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“Bro, you picked a bad time to come back. The rest of the gang are getting the big herd in from the flats. I just rode out to the lower eighty. Might have to push the herd back toward the barn, storm coming fast.”
“I saw that. I’ll saddle up and head your way.”
Dusty
Distances in these mountains can be deceiving. You think something will take you five minutes, but it takes you almost an hour. It’s worse in the dark.
This is why a good horse will never be replaced by an ATV. And there wasn’t a horse in the barn I trusted more than Duchess to get me where I needed to go. Her silvery gray coat against the snow almost disappeared, but as the storm picked up and the sky got darker, it didn’t matter what color the horse was anyway. You just felt your way along, trusting the trail you’ve worn a thousand times.
I heard Luke long before I saw him. The cows were bawling and scrambling around down in that little warm pocket behind the ridge. If they were safe there, we were probably better off leaving them there rather than pushing them over that blustery ridge to the pens. But just the fact that these were the younger heifers and there was a storm coming meant we couldn’t leave them alone. We’d probably be out here riding herd all night.
When I heard Luke’s voice telling his horse to back up, I had a pretty good idea what was going on. I gave Duchess her head and urged her to follow the sound. The herd broke open before us, and I shone a flashlight on Luke’s horse, holding a rope on an unruly cow.
“There you are! About time. Get a rope around her hind legs. She’s trying to kill her calf.”
Great. That was just the problem we needed right now. Every once in a while, a new mother doesn’t know what to do with her baby, and she’ll attack it. Usually, if you can get it through that first few hours they’ll be all right. But this mama cow was not having Luke’s interference. She was swinging her black head around, lunging first at Luke’s horse, then at anything else in her way.
I brought Duchess in close, and her training took over. Going to the roping jackpots was fun, but this is where a horse like her really paid off. Her job was, first and foremost, to take care of the stock, and she knew exactly what to do to make it happen. I dropped the loop around the heels of the plunging cow right when she was twisting to make another charge at Luke’s horse. Caught now, she could do nothing to hurt herself or us.
“Well, that was fun.” Luke got off his horse and pulled out his flashlight to start groping around in the mud. I did the same, and my flashlight crossed the miserable, shivering form of a black calf huddled in the wettest part of the fold. “Is this it?”
Luke’s flashlight cut across my feet and fell on the little figure. “That’s the one. He’s not doing well. We might have to take him in.”
I felt the little guy over. He was still wet from birth, and now he was worse off because his mama hadn’t licked him dry before the cold set in. He felt like a little ice cube. “He’s not gonna make it unless we get him up to the barn and get some colostrum in him. What about the others?“
“Three others born so far. They’re all looking good. I don’t want to move them across that upper fields through the worst of the weather if I can help it.“
I swept my flashlight over Duchess and Luke’s horse Dozer, who were both quietly holding their places. A good horse really is worth her weight in gold at times like these. She flipped her ears at me when I came close but never moved a muscle.
“Whoa,” I commanded. I pulled another rope off my saddle, then walked the herd perimeter with my flashlight. Luke and I didn’t even have to talk. He was doing the same thing, circling in the opposite direction so we would meet at the other end.
“Got one down over there,” Luke said when we met up. “Looks like she’s doing okay. Any more?”
“Yeah, one. She’s not pushing yet, but she’s thinking about it. What do you want to do?”
“We got to get that one up to the barn. I can drag his mama behind if you’ll throw him over your saddle.”
“What about the others? You don’t want to keep an eye on them?”
Even as I asked the question, a cow crossed into the beam of my flashlight that I hadn’t noticed before. She was standing in the middle of the herd, her head down and her flanks heaving.
Luke spat out a curse. “I saw this one earlier. Thought she was going to be okay.”
I passed my light over her again. “She’s not okay.”
“Lemme get my calf puller.”
Luke turned back for his horse, and I heard him speaking softly to Dozer, then the metal clank of the chain. “I can pull this calf,” he said when he came back. “You’d better get that other one up to shelter fast, or we’re gonna lose him. We’ll just leave the mama be for now, unless she’ll follow you.”
“But if I leave you here and you can’t get this calf yourself, we could lose two more.” I gestured with my flashlight. “At least check her before I head up.”
I got my loop around the cow while Luke stripped off his coat—his only protection from the icy rainfall—and rolled up his sleeve. The cow was too miserable to care what he did, and she just stood there, panting, as Luke checked inside for the position of her calf.
“It’s an easy one! Leg back. Not even a big feller. I can get this in a jiffy. Go on, get that other one.”
I watched for another minute, but Luke was right. He could handle this. We’d all been pulling calves since we were kids. I trudged back to Duchess and asked her to step forward so I could release my heel rope. Then I did the same with Dozer and got Luke’s rope off. The cow had quit thrashing, and she didn’t seem all that interested in attacking the horses or me anymore. Unfortunately, she wasn’t very interested in her calf, either.
I gathered up the shivering little body and gently laid him across the front of my saddle. “Okay, Duchess. Let’s get this one to shelter.”
