“No. But don’t mess with the bull.” He points, and I follow his finger, seeing the huge animal under the shade of a tree, watching us, his horns scary, even across the hundred-acre field.
“Wasn’t part of my plan,” I call out. He guns the engine and we head for a low barn, another four-wheeler parked out front. We come to a stop next to it and he kills the engine, waiting for me to climb off before he follows. I step to the side and watch as he strides to the barn, sliding open the big doors, wheels squeaking as they part, and he moves sideways through the opening. I hesitate for a moment, then follow.
The barn has a wide center aisle that’s open on the far end. The ceiling is high enough to accommodate the giant tractors parked to our right, the left side a row of open stalls. I glance in the empty stalls as we pass. My toes feel gritty in my flats and a pebble of some sort has worked its way under the leather, each step digging the annoying stone further along my sole. A man leans against a stall at the end, and he straightens as we approach. There is the masculine grip of a handshake, then they turn to me. “This is Helena, a friend of mine from Connecticut.”
“I’m Royce.” The man nods, and I push my hands into the front pocket of my jeans, before he has a chance to extend a hand.
I nod. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Ever seen a cow give birth?” he asks, and I eye the dingy baseball cap on his head, the brim nearly black from dirt. Behind him, Mark opens the gate and steps into straw, his voice low as he says something.
“No.” I step forward and grip the top of the stall wall, rising to my tiptoes and looking over. A cow is there, her belly huge, her red fur close enough for me to reach out and touch. She is standing, and I move back a bit as her body turns, her head coming around to Mark, who runs a hand down the side of her face. On the flight here, he told me about cows—how they have contractions before birth, just like a human does. They can deliver standing up, or lying down. He told me that the front hooves come out first, then the head. I move closer, shooing away a fly, my eyes drawn to a pile of manure against the back wall of the stall. When I had Bethany, the room smelled of bleach and sterility. Simon wore booties over his shoes, a gown, and a hairnet. He had a mask over his face, and the doctor’s hand, when it touched my inner thigh, wore a latex glove.
No one here has gloves on. There isn’t a medical kit in sight, nor a disinfecting station—not even a clean rag. The idea that—any moment—a baby cow could be produced… my head swims with the terrible possibilities. I feel unprepared, uneducated. At least with Bethany, I knew. I knew that five out of every ten-thousand births required cardiac surgery on the mother. I knew that complications during post-delivery stays had increased by 114% in the last decade. I knew what to eat, and drink, and how to exercise just enough, but not too much. I had known everything. And now, looking at the gigantic animal before me, I know nothing, have researched nothing, and I hate the feeling of stupidity, of not knowing the situation I have put myself into. The cow’s front knees buckle and I grip the dirty plank, watching her pitch to the ground.
MARK
Mater sinks to the dirt, a heavy wheeze coming out of her, and Mark steps back, giving her room, his eyes picking up on all of the details. Her wide eyes, the white of them showing. Her nostrils flaring, the twitch of her legs as she lowers her head to the ground, her hooves swinging in the air for a moment. He remembers when she was born. She’d laid, just like this, covered in blood and mucus, for so long that he thought her dead. Ellen had cried, one hand whipping over her mouth, her long legs shifting back and forth as if she was both anxious and afraid to step forward. He had gathered her to his chest, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, and they had prayed together, asking that the calf would make it. When Mater had twitched, her head lifting, Ellen had cheered, her shoulder rocking against him, her smile big enough to light the whole barn.
“What’s wrong?” Helena’s words are tense and tight, her face lined in worry.
“Nothing.” He relaxes against the wooden railing. “She’s just trying to get comfortable. Her contractions are getting stronger. It won’t be long now.”
“Are you worried?” She hangs on the question, her eyes darting from him to Mater, as if her sanity depends on his response.
“I didn’t fly here for nothing.” He shifts, finding better footing in the dirt. “But it’ll be okay. No matter what. Mater’s had a good life.”
“I need a statistical probability.” Her nails are unpainted, and he watches them dig into the wood, the grip turning her knuckles white. “What chance is there for complications?”
Behind him, Royce chuckles, and the sun casts his shadow as he steps out of the stall and gives them some privacy.
“What difference does it make?” he asks Helena, meeting her dark solemn eyes.
“I’d like to know. I don’t want to be here if—” she gestures to Mater, who picks a terrible time to groan in discomfort.
“It’s okay,” he smiles. “She can’t understand you. If she dies?” he supplies helpfully. “Or if the calf does?”
“Yes.”
He rubs a hand over his chin, feeling the growth of stubble, a week’s worth of missed shaves. “Fifteen percent.” He uses his thumb to scratch the side of his check. “Fifteen percent chance of complications.”
“You flew us here on a fifteen percent chance?” She is irritated and suspicious, stepping away from the railing and crossing her arms in front of her chest. “There’s an eighty-five percent chance that she’s going to birth this baby cow just fine and we came all the way here for nothing?”
He raises an eyebrow at her, trying to understand the source of her agitation. “So… you want there to be a complication?”
“I want the truth.” She points an index finger toward Mater, who—as if on cue—bellows, her head swinging against the ground, her discomfort obvious. “Fifteen percent?!” She spits out the number as if it is ludicrous.
“It’s my wife’s cow.” He steps closer to Helena and lowers his voice. “Ellen used to ride on her back. She fed her tomatoes every harvest. I’d be here if there were a one-percent chance of anything going wrong.”
There is a long moment where Helena doesn’t respond, her eyes studying his as if reading the truth in them. Finally, she nods. “Okay. I just .... me coming here isn’t something I necessarily feel comfortable with. It was a big deal to me.” She finishes the statement with a wary look, as if he has lied or misled her in some way. And he wonders, in the moment before she steps back to the railing, her forearms flattening on the wood, her chin resting against the top of her hands, what happened in her life to make her so suspicious. Maybe she was just born that way. Maggie was that sort of child, one who peppered him with questions, never satisfied with his first response. Helena, even now, with her weight relaxed against the railing, has coiled muscles, an alert air. If he startles her, if he screams BOO, she will take off running. She’ll sprint through that barn and never look back.
I stretch out my legs and examine the toe of my flats, their paisley surface stained around the edges from dirt. I’ll have to throw them away. These jeans too. I shift in the dirt, finding a new spot to sit in, and look toward Mark. Between us, Mater shifts for the gazillionth time. She’s a very loud birther. Lots of wheezes and sighs, plenty of loud collapses onto the ground, then laborious struggles to her feet. The first four or five times, I was worried, my hands clenching into fists, body stiffening, as if I could will her into comfort. After a while, I followed Mark’s lead and relaxed. Mater, which is the dumbest name I’ve ever heard of for a cow, seems to be taking her time. At the moment, she is standing, her head down, her eyes closed.