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Vaughan and Leilah didn’t answer either of his texts. Wiri imagined Seline spreading her bile and their silence didn’t surprise him. He locked up the house and followed Phoenix outside, handing her the keys to the truck. She hopped into the driver’s seat and grumbled about the distance between the seat and the steering wheel. It took her a moment to work out the controls and get herself into position.
“Do we need to go on a public road?” She winced with her finger over the ignition and her right foot resting on the brake pedal. “I don’t even have my learner’s licence.”
“No.” Wiri shook his head and hauled the seatbelt over his torso. “We’ll go across country.” His lips flattened into a smile. “You’re a skilled driver. We all drove off-road as soon as we could reach the pedals.” He thought of Poppa Alfie’s patient lessons. The old man had enjoyed teaching all of them. Except Edin. He refused to take her again after she drove into the stable wall.
Phoenix drove with competence. Unlike Seline, she took one look at Wiri and got out to open the first gate. The door slammed as she climbed back into the truck. He watched her pursed lips as she steered the vehicle through the gap and pulled on the handbrake. “No.” He leaned across and squeezed her wrist as she dropped her hands from the steering wheel. “Let me do it.” He raised a quizzical eyebrow and smirked back at her as his other hand rested on the door handle. “Hopefully you won’t drive off and leave me to walk.”
Phoenix’s eyes narrowed to slits, and her jaw hardened. “Is that what she did?” She released a tut in response to Wiri’s nod. “Bitch! I should have hit her harder.” She leaned sideways to peer through the driver’s window. “Hurry, babe. She’s down again.”
Wiri hustled to the gate and closed it behind her. Between them, they made quick work of the distance. They eased into a well-worn pattern of shared labour and arrived at the paddock containing the horses.
The mare lay near the furthest fence where she’d shed herself away from the herd. A gelding had stepped up to take charge, exercising his ineffectual masculinity as he nipped at the hocks of the mares and drove them into the corners of the paddock. Wiri slammed the passenger door and surveyed the scene. “Vaughan intended to move her into the field nearest the house,” he mused. “She’s gone into labour early.”
“Where can I put the others?” Phoenix stood next to him, the shoulder of her light jacket brushing against his biceps.
He shook his head and heaved out a breath of relief. “I love you so much,” he said with a sigh. “You just know what to do. I don’t need to explain anything.”
She gave him the side eye, but her lips raised at the corners. “Good,” she said. “Just keep telling me that.” She didn’t wait for his reply, but clambered over the fence and into the path of the group cantering towards her. The gelding drove them into a lazy arc and covered her in dust.
“Hang on!” Wiri limped around to the back of the truck and lifted the tailgate. Reaching in, he grabbed the handle of a lunge whip and tugged it free. He passed it over the fence to Phoenix, and she nodded in thanks, winding up the long lash and keeping it in her left hand.
“I’ll put them in with the mob in that one!” she called over her shoulder. Wiri waved in response and steeled his nerves before clambering over the fence. He dropped to the hard ground on the other side and winced at the impact, which shot through his muscles and lapped at the back of his head.
“Come on Du Rose,” he coached himself, striding across the paddock. He wrapped his arms around himself once before flexing his shoulders. “You’ve done this before. You know what to do.”
Phoenix reached the gate on the other side and Wiri saw her fling it open. The grazing cows lifted their heads and watched with interest as they considered their potential exit. The mare lay on the ground as though dead. Only the heaving of her rounded belly showed any life.
Wiri hissed through his teeth as the horses passed him too close for comfort. He swiped at the gelding but missed, intending to distract it from its dangerous mission. Circumstance pressed him between the proverbial rock and the hard place. He needed to check on the mare, but his practical, strategic mind had already worked out that Phoenix couldn’t hold back the steers at the same time as driving the horses through the gate. The impossibility of being in two places at once nipped at his sense of duty at the same moment as the mare thrashed her head against the ground. She tried to get enough momentum to sit, her distended stomach turning her into a rolling beach ball.
“Sorry,” Wiri called to her. He altered his trajectory, heading for the gate and hoping he could get the horses through the gap while Phoenix controlled the cows. “I’m coming back,” he promised.
The gelding drove the group in a tight circle, not thinking through his trajectory as the thrill governed his mania. His eyes rolled back in his head as the herd responded, twisting and flowing at his direction.
The steers gathered, edging together to form a mob. They eyed the gate, driven by the genuine belief that the grass was always greener on the other side.
“I’m good!” Phoenix waved her right hand at him as she saw him heading towards her. Wiri’s steps slowed, doubt stopping him from trusting her and turning back to his original mission. But he shouldn’t have worried.
Phoenix crossed the paddock containing the cows at a sprint, covering ground as though racing. Her feet flew across the grass and her dark curls streamed behind her like an air current in her wake. Wiri watched, his body paralysed as he drank in the phenomenon that was Phoenix Du Rose. She stopped with such sharpness, she almost overbalanced at the next gate. Fumbling with the catch, she threw it open and walked backwards for two strides before turning and retracing her steps. Wiri sighed, wishing he’d thought of the tactic first. Move the cows into a different paddock before herding the horses.
Phoenix halted and turned once she reached the space between the curious mob and the gate back to the horses. She unfurled the whip and lifted it in a single, fluid motion. An expert flick of the wrist jerked the lash, and it cracked, the sound reaching Wiri’s ears a fraction of a second after the action. The steers jerked backwards as one and their feet moved, like a ship beginning its slow turn after a warning. One bucked and ran, and it was all it took to shift the others. She kept the whip cracking left and right as she moved towards them. Wiri licked his lips and turned back to the mare. She hadn’t got up. He hissed through his teeth and made the tough decision to leave the tiny girl facing down a mob of cattle alone. “Just trust her,” he told himself out loud.
He hustled across the paddock to the mare. His bandaged finger struggled to haul his phone from his pocket and he cursed at the stupidity of shoving it into that one instead of the other. He dropped it twice before closing his right hand around it and checking the screen. Pulling up Vaughan’s number and calling, he left it ringing, shoved it back into his pocket, and ran to the mare.
He slowed to a walk before approaching her. “Hey girl.” He spoke to her, making sure she knew of his presence before startling her. “You need some help?” Squatting in front of her, he stroked her long muzzle and looked into her eyes. Her wide, staring pupils communicated her fear, and she blinked and snorted as though pleading with him. He pursed his lips as her eyes rolled back in her head and she thrashed again.
Wiri kept speaking to her as he moved his palm along her body. She strained and her stomach muscles flexed, squeezing to little effect. Her head lifted with each contraction before crashing onto the ground. Dust coated her eyelashes and dulled her mane. “It’s all gonna be okay,” Wiri promised, the words acting as a fuel for his courage. He dropped to his hands and knees, avoiding her hooves as she straightened her legs with the pain. “I know how you feel,” he soothed before correcting himself. “Well, not exactly. I know what pain feels like, though.” He glanced up to check on Phoenix, glad she couldn’t hear his nervous prattling.
She didn’t look at him, cracking the whip and driving the cattle towards the open gate. A bulky Holstein-Friesian dodged sideways and ducked from the mob, steering a course away from Phoenix. She ignored it, holding her nerve as she continued to focus on the mob. She cracked the whip towards the back of the group as another contemplated following the escapee. They picked up speed and the bunch of bobbing heads began to move as one.
