Chapter 23
CHAPTER
She was back in the middle of all her nightmares.
Anna struggled to breathe as the memories of another road and another crash came flooding back.
A black bull, driven mad with fear and pain.
They’d wanted to shoot it, but she knew better.
She could save it. They’d told her it was too dangerous.
They were right, of course, but she was young and she didn’t listen.
Like now, she hadn’t had a tranquilliser gun, just a blow dart.
The animal had sunk to its knees. To get a clean shot with the dart, she’d leaned through the bars, knowing as she did that it was a bad idea.
The bull had flung itself upright, throwing its head back.
The horn—her face and then her shoulder.
The pain. She was engulfed with pain and falling, barely aware of the gunshot close beside her.
A hand touched her arm gently and she started as if hit by an electric shock.
‘Anna?’ Justin was looking at her with deep concern etched into his face. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I’m fine.’ She took a firm grip on herself. ‘The bull is still inside the trailer?’
‘Yes. But we have rung the stud. You don’t have to do this.’ His eyes held hers, telling her that he understood her fear.
‘How far away are they?’
Justin glanced at his brother.
‘It shouldn’t be too long,’ Ben responded.
The bull let loose another bellow of pain. The sound cut through Anna like a knife. Whatever her own fears, there was a creature in pain. She couldn’t stand by and do nothing. If she did, she had nothing left.
Moving her feet was as hard a thing as she had ever done. She forced herself to appear unconcerned as she moved closer to the trailer, but every time the crash of hooves came from inside the silver metal cage, her heart missed a beat.
Then Justin was at her side.
‘He begged me to save it,’ she said. ‘The least I can do is look.’ She glanced at Justin’s face. It was rigid with concern. Concern for her.
At last, he nodded. ‘Just remember, Ken has a gun, if that’s the right thing to do.’
The trailer was lying on its side, the rear third overhanging the ditch.
Only the big car still attached to the front was stopping it from sliding all the way down.
But each time the animal inside moved, the trailer shuddered and threatened to fall further.
The thrashing inside stopped as Anna moved closer.
She clenched her jaw tightly as she crouched down to peer through the gaps in the trailer’s metal sides.
She saw a dark chestnut shape, its sides heaving.
She saw blood, but not a lot of it. And she saw a large dark eye, ringed with white and full of pain and fear.
It took all her courage not to leap away and tell Ken to shoot the injured animal.
But now she’d seen it, she couldn’t do that.
She must try to save it. After all, this was clearly a stud animal, valuable, used to handling and far safer than a rodeo bull.
The injured man, Paul, had called the animal his father’s legacy.
She couldn’t let that be taken away without trying to help.
She kept moving around the stricken trailer, looking through the gaps in the metal sides.
‘Well?’ Justin asked when she stepped back.
‘As far as I can tell, he hasn’t broken any legs,’ she said.
Ken looked relieved. ‘So I don’t have to …?’
‘No. At least, not yet. He’s got a couple of big gashes and has lost some blood, but not enough to be life-threatening, if we can get him stitched up fairly soon.’
Ben said, ‘When I spoke to the stud, they said they would bring a trailer. But how are we going to get it from where it is now onto another trailer?’
Another round of kicking and some roaring from the trailer halted the conversation.
‘Are you going to tranquillise him?’ Ken asked when the noise level dropped.
‘I want to. I don’t have a tranq gun.’
Ken looked surprised at this.
‘I do horses, alpacas and small animals,’ Anna went on. ‘Not cattle. I could hit him with some horse painkiller and tranquilliser. I have a blow gun that I can use in an emergency.’
‘A blow gun? Like … a bit of bamboo?’
Ben seemed so shocked, she had to smile. ‘That worked for a lot of people before guns came along. But in this case, it’s a bit more sophisticated.’
‘And that’ll … what? Put him to sleep?’
‘I hope not. That would make him harder to get out. He’s halter trained and he’s got a nose ring. That might be enough to keep him still while I give him a painkiller. Then we can try to get him out of there and into the new trailer when it arrives.’
A minute later, it did, with an anxious lad of about nineteen behind the wheel.
‘I’m Rick,’ he said breathlessly, looking in horror at the wreck. ‘How’s my dad?’
‘He should be at the hospital by now. He’ll be all right, I think,’ Justin said calmly.
The youth breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Mum is on her way there now.’
‘Your dad asked me to do anything I can to save this bull,’ Anna said. ‘Are you going to be all right to help me?’
Rick darted over to the damaged trailer. Anna heard the bull moving again as the youth climbed on the side to peer at his injured animal. Anna could hear him talking to the bull before he joined them.
‘Thank you for not putting him down. He’s my dad’s pride and joy. If he lost him …’ Rick looked pleadingly at Anna. ‘He’s not too bad, is he?’
‘Nothing broken that I can see,’ Anna said. ‘But we need to stop that bleeding. Then somehow get him out of there and back to my surgery.’
‘I brought a tranq gun. You know, just in case.’
Relief washed over Anna. ‘Good thinking. But we have to be careful not to put him out. We’ll never drag him out of there if he’s down. If I can give him a painkiller—’
‘You realise we’re going to have to cut that trailer open?’ Justin interrupted. ‘Metal saws, sparks. All that.’
‘Yes. We don’t want him to hurt himself even more,’ said Anna.
‘Him to hurt himself?’ Ben’s voice was loud with shock. ‘What about you? Us?’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Anna tried to reassure him.
‘Is that what you said last time?’
Anna’s breath stopped as Ben pointed at the scar on her face.
‘Ben!’ Justin grabbed his brother by the arm. ‘That’s enough.’
‘No, it’s not, big brother. What did I tell you?’ His voice had turned into a furious hiss. ‘She’s no different from our mother.’
Anna watched Justin drag his brother away, his face like thunder. Their swift, fierce conversation near their vehicle was mostly too quiet to hear, but she caught the words ‘unprofessional’ and ‘apology’. Then Justin turned his back on Ben and rejoined Anna, Ken and Rick.
‘Shall we do this?’
After a moment’s awkward silence, Ken and Rick nodded.
‘He’s been around, this old boy,’ said Rick. ‘He’s pretty placid really. He’ll be okay once we get some drugs in him.’
Another series of crashes from the back of the trailer made Anna doubt that. ‘Can you do something with that nose ring he’s got?’
‘Yeah. Sure. He’s good with that too.’
Anna took a deep breath, reminding herself again that this was not a rodeo bull, it was a stud bull, used to human handling and enclosures.
He could be led around a show ring safely.
She ran a hand up her left arm to her shoulder, feeling the ridge of the scar hidden by her long-sleeved shirt.
She took hold of her fear, shoved it deep inside and slammed a door on it.
‘All right.’
Anna and Rick went to prepare a tranquilliser and painkiller. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ken walk back to his car. He returned with a rifle. She didn’t need to be told what that was for. Much as she hated the thought, she was grateful Ken and the rifle were there.
When Anna and Rick returned to the trailer, the bull’s struggles were getting weaker and there was a lot more blood smeared on the walls and pooling on the floor.
Anna stood back while Rick took aim and fired the dart into the animal’s flanks.
That prompted another burst of thrashing and kicking.
The bull bellowed and tossed its head, wildly at first. Then the bull lowered its head, saliva dribbling from its mouth.
‘I think he’s nearly there,’ Anna said.
‘Are you sure you’ll be safe in there?’ Justin was standing by her side. He touched her hand briefly and their fingers entwined.
‘I’m not going in there,’ she said quietly. ‘Rick will manage him until you get him out.’
‘I’ll be all right.’ Rick climbed up the side of the trailer to a gap big enough to let him through.
Ken lifted his rifle and moved closer. Anna was torn between looking away and watching with horror as the boy did almost exactly what she had done on that terrible day.
She closed her eyes as her mind and body recoiled from the memories of the fear and the pain and the blood—
‘I’ve got him. Get to work, guys.’
When she opened her eyes, Ben had returned and was sullenly helping Justin with the cutting tools. Rick had hold of the bull’s halter and he kept its head twisted back and his body braced to keep both their eyes away from the rain of sparks as the cutter bit into the twisted metal.
The firefighters were fast and efficient, and before long, enough of the metal trailer had been bent back to allow Rick to cautiously lead the injured bull forward by the rope looped through its nose ring.
The animal slipped on the wet blood on the smooth metal and went down on his knees, head weaving from side to side.
Then Justin was beside him and with Justin pushing from behind, the bull staggered to its feet.
As it emerged from the trailer, Anna saw a long gash down its side.
Her fear was overpowered by the animal’s need and her own desire to do what she had trained to do.
‘That needs stitching as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘Can you get him straight into the other trailer? My clinic isn’t far. We can get him in the crush and get him sorted before the sedation wears off.’
‘Right-oh.’ Rick nodded. ‘Let’s get you on board, big boy.’
Freed from the wreck, the bull was surprisingly cooperative. He stepped onto the new trailer as he had no doubt done many times before and the ramp was safely closed behind him.
Justin laid a hand on Anna’s arm. ‘I should stay here until the wreck is cleared. It’s going to take the tow truck a while to get here. Will you be all right? I could send Ben with you.’
‘Thanks, but I think we’ll be fine. I don’t do cattle, but I do have a good crush built by the previous vet.
Between the two of us, we’ll get it done.
And my assistant Shea will be there too.
No mere bull is going to get the better of her.
’ Anna swallowed the bitterness in her words. ‘Thanks for your help here.’
Justin held her gaze, as if he was going to say something else, but then he simply nodded and stepped away. ‘Anytime. Well, hopefully not too often, but you know what I mean.’ He smiled and that was a nice thing to take with her as she walked back to the car to lead the way to her clinic.
She called ahead and Shea had everything ready for them when Anna arrived. The crush hadn’t been used in a long time, but Shea had checked it and cleaned away a few weeds, and it stood open, waiting for an occupant.
Rick pulled into the yard. He jumped out of the car and ran to open the trailer’s rear ramp, only vanishing inside for a few seconds before emerging, his hands holding the bull’s leading rope.
The animal was barely on its feet, no fight left in him.
Rick got him into the crush and Shea closed the gate firmly behind him.
Anna stepped to the animal’s side, able at last to have a close look at the wound. ‘This is going to take a while,’ she told Rick.
The young man’s eyes were shining with tears as he nodded. Anna saw his shoulders drop as some of the tension left him.
‘Shea and I have got this now,’ Anna told him. ‘Phone your mother. She can tell your father this animal is going to be fine.’