by T M Morris
It amazed him how much he remembered and how little changed in the Caldwell home. He opened one of the bags and started tossing in snack food and canned drinks. He grabbed a few bottles of water also. Setting the sack by the back door he took the other upstairs to Lilly’s bedroom and set it on the bed. Turning, he walked across the hall and into the extra bedroom and opened the closet door. Lilly was right. The sleeping bags were sitting on the top shelf just waiting for an opportunity to be used.
Out in the hall, Devon tossed them down the stairs. They landed with a soft bounce. Belatedly he thought about the possibility of them unrolling and was thankful they remained intact. He returned to Lilly’s bedroom.
Like the rest of the house, it was the same as it had been when they were growing up. He remembered standing just outside the door and looking in at a sweet thirteen-year-old that lay across the foot of her bed on her stomach reading. She had looked up and smiled at him. That was the day he lost his heart to her. Did she even know she held that fragile thing in her hand? He shook his head as he muttered, “Get a grip, Dusty. She’s out there freezing her behind off while you stand here reminiscing about the day you fell head over heels for her.”
He looked around the room before walking over to her dresser and opened up a drawer. “She said she got soaked with amniotic fluid and goo, so she’ll need dry clothes. Socks. Check. Underwear? Do you suppose she needs dry underwear? She calls this underwear?”
Dusty pulled a thong out of a jumble of pieces of material that stuffed the drawer. He felt a twisting in his gut and a rush of blood to his groin. He shoved them back into the drawer and fished around for a more conservative pair. “Good Lord, this woman is going to be my undoing.”
He dropped the socks and panties into the sack and began searching for some other warmer garments. He found leggings, thermal underwear, a thermal undershirt, a long sleeved t-shirt, and a sweater. He kept looking for more things he thought Lilly might need and after some great effort and checking of sizes he found her largest pair of jeans. If she put on both the leggings and the long johns she’d need as much room as possible otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to sit down, and none of her jeans were that big.
Dusty rummaged through the sack to double check that he had everything she may need and at the last second he tossed in an extra pair of socks. Switching off the light, he bounded down the stairs. In one motion he scooped up both of the sleeping bags and turned toward the kitchen. He scooped up the sack of food and opened the door. In no time he had everything in the cab of his heavy duty work truck and was back to the kitchen filling a thermos with hot coffee. For good measure, he poured in cream and sugar. He turned out the light and locked the door. Just before it closed completely, Dusty decided it would be a good idea to leave on the kitchen light. He reached in and turned on both the kitchen light and the back porch light. Slamming the door behind him, he was off down the road to the barn.
Not wanting to spook any of the other pregnant cows he drove slowly over the field. Having one delivery in this bone crushingly cold was more than enough. The temperature had dropped to below freezing once the sun had set. Lilly was probably suffering from hypothermia by now. With those wet clothes on she may already be a Lilly-cicle.
He came up to the crest of a hill and could see the glow of her fire down in the cleft between the hill he was on and the next. He pointed his vehicle in that direction. The radio news announcer declared the outside temperature to be a balmy negative fifteen degrees with a wind chill of minus forty. He had to get his girl and Otter’s stupid cow up and out of the cold, hopefully into the barn. At least the barn was heated.
Dusty pulled to a stop with his headlights shining on Lilly who was dancing around the fire. When he stopped to study it, Lilly was doing jumping jacks alternating facing toward the fire and away from it.
Lilly stopped her crazy dance around the fire when Dusty pulled up and stopped with his headlights blinding her. She shielded her eyes and stepped around the fire to meet him by the truck so she could help him unload. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. I could kiss you. I’m about dry but not all the way and I can’t stand the thought of wearing afterbirth any longer.” She grimaced.
Dusty smiled and handed her the sack of clothing he had gathered for her. “Here you go. I tried to think of everything you might need. You didn’t say just how soaked you were so I brought at least one of everything.”
Taking the bag, she returned his smile. She bounced up on her toes and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thank you, Dusty.”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Let’s get this business of setting up camp done then we can talk all we want while we try to get this cow back on her feet, okay?”
She nodded happily. “What do you want me to do?”
They set about making a shelter out of tarps large enough for the cow and themselves. They arranged it so that Bessie was at the back of the room and the fire was at its entrance. They covered it with another tarp and tied it down. The wind was biting through Dusty’s clothes and he knew Lilly had to be miserable even though she said nothing. Her focus was on Bessie.
Dusty straightened and stretched his stiffening back. “Lilly, go in there and change. Take these sleeping bags and roll one out, so you have something to sit on while you change. I won’t look. But you need to get out of those wet clothes.”
Lilly didn’t argue. Shivering she took the sleeping bags and her sack of fresh clothing and slipped into their makeshift stable. She fumbled with her buttons, zippers, and laces with her numb fingers but she was able to change out of her nearly frozen wet clothes and into her cold, dry ones. She came out and sat by the fire wrapped in one of the sleeping bags. “I feel so much better. Maybe, now I can get warm.”
“Sit here while I check on Bessie and see if I can give her something to help her. We need to get her standing.” He disappeared through the gap in the tarp.
Lilly sat on a rock, wrapped in the sleeping bag by the fire. She bounced her knees up and down to keep moving and blood flowing than out of anxiety. She yawned. She couldn’t go to sleep. Not now. Once everything was taken care of with Bessie, she would sleep. She yawned again.
Dusty came out of the shelter he found Lilly slumped over asleep by the fire. He went over to her and woke her up. “Come on, Lilly. You need to stay awake.”
“I’m trying. I’m just beyond tired.”
“Here. Hold on. I’ll be right back.” Dusty disappeared for what seemed like an eternity. Lilly was almost back to sleep when he reappeared. He carried the other sleeping bag and the bag of food. Sitting the bag of food by her feet and the bedroll next to it he went to his truck and came back with a thick woolen blanket that had a plastic liner on one side. He spread it, plastic side down, on the ground. He unrolled the other sleeping bag and putting it around his shoulders he sat down on the blanket. “Come here.”
Lilly stood from where she was sitting on her rock and went to sit on the blanket next to him. “Here,” he said, “let’s cover our legs with your sleeping bag, and we can cover our shoulders with mine. How’s that sound?”
She nodded as she pulled the bag from around her and spread it over their legs and he draped the other over their shoulders. “This should help keep us warm. You are about frozen. I have half a mind to take you back to the house and just come out and check on her every couple of hours.”
With her teeth chattering, she said, “We can’t do that. I need to help her.”
“You about let yourself freeze to death for this cow.” He wrapped his arms around her under the cover and squeezed, hoping some of his heat would seep into her. “I guess it could have been worse. You could have frozen to death out here while fooling with her before I got here.”
“I couldn’t leave her. I couldn’t imagine being left to die like that.”
“Well, thanks to you she didn’t, even though she lost her calf.”
“Do you think she’ll recover fully?” Her concern for this one
cow amazed him.
“She ought to recover just fine. Why are you so concerned about this one cow?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s special, okay?”
“She’s just a cow.”
“She’s not just a cow. She’s one of God’s creatures, and I was here to help her. I didn’t even intend to do more than a head count just before dark. I was only going to dump out hay for the calves, break the ice off the troughs by the barns and turn on the circulators so they wouldn’t freeze back over. I had no intention of doing more than a head count, but…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. I came up one short. I counted twice. Then I was filled with this overwhelming need to do a more thorough check than I have been making on the maternity ward. Then—”
“The ‘maternity ward’?”
She nodded. “They’re all pregnant. It’s what I call them. Anyway, that’s when I found her. I haven’t heard anything from Dad since I left town earlier. I still don’t know when they plan to release him and it didn’t matter. I only had one objective—help this cow.”
“You should have called me sooner. I would have come here instead of Ambruster’s.”
“I called you as soon as I found her.” She muttered.
Dusty chaffed her arms under the sleeping bag trying to help her warm up faster. “Whatever. Right now I need you to get warmed up. Do you have any idea how cold it is out here.”
“It’s around zero, I guess. I didn’t feel the cold until after I stopped moving around. You think I’m crazy for being out here, tending to a cow.”
“It’s closer to minus twenty, and I don’t think you’re crazy. It’s just—” Dusty stopped as if to search for the right words.
“It’s just, what? It’s because I’m a girl and girls can’t handle this kind of thing?”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it like that exactly—“
“Oh, yeah? How would you put it?”
“Beautiful women shouldn’t have to work so hard.” He blurted.
She blinked several times, stunned. “You think I’m beautiful?” She tried not to shiver under the sleeping bags.
Dusty turned his head to face the fire. “Always have.” He muttered as he fumbled with opening the coffee thermos. He knew he really should get out from under the sleeping bag, but it was too cold.
“You never said anything.”
“I never wanted to go against Erik.”
She shook her head trying to understand. “What? What does my brother have to do with it?”
“Erik made it plain to me and every other guy in school, when you were just starting to realize you’re a girl, you were off limits to guys like us. He said you were destined for someone better than me.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
He looked at her bewildered. “What?”
“Come on, Dusty. Erik’s not the determiner of my destiny, nor my happiness, and he sure as the world isn’t yours. He’s somewhere on the other side of the world doing who knows what and you still haven’t said anything. Why not?”
“You’re a successful model. You’re not going to stay here when Miss Addie is better. You were made for bigger, better things than Rebel Creek. And you don’t need a country vet mucking about in your life.”
“Did you ever stop to wonder why I’ve never dated anyone for long or found my way into the tabloids?”
He shrugged. “You’re a good kid?”
She jabbed an elbow into his ribs as hard as she could within the confines of the cocoon they’d made for themselves. “Yeah. That’s it. I’m a good girl. I’m twenty-six years old, Dusty. I am not a kid, and my brother has no say in who is right for me. You said you think I’m beautiful, but you don’t even try to—to do anything about it.” Lilly knew she might have pushed him too far. At this point, she didn’t care. Right now, any reaction from him would be appreciated. It would at least prove he was alive.
He was still staring into the fire refusing to look at her. “You’re going to go back to New York when your mom is better, and your dad is cleared to resume all activity. You don’t need any entanglements holding you back.”
“Give me a reason to stay.” Lilly sat there waiting for something. Her eyes began to sting, and her vision was blurring. Dang it all, she would not cry in front of this blockhead of a man. She scrambled out from the tangle of the sleeping bags. “I’m checking on Bessie.”
Dusty sat there exposed to the cold, with the covers scattered about, for several heartbeats. Did she just invite him into her life? It sounded like it. The question was whether he could reconcile Erik’s wishes with his desires. But Lilly said she wanted him to give her a reason to stay.
He found her trying to urge the cow to stand. Watching her as she tried to push it and cajole it to stand, he sighed heavily. She belonged here, not in New York City. She belonged with him, to him, forever. It was a certainty he couldn’t escape if he wanted. He didn’t want to, and he didn’t want Lilly to leave again. He was whole when he was with her. He was tired of living his life half alive.
There were a few things, however, Dusty needed to do first to make Lilly’s life with him as blissful as he knew it should be. He watched her sit back on her heels and look up at him with sadness in her eyes. He handed her one of the cups of coffee he carried. “Let me make this clear, do you seriously want me in your life?” He gulped a sip of his coffee to stem the flow of verbal diarrhea he felt bubbling up.
She stared into the mug to keep from meeting his eyes in the dimness. “I’ve wanted you in my life, up close and personal for years. But you never even paid me a second’s notice.”
He coughed. “Oh, I noticed you, but like I said, I have too much respect for your brother to go against him. That and I didn’t want to find out if he was serious about the ‘killing the guy who looked at you twice’ threat.”
Lilly snorted in disgust. She stood and stormed out of the makeshift shelter. Turning back, she said, “Dusty, it’s starting to sleet.”
Surprised, Dusty strode out of the makeshift shelter and sure enough freezing rain was coming down hard and fast. “We’re gonna have to get Bessie to the barn. We’ll all freeze to death if we don’t. Let’s get moving. I’ll have to rig up a makeshift sling or something. If I can get her into the truck bed, we can get her to the barn. Where’s your horse?” He began to take down their shelter.
Lilly ran to where she’d tied Tank and loosened the reins from the branch with stiff fingers. “Come on, Tank. We’ve got work to do.”
When she led Tank to where the enclosure had been Dusty had one of the tarps folded into a type of heavy duty sling and was threading a nylon rope through the grommet holes. He looked up. “Thank goodness you have a workhorse. I was afraid you might have ridden your little palomino. My plan for what we’re going to do is,” he stood up and walked over to the ailing cow. “We’re going to work this under her and then throw the ropes over that limb. Then I’m going to back my truck up as close as I can—”
“We’re going to use Tank to pull her up high enough for you to get her into the bed?”
“That’s the idea. Hopefully, we can move good old Bessie here into a stall in the barn without too much trouble.”
“We ought to be. It’s wide enough for two trucks to drive through it side by side.”
Dusty nodded. “Let’s get this done before we all freeze to death.”
They struggled for a good twenty minutes to work the impromptu sling under Bessie. She moaned and complained the whole time. Once she settled into it to his satisfaction, Dusty backed his truck as close as he could. He killed the engine and hopped out. “Tank, you’re on, buddy.”
Lilly led Tank over. He sniffed the cow and whinnied while Dusty slung the ropes over the branch and tied them to the pommel on the horse’s saddle. “Lilly, I need you to guide Tank. I’ll tell you when to stop and keep him holding the rope tight.”
She nodded and began to lead Tank away from the truck. “Come
on Tank. Show me how big and strong you are.” It didn’t take long for Tank to raise Bessie up from the ground and hold her there. Lilly continued to encourage him when he began to strain against the weight of his burden and calming him when he heard the truck come to life.
Dusty hurried to arrange the truck in the right position. He jumped out and climbed into the bed. “Okay. Now slowly let Tank back up. Slowly, slow, slow, okay that’s good. Let’s pack up and head for the barn.”
Lilly nodded. “I’ll put out the fire and pack up everything and throw it in the cab. I’m going to rig the sleeping bags to cover Tank and me for our ride back to the barn.”
“You can ride in the truck.”
“That’s okay. We’ll meet you in the barn.” She began to toss the few items they had pulled out back into the sacks and then into the cab while Dusty double checked how Bessie was doing.
She heard Dusty jump from the bed as she finished pouring the remnants their coffee on the fire and began to kick dirt over it. She looked up to find him staring at her. “What?”
“You can ride back with me. It’ll be warmer.”
She shook her head. “I’ll be fine. How else to you propose Tank get back to the barn? You can’t tie him the bumper.”
Sighing, he turned away and strode to the truck. By the time he was in and had the engine roaring to life Lilly had managed to rig the sleeping bags into a reasonable covering for her and the horse. With one last look around to make sure nothing was going to be left behind and the fire was out she gave Tank a nudge. “Let’s go to the barn, Tank.”
In the barn, they had Bessie in a stall with an actual sling holding her up with her hooves barely touching the floor without much trouble Lilly left Dusty to tend to her. She went to Tank’s stall to tend to him. After Lilly sufficiently fussed over Tank, and he enjoying a bucket of hot mash she left him and peeked around the corner of Bessie’s stall.
Dusty was working around the cow’s backside. He was talking softly to her and telling her she was going to be okay. He spotted Lilly as she started to back away. “Hey. You have Tank settled in?”