Free Medicine Wheel by Ron Schwab Page A

one way or another he’d get this calf out, but he’d about given up on a live birth. Suddenly, the chains went slack. Thad turned his head and saw Junior lying face-down on the ground. He had fainted dead away.
    Jasper grabbed his son’s legs and dragged him out of the way and moved into Junior’s spot, picking up the handles, which Thad re-hooked to the chains. “He has trouble with blood sometimes. Helluva thing for a cattleman.”
    “Pull,” Thad said, “Steady, but hard as you can.” He kept working his fingers around the calf and felt it coming inch by inch. He got a grip on the legs and helped with the tugging. All at once, the calf shot out like a ball out of a cannon, knocking both Jasper and Thad to the earth. Thad jumped back up and drug the calf off Jasper’s legs and began clearing its mouth of the mucous and afterbirth and then pumping its rib cage vigorously. It coughed and took a few breaths.
    “Release the mother . . . she’s got work to do here,” Thad said to no one in particular.
    By this time Junior was on his feet and helping his father release the heifer. Thad grabbed his simple instruments and got out of the way. They all stood back and watched as the heifer scrutinized this creature that had caused so much pain. There was instant forgiveness, and she went over and began to lick her baby as it gathered the strength to get to its feet.
    “It’s a heifer calf,” Thad said. “If we’d had a big bull calf, we would have been at this for hours yet. And by the way, Jasper, you owe me four dollars.”
    He didn’t argue. “I’ll get a draft to you next week.”
    There was no reward, though, like bringing a live, baby calf back from the brink of death.

16

    I T WAS STILL early in the morning, so Thad returned home to wash up and change clothes, deciding he needed to look respectable if he was going to make a visit to the banker. He didn’t see Henry but didn’t worry any. The tomcat seemed perfectly capable of looking after himself. He grained the three horses and turned Cato and the pregnant mare out to grass, saddling up the sorrel mare and nudging her south toward Manhattan.
    Aunt Nancy’s and Uncle El’s place was on the way, and Thad stopped by to get Uncle El’s thoughts on his plans. Aunt Nancy thought he could do no wrong—and he never wanted her to think otherwise—and he considered Uncle El very wise, even wiser than the Judge when it came to things ranching.
    The three sat down at the kitchen table after Aunt Nancy had set down a pot of coffee and a plate of spice butter cookies. This had been a ritual of many years, for this was the home in which Thad and his twin sister, Hannah, had grown to adulthood. He figured Aunt Nancy had reached her fifty-fifth birthday now, so that would put Uncle El at sixty years. They hadn’t changed all that much. Aunt Nancy was still a trim handsome woman with only a few streaks of gray in her almond-brown hair, and her twinkling, blue eyes radiated the same enthusiasm for life. She was a quiet woman, almost always calm and collected. To be near her was to feel warm and loved.
      Uncle El, with white, short-cropped hair and sun and wind burned skin, looked a bit older than his age, but barrel-chested and thick-shouldered, he was still a fit and vital man. The crow’s feet at his eyes dug deeper when he smiled, which was often. He and Aunt Nancy were a team in harness. They stood firm together when they were raising Hannah and Thad, he remembered—no sense trying to play them off of each other. They were best friends first, lovers second, Uncle El once told him. “That’s the recipe for a good marriage and a good life, Thad.” He hoped to have that someday, but it didn’t look like it was coming anytime soon.
    “You’re up to something, Thad,” Aunt Nancy said, “Why don’t you just tell us?”
    Thad told them about the Rickers land, leaving out the part about Kirsten’s involvement in the deal. He doubted if Uncle El would have