Light to the Hills: A Novel (43)

It was easy enough to borrow flame from a lantern to light the stove, and soon a robust fire lent a little more warmth to the space. A length of pipe to vent, most likely rigged by Harley, shot out the side of the barn. Amanda imagined a steady stream of gray smoke curling upward into the trees.

Finn leaned on the side of the cow’s pen and watched her awhile. “Her bag’s waxing right on. Shouldn’t be too awful long, Myrtle.” As if in response, the heifer splayed her feet, stretched out her neck, and bawled a long, low note from her wide pink mouth.

Amanda laughed. “Easy for you to say, she says. Try being on my side of things.”

“Let’s tie her up and check it out.” He opened the pen door and approached the heifer, talking low and soft. “Sass, I’m gonna loop the end o’ this rope over the side of the pen, and you stand out there and hold t’other end of it. I don’t think she will, but if she starts to throw a fit, just let ’er go. No sense anybody getting hurt in the tussle.”

Sass grabbed the rope and held it tight. Now Myrtle’s head was near the outside wall of the pen, and Sass reached in to pet the white curls that stuck up between her eyes. Such long eyelashes. Myrtle’s thick pink tongue worked busily, licking her nose repeatedly in a nervous reflex.

“Amanda, you think you can grab hold of her tail here and pull it to the side? Nothing worse than getting whacked by a flying tail covered in cow shit. Good thing you have on gloves.”

Despite the cold, Finn removed his coat and laid it on the rails of the pen. He rolled up the sleeve on his right arm as far as it would go, revealing a dark streak on his upper arm. Finn caught Amanda watching before she abruptly looked away.

“That’s my coal tattoo,” he said, running his hand over the mark. “If you get hit hard enough at the right angle, hard enough to break the skin, it leaves a mark like that. Lots of fellers have ’em, wear ’em like a badge of honor.” He shrugged.

“Looks like a fair reminder you survived,” she said. “I got this tail now.”

With Amanda pulling on Myrtle’s tail for all she was worth, Finn eased his bare arm into the heifer’s back end. Myrtle ceased her licking and stood still, startled by the new sensation. Finn closed his eyes tight to concentrate, all the while murmuring his way through to soothe the soon-to-be mama.

“There’s a nose, that’s good. It’s facing right. And a shoulder.” He shifted positions and one eye opened. “Don’t let that tail go, now.” Amanda shook her head; she didn’t aim to. He nudged up closer to Myrtle, his arm buried up to his shoulder. “Back to the head.” He slid a finger into the calf’s mouth and felt the tongue work reflexively. “Got a good suckle. He’s gonna be hungry when this is all over. Hoof—is that back or front? Let’s see, feels like front, but where’s the other’n?”

Finn’s eyes flew open, and his face contorted with a grimace. He let loose a low moan at the same time as Myrtle lowed again.

“Lord a’mercy,” he grunted between clenched teeth. “Son of a gun! Come on, Myrtle, turn loose!” Myrtle stopped lowing, and with a rush of air, Finn backed a few steps away from her, drawing his arm out in one slick movement. He plunged it into a ready bucket he’d placed in the pen and used a towel to wipe it clean of blood and fluids.

“You can turn loose of that tail,” he said, massaging his arm. “She clamped down on me in a big contraction keen as a needle. Like being stuck in a vise at the lumberyard. Maybe I’ll get the feeling back in my fingers in a minute.”

“What’d you feel?” asked Sass, still holding the rope.

“It’s a big’un. Facing right, but the front feet are folded back’ards under it ’stead of sticking straight out. Means I gotta go back in and try to move things around. I’m gonna let her keep going a bit on her own first, so she’s good and ready.”

“Should I go wake up Cricket?”

“Naw, not yet. It’ll be a while.”

Amanda poured tea into the cups Rai had sent out with them, and they sat on upended buckets by the stove. For a while, the only sound was the crackle of burning wood or one of the horses snorting dust from its nose. Finn stretched his bad leg out in front of the stove and rubbed it absently.

“How’s it feeling?” asked Amanda. “You’re getting around a whole lot better.”

Finn stopped rubbing. “I reckon.” He sighed. “It don’t hurt near as much as before. With Cricket’s walking stick, I’m good to go, but it’s not where I want to be. I’ll get there by and by.”

“What happened that day?” she asked, her voice soft. “In there?”

Sass stayed quiet, huddled in the old Jacob’s ladder quilt her mama had given them. She leaned closer. “It’s all right if you don’t want to say,” Amanda added.

Finn rubbed his neck and stared into the red mouth of the woodstove. “Naw, it’s just a thing that happened,” he said. He took a long sip of tea. “We’d worked down a new shaft on a new seam they’d dug a couple weeks earlier. Canaries tested good; horses were easy and not nervous or jiggy. I was working a twelve-hand draft we call Feather—that’s on account of his feet are feathered out fancy like a Percheron or shire. The boys are shoveling and singing and whatnot in this room ’bout four feet high and six feet square. They’d shored it all up with timbers, you know, and Feather had about two and a half carts full, almost ready to pull out. I’m sitting up on the spot between the first cart and Feather’s rear end, my feet braced agin his back, thinking—well, I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe ’bout fishing the next day or that sweet apple pie you brought that time.” He winked at her. “Casting round for ideers to make some extra money. One by one the boys drop off singing ’cause we all heard the knockers.”