Norah took another step, still humming, still calm as morning dew. The bull, this creature that had sent three grown men scrambling over fences in the past year, who was too mean to sell and too valuable to shoot, lowered his head and walked up to Norah's outstretched hand like a dog coming for a pat. She scratched between his horns. Thunder's eyes half closed in what looked suspiciously like contentment. "Well," Silas breathed, stopping 20 ft away and trying not to break whatever spell she'd cast.
I'll be damned. Norah glanced over at him, still scratching the bull's massive head. He's not mean. He's just misunderstood. Probably been handled rough, treated like a threat instead of a creature with feelings.
He gored a fence post last month because someone scared him or made him feel trapped. She kept her voice low, soothing. Animals are simple, Silas. They respond to how you treat them. You come at them with fear, they they give you fear back.
You come at them with calm," she shrugged. "They remember what calm feels like." Thunder made a sound that was almost a purr if a 2,000 lb bull could purr. "How did you learn that?" Silas asked, approaching slowly now that the danger seemed past.
"Same way I learned everything else. Trial and error mostly. When you're my size, animals either fear you or trust you completely. There's no middle ground." She gave Thunder a final pat and stepped back.
The bull watched her go but didn't follow, just stood there looking almost disappointed that the attention had ended. That, Silas said, was either the bravest or the most foolish thing I've ever seen. Probably both, Norah admitted. But your bull was distressed about something. I could hear him bellowing from the creek.
Figured I should see what was wrong before he heard himself or your fences. They walked back to the barn together, thunder following at a respectful distance like a pet rather than a threat. Silas kept glancing between the bull and the woman, trying to reconcile what he just witnessed with everything he thought he knew about cattle and courage. "In your letters," he said finally, "you mentioned being gentle. "I thought you meant," he gestured vaguely.
"You thought I meant delicate, sweet, dainty." Norah's smile was knowing. I meant I understand gentleness as strength, not weakness. I meant I know how to handle things bigger and stronger than me without breaking them or myself. That's not what most people mean by gentle.
I'm not most people, she replied. I thought we'd establish that. They had. And standing there in the Montana sunlight with his supposedly vicious bull following this enormous woman like she was the pied piper of cattle, Silas felt something shift in his chest. Not love, not yet, but the first green chute of possibility, pushing up through hard ground the way Norah had described wildflowers doing in her letters.