Chapter 9 Seth #2
I nod, though it feels like shoving nails through my skull. Twenty minutes is an eternity when animals are suffering like this.
We move again, checking each cow as fast as we can. Tex kneels beside one that’s still upright but trembling. Her tongue hangs from her mouth, long and pale.
“This started fast,” Tex says. “Way too fast.”
“I know.”
“If it spreads to the calves—”
“Don’t say it.” My throat burns. “Just don’t.”
I lean down beside another cow that’s gone still except for the labored way her ribs rise and fall. There’s foam around her mouth.
She’s not fighting anymore; she’s just hanging on.
Boone nudges her face, whining when she doesn’t move. His whole body quivers, and he looks back at me, confused, desperate for direction. It guts me.
“Easy, boy,” I murmur, hand brushing his back. “I’m here.”
Tex jogs to the gate and back, checking the perimeter. “Any chance they got into something?” he asks.
“I’ve walked this pasture three times since sunrise,” I say. “No poisonous weeds, no chemicals, nothing broken into. Water tank’s clean. Mineral blocks are fine. Feed stores sealed. Nothing’s changed.”
Tex blows out a long breath, the kind of sound he makes when he wants to punch something.
Jasper sprints toward us from the far edge of the field. “We’ve got another one going down,” he yells.
Tex and I follow him at a run. Boone barrels ahead, barking again.
This cow is worse than the others.
She’s thrashing. Her legs kick at the air. Her eyes roll back white, showing more panic than sense. Foam sprays every time she gasps.
“Damn,” Tex murmurs, crouching beside her. “She’s bloating too fast. She might crash before Sedona gets here.”
“What do we do?” Jasper asks, voice frayed.
Tex grimaces. “If she ruptures—”
“Don’t say it,” I snap again. “Just help me roll her.”
We haul the cow onto her chest, trying to keep her from lying flat where she’ll lose the fight completely. It takes all three of us.
Boone barks so loud my ears ring, tail stiff with anxiety. The cow lets out a long, guttural scream.
It rattles the fence line. It rattles whatever part of me is still holding together.
Jasper claps both hands over his ears. “I can’t listen to that. I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” Tex says. “We’re not losing her.”
He keeps his grip under the cow’s neck, steadying her as her legs kick again.
My phone buzzes. I yank it out, praying for news, but it’s just one of the Austin numbers calling back. I answer, but the moment I try explaining, the connection crackles and dies.
“Dammit!” I slap my palm against my thigh hard enough to sting.
Tex watches me, jaw tight. “Sedona’s our only chance right now.”
“I know.”
“You’re pissed at me for calling her.”
“I’m pissed this is happening at all.”
Tex doesn’t argue. He doesn’t move away either. He just crouches again, hands firm on the cow’s shoulder.
Jasper hovers near us, looking between the sick animals and the horizon as if Sedona might appear from thin air. “She said twenty minutes?”
Tex nods. “Give or take.”
Jasper swallows hard. “Okay. Okay, that’s good.”
But nothing is good.
The sickness is spreading faster than I can understand. Faster than any natural contamination should. Something is wrong—deeply wrong—but I can’t pinpoint what.
Feed contamination? Water source compromised? Airborne? No. None of this lines up with anything I’ve seen before.
“This doesn’t feel normal,” Tex says suddenly, like he reads my thoughts. “This isn’t your typical digestive issue.”
“I know.”
“Could be toxins.”
“Maybe.”
“But from where?”
“I don’t know, Tex.”
His voice drops. “Seth… this could take out the whole operation.”
I close my eyes for half a heartbeat. “Don’t say that either.”
The screaming cow goes limp all at once. Not dead—just exhausted, muscles giving out. Her breath sounds broken.
Boone whines, pressing closer, nudging her with his snout as if she’ll rise.
Jasper whispers, “Please don’t let her die.”
I look at my watch. Sedona’s been on the road eight minutes. Twelve to go.
Twelve minutes is too long.
The sun beats down hard, not helping anything. Sweat rolls down my back. My shirt clings to me. The cows pant harder in the heat.
Tex’s face is flushed. Boone’s tongue hangs almost to the ground.
In the distance, another moan rises. Then another.
It spreads across the pasture in awful intervals—different cows, different distress, all adding to the panic.
“Tex,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember the Torres ranch incident back in twenty-nineteen?”
His head snaps toward me. “Don’t say that either.”
Boone barks again—one sharp burst, like a warning.
Jasper turns in a circle, looking like he’s ready to run for town on foot. “How much longer?”
“She’ll be here soon,” Tex says.
“You said twenty minutes,” Jasper presses.
Tex doesn’t snap back. “I know what I said. I heard her voice. She’s coming.”
I swallow hard and crouch beside the cow again, pressing my palm between her ribs the way Archer taught us when we were kids, helping him diagnose.
Her body is too warm, and her breaths shudder beneath my hand.
“Hang on,” I whisper.
The cow answers with a low groan.
Boone noses my shoulder again, tail wagging in sharp jerks, unsure whether to stay with me or keep watch over the pasture.
“Good boy,” I tell him. “Stay with me.”
Tex straightens, scanning the horizon. “I’ll go meet her at the drive.”
“Go.”
He jogs off toward the truck, legs eating up the distance with long, purposeful strides.
Jasper kneels beside me. “What do we do till she gets here?”
“Keep them upright,” I say. “Keep them breathing. And don’t panic.”
His eyes jump to mine. “How do you do that? How are you not panicking?”
“I am,” I tell him. “I just don’t have the luxury of showing it.”
Another cow drops in the distance.
Boone bolts toward her, barking until Jasper chases him down and pulls him back by the collar.
My throat feels raw. My hands shake.
Then Tex’s shout carries from the lane.
“She’s here!”
Relief punches through me so hard my knees almost buckle.
An old Sedan rolls onto the drive, and she jumps out before the engine fully stops. Sedona’s still dressed in all black, hair tied back, dark circles under her eyes.
But she’s here. She’s moving with purpose. And she looks at the pasture with the sharp, clinical focus her father drilled into her.
She grabs her bag from the passenger seat and runs toward us.
Boone meets her halfway, whining. She pats his head once—the only greeting she can spare—then looks at me.
“Show me everything,” she says, breathless but all business.
I point toward the first cow that started this whole disaster. “Here.”
She drops beside the animal and begins her examination.
Tex kneels across from her.
Jasper hovers at her back.
Boone presses into my leg again.
“Calm down, bud,” I murmur to the dog, but I’m not sure if I’m comforting him or myself.