“I wish I was.”
“What kind of temperament?”
The driver hesitated just long enough to make Silas’s stomach tighten.
“Difficult,” he said.
“How difficult?”
“Notes say aggressive. Four men to load him. Reinforced trailer. Do not enter enclosed space with animal.”
Silas looked toward his north pasture, where ordinary fence wire ran beneath a line of dark spruce. “I don’t have facilities for a bull like that.”
The driver’s patience was gone. “Sir, I drove this animal from Texas through Canada and up the Alaska Highway. I have another pickup scheduled and weather coming in. Manifest says he gets unloaded here. You refuse him, I document it and drive him to Anchorage, but then you’ll be dealing with transport charges and legal disputes. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Before Silas could answer, a battered pickup rolled into the yard.
Buck Toiver climbed out, pulling his cap low over his forehead. At sixty-two, Buck had the narrow-eyed patience of a former trapper and the dry humor of a man who had outlived several bad ideas. He had worked part-time for Silas for years, mostly because he preferred animals to people and because Silas paid on time when he could.
