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“I take them the way they’re headed,” he said, “or they’ll just turn around and walk back.” With a painful moan, he bent down and scooped up the animal, then righted himself and shuffled across the road, where he set the turtle in the long grass. Above white crew socks peeked a few inches of tanned calves. The cattle prod he was using as a walking stick tapped against the asphalt as he made slow, steady headway along the shoulder.īoth pinky toes poked out of holes in Cantrell’s running shoes.
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“We gotta get there before a car does,” he said, pointing at the small green-yellow shell a dozen yards ahead of us in the westbound lane of Nebraska’s Highway 20. Around 10 A.M., Gary Cantrell saw a turtle in the middle of the road.
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