Men in Kilts

by Katie MacAlister

  “OK, I have a leg and a face. I’m pretty sure the leg belongs to the head, so that’s good, right?”

  “Right, that means it’s the leg for the first twin. Can you feel the second one?”

  “Lamb or leg?”

  “Leg.”

  I followed the lamb’s jaw to the underside. “No, there’s nothing.” I tried following the head down to the lamb’s shoulders, but the ewe’s pelvic bones prevented further exploration. “Crap, I think that leg is folded back.”

  “Can you ease it forward, or do you want me to try?” I looked up to him. I was lying on my side in a cold, muddy field, my face inches away from the least attractive part of a sheep, my arm doing things I never imagined it would be doing, and oh joy of joys, it was starting to rain.

  Iain’s wife. I was his wife now, and that meant I had to do sheep farmish type things, even if I didn’t particularly care to. I took a deep, sheep-scented breath.

  “No, just tell me what to do.”

  David walked me through it. Luckily, the leg wasn’t bent as far back as I thought, and the twin wasn’t pushing the first lamb too far forward, so I managed to get the lamb pushed back a little, then his legs forward. A few gentle tugs, and gooooosh ! One lamb, very gucky, but breathing.

  I couldn’t have been prouder if I’d given birth to the lamb myself. I looked up at David. “I did it! I birthed a lamb! I can’t wait to tell Iain!” He laughed. “Well, technically the ewe did, but I know what you mean. It’s always a good moment when they come out alive and active.” We pushed the baby around to the mom, who promptly cleaned its face clear of membrane, chewed off the cord, and started licking the rest of it. Ten minutes later, she stretched out her neck, her head pointed up to the sky, grunted twice, and popped out a second lamb.

  Mom and babies were doing well when we left.

  Bathsheepa and her sister were born toward the end of lambing season. Their mother rejected them, evidently the second time she had rejected her lambs.

  Iain put her in the adopter—a small enclosed area that gave the ewe time to learn her babies’ scent, or to be fooled into adopting an orphan lamb—but it did no good.

  That was about the time I learned how to tube-feed lambs. I was horrified at the thought of doing it, having heard Iain’s many warnings about being careful when sliding the tube down their throats—if you did it wrong, you could send the tube into their lungs, killing them when the fluid was injected.

  “Keep it to the back of their throat,” he told me time and again, then he’d demonstrate. I hadn’t done it without supervision when David came up to the house one rainy afternoon with two newborn lambs tucked under his coat.

  “Dad says you need to warm them, and feed them colostrum. You know how to do that, don’t you?”

  Who, me? I’d seen it done, but never had tried it on my own. I got out the heat lamp we kept in the house for warming the newborns, and made sure they were dry. They felt cold. I would have asked David to do the feeding, but he was just as tired as Iain, and was also trying to put in as much work as possible at his office.

  “Sure, I helped Iain just yesterday feeding triplets. Go on home, David, and let Joanna pamper you.”

  He gave me a tired grin. “It’s not quite what you thought it was going to be, is it?”

  The lambs started to shiver, a good sign. It meant their bodies were trying to keep them warm. “No, not quite.”

  He handed me the feeding tube and syringe, then fetched the bottle of colostrum from the fridge and popped it the pan of water kept warming for just that purpose.

  “You’re sure you’ll be all right with them?” David asked as he stood at the door, his eyes—so much like his father’s—weary but filled with concern.

  “We’ll be fine,” I reassured him, and watched him leave with a growing sense of panic. A few minutes later I got the bottle of warm colostrum and stared at it, hoping directions would suddenly appear on the bottle.

  Colostrum was the first thing a lamb got from its mother—it was full of immunoglobulins and other good things a lamb needed to survive. The ewe stopped producing colostrum a short while after giving birth, which is why it was important to have some on hand for the newborns and orphans who couldn’t nurse off their moms.

  I knelt on the floor next to the two little lambs lying together in a box under the heat lamp. They weren’t struggling to get up, or trying to lift their heads, both bad signs. I looked at their ear tags. Ewes number 6288 and 6289. Both were Hill Cheviots, adorable little white things with black noses. 88’s eyes were closed, but 89 watched me warily.

  “Come on girls, we need to get a little food into your tummies. Work with me on this, OK? You’ll feel better if you do.”

  I felt around the side of 88’s mouth for the gap where there were no teeth, and slipped the tube in. She didn’t fight it at all.

  “Keep it at the back of the throat,” I told myself, and carefully slid the tube in, watching for any coughing or choking that would indicate I had the tube in the lamb’s lungs.

  Once I had enough of the tube in, I listened at the end of it, but heard no signs of breathing. I sat there for a minute, my stomach balled up, my heart racing, my hands shaking. I’d never done this by myself before, but if I didn’t do it, the lambs would die. Two sweet little lambs that Iain had entrusted to me, two little lambs that I could save if I could just get a grip on myself.

  I attached the syringe to the tube, and slowly pushed the plunger, emptying an ounce of the colostrum into 88’s stomach. She didn’t cough.

  “Good girl,” I told her, and pulled out the tube. I refilled the syringe, and taking a deep breath and sending a prayer to whatever entity watches over lambs, tube-fed 89.

  From the start, 89 was the healthier of the twins. Once I had a few ounces of colostrum in her, her temperature rose to normal and she tried to get on her feet.

  “You’re a frisky little thing,” I told her when I was giving 88 another ounce of colostrum. Lamb 89 was standing, wobbly, but standing. “I think you’ll be just fine. But your sister here…” I looked down to the lamb on my lap. She wasn’t frisky. Her neck was stiff, not flexible like other lamb’s neck. She didn’t open her eyes, and she didn’t struggle.

  I was alone in the house, Mrs. Harris having gone home for the day, David off doing his own job, and Iain and Mark out in the parks. I couldn’t help myself—tears of self-pity started welling up.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do for you,” I told 88. Her sister had curled up and was resting, her body temperature normal. I would try bottle-feeding her a little later, but first I had to take care of 88.

  I gave her another ounce of colostrum. She lay on my lap, her little chest moving as she breathed, but that’s all that moved on her. Her eyes were still shut. I carried her with me when I went into the sitting room and grabbed two of Ian’s sheep books, then returned 88 to the heat lamp in the kitchen while I read them.

  There was so much that could be wrong with her, but I hadn’t the experience to judge what she needed. I wanted Iain to come and take over for me, to make the decisions, to figure out what was wrong and make it right. I read and reread the chapters on lambing illnesses, and felt utterly and completely lost.

  Iain came in eventually, three hours later, tired and wet and filthy. I had forgotten to turn on the oven to cook the meal Mrs. Harris had prepared, so there wasn’t even a hot meal to comfort him.

  There was just one sick lamb, one frisky lamb, and me. He knelt on the floor next to me and lifted up 88.I told him what I’d done for her, and how her temperature wasn’t rising above 99 degrees, no matter how close I put the heat lamp to her. His face said it all.

  “She’s dying?”

  “Aye, love. You did everything right.” Iain knew how terrified I was of doing something wrong and killing a lamb because of my inexperience. “Sometimes they’re just too weak or ill to make it.”

  “But isn’t there something we can do? Call the vet?” He gently laid 88 b
ack in the box. “No, love, there’s not. Sometimes you just lose them.”

  “But—Iain…” I looked up at him helplessly. His face was tired and concerned, but I could see the answer there. I sniffled. “If you sit here with them, I’ll go put the kettle on and get your supper. I don’t want little 88 to be alone.

  Bathsheepa’s just taken a bottle, so she should be ready to go out to the barn after you’ve eaten.”

  “Bathsheepa?”

  “6289. She’s a fighter.”

  Iain wearily got to his feet. “Love, don’t get attached—”

  “I know, they’re not pets. But she looks like a Bathsheepa, don’t you think?

  Just stay with them for a few minutes. I don’t want 88 to be alone. Here’s a chair. I’ll go put the kettle on for you.” I hurried off before he could lecture me anymore.

  Lamb number 6288 died less than an hour later. I held her in my arms, wrapped in a towel, sitting on the floor next to the kitchen table where Iain was eating. He tried to take her away before she died, but I wouldn’t let him. This was my lamb, a lamb that had been given to me to take care of, and I had failed her. The least I could do was to keep her warm and comfortable until she died.

  I wanted her to know she wasn’t alone.

  * * *

  Where her sister had faded, Bathsheepa thrived. I was in charge of bottle-feeding the lambs in the morning, something I came to love. Bathsheepa was always at the head of the pack to be fed, butting my legs if I didn’t get the bottle to her fast enough, or set the bottle feeder—a bucket filled with ewe replacement milk and a bunch of nipples—up in what she considered a timely manner. Although Bathsheepa didn’t have any marks to distinguish her from the other bottle-fed lambs, I could always pick her out.

  She was my success story, my pride and joy, my sweet little lamb that I had saved from almost certain death. Single-handedly. She was mine.

  “No, love, she’s not yours, she’ll be going off with the rest of the excess lambs come the autumn.”

  “But Iain, she’s my little lamb! My Bathsheepa!”

  He threw another bale of wire into the back of the Rover.

  “No,” he said again. “I’m sorry love, but I did tell you not to become attached.

  They’re not pets, they’re livestock.”

  I bit back the angry words, and kept my voice pleasant. “I know they are, of course they are, they’re sheep! All I’m asking for is one little lamb, Iain, the lamb I saved. By myself. When I was alone and frightened.” He just kissed me and told me no again, then went off to mend a fence. I looked out into the park at where the lambs were frolicking and tried it pick out Bathsheepa. I thought of her being herded into a truck and driven to the auction barn or feeder lot, scared, alone, and frightened. I couldn’t let that happen to her, not my Bathsheepa. Not the little lamb who followed me around, not the lamb that gamboled and butted and leaped with joy. I’d have to figure out some way to make Iain understand that she was more than just livestock.

  You’re living a fairy tale, you know that don’t you? Cait e-mailed me one day when I had described the lambs to her as they frolicked in the fields. I can’t wait to come out and see it for myself. How come all of the pictures you’ve sent are of you and Iain? What’s the farm like? You never tell me about it .

  Close your eyes, and I’ll describe it, I wrote back to her.

  Well, OJC, open them to read this, then close your eyes. Imagine yourself standing in a valley. If you’re lucky, you will have chosen to stand in the valley on one of the early summer days that shows off the Highlands to their breathtaking best. Although it’s almost always windy here, the light summer breeze should feel more like a lover’s caress as you stand and absorb the warmth of the sun.

  I had my laptop with me when I was typing up the e-mail to Cait. I had just finished bottle feeding the lambs, and was sitting out with Biorsadh watching them play. Around me was the glorious beauty of spring turned to summer.

  Beneath my feet was lush, fertile pastureland that sloped up gently at first, then steeply as it climbed the hills surrounding me on all sides. Green fields were dotted with occasional splashes of yellow, purple, and white—wildflowers. The shades of green were endlessly varying—deep emerald in the valley fields that were empty of sheep for a while, or dirty green with hazy splotches of purple and reddish brown on the lower slopes that have been well grazed. Mossy-colored gray and brown topped two of the peaks to the south, while the northern peaks looked as if they were covered in green velvet so smooth and rich that your fingers ached to feel it. Winding between two of the hills was a shallow river that ran slate gray in winter, but a lovely dark midnight blue in summer. Ferns, small shrubs, and occasional trees followed the path of the river, which never—even in high summer— stopped singing its song.

  Take a deep breath, I wrote to Cait, and hold it — you’ll smell fresh-cut hay from one of the west fields, wild sweet peas from the south, and the clear, sharp scent of warm earth and grass from beneath your feet. Closer to the barn comes the earthy tang of manure, or the pungent, tear-starting smell of the compost. Inside the barn are the usual barn smells— sheep, wool, hay, dust, horses— a riot of notes varying from pleasant (horse) to nose wrinklingly acid (mouse droppings).

  I paused another moment, listening to the distant maaing of the sheep as they grazed, noting how nicely the sound was counterpointed by the barking of the dogs as they worked their charges, and couldn’t help but smile when deep, masculine rumbles reached my ears as Iain and Mark gave orders to the dogs and each other. I knew just how quickly those orders could change into some inventive Celtic oaths when the sheep were being obstinate. Birds chattered endlessly from the nearby trees and hedges, but they weren’t enough to drown out the low drone of farm machinery that was a constant background noise from surrounding farms. I tipped my head, my eyes closed to catch the more distant sounds of cattle as they lowed from a farm next to ours, while closer to home the horses nickered and talked to one another in their pasture.

  If you sit quietly in the tall grass, I wrote, you might hear the silken whisper of one of the barn cats slipping through as she patrols the area. A sharp, high squeak cut off quickly and you know she’s on the job .

  I turned my back to the fields and considered what I saw. With your back to the main barn, you’ll see a white and red brick farmhouse sitting square and strong, tucked in next to a crescent of trees. The old part of the house, the part that is 200

  years old, is whitewashed, with small windows and a gray slate roof. The newer addition is redbrick, with matching slate roof. It’s kind of a strange hodge-podge of a house, but it’s comfortable and has a warm, lived-in feel .

  I looked around, still filled with the sense of wonder my surroundings brought me, thinking to myself that the land in and around the farm was much, much more lovely, and infinitely more detailed and rich than I could ever possibly describe with mere words.

  I finished my e-mail to Cait and saved it to send later, then turned off the laptop to go find Iain and thank him again for sharing his life with me.

  Each day I see something new, Cait, each day the light differs just enough to display some facet of the hills bathed in new colors, or presenting new contours. Each day my breath is taken away as the beauty of the Highlands strikes me anew.

  * * *

  Summer blasted fully into the Highlands, a blissful, but brief, respite from worry. We hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Bridget for the last three months, and Iain’s attempts to find out who poisoned his sheep had no more success than my covert and unauthorized investigation into who was responsible for starting the disease rumors. We settled down into a peaceful, happy existence, but one that was tainted by an ever-present, faint sense of unease. Although Iain didn’t talk about it, I knew he wasn’t foolish enough to believe we’d seen the last of Bridget.

  As summer wrapped us in her golden embrace, she brought shearing time with her. Iain hired a couple of shearers who worked the circuit of farms,
helping out those farmers who needed extra hands to get the flocks sheared. I was absolutely enthralled with the shearing process, spending the day out in the barn watching the men and their spidery-armed clippers that dropped from above as they zoomed up and down a huge woolly mass, slowly peeling off the fleece and revealing very naked-looking sheep beneath.

  The fleeces themselves were fascinating, grey and rather ugly on top, but underneath clean and white and soft. I took great enjoyment in watching the sheep’s faces as they were being shorn. They lolled around, one minute on their rump, the next on their side, then flipped over to the other side. Surprisingly few of them fought the shearing. Iain and Mark were pretty good shearers, but no one beat Gordon, one of the hired shearers who made cutting the fleece off a sheep an art form. While one hand was running the clippers, the other was moving ahead of it, smoothing and keeping the skin taut so there were no nicks. He rolled the sheep first one way, then another, then voila! A fleece was tossed over to an assistant, who flung it out onto a table and removed the worst daggs, bits of debris, and other ugly parts.

  “How’s the shearing going?” Joanna asked one morning.

  “Fine. Want to go down and watch?”

  “Ugh. Give me a few minutes. I have to use the loo again,” she said as she hoisted her bulk up from the kitchen chair and waddled off to the bathroom.

  We strolled off to the barn, Jo using the time to fill me in on the latest round of bodily discomforts and changes she was experiencing, leaving me to ponder why pregnant women felt it necessary to share information about hemorrhoids and tender nipples with their less fecund sisters.

  I felt a bit put-upon until I realized that Joanna, normally a modest and somewhat shy woman, was treating me as she would her sister or mother.

  Thereafter her tales of backaches, constipation, and other such unsavory symptoms were received with a warm, fuzzy sort of feeling. We are family , her confidences said. We can talk about these things .