Landon texted,Are you all right?
She hoped he was asking because he cared about her, and not because he was checking his chances of inheriting. She texted back,I guess time will tell.Two more months to be specific. If she wasn’t out of the red by then, the ranch would automatically go to Landon.
She’d have to hire a new foreman soon, especially since it was the beginning of March. Calving season was about to start. No one would take the job with the condition of half salary now and perhaps-a-bonus later. Not when her chances of keeping the ranch were so slim.
She couldn’t admit to herself that her chances were zero. Not yet. Not when she hadn’t even heard from the insurance company. They might reimburse her. Everything might turn out okay. She’d said she would soldier on, and that’s what she had to do.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The next afternoonas Kate was mucking the stables, a large cattle truck pulled up.
She leaned her pitchfork against the barn, took off her gloves, and began to hope. Apparently Gary really had found some cattle for her. Maybe he had some convictions that weren’t of the illegal sort. Maybe—but she wasn’t going to rejoice too soon. The question now was had he paid for the animals before his incarceration or would she be stuck with a bill she couldn’t afford?
The truck parked in front of the barn and a couple of men climbed from the cab. The driver was a middle-aged man in a Metallica T-shirt. The other man had a bushy, unkempt beard and more than his share of tattoos. A cigarette dangled from his mouth.
The driver glanced at his clipboard. “I’m looking for Gary Wilson.”
“Turns out, so were the police.” Kate wiped bits of straw off her arm. “You got here a day too late. Are you delivering cattle he ordered?”
“Yep.” The driver took a pen from the clipboard, unfazed by news of Gary’s incarceration. “You Kate Benton?”
“Yes.”
The moos coming from inside the truck were definitely calves, not cows, but every animal helped her count.
The driver handed her the clipboard and pen. “You’ll need to sign here.”
“Did Gary already pay for them?”
“I’m just delivering them,” the man said. “But I don’t reckon they would have sent them if he hadn’t.”
Kate still didn’t sign. “That’s a really important detail.”
The man sighed, took the clipboard back, and scanned the paperwork. He pointed to a place that read Balance. A zero sat next to it. “Says you don’t owe nothing.”
“Good.” Kate signed the form. At least Gary had done something to rebuild her stock. All was not lost.
The younger man ground out his cigarette, went to the back of the truck, and pulled out a ramp to offload the animals. The driver took a manila envelope from the back of the clipboard. “These are their records. You want calves in your barn?”
“Yes. It’s open. Use the stalls at the front.” Those ones were empty.
He went to unload the cattle.
She slowly followed him, pulling the records out. That was when dread first hit her. The first record had almost no information. Just breed, sex, and…that date couldn’t be right. The animal was born three days ago. She flipped to the next page. It held information on two calves, each only days old.
Bottle calves.
Calves that needed to be hand fed formonths. They were born on feedlots to mothers who were being fattened for slaughter or were from dairy herds who didn’t want calves taking their mother’s milk. Kate had never considered buying such labor-intensive and death-prone babies.
She rounded the side of the truck. The men pulled two bawling animals from the back. They were so small they looked like black and white spotted dogs. A pair of Holsteins. What was she supposed to do with dairy cattle?
“Wait,” Kate said. “Gary wasn’t supposed to buy bottle calves.”
The driver marched by her without any concern. “Take that up with him. We’re just delivering what he ordered.”
She gripped the records tighter. “Have they had any vaccines? Were their mothers vaccinated?”
The driver glanced over his shoulder. “I gave you their records.”