I Ran to My Best Friend's Alpha Father, and His Whole Council Kept Me novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Calving
Arlo's POV
The heifer had been down since midnight, and the calf was wrong.
I knew it before I had my sleeve rolled.
I had one hand inside her to the elbow, and I could feel two hind feet where there should have been a nose.
It was a backward calf, in the last cold week of February, and the heifer was beginning to give up.
Dessa stood at the heifer's head with the lantern, in Jolene's coveralls, with her hair tied up under a cap.
She had asked to come.
I had said that there would be blood, and a good chance that we would lose one of them.
She had said that she had grown up in a hardware store, and nothing frightened her but a stranger's kitchen.
"She's scared," Dessa said.
"She's trying to stand."
"Let her try," I said.
"Talk to her."
Dessa knelt in the straw by the great wet head.
She put her palm on the heifer's nose and said something to her in a low steady voice.
I do not know what she said.
I felt the animal under my arm go still, and I felt the muscles let go.
The cow lay down on her side and sighed, and she gave me the room I needed.
I pulled with the next contraction.
The calf came backward in a rush of fluid, long and slick and limp, and I cleared its nose and rubbed it hard with straw.
Nothing happened.
I did it again.
Dessa laid her hand on the wet ribs next to mine.
The calf coughed, and kicked, and sneezed, and lifted its head.
"Oh," Dessa said, in a cracked voice.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Ran to My Best Friend's Alpha Father, and His Whole Council Kept Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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