“You handed over the keys because you were drunk, too. You weren’t thinking straight.”
It was an easy excuse. One that he would never use again.
“You can’t change the past, buddy,” Arnie said.
“I know.”
“Have you found a new job?”
“Not yet. I’ve been looking. I need to find one person to have faith in me and believe I’ll stay sober. There don’t seem to be many like that around here. The truth is, I’m on my way to see you.”
“What? You’re coming here? When?” Arnie’s surprised excitement was what Tully hoped to hear.
“When? That depends. How long does it take to drive from Philadelphia to Reindeer?”
“Caribou.”
“Right. Same thing.” Tully knew his friend wouldn’t let that slide.
“Caribou are not reindeer, my cowboy friend. While they may be the same species, reindeer have been domesticated for more than two thousand years. Caribou are wild. It’s sort of like comparing a mustang to a Shetland pony.”
Tully laughed. He should’ve called Arnie ages ago. “My grandpa bought a Shetland pony for us kids. That animal put any mustang to shame when it came to bucking off a rider. Billy was the meanest little horse that ever walked the earth.”
“I’ve missed your Oklahoma ranch life stories.”
“Look, I have to be stingy with my minutes. How long?”
“Twelve hours if you go straight through, but don’t. You don’t want to meet a moose when you’re sleepy.”
“Okay. You’ll see me when you see me, and I will avoid meeting any and all moose.” Tully hung up and sat back. This was a good decision. At least he hoped it was.
Fourteen hours later, dawn was only a faint light in the eastern sky when Tully rounded a bend on an isolated snow-covered stretch of Maine highway. That wasn’t a moose in his headlights. It was a Holstein cow. He hit his brakes and swerved to miss her. He didn’t see the calf until it was too late.
* * *
“Can I help you milk this morning?” Annabeth asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she came into the kitchen.
“You just want to check on Rosie. I’ll come and get you if she has had her calf.” Becca glanced at Gideon’s door. He wasn’t up yet. She didn’t intend to wake him. It was Sunday, but there was no church service this week. It was a day of rest, and Gideon needed it. Hopefully she would have most of the milking done before he joined her.
She finished washing the milk pails and gathered the handles of two in each hand. “Open the door for me, daughter.”
Annabeth pulled the kitchen door open and took a step back. “Mamm, there’s a man stealing Rosie. He has a calf, too!”
Becca moved to stand behind her daughter. There was a stranger outside their front gate. It wasn’t one of their Amish neighbors or anyone else she knew. He was English by his dress. He was wearing jeans, a faded blue denim jacket and a battered gray cowboy hat. He didn’t seem intent on fleeing with his armload of newborn calf. Rosie stood beside him, nosing the baby’s face and licking her.
“I don’t think he is stealing our cow, but I have no idea what he is doing.”
She stepped outside the screen door and put her buckets on the porch floor. “Can we help you?”
“Ma’am, is this your cow?” His slow drawl was low and husky.
“That’s my Rosie,” Annabeth said peering around Becca.
“You have a new little heifer, but she is hurt. Where should I put her?”
Becca spoke quietly to her daughter in Pennsylvania Dutch, the language the Amish spoke at home. “Go wake your grandpa.”
Annabeth darted down the hallway. Becca then walked down the steps of the porch and stopped with her hands on the gate. “Where did you find her?”
He gestured toward the cow with his head. “Mama was standing in the middle of the highway about a quarter mile from here. Her calf was off to the side of the road. I swerved to miss the cow and hit the calf. She’s scraped up, and her front leg is broken. I’m real sorry, ma’am.”
The loss of any animal was hard to bear, but Annabeth was going to be heartbroken if the calf couldn’t be saved. “Bring her down to the barn.”
Becca hurried ahead of him and was surprised to see the corral gate standing wide-open. She quickly closed it and held open the barn door for him. “That would explain how Rosie got out.” How many others had found the opening?
The man followed her inside the barn. “I once had a horse that could open a barn door by himself. He just took the handle in his teeth and turned his head, but I’ve never heard of a cow doing it.”
“I suspect my daughter left it unlatched when she came out to check on Rosie last night. She has been waiting eagerly for this calf to arrive.”
“You might want to check the rest of your cattle. I saw a lot of tracks heading out your lane.”
“I was just thinking that.” She opened a stall door. He carried the calf inside and tenderly laid her down. She struggled to get up. He kept her down with one hand. “Easy, little one. You just take it easy. Everything’s gonna be okay.” The calf quieted at his gentle reassurances. “You might want to close that gate so Mama doesn’t get in here with us.”
It took a second for Becca to realize he was speaking to her in the same soothing tone. She quickly shut the stall door. Rosie tried to push her way in, but to no avail.
The first rays of the sun streamed through the small window and illuminated the pen. He pushed back the brim of his hat, and she got her first good look at the calf’s rescuer. His eyes as he gazed up at her
