Did that girl on the phone know the rest of it?
No.
They stared at her again for a time, waiting for anything more.
So she isn’t hurt, Harold said. Or lost.
No, I don’t think so.
She isn’t lost, Raymond said. That’s all we know. We don’t know about hurt.
Oh, I want to believe she is all right, Maggie said. Let us think that.
What brought her to leave though? Raymond said. Can you tell me that. You think we did something to her?
Of course not, Maggie Jones said.
Don’t you?
No, she said. Not for a minute.
Harold looked slowly around the room. I don’t think we did anything to her, he said. I can’t think of anything we might of did. He looked at Maggie. I been trying to think, he said.
Of course not, she said. I know you didn’t.
Harold nodded. He looked around again and stood up. I reckon we might as well go on home, he said. What else is there to do. He put his old work hat on again.
Raymond still sat as before. You think this here is the one? he said. That give her the baby?
Yes, Maggie said. I think it must be.
Raymond studied her for a moment. Then he said, Oh. He paused. Well. I’m getting old. I’m slow on the uptake. And then he couldn’t think what more there might be to say. He stood up beside his brother. He looked past Maggie, out across the room. I reckon we can go, he said. We thank you for your kindly help, Maggie Jones.
They went out of her house into the cold again and drove off. At home they put on their canvas coveralls and went out in the dark, carrying a lantern to the calf shed where they’d penned up a heifer they’d noticed was showing springy. She was one of the two-year-olds. They’d noticed her bag had begun to show tight too. So they had brought her into the three-sided shed next to the work corrals the day before.
Now when they stepped through the gate, holding the lantern aloft under the pole roof, they could see she wasn’t right. She faced them across the bright straw and frozen ground, humped up, her tail lifted straight out, her eyes wide and nervous. She took a couple of quick jittery steps. Then they saw that the calf bed was pushed out of her, hanging against her back legs, high up beneath her tail, and there was one pink hoof protruded from the prolapsed uterus. The heifer stepped away, taking painful little steps, humped up, moving toward the back wall, the hoof of her unborn calf sticking out from behind her as though it were mounted in dirty burlap.