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Even the guys were looking at Damon as if they wanted him to go back to the house. Like heck. There was work to be done.
He managed to walk without favoring his side—barely—and did so, so he didn’t know why they were looking at him like he might collapse at any moment. That was a bit dramatic, even for those guys.
“Okay, what did you find out?” He crossed his arms against the heavy wind pushing against him, then decided it was safer to hold one against his side and the other loose. The wind could make him cold for now. That got him more looks. Great.
His foreman took off his hat, fiddled with it, ran a hand over his hair and settled the hat back on, all while refusing to meet his gaze. With a sigh, he seemed to make a decision and finally looked at Damon. “We repaired the fence but will need to get some more paneling.”
Damon nodded. He’d known that was a possibility when he’d seen the fence. The expense didn’t make him happy, but it was necessary.
“Do we know what spooked them? Or do we have a crazy one in the herd?” If that young bull was just out-and-out nuts, they would have to separate him from the herd, so he didn’t cause any more trouble or hurt any of the other animals. It was rare, but once in a while, an animal could develop mental illness like people did.
“Not yet. I plan on keeping a close eye on that bull and cut him out of the herd should he start to cause trouble.”
“More trouble. Okay, well, I’m going to check the herd in the north pasture as well as the cows and calves. I’ll drop some cubes of feed for them too.” He didn’t offer to help with any of the construction projects or cleaning out areas of the pens. Usually he dove in next to his guys, but his ribs twinged and let him know that doing so would result in a great deal of discomfort today. He could try tomorrow.
Wayne shifted and chewed on the inside of his mouth before looking back at Damon and twitching his eyebrows. The man had to think through things before presenting them to Damon. His boss before Damon had been a real jerk, and Wayne had had to present things in a very specific way to get anything approved or done. He’d expressed once to Damon how much better it was working here at the ranch, but he still ruminated on his thoughts before speaking. Damon wanted to go sit in the truck but forced himself to wait patiently.
Finally, Wayne spoke. “Why don’t you take a couple of guys? They can load and offload the feed, and you can drive the vehicle.”
“I’m fine, really. What’s that saying...? Believe in yourself, and you can do it. With that type of motivation out there, haven’t you ever seen a man try his chances at flying before?”
“Yeah. He was on LSD.”
“I’ll take the help.”
“Good.”