Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(56)

Oh, I want to believe she is all right, Maggie said. Let us think that.

What brought her to leave though? Raymond said. Can you tell me that. You think we did something to her?

Of course not, Maggie Jones said.

Don’t you?

No, she said. Not for a minute.

Harold looked slowly around the room. I don’t think we did anything to her, he said. I can’t think of anything we might of did. He looked at Maggie. I been trying to think, he said.

Of course not, she said. I know you didn’t.

Harold nodded. He looked around again and stood up. I reckon we might as well go on home, he said. What else is there to do. He put his old work hat on again.

Raymond still sat as before. You think this here is the one? he said. That give her the baby?

Yes, Maggie said. I think it must be.

Raymond studied her for a moment. Then he said, Oh. He paused. Well. I’m getting old. I’m slow on the uptake. And then he couldn’t think what more there might be to say. He stood up beside his brother. He looked past Maggie, out across the room. I reckon we can go, he said. We thank you for your kindly help, Maggie Jones.

They went out of her house into the cold again and drove off. At home they put on their canvas coveralls and went out in the dark, carrying a lantern to the calf shed where they’d penned up a heifer they’d noticed was showing springy. She was one of the two-year-olds. They’d noticed her bag had begun to show tight too. So they had brought her into the three-sided shed next to the work corrals the day before.

Now when they stepped through the gate, holding the lantern aloft under the pole roof, they could see she wasn’t right. She faced them across the bright straw and frozen ground, humped up, her tail lifted straight out, her eyes wide and nervous. She took a couple of quick jittery steps. Then they saw that the calf bed was pushed out of her, hanging against her back legs, high up beneath her tail, and there was one pink hoof protruded from the prolapsed uterus. The heifer stepped away, taking painful little steps, humped up, moving toward the back wall, the hoof of her unborn calf sticking out from behind her as though it were mounted in dirty burlap.

They got a rope around the heifer’s neck, made a quick halter of it and snugged her tight to the shed wall. Then Harold took off his mittens and pushed at the hoof for a long time until he was able to move it back inside, and then he went inside with his hand and felt of her and tried to position the calf’s head between the two front feet as it was supposed to be, but the head wasn’t right and the calf would not come. The little heifer was worn out now. Her head hung down and her back was humped. She stood and moaned. There was nothing to do but use the calf chain. They put the loops inside the heifer over the unborn calf’s legs above the hocks, then fit the U-shaped piece against the heifer’s hindquarters, and began to jack the calf out. Ratcheting it out of her. The heifer was pulled against the rope around her neck and head and she moaned in harsh pants and once raised her head to bawl, her eyes rolled back to white in terror. Then the calf’s head came out with the front legs and suddenly the whole calf dropped heavily, slick and wet, and they caught it and wiped its nose clean and checked its mouth for air passage. They put the calf down in the straw. For the next hour, while the heifer stood panting and groaning they cleaned the prolapsed uterus and pushed it back inside of her and then sewed her up with heavy thread. Afterward they shot her with penicillin and stood the calf up and pointed it toward the heifer’s bag. The heifer sniffed at the calf and roused a little and began to lick at it. The calf bumped at her and started to suck.

By now it was after midnight. It was cold and bleak outside the shed and utterly quiet. Overhead, the stars in the unclouded sky looked as cold and arctic as ice.

They came back into the house without yet removing their canvas coveralls and sat spent and bloody at the wood table in the kitchen.

You think she’s going to be all right? Raymond said.

She’s young. She’s strong and healthy. But you don’t ever know what might could happen. You can’t tell.

No. You can’t tell. You don’t know how she is. You don’t even know where he might of took her for sure.

He might of landed her in Pueblo or Walsenburg. Or some other place besides Denver. You can’t never tell.

I’m going to hope she’s all right, Raymond said.

I hope it, said Harold.

They went upstairs. They lay down in bed in the dark and could not sleep but lay awake across the hall from each other, thinking about her, and felt how the house was changed now, how it seemed all of a sudden so lonesome and empty.





Guthrie.

Lloyd Crowder called him early in the evening. You better come down here. It looks like they’re going to try to blindside you. You better bring your grade book and any papers you have.

Who is? Guthrie said.

The Beckmans.

He went out of the house and got in his pickup and drove across town to the district office next to the high school and when he went in he saw them immediately. They were sitting in the third row of the public chairs off to the far side. Beckman, his wife, and the boy. They turned and looked at him when he entered. He took a seat at the back. The school board members were ranged about the table at the front of the room, each with his name tag facing the public. There were framed pictures of outstanding seniors from the years past on the walls behind them. They had already gotten beyond the minutes of the previous meeting and the approval of the bills and the various items of communication and were now finishing discussion of the budget. The superintendent was taking them through each step. They voted on matters, if that was called for by regulation, and it was going smoothly, all cut and dried since they’d prepared for it earlier in executive session. Then the board chairman called for public concerns.