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He takes his hand off the lever. She forces through, losing hair and hide instead of a rib, and two black cows follow her before the gap stops moving.

The catch gate opens ahead of the leaders. The lead red heifer sees open space, swings toward the ring, and pulls the group with her.

Not all of them. A black cow spins at the intersection and faces pressure from both sides. The south-pen employee steps toward her shoulder when he should wait.

“Back out,” I call.

He takes one step. A swinging gate catches him across the hip and throws him into the lower rail. He falls inside the protected corner, but one boot is still under the panel while cattle pound past on the other side.

Cole gets to him first, drops behind the steel, and drags the man’s leg clear by the heel. “Employee down. Conscious. Possible lower leg.”

“Medical through the west pedestrian route,” Tessa says over the operations channel. Her voice comes down from the booth level enough to give everyone listening somewhere to put their next decision. “West route is clear on camera.”

Her voice goes into me like a hand on the back of my neck. Calm. Certain. I didn’t know until this second how much I’d been listening for it.

I move to the ring junction, because that’s where I’ve stood for every bad sort since I was sixteen. The sling yanks across my back as I run. The pain arrives six steps in, deep in the joint, and it doesn’t matter.

“Garrett, stay out of the alley,” Cole says.

“I’m behind the gate.”

“You’re supposed to be behind a desk.”

The next mixed group drives toward the junction before I can answer. The swing gate separating the buyer corridor from the cattle path hasn’t latched. An employee braces it with both hands, but the bottom pin is hanging above its receiver and the pressure is building on the wrong side.

If it swings, the cattle go into the corridor where the buyers are.

I grab the rail with my left hand. “Lift the nose. I’ll drop the pin.”

He lifts. I pull the gate toward me, and the angle opens my right side to the frame. A black cow hits the outer rail. The force comes through the gate and drives the top bar into my bad shoulder.

The joint gives.

White pain goes through my chest and down to my fingers. My right hand goes numb inside the sling. The gate drifts six inches toward the public corridor.

I hold on with my left hand and can’t move it back.

“Take his spot,” Cole says.

Another man steps behind the panel and grips the gate low and pulls it square while the first lifts. The pin drops. I’m still hanging onto the top rail after both of them have already done the work.

“Garrett,” Tessa says on the radio. “Let go.”

I open my hand.

Fresh blood has soaked through the bottom edge of the dressing under my shirt. I can’t tell if it’s the stitches or new tissue.

“Out,” Cole says, pointing at the auction block.

I’ve fired men for that tone. Today I go.

The medics reach the injured hand through the west gate. He’s awake and furious about his boot. His leg is swelling above the ankle, but his foot is warm and his toes move. They splint it before they lift him.

“I can stay,” he says.

“You’re on paid injury time until a doctor says otherwise,” I tell him. “Your only job is to let them look at that leg.”

“The crew’s short.”