He had understood what was happening the moment he saw the cattle truck. He saw from the landing window as he was coming down the stairs. Ran then, down and along the passage and out the back door. There was his mother standing with some papers in her hands. The driver of the truck had opened the doors, set out a ramp.

No. You can’t do that. He ran and tore the papers from her hands and threw them down in the mud of the yard. The driver turned and looked at him, and he saw through into the interior of the truck, the empty space striped with light waiting for the cattle to fill it. Hands grabbed him and held him tight, his mother’s hands holding him back with more force than she had ever held him. She pulled him back tight against her. Her arms folded about him like iron. No. He twisted about and screamed and kicked at her legs. Then after a while he stilled.

Jonny was standing beside them now. Quiet, only watching. He felt Jonny’s quiet. It made him quiet. He wasn’t going to be babyish beside his little brother. His mother’s arms softened about him but didn’t remove themselves. When he gave a shiver that might have been the beginning of an escape, they tightened again.

A boy should not run mad into a herd of cattle, even when they seemed at their most docile, driven out from the shed towards the ramp. He knew that. He should not scatter them or panic them into the unpredictable. He knew these things. His father had told him such things. When his father had told him things like that, the knowledge had seemed special, intended for him man to man, making him a man even when he was a boy. Whoa, go-aan then. Matthew the cowman was herding the animals as if there had been no commotion, as if he wasn’t there and had never screamed, so calm that it was as if the animals had not seen him either. Matthew walked forward slowly behind the herd with his arms outstretched, speaking long low vowels. On the other side Billy and the driver did the same. The rusty-coloured cattle moved with slow inevitability towards the ramp. Go-aan, you, up there. The first one or two hesitated, looked about them. That’s right. Go-aan. As they reached the ramp the animals behind them seemed to flow together, becoming one softly heaving mass within the prison space of the truck.

The arms were still there, tight about him.

They’re Daddy’s cows. His voice was thin, high-pitched, strange even to himself.

Not really, they weren’t ever really Daddy’s cows, you know that. They were Great-Uncle Ralph’s, Ralph’s herd. Daddy only kept them on for Matthew’s sake.

Again her arms tightened as he struggled against her. So? We can keep them too.