According to Alysa, a trail used by an ATV or other off road vehicle only a few times could leave an impression that would be visible for years or decades to come.
“My father told me that it was getting so bad nine or ten years ago that the National Forest people wanted to ban ATVs on all but developed roads on some of the public lands, and that if the riders couldn’t follow those rules, then to ban the ATVs completely,” Alysa told them.
“What happened?” asked Nick. He and Ryan had pestered Christina’s parents a long time for ATVs after they went riding with friends one weekend. Her parents had refused on the basis of safety, but now Christina began to wonder if there were other reasons that they hadn’t mentioned.
“Some forests banned them, but the ATV riders went up in arms. It’s actually still, or I guess was still, being fought over. I suppose now that everyone is in the APZs, the argument is pointless.”
Christina thought a long time about those trails after Alysa explained how they were made. Her father had told her that there was a huge dichotomy among people in regards to things like ATVs and not all of it made sense. You had some people singing the environmental song, conserving energy and working hard to live in a way they felt was responsible to the planet. In the past decade more and more ads on TV had jumped on the green bandwagon, touting their products as environmentally friendly, whether or not they actua
lly were.
Then you had the others who lived to please themselves, using resources any way they wanted without regard to the future, or to anyone else using the same resources. These people screamed that the public lands were just that, public, and that they, as members of the public had a right to use them in any manner they saw fit. Their wants came first, and others using the public lands, whether it be for ranching or recreation, were seen as a nuisance. These people treated the land, and everything on it, including corrals and windmills as theirs to use, pollute or destroy as they wished.
Christina remembered her father laughing when he explained this schism to her. Sometimes, he said, you even had a split in the same person. He called these people “environmental schizophrenics.” These were the people who used the compact florescent bulbs in their lights. Who always bought from the organic aisle in the grocery store. Who recycled all their paper, glass and aluminum, then spent the weekends ripping up the land with noisy ATVs or were careless when filling the tanks of their boats and figured that the gas and oil spilled into the waterways wouldn’t matter. He even included those people who planted green lawns or installed flowing waterfalls in desert towns like Las Vegas and Phoenix.
The trail continued downward until it finally broke out of the thick scrub into an area of lower growth plants. Before Christina lay a two lane road leading into a cluster of houses, announcing the presence of the town of Wikieup. Alysa’s horse pealed fourth with another ear splitting whinny, which was quickly answered. Everyone’s head snapped in the direction from which the sound emanated. Before them, on the far side of the road were several more horses, only these ones weren’t wild as Alysa had thought. These horses carried pack saddles and wore halters, and on the lead horse was a man, looking at them with surprise equal to their’s, the sun glinting off the deep red of his hair as he raised his hand to shade his eyes from the early afternoon sun.
A man that Christina knew.
25
“You have got to be kidding!” Maggie stared in horror at the small black cow laying approximately twenty feet in front of her.
“Is she having the calf, Mom?” asked Mark as he stood beside Maggie, holding Lindy’s hand as they watched the cow’s sides heave and a pair of large white hooves bulge out from beneath her tail, only to disappear back inside when the contraction eased up. “O’Reilly said he was afraid she was too little and couldn’t calve on her own.”
“She darned well better be having that calf on her own,” said Maggie, “cause her obstetrician happens to be MIA and I have no intention of acting as a substitute.”
O’Reilly had been gone nearly four days, and Maggie was becoming worried. He’d said that he might be gone for up to a week or a week and a half, but Maggie had held onto an irrational conviction that he’d show up much sooner. Every day that she didn’t hear his horses’ hoofs echoing through the canyon her anxiety increased, as well as her annoyance with herself.
The thing that frustrated her the most was that, for the life of her, she couldn’t decide whether her anxiety was for him, personally, or whether it was the fear that if he’d been captured, she, Mark and Lindy would soon be discovered. The not knowing was driving her mad, and now she was faced with this cow on top if it all. “What’s an obsta... and obstita... that thing you said, what is it?” Mark asked. He looked from the cow up to Maggie while Lindy pulled at his hand, trying to reach the prostrate bovine.
“An obstetrician is a doctor who delivers babies.”
“Baby calves?”
“No, baby humans. A vet delivers calves. Actually cows deliver calves, unless they’re like Miss Emily here who can’t seem to manage it on her own. Then she needs a vet to help out.”
“Cow, cow, cow. What wrong cow?” Lindy fought to get free of Mark and reach Emily, the name that Mark had given the small cow when Maggie first brought it to Hideaway.
“We don’t have a vet. O’Reilly said he might have to help her have the calf. He’s not a vet, but he said he could pull the calf?”
“I’m seeing a bit of a problem with that plan at the moment, kiddo.”
“What?”
Maggie looked in exasperation at Mark as he watched the cow straining in front of him. “The problem is that O’Reilly isn’t here. I am here. You are here. Lindy is here and Jack and Gypsy are here. None of us who are here, with the possible exception of Emily, have any idea how to deliver a calf. The one human we know who does have an idea of how to deliver a calf is conspicuous by his absence.”
“Okay, okay... Geez. How hard can it be? Just grab on and pull, right? You can do it.”
“If it were that easy, it would be hard to justify how expensive it is to get into vet school. For one thing, I’m not sure how much Emily is going to want me messing around with her rear end. From what I remember of child birth, it’s not a time when you want well-meaning but inept help and advice.” Maggie studied the groaning cow in front of her. Two feet. That had to be good, since you would think two would need to come through at once. Big feet, at least to her eyes. That might be bad since the calf attached to them would probably be big as well, and Emily was a small cow.
Maggie took a tentative step toward the animal. Then another, and another. The cow looked around toward her and shook her head, flinging cow snot through the air, but didn’t try to get up. Another few steps and Maggie was at Emily’s rear end, looking down at the wet, sticky mess. Another contraction wracked the heifer and the feet jutted out. Gritting her teeth, Maggie reached down and grabbed them before the contraction ended and they could be drawn back inside, grimacing at the slimy feeling.
The strength required to keep the calf’s feet from disappearing back inside the cow surprised Maggie. She wrapped her hands around the legs above the hooves. The slime covering the limbs made getting a good grip nearly impossible, and her hands quickly began to ache with the effort. When she attempted to pull, she felt as though she was tugging on something permanently attached to the cow, not a presumably removable calf. Emily, deciding that she wasn’t interested after all in having a novice midwife, chose that moment to lunge to her feet, pulling the calf’s legs from Maggie’s hands, whereupon they swiftly vanished back into the nether regions of the cow.
Emily lumbered off several yards before stopping. She pawed the ground, arched her back and emitted a strangled bellow as another contraction took control of her body. The large feet appeared once again, but seemed to make no more progress than before. When the contraction released its hold, they once again slipped back inside.
What do we do now? Maggie thought, as she sto
od watching Emily, hands liberally coated with slime hanging limply at her sides. She had to do something. She couldn’t just let the cow die this way. She briefly considered going inside to get O’Reilly’s gun. A swift bullet - assuming she could bring herself to pull the trigger - had to be better than this lingering agony. A look over her shoulder at Mark and Lindy, standing watching her with eyes full of trust put an end to that plan, however. She was going to have to deliver that calf, one way or another.
Closing her own eyes and taking a deep breath, Maggie reached a decision.
“Okay, guys,” she said, turning back toward the children. “Mark, I need you to help me get Emily into those pens behind the barn. We’ll run her up the alley then into that chute at the end. That way we’ll be able to hold her still while I try and get the calf out.” Maggie’s stomach clenched at the thought of what would be coming.
“Then I want you to go back to the house, take Lindy with you, and look through that bunch of old books and magazines that were here when we came.”
“Gotcha. What am I looking for?” Mark answered promptly.
“I think I saw some books about raising cattle. Maybe in one of those books, or in a magazine, there will be information on how to deliver a calf that doesn’t want to be delivered. It looks like we’re about to get a crash course in bovine midwifery.”
Mark nodded avidly, obviously ready to turn and head out on his mission. “Okay, Mom. I look for an article or book and bring it back here. Anything else?
“I don’t know. In all those old movies where the woman is having a baby they say to bring hot water, soap and towels or sheets. That ought to work for a cow as well, I guess.”
“Got it.” Mark turned and started to run toward the house.
“Hey!”
Mark stopped and turned back toward his mother, a questioning look on his face.
“You’ve got to help me get Emily in the chute first.”
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry.” Mark turned back with a sheepish look on his face, towing Lindy behind him. “What should I do with Lindy?”
“Lord, I don’t know. Uh... I know, put her in the big box stall in the barn with Gypsy and Jack. She won’t be happy, but she should be safe for the few minutes it takes us to get Emily rounded up.”
As it turned out, Emily wasn’t overly excited about going into the pens and the few minutes turned into over twenty of hard work. By the time the heifer was safely ensconced in the interconnecting labyrinth of pens and alleys Maggie and Mark were both out of breath and sweating profusely and Maggie was seriously beginning to reconsider getting the gun, while at the same time wishing that she’d had that much energy when she’d delivered Mark.
From the barn Lindy was shrieking her discontent at her temporary imprisonment joined in a discordant harmony by howls and sharp barks from Gypsy and Jack, who apparently felt that they could do a better job of rounding up cattle than the humans could.
Maggie stood, hunched over, hands on her knees as she panted, the sweat dripping off her nose.
“Okay, Mark... now... get Lindy and go... to the house and find me a book.”
Mark nodded and turned, heading for the barn where he liberated the toddler and the dogs, then headed for the house, urging Lindy to move faster.
As her heartbeat and respiration gradually returned to normal, Maggie stood up and watched the small black cow as she went through another contraction.
“I guess this is it, girl.” She took a deep breath and stepped through the gate and began pushing the heifer through the alleyway to the chute.
26
The coolness of the thick-walled house was a welcome relief after the scorching day outside. Mark paused briefly to allow his eyes to adjust to the light bef
ore releasing Lindy’s hand and making his way to the bookshelves that flanked the fireplace at the right side of the big room.
Lindy, still apparently insulted by her incarceration in the barn, plopped herself down on the cool stone floor where Mark left her and continued to snuffle and whine. Upset by Lindy’s distress, Gypsy stood in front of her and vigorously began to wash the tears and snot from her face with a warm, wet tongue. Lindy began to giggle, and reached out to grab Gypsy’s white ruff in both hands.
Glancing over his shoulder at the two sitting in front of the door, Mark assured himself that Gypsy had everything under control then turned back to the task at hand. When they’d arrived at Hideaway, they’d found a number of books and magazines left on the shelves, presumably for the entertainment of anyone who found himself spending time at the camp.
The selection had been eclectic, to say the least, ranging from ancient livestock manuals to a ten-year-old copy of Modern Bride. That last one had caused some puzzlement and laughter when it was unearthed amid several old copies of the Stockman’s Journal. His mother maintained that some cowboy had kidnaped it from his girlfriend in the interest of self-defense, while Mark insisted that a cowgirl had brought it with her on a visit. O’Reilly had looked briefly at the magazine, then turned away with a slight smile and declined to voice an opinion as to how it came to be at the camp.
Mark yanked books off the shelves, looking quickly through anything that mentioned cattle, but quickly became frustrated. Many of the books were from the middle of the last century, and in none of the indexes could he find anything about calving. The magazines proved to be an even bigger challenge, since each had many articles, and none of them had indexes.
He looked out the window toward the barn, stamping his foot in impatience at his difficulties.
This is stupid, he thought. “I’m never going to find anything in all this mess.”
He turned to throw several magazines on the table behind him, his agitation causing him to use more strength than he intended. The magazines cascaded across the table, fetching up against his mother’s computer. She’d taken to writing every morning and evening, using the solar charger to replenish the batteries during the day.
“Too bad she doesn’t have a program on cows. Then I could just do a s...” his sentence trailed off as an idea blasted into his mind, stunning him with the simplicity of it. A search! Google calving problems! “Yeah!”
Mark hit the table in excitement, causing Lindy, who was busy wrestling with Gypsy, to turn and look at him quizzically, uttering a confused string of sounds that probably meant “Excuse me, was there something you needed?”
Mark hurried around the table to the computer, raised its cover and pressed the power button. The computer hummed quietly to life, flashing up the screen with the picture of him and his dad taken at Christmas two years ago. Looking quickly over the icons, Mark clicked on the browser and waited for the familiar screen to pop to life.
NO CONNECTION DETECTED. CHECK INTERNET CONNECTION AND RETRY.
What the heck does that mean? Mark examined the computer. Maybe he couldn’t get the Internet down here in this canyon. Then it struck him. The card. The satellite card his mother had shown him. He remembered how tickled she was when she’d gotten it.
“With this little card, I can get on the Web anywhere in the world. See, it just goes in this slot here,” she demonstrated, “and hey presto, I’m ready to go. Way better than the old cellular technology.”
Mark turned the computer around and looked at the slot in the side where the card was supposed to go. Nothing. She had to have it here somewhere. He ducked under the table where the computer bag sat, and began rifling through the pockets. There it was, in its little plastic case.
He was so excited that he nearly dropped it, scared to death that he would break it before he could get it installed. In fact, the first time he tried to slide it into the slot, it refused to budge. He pulled it back out again, and stared at it. There were little gold wires, and a notched corner. The wires had to be what went into the computer. Maybe he’d had it upside down.
Hands shaking with nervous tension, he turned the card over and tried it in the slot again. This time it slid in perfectly and the co
mputer emitted a soft ping as it recognized the new hardware. Mark waited for it to say the hardware was installed and working, then clicked on the Internet browser icon again, holding his breath until the familiar window appeared on the screen.
“Oh, yeah, now we’re getting somewhere,” he said softly as he waited for the popular search engine to finish its download. His hands found the keyboard and he was ready to type in his search when a second window appeared in front of the familiar Google logo.
UNREGISTERED DEVICE DETECTED. PLEASE TYPE IN USER NAME AND AUTHORIZATION CODE.
Two small windows appeared below, one labeled user name and the other authorization code, followed by a small timer, counting down from 60. Puzzled, Mark tried typing his mother’s name, and the password that she’d used on the computer at home; his and his father’s names. Nothing. The clock continued counting down. Mark sat staring at the computer, feeling his stomach sink. He wouldn’t be able to search for how to deliver a calf unless he knew the user name and password.
Sighing, he turned from the computer and headed for the front door. He’d have to waste the time going back down to the barn and ask his mother for her information before he could log in. Grabbing Lindy by the hand, he ran back out the door and hurried toward the barn.
He found his mother in the pens behind the barn, dirty and disheveled. A large smear of manure crossed her left cheekbone and there was a fresh tear in the knee of her jeans. The look on her face would have set fire to an ice cube, if such a thing had been present on this broiling day.
Gone to Ground Page 22
