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I immediately started backing away as he approached the fence. A few wooden posts between us did not a solid barrier make.
“She’s been in labor for two hours and oh—” He stopped mid-sentence, holding up his lantern flashlight and squinting, I assumed to get a better look at me. “You’re not Ruth.”
I shook my head. No, I wasn’t, but I was very interested to know where this mysterious Ruth was. I’d feel much, much better with a woman around, that was for damn sure.
Behind the giant came the noise of cows mooing and what sounded like a fence rattling or the metal of a gate.
The giant looked over his shoulder.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, head swinging back to the dark pasture. “She’s not happy. I wouldn’t be either if I had a breech calf half sticking out of me. Dammit, Jeremiah’s gonna kill me if I screw up the first calving of the season.”
He looked back my way. “Don’t suppose you’re good with grouchy heifers having breech calves?”
I held up my hands. “I’m more of a city girl. Look, my ride… uh, broke down. I’m just looking for a…” What could I say? I needed more than just a phone call.
“Oh,” he said, his eyes going wide. “Oh. Sorry. I just figured you maybe lived here with Ruth. Jer and I, I mean Jeremiah. He’s my brother. We just got here today, too, to work the ranch. I mean to manage it. We’re the new managers. But we’re getting here right at the start of calving season and you know how crazy that can be.”
I lifted my shoulders, along with my eyebrows. “It’s a… big deal?”
He huffed out a laugh, then dragged a hand down the back of his neck. “Yeah, you could say that. And my brother’s gonna kill me if I don’t do right by this heifer.”
“Say,” he looked back into the darkness and then to me again. “I know this is a big ask, but I gotta get this lady in the chute and pull this calf or it’s not gonna have any chance at all. Could you help me? My brother and Ruth are out wrangling a bunch of cattle that got out ‘cause of some downed fencing. Basically we got here and everything was less in order than we’d been led to believe. It’s all been kinds of a huge mess.”
His words immediately set me on edge. Was he really inviting me into the dark pasture with him while no one else was around?
And I’d stupidly gone and admitted I was all alone and didn’t have a ride.
I backed away a step and the expression on his open, friendly face changed to one of chagrin.
“Shit,” he said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. You don’t know me.”
He pulled off his hat, ran his hand through his hair, then stuffed his hat back on his head. “Look, why don’t you go wait inside? There’s a phone in there you can feel free to use. Or if you want to wait on the porch—if that feels more comfortable… Again, feel free. I know it’s freezing out here, but hopefully Ruth will be back in soon. She’ll be happy to help you out, I’m sure.”
He took a step backwards, then cocked his head to the side. “Well, actually I don’t know her that well, but my brother and I can make sure you’re looked after and Ruth will at least be there to hopefully make you feel more at ease. Officially she still owns the house but we run the rest of the ranch so I’m sure we can make arrangements for you—”
He broke off and waved a hand with a short laugh. “Sorry, you don’t need a novel. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta go deal with this grouchy heifer and see if I can’t help her get her baby born. Good to meet you. I’m Reece, by the way.”
He nodded to me, reached up and tipped his hat just the tiniest bit, then turned around and headed back into the pasture. The light from his flashlight bounced through the darkness as he went.
During his entire monologue I’d stood stiff as a statue, unsure what to say or do.
As he retreated, I stayed put, then after a few seconds, walked closer to the fence line. And then watched from a distance as he approached a cow that did indeed look agitated.
I couldn’t hear everything he was saying since he was half a pasture away, just the occasional, “Come on now, mama.”
The cow would buck or rear and Reece would scramble backwards, hands out. Obviously, he was trying to urge her in some particular direction, but she’d break and jog back and forth, so he’d back up and start all over again.
My mouth dropped open when during one of these lumbering jaunts, I caught a glimpse of small hooves sticking out the back end of the cow in the light of the flashlight.
Oh my God, he wasn’t joking! That cow was literally mid-labor.
Now that I knew he wasn’t pulling some sort of creepy redneck Ted Bundy come-help-my-injured-cow act to lure me into the dark, I scrambled into action. I had no clue if it was ill-advised or not, but I’d always had a soft spot for animals. I ignored the voice that was screaming that my whole new paranoia-approach-to-life oath had lasted all of five minutes. This was the one exemption, I decided as I climbed the gate of the fence and lowered myself over the other side. Because God, it had to be true. Not all men were Jeffs.
Still, I approached slowly. “How can I help?”
Reece’s head swung my way in surprise, then a grateful smile lit his face.
“We gotta get her through that gate over there. Can you go open it and try to keep any of the other heifers from going through? Then I’ll try to drive her your direction. Just stay clear when she gets close. Got it? She’s upset and probably in plenty of discomfort. We gotta get this calf out of her pronto, but she doesn’t understand we’re trying to help and she could hurt us in the process.”
