This Red Rock (5 page)

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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Louise Blaydon

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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Louise Blaydon

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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Louise Blaydon

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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Louise Blaydon

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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Louise Blaydon

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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Louise Blaydon

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!”