DEAD CALF DREAM

I made a pie and it was the first time in 2 months I had wished that I was not alone. Although if I am being honest, I would have been disappointed in whoever tried to praise me for making a pie if they had been there. There isn't a gesture grand enough to validate my self-admiration when something emerges from the oven that strikes any resemblance to what I intended it to be. Bakers are chemist and I am not made for following those kind of rules. Later, I will marry a man of science who loves rules but right then, I was alone and didn't have to share my pie.

I had an hour to sleep before the next night check and probably just a few minutes more than that before the fire needed more wood. I slithered into my bed roll and pulled up the quilts so that the wool wouldn't scratch my wind chapped face. I woke up and saw my breath, like smoke above me. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I slept through my alarm. The house was freezing, I deal with that later. I pulled on my coveralls, over the top of the same leggings I have been wearing for days, hat, head lamp, thrift store coat now covered in all the bodily fluids a cow has to offer. Another bite of pie, straight from the plate and a swig of cold coffee before I scatter out of the door. Shit it is cold and it's been snowing again. My mind juggles between the fear of disappointing my boss and the fear of proving all of the voices in my head that they were right, I am too selfish and lazy for this kind of work.

I grab the spotlight from the barn before I head up the hill, I almost don't need it now as I can see the elk trotting up over the horizon just above the hay feeders, they had been on the alfalfa again. There are 40 heifers in this lot. All pregnant with their first calf, teenage mothers and I am their midwife. My boss, had done his last check just before dark and had dialed the landline to tell me that the solid black heifer, the one that had a little more ear to her, looked pretty loose in the back end and was starting to bag up, her number is 825. "Call if you need anything, I'll see you in the morning." he had tiredly mumbled but meant it nonetheless. I shined my light out over black bodies and glowing eyes, seeing only tagged calves, snuggled in straw piles and no one bawling. I started to sigh relief and justify my extra dose of sleep when I made the top of the hill. She stared straight at me and I killed the light. 825 and her frozen dead calf were easy enough to see through the sheet of snow now falling and first light of day coming down. Her eyes were wild, from pain, confusion, fear, loss, I don't know for sure but she wouldn't let me come any closer. She nudged the small black body and cried, hoping to hear and see signs of life. Over and over again she circled and nudged and bawled.

Sometimes heifers don't lick their newborn calves soon enough and the sack stays over their nose, they suffocate. Sometimes they are born on wet ground and freeze to it before they get a chance to nurse. Other times they are stillborn and never move at all. I don't know what happened to this calf, I was sleeping with a belly full of pie.

She was a good mother, and I knew we had a twin calf in the river pasture below. We would skin this poor dead creature she had grown and drape it's hide onto an abandoned calf's back, tie it in place with twine and lock them in together until she was convinced it was her own. She would let it nurse and would raise it until the Fall. It is from a gritty, dark and understanding place that that can feel like a slice of redemption, but believe me it does.

It is years later, I married to a man of science and together we have calved out hundreds of cows, some of them even have our own brand. And when I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of our infant son, it is not love or duty that shoots me upright from my sleep. Those come second, after I shake away the dead calf dream.