Me and my best friend were on our way to perform at a theater in Mount Joy, near Emmaus, Pennsylvania. She was headlining. I was hosting. We were running late. Apple Maps led us into the woods. The road went from asphalt to gravel to grass. A farm appeared. We drove beside it. No tire marks were in the grass.
The directions took us behind the barn, where a creek ran downhill over medium-sized rocks. The water seemed to flow out of the barn. I saw no creek running into it. Apple Maps showed we were supposed to keep driving down the creek. I had gotten to this spot in the past. It did not reroute.
The barn was large, thirty-five feet at its peak and twice that in length. It had cinderblock sides ten feet up, with half a dozen windows on each side. Tall trees with bare trunks and branches spreading overhead surrounded the barn, forming a thick canopy that concealed it from above.
An old man with long dark hair could be seen forking through the windows. A hazy orange light outlined him.
I pressed the button to put the Prius in park. I got out and turned to walk toward the barn. Everything was still. I heard no animals, yet it looked like a working farm. A farmer was standing there. She appeared out of nowhere.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hay is for horses,” the woman said.
I gave a polite, nervous laugh. I hated when people tried to make stupid jokes. I made stupid jokes, but I never tried to be smart with them. I tried to be stupid with them. The woman was trying to be smart.
“The directions brought us here,” I said. “It doesn’t really make sense. It says we should be going down that stream.” I pointed to the back of the barn.
“A guy came this way before. He used the secret way. Follow me.”
She was a strong, pale woman with coarse blond hair.
My friend stayed in the car.
I followed her into an underground bunker. My hands were clammy. She lifted a large garage door. It swung upward. I jerked my face back just in time to avoid getting hit. I closed my eyes. A blast of air hit my face. I slowly opened them. I saw a dozen dirt bikes. I unclenched my fist and jumped a little.
I had a friend growing up, and the only reason I was his friend was because he had dirt bikes. He never wanted to ride them. I never wanted to stop riding them. He would always pretend like they weren’t a big deal and were boring. I didn’t think he wanted to make me happy. He acted like they weren’t cool.
“This is awesome. I haven’t ridden a dirt bike in years. What’s your name?” I said.
“Tammy,” she said.
“Thank you so much, Tammy,” I said, clasping her hand with both of mine and shaking it like a little kid.
“I have to double-check with Caroline. She has the final say,” I said.
I tried to curb my excitement, but I knew Caroline would be excited to ride. She loved new experiences.
I walked back to the car and told Caroline what was up, and she said, “I want to see them.”
We hurried back to the bunker and saw the dozen dirt bikes but no Tammy.
“Tammy’s awesome. These are Yamaha 250s. She’s so nice to let us use these,” I said.
“I’ve never ridden a dirt bike before,” Caroline said. “They look spunky.”
“You’ll pick up on it quickly. You always pick up on things quickly. It’ll be like pool basketball. Remember that? I tried so hard, and you beat me easily. Remember how I would say for years, ‘Let’s play basketball. I’ll beat you at that. I may never beat you at Catan, chess, or Connect Four, but in a physical sport like basketball, you don’t stand a chance,’ and then you beat me at pool basketball?” I said.
“Yes, I think I’ll be all right,” Caroline said in a way that let me know I should stop underestimating her.
“Let’s put on more suitable riding clothes,” Caroline said.
We walked back to the car and started changing. It started raining. A different farmer walked up to us. He was taller and stronger than me, with blond hair. He clearly worked out. Picture Captain America Farmer. Alarmingly handsome in the woods. I guessed he was about forty.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” he said. “Have you met Tammy?”
“Yes,” I said.
Caroline started off toward the dirt bikes. She walked past Captain America Farmer. He hit her in the back. She fell face-forward onto the ground and did not move.
I grabbed him, threw him to the ground, and bit his neck. I held him there with my mouth for a few moments. I looked up at Caroline, and she hadn’t moved.
I bit down harder, and something popped. He died.
I walked over to Caroline and found a syringe sticking out of her back. In anger, I pulled it out and squirted some of the clear liquid into the air. A deep sense of loss washed over me. Before emptying the syringe completely, I realized I should save some of the liquid so I could find out what it was. Maybe I could save her if I got it to the right person. I tossed the syringe into my camera bag with the pens. They looked alike. Despite how improbable it seemed, I held on to the hope that it was just a sleeping drug.
I picked Caroline up and put her in the back of my Prius on top of my arm-wrestling table and the merchandise for the show.
I got into the driver’s seat. I buckled my seatbelt. I turned the car on. I turned the lights on. I saw the dead man. I needed a head start. I had to get the body.
He was leaking blood from his neck. I found plastic stuck in a bush. It smelled like silage. I wrapped him in it and put him in the back seat. The windows were tinted.
I got into the driver’s seat. I turned the car on. I turned the lights on. I turned around and started back the way we came.
Reginald checked the springers before bed. A springer is a cow close to giving birth, named because her body begins to “spring up” with visible changes. Following his dad’s advice, Reginald looked for a swollen udder and relaxed pelvic ligaments. Instead, he found a situation so obvious even an amateur could have spotted it: a heifer already in labor, pushing with two calf feet sticking out.
“I need some help,” thought Reginald. He grabbed his headlamp as he sprinted out of the barn toward the Try-Ped.
Reginald was incredibly proud of the “Try-Ped,” a homemade go-kart put together with spare parts. The go-kart was green with “Try-Ped” painted crookedly in white lettering on the side, a name it kept from its original design: a wooden frame built with absolutely no bearings, riding on two rear bicycle tires and the front half of a Razor scooter bolted to the nose for steering. Attached to this frame was the back half of a bicycle, allowing one person to pedal from behind while another steered from the front. The nicest feature was the squishy skid-loader seat.
That pedal system worked fine until a downhill crash with his cousin completely destroyed the bicycle frame. Reginald rebuilt it by stealing an engine off the family log splitter and ordering a centrifugal clutch from a catalog—the only new part on the entire vehicle. Now, it could go 25 miles per hour, relying on “shoe brakes” to slow down.
The Try-Ped was parked right by the milk house. Reginald gripped the handle and yanked the starter cord, and the log-splitter engine roared to life.
He sped off toward the Newswanger farm. Knocking urgently on the front door, he was met by the mother.
“Yes, Reginald Haymaker, what can I help you with this late?” Mrs. Newswanger asked.
“Hi, Mrs. Newswanger. Do you think you could spare your daughter for an hour? I have a heifer pushing in a pen with twenty other cows, and I can’t separate her alone. My parents are away on vacation.”
“No problem. Norma will be right out on her bike. Could you follow behind to give her some light?”
“Sure thing, thank you.”
Listening from the stairs, Norma felt a surge of excitement. She couldn’t explain why, but she loved being around Reginald—even though her mother constantly warned her against it. Reginald wasn’t Amish, and her mother always reminded her how difficult it would be if they ever fell in love.
Reginald followed closely behind Norma, guiding her with the Try-Ped’s headlight until they pulled right up to the springer pen. Inside, the heifer was lying flat on her side, straining with each push. Reginald scrambled over the panels, climbed into the pen, and nudged the animal with his knees until she reluctantly stood up.
“Open the gate,” Reginald called out. “But only let the heifer in labor out.”
Norma moved naturally; she was inherently good with cattle. In fact, if she kept at it, she would easily become a far better cow person than Reginald. Reginald only half-cared about the cows anyway—his real passions lay with guns, explosions, and big, loud tractors running with no mufflers.
They successfully separated the heifer and wedged her safely behind a gate. Reginald needed to reach inside to ensure the calf was lined up correctly. He slid on a long, pink plastic sleeve, doused it in lube, and flipped a five-gallon bucket upside down behind the animal. Stepping onto the bucket, he carefully slid his arm into the birth canal. As his fingers found the calf, his stomach dropped. The legs were out, but they were the wrong legs—the calf was coming backward.
“Um, Norma, this is going to be hard,” Reginald said, his voice tightening. “The calf is backward. I think it’s a bull calf. The problem with a backward birth is that once the umbilical cord breaks, we only have about ten seconds to get him out before he suffocates. Go grab the pulling ropes—they’re hanging on the nail right by the door.”
Norma handed the ropes to Reginald, and he slipped a loop over each rear hoof. The ropes were knotted in such a way that the harder they pulled, the tighter they gripped. While veterinarians typically used stainless steel chains, Reginald’s father always insisted they were too rough on the livestock and strictly preferred soft ropes instead.
Working quickly, Norma slipped a halter over the heifer’s head and secured her tightly to the wall. Meanwhile, Reginald took the opposite end of the calving lines and tied them securely to a heavy steel gate, creating a crude pulley system to give them maximum leverage against the backward calf.
“Do you think we should call the vet?” Norma asked, as she looked at the backward hooves.
“No, we’ve got this,” Reginald replied, “It’s not that big of a calf.”
They grabbed the lines and threw their weight backward, bracing their boots against the muck. They pulled with everything they had, but nothing happened. The calf didn’t budge an inch.
“Wait!” Reginald said. “I forgot the J-Lube.”
He scrambled for the jug, pouring the slick, slimy lubricant generously over his gloved hands and thoroughly coating the heifer’s birth canal.
Grabbing the gate again, they waited for the next contraction and pulled. This time, the slick calf began to move. Inch by inch, the rear legs emerged until the wide, stubborn hips finally popped out of the birth canal. Reginald and Norma pulled as hard as they could; they grunted and gasp, faces flushed as they put every ounce of leverage into the final heave. Under the pressure, the exhausted heifer collapsed to her side, but they didn’t stop pulling. With one last explosive tug, the rest of the calf slid completely out onto the straw.
It lay perfectly still. No breathing, no movement—it looked dead.
Reginald scrambled over, grabbed a piece of stiff straw, and tickled the inside of the calf’s nostril to stimulate its reflexes. At the same instant, Norma scooped a handful of cold water from the water trough and splashed it squarely across the calf’s face. The newborn gasped, let out a wet cough, and suddenly came alive, shaking its head.
Before they could celebrate, the heifer scrambled back to her feet. Instead of mothering the newborn, she spun around fiercely, eyes wild, and started charging the very calf she had just delivered.
Reginald reacted instantly. He lunged forward, grabbed the calf, and dragged it out of the pen just as the heifer smashed against the gate. He hauled the newborn down the alleyway and slipped it into a separate pen filled with older, more mature cows. The older cows immediately crowded around, safely and gently licking the wet calf dry.
They stood together and watched as the older cows licked the newborn calf clean.
“That was a close one,” Norma said, wiping her hands.
“Yeah,” Reginald replied. “Usually, it’s me and my dad doing this.”
“Where are your parents anyway?” Norma asked.
“They’re out in Ohio visiting my older sister,” he said. “She has a sheep farm.”
Norma shrugged. “That’s cool. I never really liked sheep, though. I’ve gotta head out,”
“I’ll walk you back,” Reginald said. “Lemme just set the colostrum out to thaw first so it’s ready when I get back.”
Once the milk was thawing, they set out. Norma pushed her bike along the gravel road while Reginald walked beside her, using his headlamp to light the dark path.
When they reached her driveway, they stopped by the main road.
“Thanks for the help tonight, Norma,” Reginald said. “I would’ve lost that calf without ya.”
“No problem. Goodnight, Reginald,” she said, before heading up toward her house.
When he got back, the calf was completely dry. To make sure he wouldn’t accidentally get stepped on overnight, Reginald moved him into a small, individual pen packed with fresh straw and fed him the warm colostrum.
Reginald checked the springers one final time. There were no other cows in labor.
As he fell asleep that night, he found himself thinking about how good of a cow person Norma was.
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