Doc Reynolds patted the red angus heifer on her hind quarters as he slid his gloved arm from her birth canal. My thumb stroked soothing circles across the expectant mother’s jaw as she mindlessly chewed the cud rolling around in her mouth. She appeared relaxed, uncaring of Doc’s palpatations or the risk her heavy middle put her in.
With one last stroke down her wide forehead, I turned from the heifer toward Doc as he scrubbed at the sink against the wall of the barn. “Well?”
He pressed down on the faucet handle with his forearm and grabbed a towel from the peg. “It’s a good thing you called.”
Of all the times to be right, this time I wouldn’t have minded being wrong.
I squeezed my eyes shut, allowing myself a moment to sag under the stress. But only a moment. Any more and the bend would cause me to snap. Taking a deep breath in, I squared my shoulders and opened my eyes wide. The only way to face any situation, Gran always said.
“The calf is too big, isn’t it?” The possibility had been nagging me for days, ever since we’d separated those who’d be calving in the near future from the rest of the herd. Every breed of cattle on the ranch had been meticulously picked with certain requirements in mind. Natural mothers with the ability to birth calves with little to no assistance being one. Of course, feed efficiency and having a high-quality carcass were top considerations as well.
Doc lifted his Stetson off his head and swiped an arm across his brow, his wiry white hair all akimbo. “’Fraid so.”
“And there’s no way the calf can fit through her pelvis?”
He replaced the sweat-stained brim on his head, the age lines around his eyes smoothing with sympathy. “You know as well as I do that if you attempt to pull that wee thing through the birth canal then mama here will suffer nerve damage.”
I glanced back at the heifer and her wide, doe-like eyes. It seemed silly and illogical to allow attachments to animals raised for the sole purpose of feeding others. The cow’s ultimate end would be a slaughterhouse, but needless suffering beforehand didn’t sit right with me. I respected the cattle and appreciated their sacrifice to sustain life. None of them received names, of course, but neither could I treat them as commodities that didn’t possess hearts beating within their chests.
My unconventional viewpoint was smacked down by the dollar signs flashing in my mind. Doc’s vet bill. The price of the heifer. Potential profit on the calf. Feed bill. Wages. Land taxes. And on and on. Didn’t seem I had a moment to breathe before something else required me to throw money at it.
“I hear wind you have a new group coming in.” Doc picked up his vet tools and sauntered toward his customized pick-up.
I followed him, hooking my thumbs in my belt loops and squinting past the bright sun as I stepped over the barn’s threshold. “In a couple of days.”
A grin stretched across his weathered face. “City slickers, I hear.”
“Seems the wind is mighty talkative these days.” My weight pressed down into my heels.
“I reckon she is.” He hoisted his tools into their designated spots in the professional bed topper. “Corporate bigwigs, though, huh?”
All those dollar signs meant I’d had to do something to keep the family legacy alive. The Thomas family no longer lived in the 1800s, when they’d laid claim to this parcel of earth. We couldn’t keep doing things the way we’d always done them. Not if we wanted to keep our land and our cattle and our heritage. There had really only been two options: sell to the big cattle company buying up all the small operations or diversify. The decision hadn’t been mine alone, though. Thomas family land, Thomas family vote.
But I’d known the outcome of that vote, just as I’d known Doc’s prognosis of the calf before I’d called him. Gran, Nate, and Miriam couldn’t imagine life outside the Double B any more than I could. If sharing our home and heritage meant keeping them, we’d gladly welcome strangers into our life.
So far that plan had looked like women’s weekends away or homeschool groups that wanted to experience a touch of the Wild West and see what cattle drives were like. This would be our first corporate group, but it seemed like we’d all be a good fit for each other. The CEO had reminisced about his time growing up on a cattle ranch in Texas and the work ethic that had instilled in him. He wanted his team to spend time together outside of the office, using their hands instead of sitting behind a desk crunching numbers.
I peered out toward the back pasture. Later, I’d need to ride the fence line to make sure there weren’t any breaks the cows could squeeze through. Add to that mucking out the horse stalls, daily feedings, monitoring the herd, and maintaining the equipment and outbuildings, and there was plenty around the property to keep a group of suits busy.
“Yes, sir. I remember the first time my nephew came out to visit me when he was a kid. My sister moved to LA and married a man there, but when Tyler was about ten, his mama sent him my way to spend a summer with his cousins in the country.” Doc’s lined face split into a big smile. “Woowee, you should’ve seen him. Ten years old and thinkin’ he knew it all already. Not a single one of us could convince him otherwise, so we figured he had to learn the hard way.”
Poor kid. Country life and city life led to different skill sets. “I’m afraid to ask what happened.”
Doc’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, nothing so bad really. Didn’t believe us when we told him the horses liked to suck in air when saddled. He didn’t walk the mare a few paces and tighten the girth all the way before mounting.” He chuckled. “Only made it a few yards before the saddle slipped around to the underbelly and Tyler landed on his butt in the dirt.”
As far as riding catastrophes went, that was a tame one. “I’ll be sure all the girths are checked before our guests head out on the range.”
“Course, then there was the next summer he came out. Figured he’d mastered riding the horses; he was going to try to ride one of the steers.”
Nate had tried the same thing at about that age. I’d never seen a person fly so high in the air before. My lips twitched at the memory. “None of my guests are going to ride any of the cows.”
“My point is”—one of his eyes narrowed at me—“watch the ones who think they know it all, cuz they’re the ones without a lick of sense.” He lowered the top of the compartment holding his tools and secured the lock. “Now, should we schedule a cesarean for say, next week?”
I held my hand out. “Next week.”
Doc squeezed a firm shake and waved a farewell before climbing in his truck and leaving a trail of dust that swallowed his taillights. Now that the issue with the heifer had been taken care of, I needed to double-check the accommodations for the Whalen group. Gran and Miriam had assured me everything was in order, but a quick peek-see would set my mind at ease.
A strange silhouette bounced through the haze Doc’s tires had kicked up along the dirt drive. What in the world? It looked almost like…
