Ashes of the Red Heifer

by Shannon Baker

  Annie took a deep breath. “I can’t go back there. I can’t. I know another breeder where we can get cattle. He’s not far from here, just another twenty-five miles north. Please, David.”

  David frowned, the strain of their plight showing in the lines on his face. “I’m sure Moshe wouldn’t let us get away with that. Would you, dude?”

  Moshe looked startled anyone remembered he sat in the backseat. He’d been quiet the whole trip, his black eye nearly swollen closed, his other etched with worried lines. “No. We will follow the orders. Cows from your father.”

  Without thinking she corrected him. “Heifers.”

  Moshe’s face unexpectedly broke into a grin. “What is the difference?”

  “Cows are adult females. They have usually had a couple of calves. A heifer is a young female. A true heifer has never had a calf before. Ranchers talk about first-calf or second-calf heifers. That just means they are still young.”

  Moshe’s eyebrows arched. “Wouldn’t it be easier for a cow to have a calf than for a heifer who has never done it before? Why are we not getting cows?”

  The conversation was only mildly distracting. Anxiety still bubbled in her stomach like swamp gas. “I think you’ve got a natural rancher’s mind, Moshe. You’re right about cows and heifers. Unfortunately, my father has only pregnant heifers in the fall. He calves cows in the spring.”

  Moshe gave her a look that said it made sense. “I think I would like to be a cowboy. I would like to ride horses and drink whiskey. Like John Wayne.”

  Annie tried to laugh with him but couldn’t muster the humor.

  David drove in silence for a moment, the rush of the tires on the road the only sound in the vehicle.

  Damn The Corporation. Annie was tempted to grab the wheel and force David to turn around. She couldn’t go back there. They were going about their fall day, checking cows, cooking dinner, calving, and she was bringing them disaster.

  She had to keep going, though. Hassan counted on her. Moshe’s wife and son and the others were still hidden inside the rock. Convincing her father to give up the heifers might be the only way to keep her family from harm.

  Her desperation grew to near panic when she saw the hand-painted sign advertising Grant Red Angus instructing them to turn west in a mile. “You don’t understand. My father isn’t going to help me. He doesn’t want to see me.”

  David moved his hand to rest on the back of her head and tangled his fingers gently in her braid. “Somehow we’ll have to convince him. It’s our only chance to get out of this alive.”

  On the left, the three-strand barbed wire fence gave way to a brilliant white plank fence. Annie felt a smile tug at her mouth remembering summers painting that fence with Lizabeth. The warm feeling faded when she thought about the afternoon her father had made an unexpected trip to town and caught them painting in their swimsuit tops and cut offs. His anger had carried him through two days of yelling and scripture reading. She didn’t want to think about the tender red welts he’d raised with his belt on their sunburned backs.

  David applied the brakes and the pickup slowed to turn off at the professionally painted sign announcing the entrance to Grant Red Angus Ranch. It featured the head of a Red Angus bull and in the corner it sported the fish symbol with “John 3:16” beside it. Those symbols hadn’t been on the rickety old sign she remembered.

  Impressive. The sign was new since she’d been here.

  Annie’s stomach contracted. “Please, David,” she whispered.

  David covered her icy hands with his. “You’re his daughter. He loves you.”

  From the back seat Moshe mumbled, “The love of a father is strong and true and forever.”

  Her heart ached for Moshe. He couldn’t hold his son or hear him laugh. He couldn’t even call his wife and see if little Jacob’s cold had cleared up. Maybe Annie’s father loved her, too. But his religion bricked him away from her. Annie tried to swallow. Her mouth was too dry. “You don’t know Dad.”

  They turned and started down the gravel road, pastures of rippling fall grasses on either side of the pickup. On the right, yearling steers grazed without pausing to look at the passing vehicle. Annie noted their slick red coats and estimated they weighed about nine hundred pounds each. A good crop. Her father would be getting ready to ship them soon.

  Her eyes scanned the treeless expanse. They traveled up a gradual incline, the road a beige border between endless grass. She tried to slow her breathing and unclench her fists, but failed.

  They topped the hill and the ranch buildings sprawled before them. Here, the elms and cedars her grandmother had planted and tenaciously watered by hand shaded the gleaming white main house, the cook house, bunkhouse, a barn, and several out-buildings. The houses all had green lawns surrounding them, but the rest of the compound was bare dirt and sparse gravel. Since Annie had left, they’d added a large aluminum building, probably a sale barn.

  Behind the sale barn and the old wood barn, white paneled corrals created what looked like a maze. Running the length of the headquarters and behind all the buildings was the calving lot, now occupied by twenty-five or thirty fall-calving heifers. The lot was strewn with yellow straw to create dry, warm places for new calves.

  She loved this ranch and had missed every grain of sand, every weed and stalk of grass. Coming home opened her to the enormity of her loss.

  Two children frolicked on a swing set in front of the bunkhouse. A low chain link fence surrounded the yard. A mixed breed black dog stood at the fence watching the pickup’s progress. Her father must have a hired man with a family working for him now.

  Moshe put a hand on Annie’s arm making her jump. He slid a thick envelope over the seat into her hand. “This is the money for the heifers. You will give this to your father.”

  Annie opened the vaccine case and tossed the envelope inside. The Corporation had a lot more faith in her father’s cooperation than she did.

  She saw her mother in the yard in front of the main house and her heart lurched. The older woman stood by the garden with a tomato in her hand, looking down the road, no doubt curious about the white Ford pickup.

  They drove closer and David eased the vehicle to a stop beside the white fence surrounding the garden. Annie’s mother smiled politely with a look of curiosity on her face. She wore faded Wranglers and a plaid western shirt, the sleeves rolled halfway and tail hanging out. Her hair, light brown when Annie had last seen her, was mostly gray, its loosely permed curls tossed by the Nebraska wind. She’d shoved her feet into worn, cheap canvas tennis shoes, the kind she picked up on sale at K-Mart.

  Annie’s throat swelled and ached. Her vision blurred from tears she hadn’t realized she cried. Although she didn’t remember opening the pickup door, stepping out, and walking through the yard gate, she somehow stood in front of her mother.

  The tomato her mother held dropped to the grass. Her mother’s eyes opened wide and her mouth formed a little “o.” She seemed unable to move, as if suddenly turned to a pillar of stone.

  Annie felt her nose running and reached up to swipe her arm across her face. “Mom?”

  The words seemed to break a spell and a strangled scream escaped from her mother. Tears poured from her eyes and she stepped back. “Annie. Oh Lord God. You’re back.”

  Annie closed the space between them and grabbed her mother in a crushing embrace. Both women sobbed and hugged, stared at each other, hugged some more.

  Annie pulled away. “Lizabeth?”

  Her mother wiped her eyes, drawing her face together in worry. “She’s married. Has three children. They live here.”

  The family in the bunkhouse was Lizabeth’s, the kids on the swings hers. Annie fought a resurgence of tears. She’d missed so much. Lizabeth’s wedding. The births.

  Annie put an arm around her mother’s back and turned to David where he stood at the gate, a tender expression softening his face. “Mom, this is David, a friend I’ve been working on a research project with. David
, this is my mom, Arlene.”

  David offered his hand, beaming one of his winning smiles. Her mother hesitantly shook his hand but let go quickly. She pulled away from Annie’s arm, acting uncomfortable with the contact. Her voice sounded flat. “Thanks be to God that you’ve brought Annie home to us.”

  Annie flinched at the familiar invocation. Moshe climbed out of the pickup and Annie nodded at him. “This is Moshe. He’s…” she hesitated slightly, “also a friend.”

  Her mother struggled with a smile but didn’t say anything. It was definitely not a typically friendly Sandhills welcome.

  Annie couldn’t take her eyes from her mother. Whatever happened in her life—all the mistakes, wrong turns, and heartaches—her mother loved her. Annie had thought her mother would act happier to see her, but her mother had never been excitable. Impulsively, she hugged her again.

  Arlene patted Annie’s back then put a few feet distance between them. She cast her eyes to the ground. “I was fixing myself a bacon and tomato sandwich. Why don’t you come inside?”

  “Mom?” She stalled, not sure how to go on. “What about Dad? Is he still mad?”

  Her mother froze. “Oh, Annie. You know your father. He, well, he hasn’t said your name since you left.”

  Annie nodded and looked down at her boots in the grass. “Do you think he’ll speak to me?”

  Arlene fidgeted, her face wrinkled into lines of worry. “You just come in the house. You too, David and M…?”

  “Moshe,” Annie offered, knowing the name would be unfamiliar and awkward.

  Arlene nodded without smiling. “Yes, you, too. We’ll sit down to dinner. Matthew is riding through the two-year old cows and I don’t think he’ll be back for a while. You can leave before he gets here.”

  The knots in Annie’s stomach pulled tighter. “I’ve got to talk to him, Mom.”

  Her mother hurried toward the house. “Let’s not fret about that now, all right? We’ll have a nice dinner and catch up.”

  Now what? From her mother’s nervous behavior, she assumed her father wouldn’t talk to her, let alone sell her cows. David took her hand and followed after her mother. He shrugged as if to tell her not to worry. Moshe leaned against the pickup making no move to go into the house.

  The cracked cement sidewalk leading to the back porch looked the same as it always had. How many times had her feet carried her across this path? The porch door banged shut behind her mother, a sound so familiar it was like the hello of a loved one. She smelled the manure and the particular scent of calving—afterbirth, blood, new life, on the breeze blowing from the lot. All of her senses swelled with joy at the memory of home.

  The feeling didn’t last long, though. Before she got to the steps Annie felt a prickle at the back of her neck. She knew what she’d see when she turned around. Letting go of David’s hand, she took a deep breath to fortify herself and turned.

  He stood at the gate. Like her mother’s, his face had aged in the last sixteen years. Under his greasy cowboy hat, his skin took on an angry red glow; his eyes seemed to shoot fire. “So Absolom has returned.”

  Annie felt numb from her toes upward. It seemed as though all the light of the land faded to leave a spotlight trained on her father. “Hi, Dad.”

  He stomped toward her. “I am not your father. Satan is your father. Return to him and plague us no more.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Her father strode up the cracked sidewalk, his cold eyes staring past her. He might as well have planted his boot in Annie’s stomach. She had known he wouldn’t be happy to see her, but she wasn’t prepared for the pain.

  The black dog enclosed in the bunkhouse yard set up a snarling racket. Her father swung his head toward the dog and shouted, “Quiet! You dumb animal.”

  David reached his arm around the small of Annie’s back and drew her close. “Mr. Grant. My name is David. I’m working with Annie to cure a new strain of a killer brucellosis.”

  Matthew Grant’s eyes flitted to David, then straight ahead. He didn’t answer. When he got close to them, he stepped on the grass and continued toward the house.

  Annie looked at his broad back. The lanky frame she remembered had filled out with age, but his rolling cowboy gait was the same. Feeling an urge to hurt him as he’d hurt her she threw her words like a dagger. “I see King Solomon progeny are still bringing high bids.”

  Her father stopped, but didn’t turn. Annie twisted the knife a little more. “I read in the Journal that ABS bought Solomon’s Choice for forty-nine thousand last spring. Not bad for a bull you saw no future in. Ironic that you were cashing that check about the same time I was scraping up enough money to make my last school loan payment.”

  He pivoted, the anger draining from his face, replaced with pain. “Why have you come back to torment me?”

  Maybe he did feel some remorse; maybe he missed her. Annie took a step forward. “Appears to me like Solomon bought a lot of things around here: a fancy sale barn, big sign. The place looks good.”

  His eyes hardened and he snarled at her. “You prideful daughter of Satan. It was the Lord who gave us the blessings of success. He blesses all who are obedient. To those who reject him, he sends calamity.”

  The porch door opened and Arlene stepped out. Her hand flew up to her mouth.

  The scene felt too familiar. The only thing missing was Lizabeth’s whimpering. Annie stepped forward. “I’m your daughter. So if you call me the devil’s spawn, what does that make you?”

  “Mr. Grant, I think you should hear what Annie has to say,” David said.

  Ignoring David, he flung out his arm and looked to the sky. “My Lord, Jesus Christ, send this abomination from my sight.”

  Annie raised her voice. “What have I done that is so unforgivable? I bred Solomon and it looks to me like he’s put Grant Red Angus on the map. What about the bull you argued was superior to Solomon? Red Glory. I haven’t seen his offspring offered since I left.”

  Her father locked his steely gaze on Annie. “Red Glory’s bloodline is still on the ranch, but yours never will be. You disobeyed me and left the sanctity of a Christian home.”

  David cleared his throat. “Maybe we—”

  Annie interrupted him. “Come on, Dad. Evil? Because I wanted to live my own life? What about the good I did for the ranch, for you and Mom?”

  Her father glared at her. “The Almighty put you here on this ranch and he intended you to stay.”

  “Stop it. I’m not a demon. I’m Annie. Remember?”

  He focused on her, mouth opened slightly.

  She refused to let tears break loose, determined to be as tough as her father. “Remember the night of the blizzard on April fourth and Doc couldn’t get here and we did that emergency C-section? We were up all night and the next day we had twenty-seven calves. All our neighbors had calves die on them. But not us. What about our first bull sale? How we argued over which to cull and which to sell. You got so mad you finally let me put King Solomon in the ring.”

  Her father stood frozen, emotion wiped from his face. Annie wanted to break through the stony indifference, to see the love and pride that used to shine in his eyes. “I’ll never forget that day we rode out to the summer pasture, just you and me. We ate our lunch on Wild Horse Hill and planned the bred heifer sale. We mapped out a five, ten, and twenty-year plan. Did you stick to it, Dad?”

  Annie felt David’s hand on her arm, but couldn’t accept the comfort it offered.

  Her father didn’t say anything. The only sound was the constant rustle of the wind and occasional lowing from the calving lot.

  He closed his eyes and in a hoarse voice started to recite, “If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out…”

  Annie’s tears stuck in her throat. “Don’t pluck me out of your life. I miss you. Don’t you miss me?”

  He stared at Annie, his face a mask of agony. In a choked voice he said, “‘Get behind me, Satan.’”

  Annie winced. “Don’t do this, Dad. Can’t w
e forgive the past?”

  He lowered his head and slowly turned toward the house, his lanky gait sorrowful as he dragged himself past her mother and inside.

  Annie looked to her mother, pleading for intercession, yet knowing it would break the lifelong pattern. “Mom?”

  Tears streaked her mother’s face, but she remained silent. She turned from Annie and quickly followed her husband.

  Annie’s heart shattered. She should have let the CEO shoot her in that darkened room in Jerusalem. It couldn’t have hurt this much. She fought against the self-pity, knowing a lot more than her feelings rested on this mission. She wrapped her arms around David, soaking up strength.

  He stroked her hair. “I’m sorry. Shh. It’ll be okay.” He repeated the words over and over, calming her, giving her time to recover.

  She always knew that someday she’d come back. Under all the loathsome beliefs of her father, he was the only person who really understood her. Everything she knew about cattle and rangeland, about working hard, and about the world, could be traced back to him.

  Slowly the ranch around her took shape and the heartbreak turned to anger. Ashamed of her breakdown, she abruptly pulled away from David. “That’s what religion will do for a person. He used to love me.”

  David’s face was a mixture of anger and compassion. “How could someone like you come from someone like him?”

  “I am him. Well, without the God-blindness. Stubborn, workaholic, quick-tempered. That sound like anyone you know?”

  “You’re not like him. You’re caring and warm and compassionate.”

  The words ran over her like the wind ruffling the leaves. Her boots slapped the broken concrete. “I’m not a scared teen-ager anymore. He can’t hurt me if I don’t let him.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What I came to do.”

  She clumped up the wooden porch and the springs of the door squealed as she swung it open. The back porch hadn’t changed at all. It still was jumble of old coats, overshoes, gloves, caps, odd bits of machinery and tools. It looked like a general repository of items that didn’t belong anywhere in particular.