Seventeen
Ryder began strapping on a thick set of leather chaps over his jeans. To Mia they looked like the ones western cowboys wore. ‘Ash, you ready?’
‘I am.’ Ash smiled and waved at Harper and Mason standing on the gangway at the drafting yards.
Ryder tapped the back of his hand sharply against Ash’s chest. ‘Oi, no show ponying stuff because your kid is watching. I want this to be an injury-free day in the yards.’
‘Okay, okay. Relax, Ryder.’ Ash opened the box he’d been carrying. ‘I’ve got a hundred of these new ear tags I want to trial before producing more in the future.’ He handed out a few plastic tags that looked similar to luggage tags.
‘Are these the trackers you’ve been designing?’ Cap asked, passing one to Mia, who inspected the hard plastic with numbers on one side.
‘Can’t you use the ear tags for identification instead of branding?’ Mia brushed her thumb over the cool plastic.
‘Sure, we could. But they’re easy to swap out, which is why we use the brand as well.’ Dex held up the tag towards the sun as if to see through it. ‘What do these do, brother?’
‘They’ve got a built-in GPS tracker to keep count of each member of the herd to never miss one in a muster,’ explained Ash. ‘We’ll know where the pregnant cows are. Who sired what. Everything.’
‘All from this.’ Dex pushed his hat back as he flipped over the tag. ‘Is that a solar panel?’
Ash nodded.
‘What makes them different from the other tags on the market now?’ Ryder asked.
‘I’ve added an built-in alert system. If a beast stops moving, or if one of them breaches the set boundary, like if a fence is down, it’ll send an alert.’
‘That’ll be handy.’ Cap nodded with his other brothers.
‘Mia?’
She looked up from the gadget at Ash.
‘Cap was telling me you have a template for collecting water and soil samples.’
‘I do.’
‘Can you and Harper work out a way to collate the raw data from these plugs that all of us can read? Especially Cap who hates all things computers.’ Ash cheekily winked at his brother.
‘Sure, I’d love to.’ Finally, a job not from pity, but for her skills. ‘Are you saying you’ll get some sort of report about your cattle, using these ear tags?’
‘Absolutely. I’ve designed an app, so you don’t need any fancy gadgets, just a smartphone that can scan the numbers if close enough, or just key the numbers into the phone. Ryder can use his satphone, until we get our intranet set up completed.’ Ash gave Ryder a hopeful look.
‘I’ll add it to the list,’ mumbled Ryder as they gathered around Ash’s phone screen.
‘The app will allow us to get an instant snapshot of the beast’s number, vaccination history, age, frame size, how many calves they’ve had and what their sex was, with room to add comments like deformed horn, crooked nose, cranky ass.’ Ash aimed his phone at the plug and the app displayed a screen he scrolled over to show the information they had access too.
With a stick from the nearby wood pile, Ash drew a diagram in the dirt. ‘I’ve got cameras set at these peak points in my paddock here… Here… And here. To give me a clear overview. Harper hooked me up to some cloud to record the information, and if we keep using the satellite images for comparison, we’ll be able to use all that data to estimate how much feed we’ll need for the herd, the nutrients they’ll receive in the pasture grasses that Mia’s helping Cap grow, through to the water quality in the troughs. With the bonus of me training the cattle to get used to the drones to muster them from sections I’ll cut off from Cap and Mia’s plan for crop rotations. I’ll be able to automate the entire process all from the comfort of my gaming chair, saving us a tonne in fossil fuels and labour.’
‘Wow, that is brilliant.’ Mia was as excited as Ash. She’d never realised her in-depth conversations with Cap had been shared already to make something like this possible. ‘My dad and brother would kill for this type of tech.’
‘So all those hours playing video games are paying off?’ Dex playfully mussed up Ash’s hat like he was a boy.
‘Good work, Ash.’ Ryder patted his younger brother on the shoulder. ‘Have you patented these tags yet?’
‘Huh?’ Ash screwed his nose up, giving a shrug.
‘That’s a good idea.’ Cap nodded. ‘Our little brother might be sitting on a goldmine.’
Mia nodded, even if it was none of her business.
‘Remind me when we get home to talk about patents for your tech gadgets, Ash.’ Ryder tossed the tag back into the box. ‘Do you want to do a random test from the cattle going to your paddock and the bush paddock?’
Ash nodded, hope filling his eyes. ‘I’d love that. I just didn’t think you guys would want to use them with the herd.’
Ryder rested his hands on his hips. ‘Does anyone object to Ash’s cattle tags being used as a test on our beef?’
‘Oi, I’m all in,’ said Cap, giving Mia a sly wink. ‘I saw the potential of Ash’s plans a while back. It’ll be good to see it finally happen.’
‘Thanks, Cap.’ Ash dropped his head to hide under the brim of his hat.
‘No way, the lad’s gone all humble. That’s rare.’ Dex playfully punched his brother’s shoulder. ‘Well done, brother. I’m keen to see it in action.’
That left Ryder, who gave a nod. ‘Let’s do this.’
Ash scooped up the box. ‘So, I’ll be tagging them?’
Again, Ryder nodded as he assisted Dex with a stack of tools and a metal looking cradle. ‘Cap, you know what to do. Mia, you would’ve helped your father with the sheep?’
‘Before you delegate Mia to work, I want her to help me with Willow.’ Cap tugged on her sleeve. ‘This way, Mia.’
‘Let me see if I’ve got this right…’ She faltered as he half-stepped, half-turned towards her, and bumped into him. ‘Sorry.’
Cap’s warm hands held her arms, to send a scurry of tingles to rush beneath her skin. ‘I think you should stop saying sorry when you have nothing to be sorry about.’
‘Sss—’ She lifted her shoulders to her earlobes. ‘It’s a habit.’
‘I noticed. Like the way you twist your fingers when nervous.’ He stared at her for a beat, then those delicious malt-whisky eyes roamed over her face before turning away. ‘What were you saying?’ Cap adjusted his long-legged gait to match hers. He did that a lot, stopping to let her catch up, even lowering his head to match her height, always asking her opinion.
But he was also her boss, and after what she’d been through, could she really trust her feelings?
She cleared her throat, getting head back in the game as they walked through the yards. ‘If it’s like sheep, we’d herd them into the yard, pushing them down the chutes where we’d vaccinate them, shear them. Is this similar?’
‘Close. We want to maintain a decent herd, and with Charlie’s incredible experience, he’ll help us cull our stock. We don’t want any beasts with defects or bad temperaments. We’re looking for clean coats, no scaling on their necks, and decent body frames.’
‘How do you cull them?’ All she saw was a shifting sea of white coats.
‘Where Bree is, that’s what we call the pound.’ He pointed to the smaller round pen under the shade of the tall, corrugated roof, where Charlie stood high on the boardwalk, with Bree on the other side.
‘It looks like a small show jumping arena.’
‘Each beast will enter the pound to be inspected. Bree will manage the network of gates, like a sorting yard, where Charlie will call out to Bree which gate to send the beast through. Half of these will go into Ash’s paddock. Hopefully, it’ll be our paddock in the next muster.’
She stopped still, as the heat washed through her chest as her smile grew. Ours?
But it shouldn’t be like this when they’d only just met.
Cap kept walking towards the back pen, only to stop and wait for her, again. ‘There’s also a poddy gate for the little guys that have lost their mothers or those smaller weaners that need a little extra help. They’ll score a truck ride back to the homestead’s yards, which Dex has finished repairing. They’ll live there for a few months under the care of the guardian dogs.’
Again, they walked in unison, side by side, his gait easy with the smooth confidence of someone who knew and loved this land. She’d never known anyone to have such a sexy stride.
‘When are you collecting the guardian dogs?’ She liked hearing him speak, even more when his eyes locked onto hers, where the hint of a smile showed she’d asked the right questions on topics he cared about.
‘The vet has organised someone to bring them out.’
‘And our job?’ It slipped out, but it felt right saying it.
‘We’ll be the backyarders, pushing the cattle through the chutes.’ Cap bent under a metal rail, his hand out to help her. She’d noticed that was a habit of his: opening doors for her, pulling out a chair, always offering her the first choice of food or drinks, treating her like a lady—she’d never been so spoiled.
‘Our job is to guide the herd through, while keeping watch over Bree, who’ll need to have eyes in the back of her head to watch what’s coming down the race. There’s nothing more terrifying than a beast snorting just behind your ear.’ Cap physically shivered. ‘We need to keep the pace slow and gentle on the animals, so no rushing them. We only want Willow to push them through one at a time.’
‘Do you think she can do it?’
‘Like I said, I’ve got Atlas and Fern to show her how, and from what I’ve seen, Willow is an experienced working dog. Her natural instincts will kick in, and our job is to harness what she loves to do.’ Cap gave a different whistle she hadn’t heard before, and the two cattle dogs trotted over as the rest of the pack rested in the shade by the water troughs. ‘It’s time to bring the masters into the game. This way we’ll get a tonne of practice in for the local campdraft.’
‘Where you take your show dogs—sorry, I mean the dogs you want to show.’
‘Eh?’ He arched an eyebrow at her.
‘My dad was always telling me off if I said show dogs, he said it sounded like they were going to sing show tunes and do high kicks in some conga line.’
Never had a laugh sounded sexier on a man. ‘Are you ready to see what Willow can do?’