Chapter Sixteen
“SO WHAT ARE WE GOING to see?” I ask, once we’re both settled in the cab of the truck with my purse on the floorboard at my feet.
“Just you wait and see,” he says, shifting the truck into drive.
I had expected him to go reverse out of the driveway, but instead, he leaves off the back of the property. He’s using a tiny shifter instead of the larger, regular one.
“What’s that one for?” I ask, pointing to the smaller thing.
“Four-wheel drive. We’re going off-road.”
“Is that safe?” A whisper of fear runs through my body.
He glances and me and wiggles his eyebrows. “Probably not.”
Warmth rushes into my heart. I don’t doubt for a second that I’m perfectly okay with Ian. I stare out the side window for a moment to get my girly feelings under control. I can’t let him know he affects me so easily. Resting my nose on the material of his jacket, I breathe the smell in. It’s so Ian. Delish.
“What are you thinking up there in that bean of yours?” he asks.
“What bean?” I shift my gaze to the non-road in front of us. There are dirty tracks leading away from the house, going up towards the mountains that we’re at the base of. I hope we don’t fall off anything steep. How good are four-wheel drive shifters with ice on the road? I can’t imagine it’s much better than a regular shifter.
“The Mexican jumping bean that’s your brain. Always jumping from one crazy thing to another.”
I glare at him. “First of all, the things I think are not crazy, they’re interesting. And second, I was thinking … that the weather is nice today.” No way am I going to tell him that he makes me feel safe. His head will blow up so big it’ll explode.
He laughs. “That’s a lie. You hate the snow.”
I sigh loudly, staring out at the bright white expanse in front of us. The snow never stops out here. I think it would drive me crazy to stare at it all day. “I’m trying to get over that.”
“Some people never do. I’m not much of a fan myself, to be honest.”
I look at him, suspicious. This statement seems very disloyal to the family for some reason. “How can you live here in Baker City and not be a fan of snow?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t pick this place. My family did. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“But you’re a grown man. You’re an architect. You could move anywhere. Why stay if you’re not happy?”
He loses his happy face. “It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is. You pack your bags, you say goodbye, you go. Done.”
He looks sideways at me for a second before going back to facing the road. “You make it sound easy, that’s for sure.”
“Tell me what’s so hard about it.”
“How about if I just show you?”
A smile turns up the corners of my mouth. “Hmmm … I’m intrigued.”
He grins, still facing out the window.
“Fine. I’m convinced. Show me what makes it so hard to leave here.”
“Almost there,” he says, turning the truck around a wide bend in the road. There’s a large tree in the way with loads of snow balanced on its green branches. I cringe a little as we drive by, wondering if it’s enough to qualify as an avalanche.
Our previous conversation in the gun store comes back to me and my happy feelings dissipate. Maybe this is a set-up so he can really get me good. “Are you going to show me a dead animal? Because if you do, I’ll never forgive you. I’m not kidding, Ian.”
He frowns, downshifting the truck to get it to go up a small hill with more power. “Now why would I do that?”
I shrug, feeling a little ashamed now that I even considered it. He might be a pain in the butt, but he’s never struck me as mean-spirited. I’m going to go ahead and forgive myself, though, because I’m running on two hours of sleep. No one can think straight without some good REM.
“You said you like to hunt,” I explain, hoping he won’t hold my near accusation against me.
“Yeah, but not for sport. I eat what I hunt, plain and simple.”
I don’t have enough Google research ammo to have the grocery store versus wild game argument with him right now, so I keep my mouth shut. Later I’ll explain in a way we can both understand. After I’ve had some REM and some time in front of the computer.
“Here we go,” he says, coming over the top of a hill and putting the truck into park. Stomping down on the emergency brake, he cracks open his door. “Just walk quiet and stay kind of behind me.”
I throw my purse strap across my body and follow him out of the truck. I have to wade through snow up past my knees to get to him.
He reaches a hand out behind him and I take it, thrilled that we’re actually holding hands. My inner high school girl nearly squeals with delight.
“See over there?” He points to a black blob out in a flat area of snow. There’s a lot of mud showing through the drifts of the frozen stuff, and for a couple seconds I think he’s brought me out here to show me a big rock. But then I realize the rock is moving.
“What is that …? Is that a cow?”
“Yep. She’s calving.”
“She’s what?” I move closer, peering at the event over his shoulder.
“She having a baby.”
Movement out of the corner of my eye draws my attention away. There are actually several cows standing around, some with small calves next to them and others just hanging out alone.
A loud moo in the center grabs my attention back. “She’s having a baby out here in the snow? In the mud?”
“Yep. Can’t stop Mother Nature.”
He starts to walk again.
“Are you sure we can go that close?” I’m holding onto both his hand and his arm with an iron grip. My purse bangs against my leg.
“Yep. She might need some help. She knows me, though. She’ll be fine.”
I start a whispered chant without really thinking about it. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god … this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy …” I slip a few times, but Ian’s as solid as a brick house. I just hang onto him for dear life, and before I know it, we’re standing just feet away from her, and my butt is still dry. It’s some kind of Christmas miracle.
The cow is standing too.
“Doesn’t she want to lie down?” I ask. Her sides are heaving and she looks really uncomfortable.
“Yeah, just watch.”
About a minute later, the cow moves down to her knees and then flops down onto her side. Something is sticking out of her back end. Something … gooey. And big.
“Oh, my … that’s gross.”
“Shhhhh, just wait.”
I’m not sure how much time passes, but however long it is, I spend the entire period feeling sorry for that cow. Andie was right. The only way to do this whole birth thing is in a warm hospital bed with nurses and doctors standing all over the place with blankets. I can’t feel my toes or my fingers anymore.
The cow stands when I think it couldn’t be possible because she has this giant thing hanging out of the back end of her, and then this big blob just slides out. The baby falls right out onto the ground, a white sheet of something I-don’t-want-to-know-what covering its face. It lies there in the snow not moving.
“Come on, come on…” Ian sounds worried.
“What’s wrong?” I look from his face to the cow. The baby still isn’t doing anything. In fact, if I hadn’t seen it come out of the mother cow, I wouldn’t even know it was a cow. It looks like a giant, gooey alien on the ground.
“Quick!” he says in a loud whisper. “Get the towels out of the back seat!” He takes off towards the cow and leaves me standing there.
I want to ask him a thousand questions, but I don’t. Instead, I go as fast as I can through the snow drifts back to the truck. I only fall once trying to get inside.
There’s a stack of old-looking towels neatly folded on the seat. Grabbing them, I struggle to turn around and find Ian again.
He’s kneeling next to the calf, wiping muck off its face. The mother cow is licking the baby’s back legs, but it’s not having any effect that I can see.
I think my heart has turned into a lump of iron, it feels so heavy in my chest. The baby definitely looks dead. “Oh my god,” I whisper as it settles into my brain that I could be witnessing the death of a newborn baby. “No, no, no, no, nooo!” I sound like I’m crying. I can’t get there fast enough. It’s like one of those nightmares where I have to run in deep water. “Ian! I’m coming!”
I face-plant into the snow, landing on the towels. Getting up as quickly as I can, I take them into my arms again, letting the bottom one drop a little so I can try and shake off the snow that’s clinging to it.
As I get closer to the cow it becomes easier to walk. The animals have trampled down the ground and turned it mostly to muck. But now I’m afraid there’s a bull around ready to hook me with his horns.
“Come on, stop dinking around!” Ian’s waving me over with his arm going in big circles.
“Where are the bulls?”
“There are no bulls out here, they’re all cows. Come on!”
I see some horns, but instead of arguing, I run over with tiny steps, trying to minimize my chances of biting the dust again. Ian grabs the top towel from my arms as soon as I’m close enough and starts rubbing the calf all over with it.
“Come on, do it,” he demands. “Rub!”
I drop the towels on the ground and take one, moving over to the other side of the baby cow. “Just rub?” I ask, moving closer.
“Rub. Stimulate her. Wake her up.”
I put the towel on her butt and start rubbing. Tears are sliding down my cheeks as I feel her lifeless body wiggle beneath my hands. “She’s a girl?” I ask. All I can think about is baby Sarah in the hospital.
“Yeah, she’s a girl, I think. Come on, girl, wake up. Wake up. Breathe, you can do it.”
I start rubbing with two hands. Her little body squishes around with our combined movements. “Come on, baby cow, wake up!” I say, trying to talk around my tears. “Don’t you dare die. No cows die on my watch, you hear me! No cows die!”
The mother lets out a moo that just breaks my heart. She leans down, takes one more lick of the baby, and then walks away.
“She’s leaving!” I cry, freaking out over the idea.
“Just keep rubbing,” Ian says, focusing on the baby.
I crawl in the mud and snow up to the calf’s head and rub around its ears and eyes and nose. “Come on baby, cow. Don’t you dare die.”
Then a flash of memory comes to me, and I pause as I consider it. There was this guy once on Youtube and this baby deer that needed resuscitation on the side of the road …
I grab the cow’s head and turn it to look up at me. “Might as well give it a try,” I say to no one in particular. Clamping the calf’s mouth closed, I lean down, preparing to lock my lips to its nostrils.
“What in the sam hill are you doing?” Ian asks, ceasing his rubbing.
I don’t look up at him, all my attention focused on the disgusting good deed I’m about to do for this ranch. They’d better appreciate it, that’s all I can say.
“I’m going to give it CPR.”
Before Ian has a chance to respond, the calf’s body bucks up in some kind of seizure, and a big glob of something warm hits me in the face.
I’m suddenly blinded, afraid to open my eyes. Whatever it was she projectile vomited begins to slide down my forehead.
“That’s-a girl!” Ian yells, his voice full of joy. He claps me on the back several times. It makes me burp once. I would probably care enough to respond if I could open my eyes, but I can’t see a thing. My eyes, nose and mouth are covered in what I can only assume are cow loogies.
“Oh … Jesus Mary and Joseph …,” Ian says in a low voice.
And then he starts to laugh.
Keeping my eyes closed, I spit out everything that’s anywhere near my mouth and say in a very calm voice. “Ian. Get me a towel.”