by Janet Dailey
“I’ll wait.” But not because he was ordering it. “The doctor feels it would be unwise in this stage of Culley’s treatment for him to learn that I’m going to have your baby. And it’s a fact I can’t easily hide.” The last was a weak attempt at a joke, but the hand she placed on her stomach was protective rather than a gesture designed to draw attention to her condition. It was Culley’s sick, unreasoning hatred of anything associated with a Calder that had driven him over the edge.
Chase fingered the envelope bearing the return address of the institution, but he didn’t remove the letter. “What did Culley have to say in his note?”
“He was concerned about his ranch and how the livestock had fared through the winter.” Her brother believed Maggie was managing the small O’Rourke family ranch that bordered a part of the Triple C Ranch on the north. It hadn’t been deemed wise to inform him it was being worked by Triple C riders.
A noncommittal sound came from his throat, acknowledging her reply, as Chase replaced the envelope on the table and finished undressing. Maggie shifted so he could use half the pillows when he slipped naked into the bed. But Chase wasn’t satisfied with that. He curved an arm beneath her and gathered her close to his side. The heat from his body flooded down her length, making her feel all toasty and warm.
“How are you feeling?” His head moved closer to hers as Chase nuzzled the silky black curls near her temple.
“Pregnant.” Maggie turned her head on the pillow to gaze at him, her lip corners curved inward with a hint of a smile.
His hand moved familiarly over her swollen stomach, thinly covered by her ivory silk nightgown. A marveling light darkened his eyes with pleasure when Chase felt a slight movement. “Our child is going to be an active character.”
Maggie’s expression grew serious. “If it’s a girl, I’d like to name her Cathleen, after my aunt.”
“Cathleen Calder.” He tested it out, then faintly nodded his approval. “I like it.”
“Good.” She sighed contentedly, a smile widening her mouth.
“Poor Ty pulled the night shift at the calving sheds,” Chase murmured while his gaze traveled over the heavy fullness of her breasts pushing against the lace-trimmed bodice of her gown.
“It must be freezing outside.” She suppressed a shudder and snuggled closer to the solid warmth of his long, muscled body.
A little groan came from him. “I love you, Maggie,” he muttered thickly and leaned over to hungrily cover her mouth with a needing kiss.
The lonely cry of a coyote drifted on the cold midnight air. Outside the calving sheds, the sky was a mass of brittle ice stars that seemed to touch the frozen Montana plains. A polar wind prowled around the buildings tucked in a pocket of the heaving land, driving the freezing temperature even lower.
Numbed by the brutal cold, Ty hunkered deeper into his coat and buried his chin and mouth in the sheepskin collar, using it to warm the air he breathed. There was hardly any sensation in his legs, making it awkward to walk, but he had to keep moving to keep the circulation going. The cold was making his nose run. He kept sniffing to clear it, breathing most of the time through his mouth. His arms were crossed in front of him, his gloved hands tucked under his armpits for extra protection.
The bare light bulbs, strung the length of the calving shed, were coated with dust that muted the glare of their bald light. Straw rustled under the hooves of the restless animals. The odd lowing of the confined cows was interspersed with the occasional muffled swearing of some cowboy.
Ty glanced again at the heifer in labor. Stumpy Niles had left him to keep a vigil on the young cow while he went to assist one of the other cowboys, whose cow was rejecting her newborn calf. When Ty had come on duty at the outset of the night shift, Stumpy had taken him under his wing and stayed at his side through each calving, giving him instructions and advice. All of the births had gone smoothly, the cows requiring little assistance from Ty.
There hadn’t been much razzing, mainly due to Stumpy’s presence. As the night crew had come on duty to take over from the day shift, two of the cowboys Ty had met during the fall roundup gave him a hard time, asking him whether he knew which hole the calf came out of and warning him against poking around the wrong one. Ty had done his best to ignore them.
Ty ran a glance down the calving shed, but there was no sign of Stumpy returning, and he looked back at the heifer. Her labor was well advanced; she was fully dilated, but nothing was happening. The large brown eyes were rolling, showing rings of white around them. Ty began to get the uneasy feeling that something was going wrong.
Jiggling his weight from one foot to the other, he tried to generate some warmth. It felt as if his ears were going to fall off despite the wool knit scarf that covered them. He’d never been so cold in all his life as he moved closer to the heifer and crouched down beside her tail.
“What’s holding back your calf, little momma?” The words of concern were stiffly murmured, his facial muscles too numb with the cold to let his mouth properly form the words.
“Is she in trouble?”
Ty looked up to see a red-cheeked Jessy Niles, layered in warm clothing that gave a slight waddle to her walk. She didn’t wait for an answer as she came over to stand beside Ty, bending in the middle to get a closer view of the situation.
Earlier in the evening, he’d noticed her around the calving shed, but he hadn’t seen her for a while. Ty didn’t like the idea of some ten-year-old kid looking over his shoulder, especially when he didn’t know for sure what he was doing.
“What are you doing out here? It’s past your bedtime, isn’t it?” he muttered.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I got up.” The shrugging movement of her shoulders was barely noticeable under the heavy jacket she was wearing. “The calf should be coming any minute now.”
That was what Ty had thought several minutes ago, but so far there wasn’t a sign of it. The cow was in some kind of difficulty. The beginnings of a nervous sweat started to chill his skin. Then he saw something and relief shivered through him.
“Here it comes,” he announced as a contraction expelled another inch of the dark, sac-enclosed object.
A second later, his hope sank to the pit of his stomach. Instead of a miniature pair of cloven hooves emerging, it was the calf’s white-faced head. His hands curled into fists.
“You’d better get your dad,” he told the girl. “Tell him to come quick. The calf’s coming head first.”
Jessy Niles needed no second urging as she sped away to locate her father and advise him of the situation. Ty spent agonizing minutes waiting for help to come, fully aware the opening wasn’t large enough to permit passage of the calf’s chest and front legs. The natural calving order was front feet first; then came the head of the fetus.
When Jessy came running back, out of breath from the cold, he looked up anxiously. She stopped beside him, shaking her head while trying to summon her voice. She sank to her knees on the straw floor.
“He can’t come,” she panted, and a shaft of fear went through him. “He said . . . you’ll have to handle it.”
“Me?” Ty looked back at the cow, feeling helpless.
It took Jessy only a second to realize he didn’t know what to do. Instantly she took charge. She’d been told that she’d seen her first animal born when she was four years old. Since then, she’d spent a large part of every calving season in the sheds. She had observed nearly every calving situation imaginable and had recently taken part in her share of them.
“First you have to push the head back through the birthing channel between contractions. Better hurry up and get your coat and gloves off,” she advised him.
Only for a minute did Ty hesitate. The calm authority in her voice was reminiscent of her father’s. His numbed fingers worked hurriedly to unfasten the buttons while he shrugged out of the bulky coat. There was too much on his mind, the situation too urgent to pay any attention to the frigid air as he pushed the sleeve of his sweat shirt past his elbow and rolled th
e wool sleeve of his shirt just as high.
With Jessy hovering close by and giving him instructions, Ty managed to maneuver the calf fetus back inside the cow’s womb, then groped around to find the front legs and shift it into the normal birthing position. All the while, he was scared to the marrow of his bones. His heart was hammering in his throat. He felt weak and shaky, his stomach churning with sickening intensity. A nervous sweat had broken out, chilling his skin.
At regular intervals, muscular contractions clamped down on his arm, squeezing it hard and sometimes forcing him to wait until the pressure eased. But the contractions grew steadily weaker. By the time he had the calf coming the right way out of the birthing channel, the young cow was too exhausted from her prolonged labor to help him.
His breath was coming in grunting gasps as Ty strained muscles already quivering from the high tension and alternately pulled and rested, pulled and rested. The front feet and head emerged, then the chest and shoulders.
“Hurry,” Jessy urged with an anxiety in her voice that Ty didn’t understand.
The next thing he knew, she was crowding beside him and grabbing at the calf to help him pull it the rest of the way. When it was lying on the straw, Ty sagged back on his heels, taking a second to gather his shattered nerves. But Jessy didn’t pause. She began wiping the mucuslike membrane sac away from the calf’s nostrils.
“Don’t just sit there!” Impatience flashed in her hazel eyes. “The cord’s wrapped around its neck.”
After the ordeal he’d just been through, he just couldn’t bear to lose the calf.
Ty shouldered her out of the way and lifted the calf’s head to carefully unwrap the umbilical cord that had become twisted around its neck. Bending over the wet and curly white face, he blew into its nostrils the way he’d once seen a groom do with a newly born foal to clear its air passages.
“When you were trying to turn the calf inside the cow, was there any movement?” Jessy had grabbed a rag and was briskly rubbing the rest of the calf’s body to stimulate circulation.
“I don’t remember.” Ty felt for a heartbeat, trying to recall if the calf had done any kicking.
“It’s dead, isn’t it?” she concluded matter-of-factly and ceased her efforts.
He ground his teeth together, not wanting to admit the calf was stillborn. He felt he was to blame. If he’d known more, maybe the calf could have been saved. Dejected, he lowered his head.
“Here.” Jessy pushed a rag at him. “You’d better wipe that slime off your arm.”
Her prompting made him aware of the clammy numbness of his bare arm, the cold congealing the wetness on his skin. Soon it would freeze. Taking the rag, Ty scrubbed his arm until his nerve ends tingled in protest; then he pushed down his sleeves and reached for the heavy coat to combat the miserable cold that was finally making itself felt.
“At least the heifer is going to be all right,” the young girl offered consolingly.
Ty’s eyes were dark and troubled with guilt when he met her gaze. He looked at the rusty-red-coated calf with its spanking white face and legs, motionless in death. It was small comfort to know he could have lost its mother, too.
A bitter laugh welled in his throat as he realized he didn’t even know what the hell to do with a dead calf. The ground was too frozen to bury it. Maybe he was supposed to throw it outside for the coyotes to feast on.
“You look cold.” Jessy observed the whiteness where the skin was stretched tautly over the high bones of his cheeks and jawline, and the wildness in his eyes. “Maybe you’d better get some coffee from the thermos by the door. It’ll probably be a while before the afterbirth is passed. If you want to go get a cup, I’ll stay here.”
“No.” His teeth were starting to chatter, but Ty was determined not to leave until the job was finished. Stumpy had told him to handle it, and he wasn’t going to earn a black mark against him by abandoning the job before it was done. But it sure as hell was obvious the girl could handle it better than he could.
“Hey, kid!” a voice called out in advance of the approaching tread of boots scuffling through the straw. Ty pushed to his feet, his shoulders and back stiffening when he recognized Sid Ramsey, one of the cowboys who were always giving him grief. “Stumpy said you needed some help.”
“Not anymore,” replied Ty.
The cowboy grinned, the breath coming out of his mouth like smoke into the frigid air, yet he seemed oblivious to the cold as he sauntered over. “Did you finally figure out which hole the calf comes out of?”
“The calf’s dead,” he replied tersely. “It was strangled.”
“You aren’t supposed to choke it to death when you’re pulling it out, kid,” the cowboy joked as he drew close enough to view the dead calf in the straw.
“The cord was wrapped around its neck,” Ty informed him, defensive and angry.
“At least you furnished us with some more coyote bait, so I guess you’re good for something.” Turning aside, the cowboy spat tobacco juice into the straw and wiped his mouth with the back of a gloved hand, eyeing Ty with a taunting look.
“You got no call to say a thing like that, Sid Ramsey!” Jessy shot the stern reprimand at the cowboy. She’d been around enough of the men to know that their sense of humor sometimes ran on the cruel side. In her opinion, he was unfairly picking on Ty Calder, and it went against her nature to remain silent.
Being defended by a pigtailed girl who hadn’t even reached puberty was the final straw for Ty. “Stay out of this, Jessy!” he snapped harshly.
“Well, well,” the cowboy mocked. “The dude’s got a temper.”
Blood was running hotly through his veins. If he didn’t get out of there, Ty felt, he’d explode. “Just shut up, Ramsey,” he muttered through his teeth and took a long stride to leave the area.
“Hey, not so fast.” The cowboy moved into his path to stop him. “Where are you going?”
“It’s none of your business, so just get out of my way.” Even though the cowboy had ten years on him, Ty had the advantage of size and weight, regardless of how much he lacked in experience.
Without any hesitation, he slammed both hands into the cowboy’s shoulders and pushed him backwards into one of the center supporting posts of the shed’s roof. His aggression took the cowboy by surprise. Ty let the forward momentum carry him past the cowboy toward the distant door, paying scant attention to the surprised and bewildered cowboy when he pushed off the post.
“What’d I ever do to you?” the cowboy demanded in confused anger. “Hell, I was just funnin’.”
Ty stopped and swung around. “Your fun ain’t funny to me, so just lay off.”
“What am I supposed to do?” he challenged with a trace of offended belligerence.
“All I want you to do is quit hassling me and leave me alone.” A rawness edged the rumbling of his voice. “Just leave me alone.”
Ramsey studied him with narrowed eyes but made no response. Ty swung away, that brief flare of anger burning itself out by the time he reached the end of the shed. Cold, tired, miserable, and plagued by feelings of guilt and inadequacy, he walked blindly to the coffee thermos and filled one of the mugs sitting beside it. He didn’t really want the potent black coffee, but it gave him an excuse for being there.
Straw bales were lined against a wall. Ty slumped onto one of them and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and spreading his knees to let the coffee mug dangle between them, both hands wrapped around it. There was a tightness in his throat, a threat of tears stinging his eyes. His teeth were bared with the effort of holding back all the anguish he was feeling.
Nothing had turned out the way he thought it would when he ran away from his California home almost a year ago and hitchhiked across half the country to find the man whose name was listed in the family Bible as his father. At first, everything had seemed so perfect. His parents had even gone back together again, marrying and making the three of them a whole family. He idolized his father and wanted to b
e just like him, but he couldn’t seem to fit in. Living on a ranch the size of the Triple C, the son of the owner, how could he have wished for more than that? But he didn’t belong. Nobody cared about the ribbons he’d won at horse shows in California; nothing he’d accomplished meant anything here. More than anything else, he wanted to be accepted.
Yet it didn’t seem to matter what he did or how hard he tried, it always turned out wrong. He’d botched the calving and calf had died. On top of that, he’d alienated Ramsey. It all seemed so hopeless to him.
He heard footsteps coming his way and stole a look from under his hat brim. It was Stumpy. Ty tipped his head down again and braced himself for the quiet condemnation, the tactic used by the ranch veterans which was more devastating than being shouted at and berated for being a fool.
“There’s nothing like a hot cup of coffee on a cold night like this,” Stumpy declared above the sound of liquid being poured into a container.
After looking at his own cup, Ty straightened and took a sip of the strong brew. Its bitterness made him shudder.
“The taste grows on ya.” There was a smile in Stumpy’s voice.
“The calf’s dead,” Ty announced flatly .
“It happens. You always want all of them to live, but you always lose a couple.” Stumpy continued to stand by the thermos.
“It came head first, and I didn’t know what to do,” Ty admitted and continued to stare at the coffee in his cup. “If it hadn’t been for your daughter—Hell, a ten-year-old knows more than I do.”
“She’s been around it a lot longer than you have,” Stumpy reminded him.
“It’s no use.” His shoulders slouched with defeat as he finally lifted his gaze to his new mentor. There was a brightness in his eyes that were so darkly brown. “I might as well give up. I’m never going to be able to cut it.”
The gentle understanding went out of Stumpy’s expression as it became hard and angry. “Don’t ever say that!” he snapped in a low voice. “It’s been rough on you. But if you quit now, you’ll always be sorry. You’ve got to stick it out if it kills you.”