Tribal bull on upper arm

I'm writing this at the kitchen table at Carrow Farm with my boots still wet from the top field, because if I leave it till morning I'll talk myself out of telling you. The black bull came through the gate again last night. You'll say it was the old Hereford cross Mr Pryce sold us in March, but I counted the hoof marks in the frost and there were only four, and the bull we bought has never walked on its hind legs in its life.

I went out with the storm lantern at half three. The wind had dropped and the frost was white on the gate rails, and there it was at the bottom of the lane, standing square in the middle of the track. It wasn't a beast so much as a fire burnt out of black paper, all horns and curling flames, the way the tinsmith's boy used to scratch patterns onto his tin trays. The lantern light went straight through its neck. I said something daft, I think it was 'Go on, then,' and it turned its great head and looked at me as if I'd asked it the time.

It didn't charge. It walked off down the lane towards the river, and wherever its hooves touched the frost the white went grey and stayed grey. By the time the sky lightened over Shelby Fell there was nothing on the track but those marks, and the gate was latched from the inside.

I've left the gate open tonight. I don't know what that makes me, but the bull has never once taken the cattle, and I'm tired of being the only one awake to see it leave.

Yours, Dad