In Open Spaces

by Russell Rowland

  When we approached, the cow bobbed her head as if she was going to run, but Rita pulled the horse up. I looked the cow over and didn’t see anything unusual. Rita seemed hesitant to move.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Rita nudged the horse slowly around to the side, then behind the cow, who turned her head, watching us closely. When the cow’s rear end came into sight, I saw the problem. There, hanging beneath her tail, was a mass of nearly white, bloody flesh. And I knew then why Rita hadn’t been in a hurry to come back out.

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “What is it?” Rita’s voice shook.

  “She’s prolapsed.” I climbed slowly off the horse.

  “Prolapsed?” Rita repeated the word cautiously, as if the sound of it might cause the cow more pain. “What does that mean? Is that her womb?”

  “Afraid so.” I started to walk, very deliberately, circling behind the cow. “We’re going to have to get her to the barn. We’re going to have to go easy with her. She’s pretty jumpy.”

  The cow lowered her head, still eyeing me, ready to run. I raised my arms and waved them, not quickly, just enough to get her moving.

  “I wonder where her calf is,” I said.

  Back in the barn, we studied the cow. “God, that looks painful,” Rita said. We had gotten her into a stall, and we sat on the gate. I lit a lantern and hung it above the stall, and its soft glow gave us a clearer view of the cow’s condition.

  I recognized the cow by the twisted knob of horn on the left side of her head. She was one of our best mothers, one we could count on to take an orphaned calf each spring. It seemed ironic now. She’d been so anxious to see her new baby, she’d pushed too hard, exposing her womb and who knows what other organs to air they were never intended to see. It was also a strong indication of how much pain she was in that she had left her calf somewhere.

  “What do we do?” Rita looked at me.

  “We’ve got to push it back inside,” I sighed.

  Rita cringed. “Have you ever done that before?”

  I shook my head. “I watched Dad do it once when I was a kid. It’s not going to be fun. We’ll need some water and a needle to sew her up.”

  “Oh, god,” Rita said, her shoulders rising up to her ears. She shook off the thought. “Okay, I’ll go get that stuff.”

  “I need to go out and find her calf.”

  Rita nodded, then climbed down from the gate.

  With life on the ranch as difficult and strained as it was, Rita and I had come to rely more and more on each other to keep our spirits up. We had an odd arrangement, living like a family in every respect except the obvious. And although we worked well together when it came to planning our days and sharing in the chores, the awkward nature of the situation brought a natural arm’s length to our relationship. We were very cautious about touching; even an accidental brush caused us both to flinch, jumping away from each other as if we’d singed our skin. And although our conversations sometimes veered close to the topic of Jack, we were both quick to make an abrupt change in direction at those moments. But as time passed, we did discuss other people, and politics—safe topics. But I had to be careful not to broach anything that stirred up my personal feelings toward Rita. They were too strong. And as long as Rita was holding out hope that Jack would return, I didn’t want them exposed. I knew she was still thinking of him, because every once in a while she would retreat to her bedroom early some night, telling the boys not to bother her, and we would hear her crying quietly.

  So the trust we developed was strong, but incomplete. Because of course the two topics that we never discussed were the most important ones in our lives—how I felt about Rita, and how she felt about Jack.

  Because it was so dark, and I had no idea where the cow had given birth, finding the calf proved to be difficult. I started where we’d found the cow, and meandered back and forth across the pasture. I considered waiting until morning, but I knew that once the cold settled in, the calf probably wouldn’t survive the night. So I gave the pasture one more round.

  Finally I spotted a small, huddled figure, only twenty or thirty yards from where we’d found the mother. The calf’s rump was in the air, and he was down on his front knees, struggling to pull one of his forelegs out from under him. His coat was slick with afterbirth. I wiped as much of the moisture off him as I could before slinging him over my horse and riding back to the barn. He had some trouble breathing, so I cleaned his nostrils and wiped my hand on my dungarees.

  When I got to the barn, Bob was there.

  “Where’s Rita?” I asked.

  “She went to put the boys to bed. She’ll be back.” Bob turned to the cow, who still looked scared and confused. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “Really? Weren’t you there when this happened before, when we were kids?”

  Bob shook his head.

  “Hm. I could of sworn you were there.” In fact, I remembered Bob being there, because he had been so upset by the whole scene that he had to leave.

  “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  I opened the gate just enough to squeeze the calf inside. The cow nuzzled him, then licked him clean, her big pink tongue smoothing his shivering hide. The calf kept trying to stand, but his mother’s bath knocked him over each time.

  “Did you bring water?” I looked around.

  “Yeah. I got a bucket right here.” Bob walked around to the next stall.

  “Why did you put it in there?”

  Bob shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess I didn’t want it to get knocked over.”

  I rubbed my chin. “All right, let’s see what we can do here.”

  Replacing a cow’s womb must be a veterinarian’s worst nightmare, and since we weren’t even veterinarians, I guess it would qualify as worse than our worst nightmare. It was like trying to push a balloon through a knothole.

  We ducked into the stall, sneaking past the cow so she wouldn’t get too spooked. But her eyes got wild, staring right at us, daring us to come near her.

  “Set that bucket down in the corner,” I told Bob.

  We walked slowly, making our way behind her. She twisted her neck around to keep an eye on us.

  “Mooo,” she said, and I’m pretty sure she meant it as a threat.

  I pictured what would happen when we touched the womb.

  “We’re going to have to tie her head,” I said. “Otherwise she’ll be all over this stall, and us with her.”

  Bob nodded. “I’ll get a rope.” He crept out of the stall and returned with the rope, which he’d already fashioned into a lasso. He straddled the gate and dropped the loop down toward her head.

  The cow pushed her nose into the corner when she saw the rope, and Bob had to reach down and slip the loop over her head by hand. He slipped the other end through the gate’s planks and crawled outside the stall, where he leaned back, pulling at the rope. I slapped the cow’s flank, and she moved toward the gate. Bob gave the rope a tug to keep her momentum going. She ended up with her head about a foot from the gate, and Bob tied the rope.

  Rita returned to the barn. “How’s it going?”

  “Well, we haven’t gotten too far along yet.” I heard the irritation in my voice.

  I looked over at Rita, and the pained look had returned to her face as she studied the cow.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks.”

  “How do you know?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t. I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

  Rita smiled. “You don’t have to do that. Besides, I don’t believe you. Speaking of pain, I brought the needle.” She held up a big needle, one we used to sew up the ends of gunnysacks. I cringed, and she shrugged.

  “Should do the trick,” she said.

  I nodded.

  We washed our hands in the bucket and stood in a row behind the cow, staring at the glistening mass of flesh. I wasn’t sure where to start.

&n
bsp; “Well, somebody’s got to break the ice here.” Rita stepped to the cow’s side, reached out, and placed her hand along the bottom of the womb, lifting it with slow deliberation. The cow bawled, a strangled, wheezing call, and one hind leg kicked, missing everything.

  I stood on the opposite side and cradled what skin was left. We lifted the flesh, which felt like a big lung, up to the opening and held it there. The cow squirmed and grunted, fighting the rope.

  “Hold the tail, Bob.”

  He pulled the tail to one side.

  I slipped my hand inside the cow, taking some of the tissue with me, and Rita did the same. I slid my other hand inside, and a bubble of skin popped out of the opening. The womb slid from the inside hand, then from Rita’s, until the whole thing was hanging down just as it started.

  We tried again, moving slower, even more deliberate. I felt my jaw tightening. I pushed a handful of flesh inside, but the cow suddenly clenched. I had expected she might do this, but I wasn’t ready for it to hurt like it did. She clamped down on my forearm, and my sympathies went out to every calf ever born. I groaned, loudly, and Rita looked at me with alarm.

  “What?” she asked.

  I couldn’t talk. My hand went numb, and I pictured the arm turning blue, stiffening like a corpse. But the cow let up a bit, and I whipped my arm out before she could grab it again.

  “Whoa.” Rita jumped. “What are you doing?”

  “I guess she thought she needed an arm.” I massaged my forearm.

  “Oh, she gave you a little hug, did she?” Bob said, chuckling.

  “She likes me, all right.” I shook the arm out.

  The calf, inching forward on shaky legs, groped toward his mother’s udders, sniffing through his damp little snout. His tongue slipped out and took hold of an udder, pulling it between his jaws. He began sucking, and we couldn’t have come up with a better anesthetic if we’d tried every drug known to man. After the calf suckled for a half minute, the cow stepped forward, putting a bit of slack in the rope.

  Rita and I smiled at each other.

  “Okay, let’s try her again,” I said.

  We followed the same procedure, with my left arm inside this time. “Bob, why don’t you thread that needle in case we ever get this thing in there.”

  Bob stared at the tail, contemplating what to do with it. He let it drop, then came back with a hunk of twine and tied the tail to the stall.

  For the next two hours the three of us tried to solve this puzzle. Several times we nearly had the whole womb back inside when the cow squeezed it out. She kicked me once, right in the shin, and she got Rita later, prompting a punch in the flank.

  The calf finished nursing, lay down, and slept. I was jealous.

  Our arms felt like the muscles had been pulled right out of them. And because we had to stand with our knees bent, to get the right angle, we fought intense, gripping cramps in our legs. It was good there were three of us. One could sit and rest while the other two strained at the birth canal.

  Bob was sitting on top of the gate, stretching his legs, when we heard a rustling outside. Then footsteps. Helen appeared. We all looked at her, questioning, wondering if something was wrong.

  She fixed an eye on Bob, and he looked down at the ground. Helen showed no interest in what was happening in the stall. Rita and I had about half the womb back inside the cow. Rita looked at me, making a fierce face. I almost laughed.

  “I just wondered if everything was all right out here,” Helen said, her tone pleasant on the surface but strained in its core.

  I don’t know what she meant by “all right,” but with Rita and me grunting away, and the three of us covered with sweat and blood, and one miserable cow trying to figure out what was going on at her south end, things were clearly not all right. Bob just shrugged. He couldn’t look Helen in the eye, and I wondered whether it was possible that she actually expected him to come inside.

  Helen stood squarely facing Bob. He mumbled something we couldn’t hear, something that didn’t satisfy Helen as she made no move to leave. In fact, she didn’t make any move at all.

  “How are your legs?” I asked Rita, talking a little louder than necessary.

  “Pretty tight.”

  Two or three feet of flesh hung from behind the cow. She was getting tired and hadn’t pushed anything out for a while.

  “You need a break?” I asked.

  Rita took a deep breath. “I think I’ll make it.”

  This wasn’t the answer I was looking for, and I tried to get the message across with a look, but Rita was intent on her work.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “How much longer you think this will take?” Bob’s question annoyed me. I can’t describe how much Bob’s question annoyed me.

  “You know I can’t answer that,” I said after a pause.

  “Did you get the needle threaded?” Rita asked Bob.

  “It’s right here.”

  “Well, if she doesn’t push again, we could be finished before too much longer,” Rita said.

  There was a long silence, with only a slight rustling from where Helen was standing.

  Bob cleared his throat. “You guys think you can handle it?” His voice sounded as if it would crack.

  The silence that followed this question was even longer. Rita and I inched the womb up, sneaking a little at a time back into its cavity. A few inches slipped out. Two steps forward, one back. My legs were burning. Neither of us answered Bob, and I guess it became obvious we weren’t going to.

  I heard a brief, guttural “Hmph,” then the crunch of heels against dirt and straw. To my surprise, Bob didn’t follow.

  “Need a break, Rita?” He stepped back to where we were. “Whoa, you guys almost got it.”

  “Better get the needle ready,” I said, impatient.

  Bob, who seemed pleased with himself, was anxious to help. He plucked the needle from his pant leg and stood at the ready.

  “So you’re going to stick it out after all, huh, Bob?” I didn’t expect this from Rita, but I guess she was as tired and at least as annoyed as I was.

  Bob ignored the remark, directing his attention to the job. Helen’s visit got Rita and me angry enough that it renewed some of our strength. After a few minutes, we worked the last of the womb into the opening and held her closed.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “She’s not going to like this,” Rita said.

  We braced ourselves, but it didn’t help. Bob inserted the needle, and the cow reacted as if we had shoved a branding iron into her. She cried out, and her body tensed, pulling at the rope. The gate shook. She kicked Bob, and the womb sloshed out, falling to its full length. Rita collapsed, rolling out of range of the cow’s heels, and I sat down myself, exhausted, leaning against the stall.

  “Damn!” Rita shouted in a tired, husky voice. Then she repeated herself, several times, harder each time.

  Once we recovered, it took another half hour to get the damn thing back inside. This time, we were smart enough to put a few stitches in beforehand so we’d have a start once we got to the end.

  Bob kept twisting his neck around, looking out toward the barn door, expecting Helen to show up again. The first few times he did this, I didn’t think twice about it. But after a half hour of Bob turning every minute or two, even in the middle of this job, I lost my patience.

  “Bob, why don’t you just leave, get it over with. You’re not doing us any good here.” Once I started talking, I was surprised how angry I was. “If your mind is somewhere else, you might as well go there before someone gets hurt.”

  I felt Bob’s eyes on me, and felt his hurt, and probably for that reason, I didn’t look at him. But I was too tired and angry to worry about him. And by that time, I was willing to finish the job with just the two of us, no matter how much longer it took or how painful it was.

  Bob walked away wordlessly and climbed from the stall. After several footsteps, we heard a loud smack, and
the barn shook. The cow jerked, but not enough to affect our job. Bob had either punched or kicked the wall, and the fact that he knew the sound could have made us lose the womb again made me angrier.

  As we huddled behind that poor cow, struggling to stuff this fleshy balloon through the fleshy knothole, we pressed against each other, and I felt Rita’s breath on my cheek. At times our heads touched, and we were so focused on the task at hand that we didn’t pull away. The sweat ran down our faces. Our cheeks slid against each other. Rita’s hair brushed against my neck, and my nose. I smelled her, and felt every movement she made—each time she bent her knees and pushed upward, and each time she twisted to one side with her hip. Physically, it was the closest I had ever been to Rita, and it was distracting. It made my heart race a little, and the blood pounded in my head. And the longer we worked, the more I thought about being so close to her, and the more I liked it. A half hour after Bob left, we finally tied the final stitch into a knot. We sat in the back of the stall, leaning our heads against the wall and looking at the raw, sealed opening. Our breath beat through slack mouths, showing a little in the dim light of the lantern.

  “We did it,” Rita said.

  I nodded and held out a hand. She pressed hers into mine, and as we shook, our hands slid against each other in blood.

  Back at the house, covered with blood and slime, Rita and I were both in need of a bath. We usually alternated evenings, but this was clearly a special case. I heated up the water and filled the tub while Rita warmed the coffee that George had made earlier. I let her go first, and I sat and read a book while listening to the water slosh behind the curtain. I noticed this splashing and the motions of Rita’s body more than usual that night, listening to each ripple of water, and occasionally watching the shadow of Rita’s arm, or the silhouette of her head as she let her hair down from its bun.

  “Blake?” Rita asked from behind the curtain.

  Her voice was so unexpected that I didn’t answer right away. I had to clear my throat. “Yeah?”

  “I forgot a towel.”