The Yearling Bull at His Gate

What Werner said

I watched Werner take his arms off the top rail.

He stood up straight. He looked at the bull walking out into his pasture, and then he looked at Maisie, who was still holding the gate open with her whole body, her cheeks red from the wind.

Then he reached up and took off his hat.

I had never seen Werner Prill take off his hat outdoors except at a graveside. He held it against his tan jacket with one hand, and he walked along the fence to the gate where Maisie was.

She did not move. She is not afraid of her grandpa. She has never had a reason to be.

He stopped in front of her and looked down.

“What’s his name?” he asked her.

“Biscuit,” Maisie said.

Werner’s mouth moved under his mustache. For a second I thought he was going to laugh, or say something about what kind of a name that was for a bull.

He did not.

“Biscuit,” he said, like he was trying it out. “He looks like a good one.”

“He’s the best one,” Maisie said. “He did all thirty.”

“I heard that.” Werner looked out at the pasture. Biscuit had already found a cow near the bottom of the hill and was walking along beside her. “I heard that from the vet three years ago. I never told you I heard it.”

Then he looked at me. He had to look up a little, because I was standing on the trailer step.

“I was wrong about you,” he said.

It was not loud. It was not a speech. He said it the way you say a thing that has been sitting in your chest so long it has worn smooth.

“I said you’d quit. I said it in front of the whole table. You didn’t quit. You didn’t even get mad at me, and I gave you every reason to.” He turned the hat in his hands. “I don’t know what to say to you, Joanna.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “Your cows needed a bull.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.” His voice went rough. “A man has to say it.”

He reached out and shook my hand. His hand was cold and hard and he held on longer than a handshake. Then he let go and put his hat back on and turned to look at the bull, and I understood that was all he could do right then, and it was enough.

Maisie let the gate swing shut. It clanged against the post.

“Can I come see him on Sundays?” she asked.

“Every Sunday,” Werner said. “You come right after church. Your grandma will have dinner.”