Snow Blind-J Collins 4 by Lori G. Armstrong

the snow as he dragged the carcass to the back of his truck to dispose of it elsewhere to keep predators away from the herd.
    When he turned around, covered in blood, mucus, and an oily substance that glistened like Crisco, holding a chunk of leather in its purest form, and a bloody knife, I retched.
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    Dad didn’t care. He snapped, “Get yourself together, girlie; we ain’t done,” as he passed by me.
    And I was too damn cold and numb to do anything but obey.
    Inside the shelter he draped the calfskin over the newborn live calf and took the bleating, shivering little thing to the calfless mother. She sniffed it. Repeatedly. Her mournful sound changed, and the calf dove beneath her belly and began to suckle. But she wasn’t convinced. She pushed it away and sniffed it again.
    “Will she just accept that calf as her own?”
    “Chances are still better’n fifty-fifty she’ll reject it.
    Nothing we can do. Nature will win out every time.”
    Did that hold true for all animals? Even humans?
    True natures can never be masked?
    I shivered. It’d be dark soon. I couldn’t stop him from staying out here all night, but that didn’t mean I had to bunk with him.
    Almost the second I plotted my escape, the other heifer became restless and stood. She didn’t care about the dead heifer beside her. Even to my fairly untrained eye, with a fluid bag dangling between her legs, she looked ready to pop.
    Dad crouched down to check her. Then he glanced up at me. “Same drill as before. You ready?”
    “I guess.”
    The process wasn’t much smoother. The heifer wouldn’t lie down. We put her head in a “catch” and I found myself on the business end of a hoof more than 107

    once before we hobbled her. The birth was stinkier and messier, too. The amnio sac was filled with liquid and calf shit and burst open when the hooves emerged.
    Dad was covered in way more gunk than I was and he didn’t seem to notice. Might make me a wuss but I couldn’t wait to crawl into a hot shower.
    Chink clunk . Dad haphazardly tossed the birth-ing instruments in the bag. He must’ve sensed my intention to speak because he cut me off before I even opened my mouth.
    “How much gas you got in that rig?”
    “About a half tank. Why?”
    “It’s gonna be slow goin’ getting back to the house.”
    “I’m following you?”
    “Unless you wanna ride with me.” At my look of horror he gave me a mean smile. “Didn’t think so.
    Let’s go ’fore it gets worse.”
    “You’re just leaving them?”
    “Ain’t nuthin’ more I can do here. They’ve got food and shelter.”
    The cold stole my breath the moment I was completely exposed to the elements. In the last two hours, while I’d been a heifer midwife, the snow began to accumulate on the ground. Where before it’d only been up to my ankles, now I trudged through shin-deep powdery fluff. The wind had died down, but that was a catch-22; rather than blowing the snow to Wyoming, it piled it up.
    Dad yelled, “Keep your headlights on. Stay close. If 108

    you need to stop or if you get stuck, lay on your horn.”
    The drive back was worse than the drive in. In some places the snow was two or three feet deep. Darkness fell. My world boiled down to the red taillights ahead of me and the constant slap of the wipers.
    Every once in a while, big chunks of snow would fly from the hood and splat on the windshield, blinding me. I panicked every time, worried when the wipers cleared the snow I’d see nothing in front of me but inky blackness.
    Dad cut a hard right and his bright headlights swept the side of the barn. Finally. It’d taken us an hour to travel a mile. But my relief was short-lived when I saw the size of the snowdrifts blocking access to the driveway and the county road beyond it.
    There was no way I was going home tonight.
    I’d convinced myself things couldn’t get worse. As usual, famous last words. Once we’d trudged into the house, we discovered the electricity was off. Then