I let him go in first and watched as he ever so gently got the cow to relax a little. He hooked a loop around her bottom legs and shook his head.
Going closer, I tried to see what he’d spotted. “What?”
“I don’t think she’s been here for that long, but she’s drooling a lot.”
“Let’s get her turned so she can get up if she’s able,” I stated the obvious.
He nodded solemnly and backed away a couple of steps. Then he waited for me to grab the rope and on a count of three, we ever so gently pulled the cow.
I’d seen several horses that got stuck like this in a stall when they rolled and got their legs too close to the wall to stand up. This cow had laid down on the bottom of the hill with her legs uphill, and had a boulder nearby that gave her absolutely no room to do anything by herself.
As we rolled her, she made these horrible sounds that told me she needed supervision at least.
“Should we get a trailer?” I asked, then nodded toward the Hereford. “She has a cut and a swollen knee. I already called base.”
“Good. And yeah, let me radio Russ.”
The cow got to her shaky as fuck feet and the amount of mucus that was coming out of her nose and mouth was alarming. She did move a bit though, which was better than nothing.
We waited as Crew introduced me to the herd. There was still no talking about Jaina, and it was clear he wanted to open that discussion by the way his gaze flicked to her and then to me when he wasn’t keeping an eye on the herd.
Eventually, I sighed. “Did you pay for her?”
He shook his head. “No. She refused the money, so I paid for Rowdy and made a donation.”
As I’d guessed, then. “Okay. Well I’m giving you gas money. Enough for a full tank on your truck.”
He opened his mouth, then read my expression, and nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
Jaina wandered over to us to see what was going on. I patted her neck and straightened her bridle a little.
“I just realized you ride bitless,” Crew commented, walking closer to check on her.
“Yeah. She had some dental issues about five years ago, so I decided to switch her to bitless. It’s much better for her. Not that I need any tack on her to do our job, you know. It’s just easier to get on top if there’s a saddle.” I chuckled as I fiddled with her mane.
Crew let out an amused sound, then walked back closer to the cow to keep an eye on her.
Eventually, Russ drove to us in a ranch truck with a trailer in tow. When he stopped the truck, a man around forty-five stepped out of the passenger’s side with a telltale bag in his hand.
“Hey, Dr. Matigan. You were close?”
“Yeah, I was at the Triple Cross, just about to leave. What’s happened here?” he asked, and I launched into an explanation.
I also filled him in about the other cow, and we ended up cajoling those two into the trailer. Someone had clearly done agood job with training them a little. I was a bit shocked by how easy it was in the end to get them to move.
Russ and the vet started toward the ranch, which left Crew and I alone together.
“Okay, well I’ll continue to check the rest of the fence,” I said awkwardly, gesturing vaguely at the fence line.
“Okay,” Crew echoed me. He turned away to go to Shooter, but then stopped and turned around again. He chewed on his bottom lip for a second, then said, “Mal, can you give us some credit here?”
I frowned at him. “What?”
“I get that it might not feel real yet, but you and Pay are here now. Jaina is here, too. You can relax a little. You’re not going anywhere.” He didn’t say we were home, but I felt it was implied.
I watched as he got on his horse and started toward wherever Russ and the vet would take the cows for treatment and observation.
