Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [32]
Did that hold true for all animals? Even humans?
True natures can never be masked?
I shivered. It’d be dark soon. I couldn’t stop him from staying out here all night, but that didn’t mean I had to bunk with him.
Almost the second I plotted my escape, the other heifer became restless and stood. She didn’t care about the dead heifer beside her. Even to my fairly untrained eye, with a fluid bag dangling between her legs, she looked ready to pop.
Dad crouched down to check her. Then he glanced up at me. “Same drill as before. You ready?”
“I guess.”
The process wasn’t much smoother. The heifer wouldn’t lie down. We put her head in a “catch” and I found myself on the business end of a hoof more than 107
once before we hobbled her. The birth was stinkier and messier, too. The amnio sac was filled with liquid and calf shit and burst open when the hooves emerged. Dad was covered in way more gunk than I was and he didn’t seem to notice. Might make me a wuss but I couldn’t wait to crawl into a hot shower.
Chink clunk. Dad haphazardly tossed the birthing instruments in the bag. He must’ve sensed my intention to speak because he cut me off before I even opened my mouth.
“How much gas you got in that rig?”
“About a half tank. Why?”
“It’s gonna be slow goin’ getting back to the house.”
“I’m following you?”
“Unless you wanna ride with me.” At my look of horror he gave me a mean smile. “Didn’t think so. Let’s go ’fore it gets worse.”
“You’re just leaving them?”
“Ain’t nuthin’ more I can do here. They’ve got food and shelter.”
The cold stole my breath the moment I was
completely exposed to the elements. In the last two hours, while I’d been a heifer midwife, the snow began to accumulate on the ground. Where before it’d only been up to my ankles, now I trudged through shindeep powdery fluff. The wind had died down, but that was a catch-22; rather than blowing the snow to Wyoming, it piled it up.
Dad yelled, “Keep your headlights on. Stay close. If 108
you need to stop or if you get stuck, lay on your horn.”
The drive back was worse than the drive in. In some places the snow was two or three feet deep. Darkness fell. My world boiled down to the red taillights ahead of me and the constant slap of the wipers. Every once in a while, big chunks of snow would fly from the hood and splat on the windshield, blinding me. I panicked every time, worried when the wipers cleared the snow I’d see nothing in front of me but inky blackness.
Dad cut a hard right and his bright headlights swept the side of the barn. Finally. It’d taken us an hour to travel a mile. But my relief was short-lived when I saw the size of the snowdrifts blocking access to the driveway and the county road beyond it. There was no way I was going home tonight.
I’d convinced myself things couldn’t get worse. As usual, famous last words. Once we’d trudged into the house, we discovered the electricity was off. Then neither the generator nor the backup would kick on. Vaguely I remembered hearing someone say my dad didn’t keep his equipment in top-notch condition, but I didn’t ask questions. At least we still had the woodstove in the living room as a source of heat. 109
Dad tracked down a couple of flashlights and I lit the way as he shoveled a path to the woodpile. We hauled the split logs and stacked them on the porch. I tripped with an armload full of firewood, and a chunk of wood sliced me under the chin, slammed into my rib cage, and bounced off my shin.
My toes and face were cold, yet everywhere else I sweated like a pig. After I filled the wood box, I returned to my truck. Keeping the window cracked, I lit a cigarette and flipped open my cell phone to call Martinez. Completely dead. Not good. No one besides Trish and Brittney knew where I was. I’d worry about dealing with Martinez later, since I had a more pressing problem to deal with right now: being stuck alone with my father.
110
Dad stoked the fire. Following his lead, I’d taken off the coveralls and the rest of my borrowed outerwear