When the hoses were as secure as a former SEAL could get them, Kyle tossed the ends down to Slim and repeated the plan. Slim, thankfully, just nodded and didn’t bother to express his opinion about the chances of success, likely because he figured it was obvious.
Kyle waited for Slim to drop the hoses, and then grabbed on to one. His work gloves gripped better than he was expecting, a plus, given the width of the line. Definitely not the kind of rappelling he was used to, but he probably had more experience at this kind of rescue than anyone there. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d led an extraction in hostile conditions with few materials at his disposal. And usually he was doing it with a loaded pack and weapons strapped to his back. Going down into a ravine after a cow was a piece of cake in comparison.
Until his boot slipped.
His bad leg slammed into the ground and he bit back a curse as a white-hot blade of pain arced through his leg. Idiot. He should have counterbalanced differently to compensate for his cowboy boots, which were great for riding, but not so much for slick mud.
Sweat streamed down his back and beaded up on his forehead, instantly draining down into his eyes, blinding him. Now his hell was complete. And he was only halfway down.
Muttering the lyrics to a Taylor Swift song that had always been his battle cry, he focused on the words instead of the pain. The happy tune reminded him there was still good in the world, reminded him of the innocent teenagers sitting at home in their bright, colorful rooms listening to the same song. They depended on men like Kyle to keep them safe. He’d vowed with his very life that he would. And he’d carried that promise into the darkest places on the planet while singing that song.
Finally, he reached the bottom and took a quarter of a second to catch his breath as he surveyed the area. Cow still standing. Hoses still holding. He nodded to Slim and they got to work leading the cow as close to the slope as possible, which wasn’t easy, considering she was in labor, scared and had the brain of a—well, a cow.
The next few minutes blurred as Kyle worked alongside Slim, but eventually they got the makeshift harness in place. Kyle hefted the heavy hoses over his shoulder and climbed back up the way he’d come. The men had shuffled to the edge of the ravine to watch, backing up the closer Kyle got to the top. He hit the dirt at the edge and rolled onto the hoses to keep them from sliding back to the bottom.
He was not making that climb again.
Johnny grabbed hold of the hoses so Kyle could stand, and then made short work of tying them to the trailer hitch next to the other ends. He waved at Johnny to get in the truck. It was do-or-die time.
Johnny gunned the engine.
“Slow,” Kyle barked.
The truck inched forward, pulling up all the slack in the hoses. And then the tires bit into the ground as the truck strained against the load. The cow balked but the hoses held her in place. So far so good.
The hoses gradually pulled the cow onto her side and inched her up the slope as the truck revved forward a bit more. It was working. The mud helped her slide, though she mooed something fierce the whole time.
Miraculously, after ten nail-biting minutes, the cow stood on solid ground at the top of the ravine. Kyle’s arms ached and his gloves had rubbed raw places on his fingers, but it was done.
Johnny jumped from the truck and rushed over to clap him on the back, breaking the invisible barrier around Kyle. The other ranch hands swarmed around as well, smiling and giving their own version of a verbal high-five. Even Slim offered a somewhat solemn, “Good job.”
Kyle took it all with good humor and few words because what was he supposed to say? Told you so? That’s okay, boys. I’m the boss for a reason?
The ranch hands wandered off, presumably to finish the job of fixing the fence. Eventually, Kyle stood there, alone. Which was par for the course.
Was it so bad to have hoped this would become his new team?
No. The bad part was that if a successful bovine extraction couldn’t solidify his place, he suspected nothing would. Because everyone was still waiting around for him to either fail or leave. Except Kyle.
Even Grace didn’t fully believe in him yet, or she wouldn’t have qualified her recommendations with a “We’ll see,” and the threat that she wasn’t closing the case.
What more did he have to do to prove that honor, integrity and loyalty were in his very fiber?
Grace stood at the wide double door of the barn and watched horses spill into the yard as the hands returned from the cow emergency. They dismounted and loudly recounted the rescue with their own versions of the story. Seems as if Kyle had used fire hoses to drag the animal out of the ravine, which the hands alternately thought was ingenious or crazy depending on who was doing the talking.