Milo feeds the coiled rope through his hands and stares at her feet. Of course he won’t be the one doing the reach-around in the manure. Why’d she think he would? If she leaves the cow for him to deal with, Melanie will be the one to strip down and take the shit.
She pulls off her sweater and shirt, balls them and throws them to Cody, then adjusts the straps of her undershirt and bra. She holds out her hand. Milo passes her the rope. She fastens the end of the rope to the sling and lies on her front beside the cow. Her arm barely stretches under the heifer’s barrel. Can’t even reach a quarter under the belly without going face-first into cow-pie. She stands up and unbuttons her jeans with her clean hand. Cody hangs them over his shoulder. Kid’s pretty much a clothes rack anyway.
She sits on the edge and swings her legs in. She lowers herself to the waist. Crust, liquid, then solid ground. Or semi-solid sludge that sinks with her. She strings the rope under the heifer, bending down to reach, and when she stands again the warm muck hugs up to her pits. “Can you reach it round the other side?” She holds her breath. Barn-loads of mealy cow flops, hay, and runoff. Probably ammonia seeping out.
“Axel, can you reach it?” Her face is against the warm udder, its skin — softly scrolled with raised mammary veins — swells above her head, and beyond that the velveteen arc of hide slices an upright horizon along neutral clouds. The white’s bell jingles. “Axel.” Under her feet, nothing, but she can’t wiggle them sideways. She plants her palms on the ramp and thrusts at the elbows and shoulders. Too much suction.
“Get me out.” She tugs the rope. “Jesus. Axel.” Cody runs forward and grabs the sling and starts to reel her in. “Now. Please. Now.” Cody offers his hand and she grabs his sleeve and then the rail. She kicks off her boots and gets enough air to alleviate the vacuum and slide onto the ramp.
“What now?” Cody wipes his hands on the snow, then on the gate and on the snow again.
She lies back and bends her knees. What now. Last meet, when she camped in the desert, Sanders opened up about his methods. Half of them were fake, flirtatious — rheum, supposedly, could be cured by feeding a hawk meat soaked in the excrement of an unweaned boy. To stop a falcon’s shrieks, stuff a bat with hot pepper and hang it in the mews. She can’t recall any cure for poor sight. Blindness — sewing the eyelids, or hooding as the modern equivalent — is the solution for fright, and will keep a bird calm even packed in hay, ten per crate, as smugglers do. Where the hell did all the crazy come from? Off is off. And Axel himself is — well, he’s off.
What now? The cow is easier. “There’s a pump, no?”
“Yes.” Milo’s voice.
Clouds knead into each other over the entire sky. They’ve pulled up from the mountain and set off the trees with a uniform grey glow. It’s not possible to pinpoint the sun beyond. She rolls onto her side. Milo coils the rope. She should lecture him, say, Get your own damn cow out.
Axel loops the white’s jesses around a fence post. The falcon spreads its wings and clenches the wood. Melanie goes into the house and comes back with a pair of Milo’s boots.
“Fine.” Kendra stands and takes the boots. “All right. Go get the pump.”
Milo backs the tractor to the garage. Kendra and Milo latch the trailer and the pump. She and Melanie unroll the thick canvas hose over the pasture. The few cows in the field glance at them, then return to browsing the churn of dirt, tufted grass, and snow. Kendra signals to Axel and a rush of raw waste animates the hose. Half the morning passes before the shit level drops low enough that she can reach under the cow without getting sucked into the lagoon again. Axel shuts down the pump. Milo unlatches the trailer, loops the rope on the hitch, and drags the cow onto the ramp with the tractor. Melanie takes the creased blue tarp from the fence poles and covers the cow.
A rumble off the valley walls. The highway’s been quiet all day — all day he’s crouched next to the hooded bird and Kendra’s clothes on the fence, and his digits have iced over — so his first instinct is to think, idly, some sort of howl off the mountainside? His fingers are coated with what looks like coffee grounds, is probably poop, but there’s a chance it’s dirt because he wiped them down with grubby snow. He’s going with dirt. His toes, for sure, are white, the blood pushed out by cold and poor circulation. Can’t see them under his sneakers and socks, but can’t feel them either. First step is the waxy yellow-white, then blue, then gangrene — Explorer Green, his mom joked the first time he had to soak his feet in the tub. He should tell Kendra about his feet now that the cow’s on the ramp.
The sound builds — not a roar, at least not a live roar. A bus rounds the corner — orange, dirt sprayed up the wheel wells, the same bus that drove past earlier — coming into view from the direction of town. A school bus. Maybe his mom took pity and signed him up for school. What would she say to that — So you want school now, smart mouth? The bus turns down the driveway.
“Christ,” says Milo. “Christ.”
The bus brakes screech and kids spill off. He crosses the paddock and stands next to Kendra at the pump.
“Christ.” Milo kicks snow over the half-covered puke holes.
“Ready for that tour?” The teacher, last off the bus, rubs his hands together and stomps.
“The power.” Milo turns a half circle and runs his hands through his beard. “The power’s not working.”
“Can’t you milk by hand?” Cody asks Kendra.
She taps the pump with her boot. “If you know how.”
The kids sprawl over the drive and cluster into groups. A girl, from a clump of girls in fitted jackets, lifts the corner of the tarp and squeals and drops it.
“What’ve we got here?” The teacher squats next to the cow. His collar, un-ironed, sticks half under the ribbing of his sweater vest. His jeans rumple cigarette-style over his ankles and steel-toed boots.
“Drown. Hey.” Milo points at the bus driver, who’s lighting up beside the bus. “Hey, not here.”
The teacher twitches back the tarp. “How about an anatomy lesson?”
“No way.” Kendra swears audibly under her breath.
“What’s wrong?” Cody asks.
“What’s wrong,” she says. “What’s wrong.” She starts toward her clothes on the fence and stops. “Bring those with you when you come home.” She stomps, covered in manure, wearing her long johns and undershirt and a pair of Milo’s boots, over the field toward Axel’s. She jerks her arms as she goes, like she’s talking to herself, or berating someone, or conducting.
Axel takes Kendra’s clothes and looks at Cody over his shoulder. “Stay if you want,” he says. He unwinds his bird’s jesses and heads back home.
He should follow, but there’s kids laughing and milling around. A few of them point to the bird on Axel’s fist and he finds himself explaining. “That’s my uncle, sort of. A gyrfalcon. The rarest one.” No one listens. The teacher pulls the tarp from the cow and the cow hulks vulnerably on the bare ramp. Melanie stands next to the cow. She stands straight and her mouth is cracked open like she’s about to ask a question. He’ll ask her about it after he washes his hands.
“The rarest one,” his brother’s grandson brags behind him. A compliment that the boy is proud. Says maybe the boy will shape up. He turns, walking backwards while looking at the dairy. The cow tan beside the blue tarp. The raw waste from the sewage pumped over a good section of the field. All that shit on the snow. The boy in the kilt with his hair in his eyes, chatting to no one. The school kids around the boy ignore him. Pah. His arm sags. The white has never felt heavy before. A bird plays with gravity, mocks it. This lump of chalk — he jerks his arm upwards and the bird, hooded, dips a wing and collects its balance. No doubt now there’s a screw loose between mind and eye.