“Get out.” I studied her. “Ever done one by yourself?”
“Never,” she admitted. “I’ve only done three, but Pop Pop was there talking me through it.”
“Still,” I said, more than impressed.
“Got it!” she said, pulling out a large bottle of something.
I edged near her. “What’s that?”
“Ceftiofur crystalline free acid. It’s a sterile suspension. I’m going to try it on a few of the cows in the barn. See if we get a positive reaction. Doc suspected pneumonia from the symptoms we told him over the phone.” She looked at me. “He’s out of town. It’s respiratory for sure, I’m just not sure it’s pneumococcal.”
She grabbed a few more vials and we trekked it out to the barn. She readied syringes and stuck the bovines with ease, rubbing out the muscles where she pricked them, and moving from cow to cow, like she played doctor every day, talking about nonsense all the while. She floored me.
“Done,” she said, disposing of the vials and the syringes.
“What now?” I asked.
“The boys have probably already mucked out the stalls. Let’s mount a few horses and check the fields for any more sickly calves or cows.”
I nodded, invigorated by her determination. I almost forgot about my insane dream. Almost.
Piper invading my dreams brought forth the memories of all my detestable sins—ending with Lola and the photographs and Las Vegas. They ran through my thoughts on a never-ending cycle and completely deflated me. I recognized a goodness in Cricket that appeased those haunting reflections and knew from then on, I would always want to be surrounded by her. Something in her staved them off, and I was determined to find out her secret.
We saddled up and rode out into the field nearest the ranch. It’d snowed over a foot throughout the night and Eugie was having trouble lifting his joints through the height, so I lifted him onto my saddle and he sat cradled in front of me. Cricket shook her head at me.
“You’ll spoil him,” she said with a smile.
“So?” I challenged.
She rolled her eyes in jest and trotted forward toward a calf laying down.
“Oh no,” she quieted under her breath.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her, confused.
She dismounted. “They shouldn’t lie like this,” she explained. “They get hypothermia and die quickly this way. She must be sick too.”
“What should we do?” I asked, dismounting myself.
“We’ll have to take her back with her mama. Put her in the barn with the others. If the new mix of antibiotics works, we can start treating the herd and prevent more deaths.”
We took the calf back to the barn then headed right back out into the blistering cold, Eugie all the time cosseted in my lap. We discovered three more in the herd like the last and two more dead calves.
“This is bad, Spencer,” she said when we happened upon the second corpse. She threw her leg off her horse and settled her boots into the deep snow. I followed suit, dropping Eugie beside me. She looked on me for a moment.
“If I could fix it for you, I would,” I told her, feeling beyond helpless.
She smiled softly. “I know,” she said. She looked at the lifeless calf and sighed. “Pop Pop will not be pleased.” I shook my head in response. “We’re relying heavily on this being an excellent year for us. We’re depending on it.”
This felt beyond foreboding. Cricket was confiding in me her family’s secret fears.
“What will happen if you don’t make it what you need it to be?” I asked bluntly.
She looked at me with glassy eyes. “I couldn’t even begin,” she said.
“Then we will make this year what you need it.”
She smiled sadly. “Easier said.”
We skipped breakfast that morning, too busy with the crisis of the ranch, but lunch was a requirement. We’d burned so many calories working and because of the cold, Cricket started to look ill.
“Come on,” I told her when she locked another calf and its mother in a stall.
“No,” she said, heading back toward the carriage house.
I tugged on her jacket. “Nope, I insist. Lunch. Now.”
“I can’t, Spencer, I’ve got—” she began but I cut her off by dragging her through the barn doors against her will.
I had to admit, manhandling someone so small delighted me to no end. She couldn’t even put up a decent fight. Although her bony hands did annoy just a tad when she feistily punched at me, but I only laughed at her monstrous effort and the tiny effect it truly had. She laughed as she fought me down.
“I can’t get a grip,” she complained.