“Oh,” she said, then turned around and headed back up the road. After I got back into my clothes, I went in the same direction.
I was surprised to see Pick’s truck in the turnaround. The only other two vehicles were my four-wheeler and Jeanette’s. I looked in the barn first, then went up to the house, knocked on the door and no one came to it so I let myself inside. I thought I heard someone talking and went into the kitchen but there was no one there. I went back into the living room and that’s when I heard Pick’s voice. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it sounded vaguely urgent. I also realized it was coming from upstairs. Then I heard a groan but it wasn’t Pick. It was Jeanette. I almost tore up the stairs, thinking my worst nightmare had come true, that the Russian mob had arrived and were attacking Pick and Jeanette. But something stopped me. I realized the Russian mob wasn’t my worst nightmare, not by a country mile. My worst nightmare was happening upstairs in Jeanette’s bedroom. A few more vowels from Jeanette and Pick and everything was confirmed.
I went out on the porch, closing the door gently behind me, then I turned around and considered kicking it in. I must have turned around three or four times before I found myself through the yard gate and halfway down the road to my trailer. Once there, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I drank a glass of water, I turned the radio on, then off. I opened the refrigerator, then closed the door. I operated the microwave, just to hear its hum and the ding of its timer bell. None of that may make sense but when you’re crazy, what else are you going to do?
I sat down in my easy chair and looked at my watch. I tapped my boot on the floor. I got up and looked out the window. I went back through the routine I’d just accomplished. I was going to wait an hour. I made fifty-five minutes.
A lot can happen in fifty-five minutes. When I walked back to the turnaround, Pick’s truck was gone and, to my surprise, I found Jeanette with a cow in the holding pen. Seeing me approach, she said, “Oh, hi, Mike. That stupid Delbert. He brought this lady in to doctor her and then didn’t get around to it. Look at her. She’s got foot rot in her right hind leg. Come on. Help me get her into the surgery.”
Well, this was something of an emergency and I guessed my poor broken heart could wait. We pushed and prodded the limping cow into the surgery, then clamped her in the chute. “Get the antimicrobial salve, a syringe of penicillin, a bucket of water, and a sponge,” Jeanette ordered and I complied. When I brought them out, she took the salve and the bucket and said, “I’ll doctor the hoof, you give her the shot. You need the practice.”
I waited until Jeanette knelt to inspect the affected hoof and then jammed the needle into the cow’s shoulder. Hard. I mean really hard. The cow jumped while simultaneously providing Jeanette with a full blast of sick bovine poop in her face and hair. I would have laughed except then Jeanette would have thought I just did what I did on purpose. Which, of course, I had.
I pulled out the needle and peered around the cow to where Jeanette was kneeling and glaring at me through manure-coated eyelashes. “What’s wrong?” I asked, in all innocence.
“What do you think? Thanks to you, I’m covered in shit!”
This was very true so I had no comment.
“Why did you stick that cow while I was still down here? You know better than that.”
“I apologize,” I said, flatly.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“That’s all I’m saying.”
She pondered me for a couple of long seconds and then I saw a little light register in her eyes. She asked, “When did you get back?”
“About an hour ago.”
“How was town?”
“Wonderful. How was fucking our favorite paleontologist?”
She didn’t skip a beat. “That’s none of your business.”
“You’re absolutely correct.”
She glared at me but then her features softened. “Mike, sometimes a heifer…” She hesitated. “Well, you know how a heifer sometimes…”
“Spare me, Jeanette. You’re not a heifer. I don’t know what you are.”
“All right, Mike. Sometimes an old cow sees the heifers, sees the young bulls going after them but not her, feels her insides all dried up. But then, somehow she catches a young bull’s eye. He looks at her and then he gets interested. He walks up next to her and the next thing she knows she…”
“Leave it to you to tell a story about screwing using cow euphemisms. My God, Jeanette. You are a piece of work.” I walked out of the surgery.
“Where are you going?”