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“She’s early,” Cricket said.
The cow kept shaking her head up and down, side to side, snorting through what I could only assume was labor pain. She had a shiny auburn brown coat and the heat from her skin permeated in clouds above her from being so long in the cold, but she didn’t look at all uncomfortable in that respect. It was as if she was made to survive those temperatures. The heifer saw me and stilled. I placed my hand on her head but she didn’t flinch.
“How now brown cow?” I asked seriously.
Cricket snorted but stifled a smile, shaking her head. “You’re a troublemaker. I can already tell.”
“Can you?”
“You’re inciting Ethan’s wrath. Yes, you’re a troublemaker.”
I lifted my shoulders in question, feigning I had no idea what she was talking about. She rolled her eyes and started making her way around the barn. I followed her, keeping pace with Eugie. Hey, lapdog, looks like you’ve got some competition.
“Do you do this a lot?” I asked.
“About ten percent of our cattle will need help birthing during the season. I’ve gotten pretty good at wrestling a calf from its mother when I have to.”
I looked her up and down in appreciation, but she mistook it for skepticism.
“I may look small but I’m capable,” she huffed.
“Oh, I believe you.”
She furrowed her brows but continued walking. She grabbed some wicked chain thing with metal-handled grips covered in black rubber as well as two metal bars and some strange contraption I couldn’t put a name to. The barn was made of wood, much like all the buildings on the property, but this one had a concrete floor, sloped slightly to meet several drains at the base of the slant running through the middle of the barn. There were approximately twenty other cows inside, each in a stall lined heavily with hay.
“So you like The Flaming Lips.”
“That I do.”
“And you have a mixed breed German shepherd named Eugie.”
“Yup, he’s German shepherd and Australian Cattle Dog.”
“That explains the face.”
The dog had ears a little longer than a standard German shepherd as well as large patches of peppered white hair on his face but around his eyes were two large spots of black.
“Hey, watch it!” she said, waving the large chains at me.
I lifted my hands as if in surrender. “I didn’t say he wasn’t awesome.”
She let the chains fall in acceptance and kept walking.
“Calving stall,” she said, waving her hand in a circle toward the trapped heifer. “Head catcher,” she continued the lesson, pointing to the hinged gate thing. “It’s open all the way to the floor so if she wants to lie down, it can’t bind, and won’t suffocate her.”
“And these,” I said, gesturing to the chains in her hand.
“Chains?”
“Oh.”
She took the chains and dropped them on a bale of hay next to the stall. That’s when I saw that the calf’s front legs were protruding out, covered in the sickliest-looking shit I’d ever seen. I nearly gagged.
“What’s the matter, city boy?” Cricket asked, when she took in how wide my eyes had gotten.
I checked my expression. “Nothing.” She laughed anyway.
The cow or heifer or whatever it was cried out.
