“Here.” I turned my head to see Julia Lett handing me a thermos. “Coffee. It’s from that gas station down by the turnoff. Tastes terrible, but it’ll perk you up.”
“Thanks.” I unscrewed the cap but waited to pour it until we were on level ground. We were currently riding in the back of a Gator while the foreman for Kingdom Ranch brought us out to the far pasture.
It was monsoon season in the great state of Colorado and a storm had blown through, causing flooding and washing their service road out. Since both of our trucks would easily get stuck in the mud, the foreman had helped load our equipment to ferry us out on one of the ranch’s vehicles. Most of the ranches outhere who grassfed moved their cattle from one set of pastures to another doing what they call “rotational grazing,” and they hadn’t been able to get the pregnant cows moved fast enough before the storm hit. It was just bad luck that the animals’ current location was on the other side of the washed out road.
I finally took a sip of the coffee and coughed when the bitterness hit the back of my throat. Julia elbowed me. “I did warn you.” She handed me a small packet of sugar, and I dumped it in immediately.
“Are you always prepared like this?” I asked her. I kept sipping at the coffee hoping for a burst of caffeine energy.
“Not always, but when I called you to help me, you sounded so groggy, I figured the least I could do was bring the coffee.”
I nodded my thanks. In terms of human population, Poplar Springs was small compared to most towns, and the vast majority of folks lived and worked on ranches. I’d once tried to figure out the human to animal ratio and had ended up somewhere around one human to every eighteen domesticated animals, if you included both livestock and pets. I could be way off on the numbers, but the point was, sometimes jobs were too large for one vet, which meant they had to call in reinforcements.
“So, tell me what to expect,” I said holding the small cup away from my lap as we hit a series of bumps.
“We’ve got a bunch of cows all giving birth around the same time. While the hands are more than capable of helping out, if needed, Hank says they’ve had a rash of breeches that ended up with serious problems for the cows and heifers, and the owners don’t want to lose any more cattle,” she said.
Hank was the foreman who was bringing us out there, and he chimed in here. “This is a corporate operation and every head is treated like company stock. When the stock goes down, the board demands answers—and I’m sick to death of trying to explain to those city folks how their algorithms don’t take into account the issues of living, breathing animals.”
“Huh. Okay.” While breeches were probably the most common of problems that could arise during birthing, he was making it sound like there was an unusual pattern. “Have you noticed an especially high number of breeches?”
“Not really,” Hank replied. “I’ve been in this business for more than twenty years, and I know that having a couple breeches around the same time doesn’t mean anything in particular. Kingdom Ranch isn’t any different from any other place I’ve worked. But since they’ve got Doc Lett on contract and she has a right to bring anyone in to help she deems necessary, I figured might as well spend some of their money and make sure everything’s okay.”
We rode past a couple of ranch trucks that were stuck in the mud and finally crested the hill and I could hear the gentle lowing of cattle. I grabbed the rollbar and stood up to get a better view. In front of us there were probably four or five hundred cattle.
“Do you know how many are pregnant?” I asked as I stared down at the job that awaited us. This was the second time Julia had called me to help out with some breeches, but from where I stood, this looked to be a daunting challenge for the two of us.
Julia had her phone out and was tapping away. “In that pasture, there’s more than one hundred, as of a week ago when I was last here. For any that don’t look near to term, you can just go bytheir tag numbers. I’ve got their status flagged in their inventory app.”
I blew out a breath. This felt way too much like busywork catastrophizing a worst-case scenario when there’d been no indicator that there might be problems. I reminded myself what Ruth said about having to do a lot of handholding when it came to nervous two-leggeds, and I questioned whether that counted when it was a corporation.
We pulled up next to a trailer where the hands would rotate working and sleeping out here to keep an eye on the cattle and protect them from predators. I recalled that Josh had complained that wolves had been heard out near Lost Valley. Coyotes and even mountain lions could be a problem, too.
The sky was starting to turn a lighter gray but sunup was still an hour or more away. I dug through my bag for my headlamp and confirmed that it was working before placing it on my head. Julia did the same. Like me, she had her gear in a large rucksack to allow her to keep her hands free.
“Are you ready?”
I gave a sharp nod. “Yep. Let’s do this.”
Seven hours later, I was covered in mucus and sprawled out on the backseat of the Gator drinking water. I was glad I’d taken my earlier advice as I looked down at the wet and muddy coveralls that were headed for the nearest bin. Julia sat next to me drinking water and eating an orange. “Do you want one?” I nodded and she reached into the front of her bag and handed me one.
We’d been able to help with six breeches, four of which were twins. That was unusual, given that twins in beef cattle usuallyhovered around one to two percent. When you’re delivering twins in cattle, you always have to start with the one on top—and if the babies are turned around, there’s a lot of pushing and pulling at our end, which is damn uncomfortable for the cow. Not much easier for us, either.
Hank dropped us off back at our vehicles and I peeled off the gross coveralls while Julia loaded her truck. “I need to start wearing those for messy visits,” she commented. “You look almost as fresh as when you first arrived.” She looked me up and down as if she were sizing me up. “Well, not exactly fresh, but better than me.” The ponytail she’d had her curly hair in had shaken loose and strands were plastered to the side of her face.
“I’ve been using them ever since I was given a pair by the owner of an emu farm near Beaumont. I feel bad about tossing them after one use, but I know that most of what I get on me wouldn’t wash out.”
She agreed and pulled her phone out. “So, you okay with Zelle or Venmo for payment? Otherwise, I gotta wait until I’m back at the office to write you a check.”
“Yeah, either one is fine. Just use my phone number.” Moments later, my phone pinged and I checked it. “Uh, Julia? This is double what we agreed on.”
“Consider it a bonus. I wasn’t expecting to see so many breeches or twins. Besides, I’ll be billing Kingdom—and you more than earned it.”
“Fair enough.” Ruth would be pleased with the money I brought in. It would almost cover the cost of that new freezer she bought.
“Oh, hey, maybe next time we both happen to be in town at the same time, you’d like to get together for a drink? Could go to the Squeaky Wheel, or I heard the Rooftop Bar is pretty nice.”
Whoa. Was she asking me out on a date? We were colleagues. I needed to be careful how I answered so as not to embarrass either one of us.
