“Did she calve recently?”
“Three months ago.”
The questions and answers came quick. Clint observed the trust between the rancher and Stephanie. She was all efficiency as she threw him one question after another. He followed as Hardy led the way into a big barn where a large cow was tethered by a rope halter to a post. The animal stood on a pile of hay. Stephanie retrieved a stethoscope from the medical bag and examined the heifer’s stomach.
She glanced up at Hardy, “You were right. It’s a twisted stomach. The ping is definitely there. There’s a lot of gas.”
Hardy sighed. “What do you recommend?”
She hesitated. “I think we should roll her stomach. It might not work, and it could be dangerous for the heifer, but the alternatives are worse.”
“An operation would be just as dangerous, wouldn’t it?
She nodded. “And expensive.”
“Let’s roll ’er.”
“You got anyone else who can help?” she asked.
He shook his head. “My son’s at a cattle auction. And my wife’s been ailing.”
Two sets of eyes focused on Clint. He sensed that wasn’t a good thing.
“Sorry to hear that,” Stephanie said to Hardy even as she studied Clint. After a few seconds, she asked, “You game to help?”
“Help how?” he asked cautiously.
“Roll over that heifer. Putting it simply, she’s got three stomachs and one of them is in the wrong place. If it isn’t fixed, she’ll die.”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “What do I do?”
“We use some ropes to get her down. Then you help Hardy hold her down while I palpate her and move the wayward stomach into its rightful place. Then I suture it. Okay?”
He met her challenging gaze, then studied the cow. It was a damned big animal. Hell, he didn’t have anything to lose. He nodded. “I’m a city boy, but I’ll give it a go.”
She hesitated, tilting her head to the right. “Is there any medical reason you shouldn’t?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Hardy will help, but this really takes three bodies.” She looked at the old man. “Have a pair of muck boots he can use?”
The rancher nodded and hurried inside the house, returning with a pair of worn, heavy rubber boots. “Here, son, try these. Don’t want to get those new shoes messed up.”
Clint regarded the boots warily. Well, he’d worn worse. He removed his shoes and replaced them with the boots. What in the hell had he gotten himself into?
Stephanie crouched and ran her hands over the heifer’s belly. “We’ll do this together, girl,” she whispered. “You’ll feel better. Trust me.”
Her voice was surprisingly soft and gentle, and her hands stroked the cow’s stomach soothingly. Clint found himself envying the animal.
Stephanie and Hardy unwound a rope. She ran it under the cow and Hardy passed the end to Clint. Stephanie pulled it tight under the cow while Hardy stood at its side.
“We want to flip the heifer on its back,” she said.
Clint wasn’t sure about that. But when she said “flip,” he flipped the rope and felt a certain satisfaction when the heifer landed on her back.
Clint dodged two back hoofs.
“Tie them together and hold them,” Stephanie said. She palpated the stomach, then nodded to Hardy. “Place a knee on the abdomen. Not there, to the right. A little more to the right. Good.”
It took all of Clint’s strength to tie and hold on to the rear legs of a very unhappy and very big cow as Stephanie scrubbed an area of the stomach with what smelled like disinfectant. She gave the heifer a shot. “Antibiotic,” she explained. “And a local anesthesia. We should wait a few minutes until it starts to work. Can you two keep her in this position?”
Hardy nodded. Clint wasn’t so sure. The heifer wasn’t happy. She wanted up. He couldn’t blame her. It was an indelicate position. He dodged flailing legs. Barely. A damaged chopper was easier to hold steady than this cow.
After what seemed hours, Stephanie pulled on fresh medical gloves and took a deep breath. He remembered what she said about the procedure being dangerous.
She nodded at him. “Keep her steady.”
Hell of a lot easier said than done. She made a small, quick incision. Clint gagged as a nauseating odor escaped from the cow’s stomach, practically suffocating him. It was as bad a smell as any he’d experienced in Afghanistan. He held the cow’s legs tighter. He might not be able to do a lot of things, but, by damn, he could hold on to a cow. Hardy, a man twice his age and more, was doing just fine with his knee on the cow’s abdomen.
Stephanie palpated the heifer’s stomach, then sutured the wound before standing. She nodded to Hardy and turned to Clint. “You can let her go.”
As he did, the cow scrambled up, and before Clint could move out of the way, it stepped hard on the instep of his left foot. He fell, sprawling in the hay as his foot exploded in pain. “Damn!” The cow relieved herself on Clint’s leg, mooed indignantly and ambled away as if nothing had happened.
Hardy looked on in horror. “I’m real sorry, son. I’ve never known Isobel to kick. She’s a pretty docile heifer.”
“Can’t say I wouldn’t have kicked, too, if I was tackled, held down and had someone messing with my stomach,” Clint said. “Isobel, huh? I’ll have to be sure to avoid females named Isobel in the future.”
Stephanie looked stunned. “Dang,” she said. “Josh is going to kill me when he finds out what happened to you.”
Despite the pain, Clint started laughing. Two chopper crashes, several bullet wounds and a car crash, and he was ultimately felled by a cow. A heifer at that. No little irony here.
Unfortunately, it followed the current trajectory of his life.
STEPHANIE WAS APPALLED at the sight of her charge clutching his foot in the hay. His obviously new clothes were stained with cow urine, the last indignity the cow bestowed on him. The fact he was laughing made her inwardly groan. Laughing.
It was deep and rumbling, and that was the last thing she’d expected or wanted. He had to be the world’s best sport, and that annoyed her to no end.
Josh was not going to be happy with her. To be honest, she wasn’t happy with herself. Fine. She had to admit she’d felt a certain satisfaction in enlisting him to help. She and Hardy probably could have managed alone, although there was no question that her passenger had helped.
She sighed. Warning bells had sounded when she first saw him, standing alone on the street, a duffel next to him. Tall and lean with short dark hair, he had a definite presence.
Those bells really pealed when he’d grinned and said she was pretty. She was familiar with charm, too familiar, and this man had it written all over him. It had been in his smile, as well as the compliment, in the warmth of his voice even though she had been late picking him up, smelling like cow and dressed like a ranch hand. That charm scared her as little else did.
That was of no consequence now. Guilt weighed heavily on her, and she didn’t often feel that particular emotion. He had come here directly from a military hospital. He experienced blackouts, which was why he had needed a ride. Her friend Josh was reticent about what had happened to him, but then he was about everything. Maybe that’s