The breathing hitches. Gurgles.
Then stops.
“No,” Billy says. He slaps the flank. “Breathe. Damn you, breathe.”
Dr. Miller leans in with a stethoscope. He listens for ten seconds. He pulls back.
He shakes his head.
“Time of death, 7:42 p.m.,” he says quietly.
Billy’s hands freeze on the wet fur. He stares at the still body. The silence is deafening.
I sit back on my heels, my hands covered in mud and calf sweat.
Dead.
We lose calves sometimes. It happens. But not like this. Not foaming at the mouth. Not burning up from the inside.
This was violent. This was wrong.
Dr. Thorne steps forward. He signals to two men in hazmat suits. “Bag it. Get it to the lab. I want a full necropsy immediately.”
They move in with a black body bag, pushing Billy aside. He stands up, stumbling back.
He looks at his hands. They’re trembling.
I stand up too. I feel shaky. Hollowed out.
I look at the other calves in the pen. They’re huddled in the corner, eyes wide, watching us. They know. Animals always know.
“I don’t understand,” I say. My voice sounds thin in the night air. “What the fuck is going on?”
Seth is standing by the fence. He looks sick. “It’s the parasite,” he says. “It’s killing them.”
“It’s killing them fast,” Dr. Miller says, pulling off his gloves. “Too fast. This strain is aggressive.”
I look at the dead calf being loaded onto a stretcher. I think about Sedona. Lying in the bunkhouse with the same fever.
Is this what’s happening to her? Is she burning up like this? Is she going to seize and die while we stand here?
Fear, cold and sharp, slices through my chest.
“I hate this,” I whisper. “I fucking hate this.”
Billy turns away. He walks toward the truck. He doesn’t look back.
We follow. No one speaks. There’s nothing to say.
The drive back to the house is silent. The headlights sweep over the pasture, illuminating the empty space where the cattle should be grazing peacefully. Instead, it’s a war zone.
When we get back to the house, the porch light is on. Jasper is sitting on the steps, hugging his knees. He looks up when we approach, hope dying in his eyes when he sees our faces.
“Did you… did you save it?” he asks.
“No,” Seth says shortly.
He walks past Jasper and into the house. Billy follows, kicking his boots off on the porch.
