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My stomach sank. Oh no, she’d been in labor too long. The calf should have been born by now.
I blinked, feeling out of my depth all of a sudden, where moments before I’d been all confidence.
I’d been so sure the calf would be born already… because, well, all the births had been going so well lately. But that was stupid. I never should have gotten complacent. I should have been by an hour earlier, but I’d had to go to town for gas.
I had chains on the ATV, but remembering the first night I’d arrived, I didn’t dare try to pull the calf myself.
I turned around and ran back to the ATV.
This pasture wasn’t too far out, the house was only a ten-minute ride in, but I felt frantic thinking of the mother and calf I’d left behind.
The ride in seemed to take an hour, not ten minutes, and I was terrified of getting stuck in the mud again. Yesterday, Jeremiah’d had to tow me out of an especially slushy pit I’d gotten the four-wheeler stuck in. But finally, finally I made it.
Jeremiah was working on the stables today so I drove the four-wheeler that direction, but on the way there, I saw Reece stepping out of the barn.
“Reece!” I stopped the ATV and jumped off. “One of the heifers is having trouble. I need your help to come and pull the calf.”
He immediately stood up straighter. “Do you have chains?”
I nodded, twisting my hands together frantically. “But not the big calf-puller.”
He nodded and turned, jogging back into the barn and returning moments later with the big T pole. Without a word we both hurried back to the ATV. He slid the pole through some straps on the back and then climbed on behind me.
I immediately took off, my stomach in knots thinking about the calf stuck in its mother’s birth canal. Those little hooves.
The ten-minute ride back out to where I’d left them felt so much longer than the ride in, but finally, finally we were there. I all but leapt off the ATV, yanking the chains out of the bag before Reece had even climbed off.
I showed him where the heifer was, praying by some miracle she would have delivered the calf by the time we’d returned.
But no, she was exactly as I’d left her, on the ground, occasionally letting out distressed noises and kicking at her stomach with her own hooves.
I looked to Reece and his brows were drawn in concern.
“I’m so sorry. I should have realized we were low on gas earlier. If only I’d looked closer at the gauge last night, I could have gone to town then and I would have been by earlier and we might have caught it when there was still time to—”
“Don’t do that.” His eyes came to me for a quick second before he took the chains from me and he knelt down behind the heifer. “Don’t blame yourself. We were bound to run into a problematic birth sooner or later.”
He deftly hooked the chains around the calf’s ankles, then the hook to the chains, and he started pulling.
And pulling.
And pulling.
Unlike the first calf I’d watched him pull, this one didn’t seem to be budging an inch. Reece shook his head. “It’s a big one. Probably too big for the canal. It can happen when we get late in the season like this, especially if it’s a bull. Can you get the big calf-puller?”
I nodded and scurried back to the ATV to get the puller with the pole and crank.
Okay, I tried to calm myself. We could still do this. I’d seen it happen before. We were still here in time. There was still time.
It was more awkward with the cow on the ground, but she didn’t look like she was moving or getting on her feet any time soon, so we braced the T of the puller against her hind-quarters as best we could and attached the chain.
And then Reece started turning the crank.
It didn’t go as smoothly as it had the first time. The puller kept slipping and eventually I had to hold it in place while Reece cranked.
Slowly, slowly, the calf started slipping free of its mother.
“You’re getting it!” I cried, laughing.
