Finding Home

by Lois Greiman

  “I know they get cold. That’s why we brought her down here,” Casie said. The tattered blanket spilled to the floor like dusty spiderwebs, making the little bovine face look even more forlorn as it peeked out from the ragged hood.

  Ignoring her irritable tone, Dickenson motioned toward the trailing blanket. “Can you wrap the tail end of that thing around her?” he asked, which prompted Emily to rush forward to bundle the calf up like a misbegotten infant.

  “All right, here we go,” he said, and cradling the calf against his chest, took the stairs two at a time.

  Casie refused to remember how she and Emily had puffed and stumbled in an attempt to get her down there. Damn testosterone. Just when a girl started thinking it was more trouble than it was worth, she needed a little heavy lifting done. “Where do you think you’re going anyway?” she asked and hurried up the stairs behind him.

  “I know you’re unorthodox, Case,” he said, shoving the door open with the toe of his boot and stepping into the darkness outside, “but most farmers keep their livestock in the barn.”

  “Hey there, Ty.”

  Casie jerked as another shadow joined them on the porch. “Tyler?”

  “Hey,” he said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Em said you had an orphan.”

  She turned toward Emily, but the girl was already rushing past her.

  “You sure this’ll work?” Her face looked pale and painfully young in the darkness.

  “Sure?” Colt chuckled. “Heck no, I ain’t sure of nothing but the time of day. Ty, run and get me some twine from the barn, will you?”

  “Already got ’em.”

  “Good man,” Colt said and rapped quickly down the rickety stairs of the porch.

  “Are you sure what will work?” Casie asked, dogging behind, temper simmering.

  “We’re gonna try something a little radical,” he said, heading for his pickup truck. “Open that tailgate, will ya, Ty?” he asked, but Casie had had enough.

  “Wait a minute!” she snapped, and spreading her legs, she stood between him and his vehicle like a snarling rottweiler. “That’s my calf.”

  He stared at her.

  “And that’s my …” She stabbed a thumb toward Ty. “My … twine.” She almost winced at her own words. Was she really becoming possessive of used string? she wondered, but it was too late to back out now. “And you can’t have them.”

  The night went perfectly silent. Even Jack stopped his dancing to flick his gaze from one face to the next.

  “Geez, Head Case, who put a crimp in your tail?”

  She narrowed her eyes a little, ready for battle. “Listen, you half-baked bronc—”

  “He brought the hide,” Ty said, breaking into her tirade.

  “What?”

  “The hide … of the dead calf,” Ty said.

  Casie lowered her brows and sent her glare back toward Colton.

  “You know I took the dead calf home, right? I mean …” He grinned a little. “You didn’t want that one, too, did you?”

  She drew a careful breath, steadying her nerves. “What the h—” She paused, cleared her throat. “What are you talking about?”

  “The dead calf,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d want it lying around here making you all … Well, they can spread diseases and it’s easier on the mama sometimes if you get rid of the body.”

  She nodded and refrained from kicking him in the shins for this new brand of patronizing bullshit.

  “So when Em called and said you had a dead mother, I thought what the hell … heck … it was worth a try to skin the poor thing.”

  She blinked.

  “Grab that hide, will ya, Ty? No use standing around here gabbing,” he said and turned away.

  Casie glanced at the unidentifiable item Ty dragged from the back of the truck. It was about the size of an infant blanket. “You skinned the calf?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Colt said. “Clay must have done this a time or two when he had an orphan.”

  “Done what?” she asked.

  Ty reached around the corner of the barn and switched on the lights.

  “That the mama over there?” Colt asked, nodding to the heifer in the isolation pen.

  Emily nodded.

  “All right, let’s see if we can get this little girl on her trotters,” he said and placed the calf on its feet, blanket dragging. She tottered once, wobbled sideways, and found her balance. “Keep her up, will ya, Em?”

  Emily hurried forward, balancing the calf as best she could.

  “There you go. It might be easiest if you straddle her.”

  She did so while Colt thrust his hand into the front pocket of his jeans and came up empty. “You got a jackknife, Ty?”

  The boy shuffled the silky hide onto his left arm, dug into his own pocket, and handed over a folding knife, which Colt popped open. After spreading the skin out on the dirt floor, he squatted to pierce the pelt in six different locations.

  In a minute he was standing again. “Okay, we ready for this?” he asked.

  Emily and Ty nodded. Casie remained mute. He brightened his grin at her obvious anger and picked up the hide. It looked soft and dry on the outside, but it was already beginning to curl a little, showing the crusty gore underneath.

  “All, right, Em,” he said, “we’re going to have to be able to get at her.”

  Emily backed off the little animal, allowing Colton to fit the rough pelt over the animal’s spine and slip the twine through the holes he’d made. In a minute he had them tied around the animal’s chest, barrel, and haunches.

  The duo by the calf straightened as they all stared at the little knobby-kneed animal, standing forlorn and forsaken in her ghoulish coat.

  “Well, here goes nothin’,” Colt said, and exhaling heavily, urged the calf toward the isolation pen. At the first nudge, the baby nearly fell to her knees, causing Emily to rush forward to steady her. Ty hurried to her opposite side. Together, they herded the animal toward the heifer’s gate and hustled her through. Once inside, she stood stock still, legs spread as if braced against the world.

  “Curly won’t hurt her, will she?” Em whispered.

  Colt shook his head, but it was more a motion of uncertainty than anything else.

  “Let’s let ’em alone for a minute,” he said and backed out. The kids went with him.

  Then they waited, no one breathing. The cow stared wide-eyed and unmoving, not daring to take her gaze from the humans who intruded on her grief. Nothing else happened.

  “Come on, cow,” Colton crooned.

  “Curly,” Em whispered. “We call her Curly.”

  Colt canted his head in concession. The heifer switched her tail and swung her head nervously toward the big door at the end of the barn as if longing to escape.

  That’s when the calf took one tottering step forward before toppling onto her side like a broken toy.

  Curly snapped her attention to the felled baby, ears sweeping forward, eyes gleaming with sudden interest.

  “Thata girl,” Colt murmured.

  “Come on.” Emily’s plea was barely audible, just a frosty breath of hope in the still air.

  Curly shuffled nervously sideways, but her attention remained riveted on the calf.

  “Maybe we’d better back off a little,” Colt said. They all retreated slowly, easing back against a small stack of straw bales piled against the wall.

  Then the wait began in earnest.

  Fifteen minutes later, all four humans were huddled up in the straw, their backs against the bales, their eyes rarely straying from the pair in the pen.

  It was a slow, breathtaking dance to watch. The cow would move forward tentatively, then flick her ears and back away. The calf remained as she was, her rough coat bunching over her withers and buckling at her flanks.

  But finally the cow was near enough to touch the rough hide with her nose. A low rumble issued from her throat. She sniffed the small creature’s bac
k, tried a tentative lick, then moved to the orphan’s head to give it a swipe with her sandpaper tongue.

  And suddenly it was as if a switch had been flipped. The calf stumbled clumsily to her feet, and the cow, jittery with excitement, flicked her ears forward but stood absolutely still as the baby tottered up to her.

  Unsteady but determined, the newborn staggered toward the mother, nearly fell, righted herself, then thrust her head under the cow’s belly. The older animal twitched but turned her head and licked the baby’s borrowed coat.

  It seemed like a breathless eternity before the calf found her way. But finally, knobby knees splayed, she nursed noisily as the cow rumbled a greeting filled with hope and budding adoration.

  “That’s amazing,” Emily said and glanced at Colton with a shyness she rarely exhibited. Her voice sounded strained.

  He shrugged, shoulders wide beneath the popped-up collar of his canvas jacket. “Sometimes it works.”

  And sometimes there was magic, Casie thought, and watched the bovine pair bond before her very eyes. It was an earthy sort of magic. A magic as old as the earth beneath their feet, but magic nevertheless.

  Minutes drew softly away. The calf, sated finally, flopped bonelessly onto the straw, and the cow, exhausted by grief and overwhelmed by happiness, licked her back, then settled down beside her. The picture was almost painful in its odd perfection. The cow, so recently terrified and sorrowful, the calf, dejected and alone, side by side now, content.

  “Pretty, huh?” Colt said.

  Casie sensed him watching her and managed a nod, but her throat was too tight to speak.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure. Of course.” She rose abruptly to her feet, brushing the straw off her backside as she did so. “It’s not like …” She meant to dismiss him, to leave, but her eyes stung and her emotions felt tangled. Her gaze met his.

  “Thank you,” Emily said, righting the situation with her obvious gratitude and making Casie feel even cheaper by comparison. “You were awesome.” She glanced toward Casie. “Wasn’t he amazing?”

  “Like a superhero.” Casie meant to make the words sound sarcastic, but somehow she missed the mark. Her tone was strangely husky, a little weepy, kind of broken. What was that about? It could probably be explained away by fatigue, but if she burst into tears, she fully intended to jump off the roof come dawn.

  He looked surprised for a second, then laughed. “If only I had a nice cape,” he said.

  “Or a good pair of tights,” Emily added.

  Somewhere toward the back of the barn a cow lowed quietly.

  “Right about now I’d settle for a cup of black coffee, though,” Colt said.

  Casie blinked stupidly, but Emily was already jumping into the fray. “I’ll brew some up fresh. It’s the least we can do, right, Case?”

  “Umm …” She glanced toward the distant pastures, almost wishing she could escape there. “Sure,” she said finally and let the wolf into the henhouse once again.

  CHAPTER 14

  The kitchen was warm, the rich smell of coffee almost palpable, but it was the scent of Emily’s fresh-baked strudel that tantalized the senses and fired up the imagination. She’d found apples cored and sliced in the freezer a few days prior and had concocted this particular brand of ambrosia on the previous evening. The smell of cinnamon wafted through the ancient kitchen like some sort of white-hot magic. Emily frosted the strudel while Casie refreshed everyone’s cups.

  Colt leaned back against the wooden rungs of his chair, one stocking foot crossed over his opposite knee. Even Ty looked relaxed, eyes shining above a chipped mug as the conversation meandered from livestock to weather.

  “We’re lucky it’s not any colder,” Colt said. “Or that little heifer would have been a goner. Good job finding her when you did, Em.”

  “I should have brought her straight into the house.” Near the cracked and discolored porcelain sink, kitchen tools stuck out of a ceramic pitcher like the quills of a porcupine. Emily snatched a spatula from the mess, hooked out a pair of strudel, and eased them onto two mismatched plates. “I’ll know better next time. And maybe you can teach me how to …” She winced. A glob of tantalizing frosting dripped onto the Formica. “… how you saved that calf. So I can take care of things myself if we have … you know … more problems in the future.”

  Casie stared at her. The girl was talking about skinning a dead calf, about stripping the hide from the corpse and attaching it to another. The girl who didn’t squash bugs and couldn’t quite seem to get up enough nerve to get within thirty feet of the most docile of horses. Casie retrieved her own coffee mug and watched that girl now, wondering how much she had miscalculated her, but the feel of Colt’s gaze made her shift her attention to him. His eyes were dark, deep with thoughts he didn’t voice but which she could almost feel. Almost … She pulled her gaze away. She needed to know his thoughts like a raccoon needed trifocals.

  There was a moment of silence, then, “That doesn’t really seem like a job for you, Em,” Colt said.

  “I could do it.” She was immediately defensive.

  “I’m sure you could.” He took a sip of coffee, narrowing his eyes against the steam. “But that calf’s about as big as you are. You did great just finding it. Isn’t that right, Case?” His tone was filled to the brim with kindly intent.

  Something knotted in Casie’s gut at the sound of it. It wasn’t as if she wanted that sort of sappy emotion directed toward her. She didn’t care if he thought she was Wonder Woman or Rin Tin Tin. It was simply that no one ever seemed … She paused her traitorous thoughts and scowled. It wasn’t as if she needed his approval or anything, but who was he to be worrying about her employee’s emotional state? Of course, Em wasn’t really an employee, but whatever she was, Colton shouldn’t be the one protecting her. He had nothing to do with her. Still, the room was silent, waiting for her response. She staunched her weird flow of thoughts and forced a smile above the rim of her coffee cup. “You did everything right,” she said, but the girl shook her head as she delivered another strudel to a plate.

  “I should have gone out earlier.” Her voice caught a little. “I woke up almost half an hour before, but I could hear the wind—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Colt said, tone a little rougher. “Isn’t that right, Case?”

  But at the hitch in the girl’s voice, Casie forgot all about her own neediness of moments before. “It’s not your job to take care of every living being on this ranch, Emily. It’s my responsibility. I should have gone out—”

  “Holy hell,” Colt said. “It’s no one’s fault. These things happen. This place is too much for two g—” He stopped himself abruptly. Casie stared at him, brows hitched up, waiting.

  “Too much for what?” Emily asked.

  “Too much for two … gorillas?” Colt said, tone pitched up at the end.

  “You think girls can’t do this?” Emily’s voice was stretched tight.

  Casie remained silent. He was right, of course. It was too much for them. So why the hell did she want to crack him over the head with the cast-iron pan that hung above the stove?

  “Just because we’re female doesn’t mean we can’t do the work,” Emily said.

  “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  “Well, that’s how it sounded.”

  “You done good,” Colt said, face serious. “And I mean that.”

  Emily turned back to the strudel, lips pursed as she shook her head. “When I saw that cow lying down like …” Her voice broke. Her face scrunched up. She cleared her throat. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” Colt said. “I know seasoned cowhands who’ll cry like babies over a lost calf.”

  She glanced up, blinking back tears. “You do not.”

  “Swear to God,” he said, making some sort of motion across his chest with his casted right hand. “You can’t talk to Dad for a week if a cow goes down.”

  “You’re lying.”


  “I’m not,” he said. “The man’s got a hundred seventy-five head and treats every one of them like his firstborn. You’d think he was made of bull thistle until one of his cows is in trouble.”

  “Really?” She sounded hopeful and heartened.

  He watched her, eyes solemn. “You did good, Em. Another half an hour or so might have been too late.”

  “If you hadn’t come by, she would have died for sure. We couldn’t have done it without you, Mr. Dickenson. Right, Casie?”

  Her voice was filled with a reverence that sounded dangerously close to hero worship. The idea was irritating at best.

  “Casie?” Emily’s tone had gone quizzical.

  “Yes,” she said, jerking herself into the conversation. “Yes. Thank you, Dic … Mr. Dickenson.” Although she would have liked to avoid eye contact, staring at the refrigerator might seem a little odd, but when she shifted her gaze to his, she saw that something had lit up his eyes. Something that didn’t quite reach his lips.

  “No problem,” he said, face atypically straight. “It was my pleasure.”

  So skinning dead calves was a pleasure now, Casie thought but didn’t let that little bit of vitriol reach her lips.

  “How long do we have to …” Emily made a face. “… you know … leave that hide on?”

  Colt pulled his gaze from Casie’s with a seeming effort. “I’d let it be for a few days at least.”

  Emily licked some frosting off her fingers. “It’s disgusting.”

  “Yeah,” Colt said and grinned a little. “That’s exactly what it is. Why don’t you just leave it be. Give me a call if there’s any trouble. Otherwise, I’ll stop by in a few days and take it off.”

  “I can—” Casie began, but he ignored her.

  “And I’ll get rid of the cow’s carcass.”

  She felt her back stiffen. “You don’t need to do that,” she said.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I can take care of it.” Her voice was maybe a little sharper than she’d intended.

  Colt raised a brow. Ty sat a little straighter in his chair, expression tense, but Emily waded evenly in.