Toward the Sunrise (8 page)

It was surely the most amazing thing he had ever witnessed. As the only child of parents who had also been only children, Ashton had no siblings, cousins, uncles, or aunts, so he had never been around newborn babies. His mother’s bad lungs meant they had never had a pet or come within an acre of a barnyard.

So he had never seen anything being born or watched a living creature experience the first few moments of life. He’d held his breath while Julia worked over the newborn goat, her expression fierce as she struggled to make that goat breathe. And it did!

Her determination came as no surprise to him. For years he had been reading the thank-you letters she penned to Nickolaas Vandermark, spilling her heart out as she recounted the wonders of anatomy and physiology classes, of visiting the museums and libraries, of her dreams to trek into the Far East as a missionary. A tiny piece of Ashton had fallen in love with the bright, ambitious girl who wrote those letters. Not that he had any real aspirations for her. He loved her the same way he loved reading about Marco Polo. The way he loved a Brahms symphony. With admiration, with awe, with the desperate need to know what was going to happen next.

He always sent back polite letters of acknowledgment, using Nickolaas Vandermark’s autograph stamp, as was the custom for the office correspondence he handled. Mr. Vandermark had no interest in the academic progress of Miss Broeder. He’d never asked to see any of her letters or inquired about her grades. It wasn’t until the royal scolding the other day that he’d learned there was something odd about the Vandermarks’ need to keep the Broeders placated.

All Ashton knew was that he needed to get Julia readmitted to college, or he was probably going to lose his job. And the glory of completing the gutta-percha contracts would be passed to some other attorney who would reap the rewards of what Ashton had sown.

He watched Julia as she raked the soiled hay into the corner and replaced it with fresh.

“Well, this was a bit more of an adventure than I bargained for when I set out from the city this morning,” he said, possibly the understatement of the year. “Now that it is behind us, when can we leave for Philadelphia? The sooner an appeal is mounted, the quicker we can get you back in school.”

Julia didn’t look at him as she cleaned her hands in a bucket of water. She seemed to take extraordinary care as she lathered a nail brush and scrubbed beneath and atop her nails, around the cuticles.

“I don’t want to go to Philadelphia,” she finally said as she swished the brush in a bucket of water then rinsed her hands.

His smile remained tightly in place. “I must not have heard you correctly. Would you repeat that, please?”

She fiddled with a towel. “I’m thinking of veterinary medicine. These last few days have been very fulfilling, and I’ve never given much thought to treating animals before.”

Ashton had difficulty seeing through the haze of red, but he kept it out of his voice. The first technique in the art of negotiation was to never let the opponent know how badly you needed something. His father had retired from his job as an accountant three years ago due to the lucrative income Ashton was earning. He wasn’t going to let the whims of Julia Broeder endanger his career or his family’s financial security.

“It seems to me that medicine is not only more profitable but far more valuable to human happiness,” he said with admirable ease. “Allow me to help you reenroll in medical school. We can have you back in college by next week if we both play our cards right.”

She smiled and shook her head. “All of these goats will be delivering in the coming week,” she said, waving her arm at the herd. “I’ve already committed myself to the job.”

“Can’t someone else do it? What about your brother?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Emil has never been too good with anything that requires a lot of thinking.”

“Then let me hire someone from the city. I can have someone here by tomorrow.”

It was maddening the way she blithely walked to the far end of the barn, cranking the rusty old arm of a water pump to fill a bucket. “I’d rather do it myself. I promised the farmer, and it’s kind of fun, you know?”

He clenched his fists. This girl seemed to enjoy things that were
kind of
fun
, like mingling with firemen she didn’t know very well and squandering a college education to play milkmaid out in a barn.

He mustn’t get angry. He needed to figure out the source of her reluctance, find a solution for it, and then get her on that train to Philadelphia. It was impossible to know what Nickolaas Vandermark’s
reaction would be if Ashton failed to get Julia back into medical school, but he didn’t intend to find out.

“Miss Broeder,” he began in his calmest voice, “you have three years of exceptional grades. When you visited my office last week, you indicated that your actions in Philadelphia were impulsive. I cannot believe you will derail your entire career over that decision. Tell me why you are reluctant to return to Philadelphia, and I will find a solution for it.”

Whatever she needed, he would get it for her. Help delivering the goats, a recommendation from their congressman, a petition signed by every Vandermark in the nation. Whatever she needed . . .

She stood, indecision on her face. She was filthy, her hair spilling out of a sloppy braid, and yet she was oddly attractive to him. This was a girl who literally rolled up her sleeves to tackle whatever job was placed before her, and there was something terribly appealing about that sort of fearlessness.

“I want to deliver these goats,” she said simply. “I gave Mr. Hofstad my word, and I am needed here for at least another week. I won’t be able to sleep if I walk out on that commitment.”

The bleating of a goat caught her attention. “Oh, twins!” she said as she climbed back over the pen to hunch down beside the goat that had just delivered the struggling billy goat minutes ago. Ashton clenched his teeth as he prepared to wait out the delivery of another animal, but things were about to get worse. The goat he had been petting earlier had also flopped to the ground and was kicking.

Julia noticed, and within a moment she had climbed over to the neighboring pen. “This doe has never delivered before, and it is going to be difficult for her. Could you please tend the goat I just left? It will be an easy birth since she just delivered, but she needs help. Please!”

He steeled himself. Hadn’t he just silently vowed he would get whatever she needed? Julia was completely overwhelmed by a herd of goats at the moment and would be useless if he dragged her away from them while her heart was here in this barn. If he was going to persuade her to go to Philadelphia, he needed to meet her halfway.

He swung a leg over the fence as he’d seen her do, pausing at the sight of the ground. It was damp with mud and some other liquid he feared to name. His shoes, made of imported Italian leather and polished to a high shine, cost more than most people earned in a month. He tentatively set a foot down, wincing as he put his weight
on it and felt it slide in the muck. Trying to ignore the squishing noise his shoes made as he crossed the pen, he stood over the struggling doe, ignorant of what to do next.

“Just have a towel on hand and be prepared to catch the kid as he drops out,” Julia called out helpfully.

He grabbed for a towel, clinging to it like a lifeline. He’d rather not get a close-up view of the goat’s exposed hindquarters, but her tail was raised and it was hard to look anywhere else. He should have taken off his coat. He was hot and this was going to be messy, but it was too late now. This was moving a lot faster than the last time.

He squatted down just in time to catch the warm newborn goat as it slipped from the birth canal into his hands. Ashton was too overcome to speak, couldn’t even draw a breath. The newborn was slippery and struggling. Wriggling, bleating, glistening . . . and amazingly alive as it twisted in his hands.

“I did it!” he shouted, scrambling to wipe the mucus from the goat’s already bleating mouth. “I did it!”

“Indeed you did!” came a shout of approval from the neighboring stall.

He set the newborn in the straw and scooted back as the doe licked her newest baby. He didn’t know what to do with his slimy hands, but he held them aloft while he gazed at the new life he’d just delivered. Over the years in his role as an attorney, he had negotiated gifts for restless Tamil natives on their Sri Lankan tea plantations, risked rat bites and drowning to inspect the ports used by Vandermark ships, worked through the night, and lain flat on his belly in the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange. Today he had delivered a goat, and somehow it had been the most gratifying of all.

6

Ashton had vowed he would do whatever it took to get Julia to Philadelphia and back into college, and apparently that meant he was going to help her deliver dozens of baby goats. It was going to be a grubby, uncomfortable week, but if he wanted to keep his job with the Vandermarks, he must meet Julia halfway in order to earn her cooperation.

After delivering his first goat, Ashton shucked his coat and vest, unhooked his watch and chain, rolled up his sleeves, and set to work. There was nothing to be done about his shoes. They were a casualty of the war to get Julia Broeder back into college, but at least these goats would learn to appreciate a man with style as he moved around the barn.

He returned to Dierenpark only long enough to make arrangements for telegrams to be sent to his Manhattan office and to his father. His clerk knew where all the property files were located and could turn them over to a fellow attorney for administration while he was gone. It would cause some grumbling among his colleagues, but everyone was aware of Nickolaas Vandermark’s eccentricities and demands.

One of those demands was a baffling sense of urgency to keep the Broeder family happy. Had a member of the Broeder family been kind to the old man when he’d lived at Dierenpark as a child? Or when a fourteen-year-old Nickolaas found his father dead in the river? It was hard to imagine what kind of trauma such an incident would have caused, but it was bad enough that Nickolaas Vandermark never returned to Dierenpark. Combine that traumatic experience with the mixed blessing of inheriting extreme wealth, and it was bound to cause some eccentricities. In any event, it meant that Ashton’s job was to remain at the goat barn until Julia’s mission was completed, and then get her back into medical school.

Over the next few days, Julia handled most of the birthing work, while Ashton carried water, cleared out soiled hay, and laid down fresh. He brought grain to feed the goats and shoveled dung. About once an hour, he waded into the large pen of pregnant goats, scanning for the signs of impending labor. At first they all looked alike to him,
but Julia taught him to recognize a Nubian from an Alpine from a Toggenburg goat. It didn’t take long to notice their personalities and quirks, as well.

And they were
smart.
One doe always seemed particularly curious, sticking close to him as he made his hourly inspection of the goats. She was a pure white Alpine goat with large eyes and alert ears that wiggled and rotated at every sound. It wasn’t until he left the pen on his third visit that he noticed the Alpine carefully unlatching the gate exactly as he had done. The rascal had been spying on him! The gate was hanging open, and a dozen goats casually wandered into the pasture. It took half an hour to get them rounded back up and latched inside, but within minutes, the white Alpine was unlatching the gate again.

When he confessed what happened to Julia, she moved the Alpine to a different pen with a more complicated latch. “Mr. Hofstad warned me about that,” she said. “Try not to let the goats watch you do anything you don’t want them to emulate. They’ll learn how to operate that water pump if they can get to it.”

“I ought to teach them how to make me breakfast,” Ashton grumbled, but he was secretly impressed with how these curious, gentle goats were starting to grow on him. He was sacrificing a week of his life for these goats, and he might as well learn to enjoy their company.

Mr. Hofstad came by a few times to check on their progress and bring them fresh clothing. The old farmer made sure they had plenty to eat and kept their lanterns topped off with kerosene, but for the most part, Ashton and Julia were on their own for the kidding.