CHAPTER TEN
COLE
I heard the door to the barn open and felt a flush of embarrassment.
It was probably Xel, coming to check on me, and to find out why I’d run away the instant someone I didn’t know had stepped into the room.
I busied myself with forking new straw into the stalls where the thumbits spent the night, hoping to hide my flushed cheeks under the guise of hard work.
Soft footsteps came down the aisle towards me, and then I heard Xel’s gentle voice say “Sir?”
I stopped, leaning on my pitchfork for a moment to compose myself, before turning around. “Xel. How did it go with the visitors?”
“They adopted Pancake,” he told me. “And I finished cleaning out the last cat cage.” He hesitated, then asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said, more sharply than I’d meant to. “Sorry, I missed showing you how to clean the dog kennels. I figured I should just keep working while you were busy. I’m sure I’ll have time to show you that bit tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” Xel said, with a slight tilt of his head.
Did he think I was a lunatic? A coward? He was staring at me again, in that calm, steady way that seemed to look straight through my soul…
before remembering himself and lowering his eyes.
He’d done that a couple of times in the last day, as if he wanted to say something, or ask some profound question, before thinking better of it.
“I’m pretty much finished here,” I said, dumping the last bundle of straw onto the ground and giving it a cursory shove with the pitchfork.
“Come with me and I’ll show you where we keep the feed.
I’ve fed the chickens and the polvers, but not the rest of the farm animals yet.
” Without waiting for an answer, I led Xel to the feed room, collecting a bucket of pellets from a plastic bin and putting half a bale of hay into the wheelbarrow.
Outside, I showed him how to spread the pellets all along the feeding trough, to make sure everyone had enough space to get their share.
The thumbits were naturally friendly creatures, and I had to do my fair share of shoving and scolding them to get them to move out of the way enough for me to pour the food.
Most of the hay went into a rack, with the rest going to Jeffrey the camel and Clyde the donkey.
Then I stood back, leaning on the fence of the thumbit enclosure.
“It’s a good idea to just watch them for a couple of minutes,” I told Xel, while he continued paying close attention to everything I was doing.
“Make sure all of them are eating and no one’s behaving strangely.
You’ll get the hang of what ‘normal’ looks like for them after a week or two.
But if anyone’s keeping away from the main group, or limping, or not eating, it could mean there’s something wrong. ”
Xel nodded and turned his attention to the small herd… and shortly after that, he made a small noise. “That one,” he said, pointing to a female standing halfway along the trough. “She’s… very round.”
I smiled, glad that he’d noticed. We’d had to sack more than one trainee because they just hadn’t paid enough attention to what they were doing. But even on the first day, Xel was noticing small differences between the animals. It was a good sign.
“That’s Rose,” I told him. “And yes, she’s pregnant.
Due to give birth any day now. One of the early signs is that she’ll get very restless.
She won’t stand still, she’ll lie down then get up again, and she’ll get moody, start kicking any of the others who get too close to her.
I’ll be keeping a pretty close eye on her, but if you notice any of that, please let me know. ”
“Yes, sir,” Xel said again, and I found myself clenching my teeth to try and control my own annoyance. Was I going to have to carry the conversation for the rest of our lives? Didn’t he have any questions to ask? Things he wanted to know? Or even just comments to show he was interested?
It was entirely likely I was just being unfair, caught in a bad mood from being surprised this morning, but it didn’t seem unreasonable to expect him to know how to hold a basic conversation.
Dimari were typically bought as companions of various kinds, weren’t they?
Some for simple domestic duties, but I was sure I’d read a couple of articles about how they were sometimes trained for high-class social events, taught how to behave in fancy restaurants, or taught to play musical instruments.
I opened my mouth to ask Xel what particular skills he’d been trained in…
but at that moment, my comm let out a loud, high-pitched trill, and I recognised it as not only an incoming call on business for the sanctuary, but whoever the caller was had also marked it as urgent.
With a muttered curse, I answered the call, setting it to voice only, as always. “Cole Jenkins, South Hon Animal Sanctuary. What can I do for you?”
“Cole? Thank god. I need your help,” a familiar voice said, and I felt my shoulders relax at the realisation that I knew the caller.
I switched on the video channel, offering a weak smile as I saw Doot’s face appear in a holographic image.
Doot was a Wasop, four feet tall with swirling black and yellow stripes across his face.
But while he was generally a cheerful sort of person, today there was a dark frown on his face.
“We’ve got a right doozy for you here. Hobby farm with half a dozen animals.
The neighbours have agreed to take most of them, but we’ve got a rather cantankerous donkey that’s suffering from a serious case of neglect.
The owner’s got dementia and no one’s been following up on him enough to make sure the animals are being looked after.
Any chance you could come over and pick him up? ”
Shit. My gut lurched at the idea of leaving the property and having to deal with a horde of neighbours, cops and bureaucrats.
But at the same time, there was no way I was going to abandon a neglected animal.
I pushed off the fence and started heading for the house, gesturing for Xel to come with me.
“When you say cantankerous, how bad do you mean?” I asked Doot.
“Are we going to be able to get him into the trailer?”
“Bribe him with a bit of food, and I’m sure he’ll follow you,” Doot replied. “He’s stubborn more than angry. But he’s also underweight, so we just have to get that hunger to work for us, instead of against us.”
I nodded. “I’ll be over as soon as I can. I’ll just have to call in one of the casuals to take over for the day. Send me the address.”
“Good lad,” Doot said enthusiastically, then ended the call.
“You heard most of that?” I asked Xel, and he nodded, striding along beside me.
I tapped at my comm and hit call when I found Leesha’s contact.
She was a Solof, and the most experienced of the backup staff.
If I was going to be off-site for a good chunk of the day, she was the one I wanted to leave in charge.
Thankfully, Leesha was available, and she said she’d be here in about half an hour.
I shot a quick message to Bo, letting her know what was going on, then grabbed the keys to my car from the table by the door and an armful of equipment from the storage room off the garage.
“Here, can you carry this?” I said to Xel, handing him a halter, a few different ropes, some thick gloves and half a dozen other things I thought might be useful.
“You’ll find a crate out by the car. You can chuck it all in there.
And… wait, yes, these’ll probably do,” I added, grabbing a pair of spare boots from the rack by the front door.
I had pairs in a dozen different sizes, for when visitors or trainees came without suitable footwear – which was surprisingly often – and I was pretty sure one of the larger pairs would fit Xel.
“See if those feel okay. If they’re too tight, there’s a larger pair. ”
With his standard reply of “Yes, sir,” Xel disappeared outside, and I heard the sound of a crate being dragged about, then a variety of indistinct thumps. By the time I had my medical kit ready to go and joined him by the car, he had the boots on and was looking rather pleased about them.
“We just need to hitch up the trailer,” I told him, leading him around to the side of the carport. There was a small float out there, large enough to fit a donkey or a thumbit. “I’ll back the car up, so can you tell me how far I need to move it?”
It had been quite a while since I’d had a second pair of hands for this sort of thing.
And I was immediately grateful for how much easier it all was.
Instead of having to jump out and check where the rear of the car was a dozen times, Xel just gave me a couple of simple tips about how far to the left or right I was going, and in less than five minutes, we had the whole thing hooked up, packed and ready to go.
“Come on,” I said to Xel, as he stood there, gazing proudly at his handiwork. “Let’s go. I’ll need a hand to get the donkey into the trailer, and Doot’s probably going to have his hands full dealing with everything else.”
Xel stared at me in confusion for a moment. “You… want me to come with you?” he asked, blinking in surprise. But for all his astonishment, he also looked rather delighted about the idea.
“Yes, I do,” I said with a smile. Had he honestly not picked that up from the fact that I’d just given him a pair of boots? “Jobs like this don’t come along very often, so it’s as well for you to see how this side of things works while we have the chance.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, with far more enthusiasm than the words usually contained, and then he darted around the side of the car, climbing into the passenger seat.