Chapter 31
Achill settled over the farm in a way that felt permanent.
The kind of cold that seeped into the wood grain of the barn doors, the soil beneath Barb’s boots, and her breath every time she exhaled.
Frost clung to every surface. The morning light barely warmed the horizon, offering nothing but a pale suggestion of day.
Barb stepped into the barn before sunrise with her breath clouding in front of her. The cows shifted uneasily, their bodies steaming in the cold air. One of the pregnant cows lay stretched on her side, already in labor, low groans vibrating through her chest.
Cathy hovered near the wall, arms wrapped around her torso, shoulders shaking slightly from fear rather than the temperature.
She watched Barb move to the cow’s flank with a stiff posture, as if bracing herself.
Barb kneeled on the straw, placed a steady hand on the cow’s side, and closed her eyes for a moment.
She felt the contractions rolling through the body beneath her, long and uneven, but too far apart.
“This is going to be hard,” Barb said. “She’s already tired.”
Cathy nodded weakly. “Tell me what to do.”
“Stay back for now. I need room.”
Cathy stepped back, but her eyes never left the cow. The first contraction came strong enough to make the cow arch her neck. Barb reached forward and felt for the calf. She found the legs, slick and small, still inside the birth canal.
The cow groaned with effort, and Barb pulled gently as she had seen countless ranchers do in her research years ago.
Ghostwriting had taught her everything from battlefield first aid to veterinary techniques because accuracy mattered.
She had never expected to use the knowledge to save her own livestock.
The calf slid out slowly, covered in fluid and steaming in the cold. Barb guided it down gently, clearing the membrane from its nose and mouth. The calf took a shaky breath, then coughed weakly. The mother cow sagged in relief, breathing heavily.
Cathy let out a shuddering breath and took one small step forward, her face tight but hopeful. “Is she okay?” Cathy asked.
“She will be,” Barb said. “She just needs to rest. Help me move the calf into the pen.”
They lifted the calf together, settling it into the straw-lined enclosure Barb had prepared days earlier. The calf wobbled, legs trembling, but managed to stay upright for several seconds before collapsing into a small heap.
Cathy’s eyes softened. “He is beautiful.”
“He is alive,” Barb said. “That is what matters.”
They returned to the mother cow, who was already struggling again. Barb felt a chill that had nothing to do with cold.
“She is going into the second birth too fast. Her body is not ready.”
“Barb, what do we do?”
“Everything we can,” Barb said.
The cow’s breathing grew ragged. Her legs trembled violently. She tried to rise but couldn’t. Barb placed her hands against the cow’s abdomen, feeling the tension, the pressure building too soon. The cow collapsed fully onto her side.
“No,” Barb whispered. “Not like this.”
Cathy stepped forward. “Tell me what to do. I can help.”
“Hold her head steady. I need to try to reposition the calf.”
Cathy kneeled and held the cow’s head gently.
The cow groaned in pain, a low, broken sound that echoed through the barn and made Barb’s chest tighten.
She reached inside, her arms sinking into warmth.
The calf was angled wrong, one leg caught behind the other.
Barb tried to reposition it, using the memory of diagrams and instructions she had once read while ghostwriting a rancher’s memoir.
She pulled, pushed, and angled her wrist to try again, but nothing shifted.
The cow’s breathing grew shallow, each breath shorter than the last.
“Barb,” Cathy whispered. “Is she dying?”
“Not yet,” Barb said, though she already knew.
The cow gave one more weak contraction. Barb pulled with everything she had. The calf budged half an inch, then stopped. The cow’s heart hammered weakly against Barb’s forearm, then faltered before it stopped.
Cathy gasped. “No…Barb, no…”
Barb’s throat tightened, but she forced her hands to keep moving.
The calf was still half-trapped in the birth canal.
It would suffocate if she stopped. She grabbed the calf’s legs, planted her boots in the mud, and pulled.
Her muscles strained, and her breath came out in hard bursts.
The calf slid free with a sudden release that nearly toppled her backward.
The newborn lay on the ground, still encased in membrane.
“Is it alive?”
Barb sliced the membrane open with her knife and cleared the calf’s nose. It sputtered, coughed weakly, then gasped for air. “Yes,” Barb said. “Barely.”
Cathy let out a sound halfway between relief and heartbreak. Tears welled instantly. “Barb…”
Barb went to the cow’s body. The stillness felt wrong, immense, and final. The sheer weight filled the barn like a shadow.
Cathy covered her mouth. “She was so strong.”
“She was,” Barb said.
“We needed her. I can’t believe this,” Cathy whispered. “I can’t believe this happened.”
“We deal with what we are given. There’s not much else we can do other than move forward.”
“How can we? How do we fix this?”
“We don’t fix it. We work through it.”
Cathy cried harder, the sound small and fragile.
The puppies whimpered from the loft, hearing her grief even from a distance.
Barb didn’t let herself cry. The calf needed warmth.
The mother cow needed to be moved before predators smelled the body.
She guided the newborn into the pen with the other calf, placing straw over its shivering back.
Cathy kneeled beside it, hands trembling as she stroked the calf’s head. “It’s breathing,” Cathy whispered. “Look at him… He’s breathing.”
“He needs the other mother to take him,” Barb said. “We need to keep him warm until then.”
Cathy nodded, breath uneven but intent returning to her eyes.
Barb went back to the cow’s body. It was massive and heavy, far too heavy to drag by hand.
She retrieved the rope and the sled board they had saved from the early summer deliveries.
She looped the rope around the cow’s legs, bracing her feet in the mud.
Cathy turned when she heard the scraping sound. “Barb, you can’t do that alone.”
“I have to,” Barb said.
“I can help.”
“No. I need you with the calves.”
Cathy hesitated, torn between duty and fear, then nodded.
She kneeled beside the pen again, whispering softly to the newborns.
Barb pulled. The sled dug into the ground at first, barely moving.
She planted her legs wider, leaning back with her full weight.
Her muscles screamed in protest. Her breath steamed in frantic bursts.
The cow’s body shifted an inch, then another.
Then slowly and painfully, she dragged it out of the barn.
The cold outside struck her hard. It stiffened her fingers and clawed at her lungs, but she kept going. She kept pulling the carcass across the dirt, past the goat shelter, and toward a cluster of trees where she had hidden a previous carcass from the summer butchering.
When she reached the tree line, she paused, catching her breath.
The cow’s body looked enormous under the gray light.
She covered it with branches to hide it from sight and smell until she could butcher it.
They would need the meat. When she returned to the barn, Cathy kneeled beside the weaker calf, rubbing its small chest gently to stimulate its lungs.
“It keeps falling, but it keeps trying.”
“That’s enough for now,” Barb said.
The healthier calf pressed against the nursing cow, legs wobbly but determined. The other calf collapsed again. Cathy steadied it, lifting it onto its legs. The calf wobbled, then leaned into her lap.
Cathy’s face softened in a way Barb hadn’t seen in weeks. “You’re okay,” Cathy whispered. “You’re safe.”
Barb watched from a distance. Something inside Cathy seemed to shift as she held the calf.
By dusk, both calves lay curled against the mother cow.
Her sister sat beside them, one hand resting on each warm flank.
The barn glowed with lantern light. The cold crept in through every gap, but the animals’ bodies gave off enough warmth to keep the air bearable.
Barb leaned against a support beam, finally letting her body sag with exhaustion. “We have two calves,” Barb said softly. “One healthy mother. Enough meat to last us through the winter if we do it right.”
Cathy nodded slowly. “One loss.”
“Yes.”
“It feels big,” Cathy whispered. “It feels like the world keeps taking.”
“It does, and we keep going anyway.”
“What now?”
“We’ll butcher her tomorrow,” Barb said. “We salt and dry what we can. We freeze the rest outside when the temperature drops. Feed stores are running thin. We can’t rely on what’s left in the shed.”
Cathy looked at the calves again. “He is going to make it.”
“Because you’re here.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so.”
Outside, the first true winter breeze swept across the pasture, carrying a chill that promised harsher days ahead.
The branches creaked. The tin-can line shivered faintly in the wind.
Cathy leaned her head against the calf’s neck.
The animal breathed slowly, its tiny chest rising and falling.
Barb watched them in the dim light, knowing exactly what the moment meant.
The days of surviving on stocked feed were ending.
The days of relying on the land alone had begun.