The barn door clanged shut. Soon after, the truck engine started and the hum of wheels announced the truck’s departure.
She hauled the supplies out of the storage room and set them by the sink. Calves wandered around the barn, bawling. The driver’s prediction about the animals having diarrhea had already proven true. She couldn’t tell which one had been sick because several had trekked through the mess.
Panic was growing in her chest, pushing its way through her. This was all too much. She couldn’t do it. She was going to hyperventilate, which was a bad thing to do in a barn that smelled like diarrhea.
Something brushed against her leg. A little spotted calve nibbled on the knee of her jeans. A black one licked her hand and tried to suck on her fingers. The poor babies. Regardless of everything else, she couldn’t just stand around and let them suffer because her life was spiraling out of control.
She checked internet videos to see where other ranchers kept their bottle calves. Most put them in individual pens or kept them on leashes inside the barn. She wasn’t sure if the animals were separated to keep track of feedings or to keep disease from spreading.
Or, she thought as she spied a calf trying to nurse on its neighbor, maybe they had behavioral problems when together.
Kate tried to think logically about what to do first. The stalls needed straw for bedding, but she’d have to herd more of the calves together first. Otherwise when she opened the barn door to bring in straw, some would escape.
The rest of her chores would have to wait. She had to get more food in town. And buy a lot of rope. And also bottles, vaccines, and probably a bunch of other things she didn’t know about yet. Her father would know. He’d taken care of calves.
On the way to her truck, she called him. He didn’t pick up. She left a rushed message, then considered calling Landon. But he’d already told her he wouldn’t help with any cattle problems. It wouldn’t be fair of her to ignore that dictate.
She’d have to do this on her own. She sped all the way to the feed store. It carried milk bars which were large plastic tubs, sectioned into six parts, each with its own drinking nozzle. Although, maybe they were just for feeding calves once they’d passed quarantine and weren’t going to pass illness to their neighbors.
When Kate asked the sales clerk if milk bars could be used on bottle calves straight from the sales barn, the clerk hemmed and hawed and told her she should use her best judgment. So was that a yes, a no, or an I’m-not-going-to-help-you-because-you’re-the-golf-course-lady?
She stared at the milk bars for several minutes and then bought two. Apparently her best judgement could be swayed by packaging that promised easier filling and cleaning. She also bought nearly every bottle the store had. She would return what she didn’t use.
Milk replacer came in several different types with varying protein content. The bags cost around sixty dollars, and hurried math told Kate she would go through two a day. This was going to be so expensive. She piled a variety of bags into her cart, enough to last her a couple weeks. Two thousand dollars, gone.
In line, Kate read the directions for the milk replacer. It said calves should be fed approximately ten percent of their birth body weight daily. Was she supposed to weigh them every day? It also said she needed to watch for bloating because it could kill calves quickly.
Then there were the vaccines to figure out. She’d watched Dewayne give them to cattle in the chute, but that didn’t mean she could do it. The calves were so little and skinny. If the needle went too deep or not deep enough it might affect the vaccine’s potency.
Paying a vet to come to Coyote Glen to administer them would add an extra expense and she had to watch her costs. Plus, Angelina would treat her like she was stupid for taking on forty bottle calves when she had a ranch to run, no help, and calving season was on the horizon. Should Kate even bother explaining that Gary, her soon-to-be-convict foreman, had ordered them without telling her?
The entire town would no doubt talk about her for years to come: the girl who thought she could waltz in and run a ranch.
Kate paid for her things, loaded them into the back of her truck, and drove to the vet’s to pick up antibiotics, electrolytes and vaccines. She couldn’t bring herself to ask for help giving them. She’d figure it out. Hopefully.
As she drove toward Coyote Glen, guilt pushed into her. Her pride shouldn’t matter as much as the calves’ lives. She was already in debt, what did another vet bill matter? Once she got back to the ranch, she should call Angelina and ask her to send someone out.
No one would arrive for a while, which was just as well because she had to find space for the calves, put down straw, feed them, and clean up the mess they were making in the barn right now. And after that, she’d have all her regular evening chores to do and Gary’s too.
Kate gripped the steering wheel and wondered what it felt like to have a nervous breakdown. Her breaths were coming too fast, and her insides were thrumming. This was too overwhelming. Taking care of the calves wasn’t a job that ended today. It would be every day for months, and she could barely manage the livestock she had. If she tried to take on forty babies too, she’d fail miserably and they’d all die.
The only sound in the truck was the noise of the road passing beneath her wheels, but somehow she heard the discordant chorus of the frightened calves mooing in the barn. The memory of their large brown eyes staring at her would be stuck in her mind for a long time. It would be the defining image of her failure as a rancher.
She was going to lose everything.
She needed help so badly.
Her phone rang, and her father’s number came up on the screen. Finally. As she went to answer, she hesitated. Her father was sixteen hundred miles away and hadn’t taken care of cattle in twenty-five years. He’d also given her some less-than-stellar council when it came to running Coyote Glen. Landon, on the other hand, lived next door, had run cattle his whole life, and might possibly still love her.
She didn’t need to answer the phone to know her parents would tell her not to trust Landon. But then again, her grandfather had trusted Landon. Maybe it was time to started listening to him.
She declined her father’s call with a message that she’d call back later.
Landon had told her he wouldn’t help her with her cattle. It seemed so presumptuous to ask him anyway. And yet, instead of continuing down the highway past the Wyle Away, at the turnoff, she pulled into their drive. Landon might not help her with the calves, but he’d at least give her advice. And right now she wanted to see him—needed it somehow.
She texted him.I’m at the gate. I have to talk to you.
A moment later, the gate swung open, and her phone buzzed with a text from him.I’m in the barn.