At mid-afternoon, the farmer's hired hand finally finished unloading a second load of heavy river stones near the unfinished wall.
That completed, he decided to head back to the barn for a lunch break and avoid the hottest hours of the day. Matt, who had worked himself into a state with his shameless watching of the muscular, bare-chested farmhand, found that pulling the empty wagon was much to be preferred to hauling one of the heavy loads of stones.
He hoped his erection might endure long enough to be released from harness and find the elusive jenny. As they returned to the barnyard, Matt noticed something new, a livestock trailer hitched to a truck.
The farmer and another man stood near the trailer as the hand finished driving Matt and the wagon into the yard.
"There they are now, doc," the farmer said.
"Howdy, Cal," the veterinarian said. "My assistant told me you stopped by. I was out this way making a house call, so thought I'd swing by."
Matt now had a name to associate with the handsome hand, not that he could possibly pronounce even a name as simple as "Cal."
"Get that jack out of harness and help the doc load him into the trailer," the farmer directed his employee.
"What?" Matt brayed, alarmed. "Wait!"
Against the hand and the vet, two accomplished animal handlers, Matt didn't have a chance. They soon had him loaded without incident into the hauler just like any other specimen of livestock. His placid donkey instinct's had kept him docile right up to the point that the gate at the back of the trailer swung shut behind him.
The clanging of the metal door must have shaken something loose. In near panic, Matt began braying incessantly.
He saw the jenny's blurred shape standing inside the barn, but his sense of smell told him it was her.
"So, you decided to do it?" The hand asked, spitting on the ground.
"Yea," the farmer drawled. "Like you said, just don't make sense to keep two donkey studs around."
"Like I said, I'll give your jack a through examination to make sure he's fit for the surgery," the vet said. "He can spend the night in my shed. I can perform the procedure tomorrow. I'll need to put him under, so figured I'd just haul him back with me."
Matt kept braying. In reality, he kept screaming "No!" at them, but he wasn't making himself heard.
The vet said his goodbyes and got into his truck.
Matt brayed when he heard the key turn in the ignition.
The vet pulled the trailer out of the yard and toward the highway. Matt kept braying.
As the vet drove away from the farm, the truck and trailer passed the jenny grazing in a nearby field.
Matt brayed. As usual, she ignored him and kept grazing.