Doc Raeford lifted the tail and stepped back to avoid the torrent of steaming bull shit. After the last wink of the bull’s anus, he leaned forward and pushed the electroejaculator probe into the rectum, completing the docking maneuver.
“Bull’s eye.” Mike would never have imagined that he’d enjoy helping a veterinarian anally penetrate a two-thousand-pound Angus bull, but he did.
Raeford shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
The bull resisted the intrusion, lunging forward, shoving his chest against the gate of the squeeze chute with a jolt. His nostrils flared, flecks of foamy mucus blowing out on the exhale. The Texas sun heated the black hide, releasing its animal scent.
“How’s your wife?” Mike asked.
“Good. She’s meeting her sister for a spa day. They’re doing goat yoga, then getting massaged with hot rocks.”
“I’ve heard of the down dog, but not—”
“This isn’t a position. It’s baby goats standing on your back. Supposed to be relaxing.”
Raeford flicked the switch and the bull froze, legs locked straight, the only movement a twitch of skin over his shoulders.
“Have you hired a new assistant for the clinic yet?” Sweat dripped from Mike’s chin onto the front of his khaki twill prison-issue shirt. He watched Raeford out of the corner of his eye.
The bull sucked breath into his massive lungs and held it for almost five seconds, before releasing it in a snort as his abdominal muscles spasmed, and he ejaculated. Mike was right there with the collection tube.
“Yep. He’s starting next week.”
“Oh.” Mike tasted something metallic, bitter as an unripened persimmon. “Good deal.” It had been stupid to hope for anything different.
Raeford pulled the ejaculator probe out of the bull. Mike removed the loving cup from the end of the collection tube and placed it carefully on the workbench.
After pipetting a drop of semen onto a glass slide and studying it under the microscope for a couple of minutes, Doc Raeford said, “Morphology eighty percent, motility seventy percent.”
Mike wrote the figures on the bull’s breeding soundness evaluation form. “He’s a keeper.”
“Yep. Lots of swimmers.”
“So, Doc, I’m getting out in three weeks. I’m going to miss working with you.”
“I can speak with the parole board. They may argue for you to stay if I tell them what a big help you are.”
“Oh, hell no. No, way.”
“I’m messing with you, son.”
Mike received the maximum sentence for being in possession of a smidge over two ounces of marijuana, likely because he’d refused to say who’d sold it to him. He smiled wistfully.
Raeford palpated the bull’s scrotum and measured its circumference. He wrote the measurement down and gave a thumbs up to Mike, who pulled the lever releasing the head gate. The bull trotted out and was herded from the area by two trustees on horseback.
The next bull had a higher body condition score but his sperm were sluggish, resulting in a motility score of only twenty percent. Despite being a handsome animal, he would not be kept for breeding.
After the last of the bulls had been examined, Mike tidied the work area. He wiped off the electroejaculator and packed it, and the microscope, in their cases.
Raeford sorted the evaluation forms by the bulls’ ear tag numbers. “That was a good day’s work. What do we have for next week?”
“We’ll have several new litters of piglets needing iron shots, ear notching, and tail docking. And a batch of male piglets ready for castration.
“The whole enchilada. That’ll keep us busy. Thanks for giving me a hand today.”
“Yes, sir. Always happy to help.”
***
The following Wednesday, Mike had two tables set up in the farrowing barn, each with a large dog crate on top. One crate held a litter of piglets, the other was empty.
Raeford pulled lidocaine, syringes, needles, a V-ear notcher, castration knife, brown glass bottles of iron dextran, and a jug of disinfectant from a black bag.
Mike brought out the first piglet, cradling it gently in his calloused hands.
“I’m back to square one with the search for an assistant.”
Mike blinked and something fluttered in his stomach. “Why?”
“The guy never showed up, and he’s not answering his phone. Maybe he got another job and isn’t courteous enough to tell me.” Mike stood mute as Raeford injected iron, punched divots out of the ear margins for identification, and nipped off the end of the piglet’s tail. He hugged the baby piglet to his chest and whispered in its ear before placing it into the empty crate. As he picked up another little one, his mind chewed over this new development. He took a deep breath and spoke fast, before he could change his mind. “Doc, would you consider letting me interview for the job?”
Raeford frowned. “I thought you were going back to UPS?”
“I’d rather work with animals.”
“It probably doesn’t pay as much as UPS, but the job is yours if you want it.”
It didn’t feel real. Mike didn’t want to ask but had to. “It’s not a problem, me being an ex-con?”
Doc Raeford put down the tail nippers. “You’ve been my assistant for a year and you’re damn good at it. You treat the animals with compassion. I don’t give a good crap about anything else. You hear me?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“Now, let’s get going. It’s date night for me and the wife—she’s taking me to goat yoga.”