saddle. He took out the hammer first; laid it on the dry
earth, near to the boundary line. Next came the nails, stuffed
into one of those little plastic bags you get at the bank, for
safekeeping, and last of all, the wire.
“Some of those things are hoop-tacks,” he told me, as he
flattened the roll of wiring and began to unfurl it. “I"m sure
you don"t need too much guidance, here; man with a college
education can fix a fence, right?”
I laughed shortly and scratched the back of my head in
some embarrassment. “Well,” I said, “I think I can probably
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29
manage this, yeah. But when the apocalypse comes, or
whatever, I somehow think my college education"s gonna be
a hell of a lot less use than your ranch expertise.”
Oro held up a hand, victorious, grinning. “And you"ve
learned something vital already,” he said, catching my eye so
I"d know there was no malice in it. It wasn"t necessary. There
was no malice in Oro at all. But it was appreciated,
nevertheless.
For another minute, I watched him spreading out the
chicken wire on the ground, his muscles bunching and
stretching as his hands worked nimbly. Then he stood up,
and swung himself back onto Reuben"s back.
“Okay,” he said, “Chicken wire, tacked across the gap.
Then you add the new planks with nails, and tack the wire
to them, as well. Think you can handle that, college boy?”
“
And
find my way home,” I told him, raising my hand in
a salute. “Sir.”
“You need a hat,” he said, mouth twitching, considering.
“I don"t burn,” I assured him, as he turned his horse.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe. I wouldn"t risk it. I"ll see you
in the main yard later?”
“Sure,” I called after him, hand upraised as he rode
away.
As it happened, I saw him a little earlier than that.
I"m not a slow worker, whatever people might expect. I
had the chicken wire tacked up within the hour, and most of
the planks nailed on an hour after that. I"m sure fencing is
the kind of work that can become back-breakingly tedious
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Louise Blaydon
30
after a while, but a couple of hours of it in the early morning
is almost soothing—or it felt like it, after the mucking-out. I
found myself almost, ridiculously,
enjoying
it as the sun
strengthened on my back, pausing to lean back and survey
my work and declare to myself that It Was Good.
That was when I heard the hooves approaching.
At first, quite naturally, I thought it must be Oro.
Then—and I"m almost ashamed to admit this, but it"s true—
when I realized that it
wasn’t
him, I thought something must
have happened to him. As if there could be no other reason
for Oro to have anything better to do than come and see to
me, Frank"s city-boy imposition of a nephew. The sudden
thickness in my throat blocked all rational thought.
The man on this horse was middle-aged and Hispanic,
real Hispanic, mustachioed and slight. I half-ran toward
him, although I remembered myself enough not to crowd the
horse. “Is everything all right?” I called up at him, one hand
over my eyes to shield them from the quickening sun.
“Oro wants you,” said the guy, and then smiled before I
had much of an opportunity to panic. “You"re his go-to guy
for the duration, right?”
“Right,” I said, raising my eyebrow to show I didn"t
exactly follow. “He needs my help?”
“He wants your help,” said the rancher, nodding.
“Saddle up. He"s seeing to one of the cows.”
And then he belted up, tight as the proverbial clam. I
studied him for another bemused moment, before I figured
that the only way to find out anything more would be to see
to things for myself. So—because I knew Frank had an
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31
absolute horror of things being left out indefinitely in the
open—I quickly stowed my tools and things in my saddlebag,
reattached it, and climbed up onto Sasha"s back.
“Okay,” I signaled, when I was ready, “Take me to him.”
When I said I had always been aware of the variability of
ranch work, I wasn"t kidding. I knew that ranchers had as
much to do with the care and upkeep of animals as with
keeping the ranch in good repair, and that this ranged from
herding the cows, to feeding them, to breaking new horses
in. What I had forgotten, though, was that most ranches
don"t have access to veterinarians. Way out in the wilds of
wherever, your local country vet can be pretty hard to find.
This ain"t James Herriott country, and when a cow"s gotta
calve, she can"t wait for you to find her a doctor.
Apparently, on Uncle Frank"s ranch, the cow only had to
wait for Oro.
It"s not every day you pull up outside a barn to find the
man of your dreams elbow-deep in a cow"s genital passage.
By the worn-out expression on Oro"s face, though, it was
quite evident that this
was
kind of a mundane experience for
him. Still, he had a smile for me, although as he said, “I
guess I won"t shake your hand.”
He laughed softly, and withdrew his arm from the cow.
“Breech birth,” he said, with a sigh. “We"re going to have to
help her along. I was just making sure.”
“Breech?”
He nodded. “The calf is upside down. So far, it feels like
there"s one hind leg in the birth canal. That means we have
to get the other leg and the tail in there before we can pull. I
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32
washed my hands and arms in the sink before I started, but
if it"s going to require genuine interference, we"ll need a hell
of a lot more soap and water.” He indicated a bucket on the
far side of the barn. “Do me a favor, Alex? Fill that, and then
bring it back out here; the soap from the sink, too.”
A lesser man, I like to think, might have stopped to ask
questions. Not me. Oro"s voice had taken on its commanding
tone, the one I could tell he reserved for times of crisis, for
keeping the troops under control. As if on autopilot, I
nodded, retrieved the bucket, and headed for the kitchen,
breathing deeply to steady myself as the bucket filled. Oro
and I were going to birth a calf? Really? People trained for
years
to be qualified to do stuff like this. But, I reasoned,
veterinary medicine was kind of new, as these things went,
in the grand scheme of things. Colonial settlers didn"t have
specially trained cow-midwives. Guys in Wild West days
probably did this shit themselves. Besides, it was obvious
that Oro had done this before. As I"d said to Uncle Frank, he
knew what he was talking about.
“Okay,” I called, stepping back into the barn with the
fruits of my labor, “I brought the towel, too. This look good?”
He turned toward me; eyes warm with thanks, hands
outstretched for the bucket. And my
God
, did this look good.
He was shirtless, his skin dull bronze in the pale and
dusty light of the covered barn. The muscles I had so
admired in his forearms, I now saw, continued all the way up
to his shoulders, his broad chest, his stomach. A sheen of
sweat had broken out low on his throat, and under his arms
where he"d raised them toward me. For one hideous moment,
I thought I was about to drop the bucket.
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33
Then he said, “Thanks, Alex. You"re a star,” and half-
submerged himself abruptly in the tepid water.
I watched blankly as he soaped himself, rinsed,
repeated. Then his arm was snaking up again into the cow,
disappearing slow and gentle inside it. For a long time, it
seemed, I watched him fumble, his white teeth catching on
his lower lip as he frowned, feeling for purchase. I felt as if I
should be doing something else—making myself useful—but
he had given me no further instructions, and there was
something captivating about him, immersed in his work like
this, his every breath detectible as his naked chest heaved.
Sweat broke out on his brow in fine beads, the cords in his
neck straining as his arm groped further. Then, just when I
was beginning to feel complications I was no longer sure my
jeans could conceal, he said, “Aha!”
I picked the bucket up again, guiltily, pointlessly. “Aha?”
“Other leg.” He grinned at me, brief flash of teeth. “Had
to push the whole calf forward a little, to make room for it,
you see? Got it now, though. Just—a
little—
more—”
Up to this point, the cow had been beautifully patient,
enduring this assault upon her person with absolute (and
unexpected) bovine grace. Now, though, it seemed, she was
objecting to something. Oro huffed through his nose as her
hind legs shuffled, shushing her gently, soothing. “Come on,
now. It"s okay, baby. I got you.” He looked up at me after a
second, appealing with his eyes. “They don"t like this part,”
he explained, almost apologetically. “The legs are both in the
birth canal, but I"m gonna have to give it a good wiggle to get
the tail and backside in there. Keep her calm for me, would
you? Just, talk to her, tell her it"s gonna be fine, that kind of
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34
thing. Stroke her flank. But watch out for the legs.”
“If she kicks,” I said, warily, “Isn"t she liable to kick you
in the head?”
“If she kicks,” he agreed, with a wry little smile. “Keep
her calm for me, Alex? There"s a good boy.” And then he was
soaping himself again, sluicing water up over his arms, over
the sharp-cut outlines of his shoulders. “Now.”
I can"t say I"m an expert in talking to cows. Actually, it
had never occurred to me to try it. But Oro was depending
on me—
Oro
, the shirtless golden god, apparently fearless, his
arms even now sliding back up to clasp the calf"s hind legs.
Oro trusted me, exactly as I"d trusted him. And that was
enough for me.
“Okay, honey,” I began, stuttering a little at first. “It"s
okay. We"ve got you. You"re gonna be okay.” My hand moved
gently up and over the cow"s flank, stroking the short fur,
calming myself almost as much as her. A glance behind me
showed Oro once again straining at arm"s length. I took a
deep breath, and resumed my gentle touches. “Come on,
baby. Just a little bit more. One more push.”
Everything I knew about any kind of pregnancy, I had
basically learned from
General Hospital
, so God only knows
what Oro thought of me talking to the cow as if she were my
struggling mistress. At the time, though, I could barely even
spare a thought for that. The cow was looking up at me,
wide-eyed and uncertain, and Oro behind was tugging,
urging, moving. I raised my voice, gentling the cow as best as
I knew how. “Come on, baby. That"s it. That"s it.” Her legs
were still, and that was all I could think about. Oro needed a
kick in the head like, well, a kick in the head.
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35
Contrary to popular belief, though, cows aren"t stupid.
This one let me soothe her for a good few minutes, but
there"s a time constraint on everything. I was just beginning
to sense that my time was running out when I heard Oro"s
soft exclamation behind me, followed by a slithering sound,
and the soft
thump
of flesh against earth. The next thing I
heard was a soft, animal gasp; and there was Oro, grinning,
holding the calf before him, dangling it carefully by its hind
legs while it gasped for breath.
“They swallow the uterine fluid,” he explained. “You
have to clear it.” He set the calf down after a second and let
it crawl forward. The mother, quick as mothers always are,
shifted herself enough that she could reach her calf and
commenced licking at its birth-sticky neck. I was still staring
at this, spellbound, when Oro swam into view again, patting
the mother"s nose, rich soft voice saying, “
Good
girl. Who"s a
good girl? You did
so
well.”
I stared at him, wide-eyed and breathless and quiet. I
registered the burning sensation in my cheeks
before
I
realized it was only from grinning too hard. Oro laughed, and
clapped me smack across the shoulder. “One calf!”