On the Down Low by Renae Black

Author:Renae Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Escape Publishing

Chapter 23

Hallie had listened closely to the advice everyone was giving her about what she needed to pack in no more than a small backpack for the overnight muster. Ryan had kindly told her he would grab a spare swag for her.

Hallie hadn’t slept much Thursday night, thinking about what was to come but once she was settled in the driver’s seat of one of the giant farm utes loaded with bags, swags and other camping gear, she felt more in control. Gabby was seated beside her with Ange and Evie in the ute in front of them, towing a trailer with the ATV buggy parked on it.

It’d taken them close to an hour to make their way through the neatly fenced off paddocks and hit the open land where the cattle had been left to graze. Hallie didn’t know why she’d expected the animals to just be waiting at the final gate to come into the paddock, but she had, and she had to hide her disappointment when they weren’t. It wasn’t going to be that simple.

Marcus and Alice were both riding stock horses, after leaving earlier than the others to truck them over and Jackson was seated on his favourite dirt bike. They took off into the scrub while Ryan and Jonno flew overhead in their helicopters. Hallie parked her ute close to where Ange had, then gave her a hand to unload the ATV.

With the help of the younger girls, they assembled the big heavy yards to assist in separating the calves from their mothers who would be put in different paddocks for mating in a few weeks’ time. The calves would be marked, castrated and vaccinated before being loaded onto a truck that would take them on a one-way trip to the abattoirs.

‘What do we do now?’ Hallie asked, taking a long drink from her water bottle when they were done and back at the utes.

‘We wait for them to push the first lot through,’ Ange answered, tossing her an apple. Hallie caught it and climbed onto the ute’s bull bar to wait. Evie and Gabby settled themselves in the tray and Ange climbed up next to Hallie.

‘I have a silly question,’ Hallie started a little shyly. She normally asked Ryan all her questions and he was used to their basic nature, but she wasn’t exactly talking to him at the moment.

‘Go for it.’

‘I get the use of motorbikes and horses to muster cattle because they’re on the ground. But why helicopters?’

Ange chewed on her apple before answering. ‘It’s something you just need to see but firstly we use them to sight where the cattle are. They fly overhead and then radio back to tell the others on the ground which direction to head in. They’re also really good at flushing the cattle out because they don’t like the sound of the heli’s rotors. Then they help yard them.’

‘Why do they use heli’s …’ she emphasised using the local’s term for the flying machines, ‘and not planes?’

‘Planes can’t fly as slowly and are less manoeuvrable.

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