the trick as he returned to what he was doing at the other end of the crush. They put the next few through, some staying, some going, and as it turned out, the one that had given her trouble was one that was going. She felt at least a little vindicated by that.

There were no other mishaps and mid-morning Fiona came out to call them in for smoko. Aurora was moving a little more freely than she had been when she got up, and was really looking forward to sitting down for a bit and getting off her feet, except that her bum was still really sore and falling on it hadn’t helped.

To add insult to injury, when they reached the courtyard, Keith promptly dropped down beside where she had taken a seat at the table. This was going to be an exercise in patience and biting her tongue. She was so not in the mood for his come-ons. She was tired and sore, and after the incident with the steer, her tolerance level had dropped to zero. She was sorely tempted to completely ignore him, although that would be really rude on her part. Salvation came in the form of Cal, who sat across the table from her, butting into Keith’s attempted conversation.

‘Aurora, do you realise that you’ve been here for a week and a half and we still don’t know what you do?’

Aurora had been aware that this subject would come up eventually. She hated the way people’s treatment of her changed when they found out what she did. In Sydney, when they connected her with her grandfather, it was worse. He had been very well known and respected in legal circles and everybody tended to expect more from her because of it. She couldn’t imagine that this fact was going to be an issue out here, though.

Aurora hesitated but figured that she couldn’t stall indefinitely.

‘I lecture at the University of Sydney.’

Cal simply nodded.

‘What in?’

Aurora guessed that this was probably going to be the point where things would change. She steeled herself to face the reaction before she replied.

‘Law.’

Aurora was taken aback when Cal didn’t look intimidated and his only reaction was to laugh.

‘Better you than me. Fits though. I figured you were part of some profession. To be honest I thought that you might have been an accountant.’

At that, it was Aurora’s turn to laugh.

‘Thanks. Accounting is even duller than law.’

With the ice well and truly broken, Aurora spent the thirty minutes that they were there giving Callan a heavily censored version of her life. Cal’s taking over the conversation had very effectively dealt with Keith, for which Aurora was very thankful.

When they returned to the yards it was more of the same and at that rate, they were going to be finished by lunch. Aurora was still having trouble with the tight muscles in her legs and her sore bum. The inactivity for morning tea hadn’t helped. She closed the gate after filling the run up again and squatted on the ground to stretch the offending muscles. At that point Rick yelled out her name in a way that got her instant attention followed by ‘watch out’ as he pointed behind her. He had her full attention and when she saw that he had risen to his feet she started to get concerned.

Trying not to move too much she looked back over her shoulder to where he had been pointing and saw that one of the beasts had its head out through the rails and its horn was a bare half an inch from her backside. Fear kicked in pretty quickly.

‘Shit.’

With lightning speed she instinctively pulled her bum in as much as possible given that she was squatting and inched forward on the balls of her feet a little to make sure she was well and truly clear. She couldn’t believe it. So far that was the only one that had come through all morning that had horns, and she would never have believed that they could get their head out through the rails like that.

When she had put a decent space between herself and the horn, she stood up and took a further step forward, which coincided with the best pulling its head back in. Cal had heard Rick’s warning and had speedily come over to Aurora.

‘Didn’t get you did she?’

Aurora’s eyes widened.

‘That’s a she?’

Cal chuckled.

‘Sure is, assuming my anatomy is correct.’

It was Aurora’s turn to laugh.

‘I don’t doubt that your anatomy is correct but I sort of assumed that it was only bulls that got cranky.’

Callan looked as though he wanted to roll his eyes, although he didn’t actually do it.

‘You’ve been watching too much TV.’

Aurora’s face had taken on the look of a little kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

‘Point taken and to answer your question, no, she didn’t get me.’

Aurora was starting to feel very embarrassed. Nobody except her had run into any trouble with the cattle so far. Gerry had gone up and over the rails a few times to get away from a couple that had charged him in the yard, but none had connected. Aurora supposed that was the benefit of experience for you.

Callan’s sense of humour kicked in again, lessening her embarrassment a little.

‘Good. It would have made sitting down a bit uncomfortable for a while.”

He paused for a second as if considering something very important.

‘But you would have had a damn good story to take home with you if she had connected.’

Aurora did her best to pretend annoyance with him.

‘Thanks for that.’

That only made him chuckle again before he replied a little more seriously.

‘If it makes you feel any better, when she comes through, the horns have got to go.’

Aurora flattened her lips before she answered.

‘It doesn’t really, but I guess after that she won’t get another go at anybody.’

‘That she certainly won’t.’

Cal took a step backwards.

‘Let’s get them finished.’

Cal turned and went back to the crush and dealt with the next one. When he finally got to the cow with the horns he put a tag in her ear and ran the line of spray down her back. For whatever reason, it appeared that she hadn’t been put through the yards before, which Aurora figured explained why she was so cranky. Cal picked up a medieval looking piece of equipment and cut off first one horn and then the other. Aurora nearly emptied her stomach contents then and there. Blood was spurting out in a number of little fountains where the horns had been cut off. Aurora had never been one to deal too well with blood at the best of times and she had not long since eaten. She turned her head away; she couldn’t look.