“You’re doing good, sweet girl,” she consoled Anya as things got worse, as the bleeding seemed like it was never going to stop.
She seemed to sense it too. The end. Her voice was getting higher, tenser, closer to – I worried – tears. “Let’s get that baby out, so maybe we can help you get all better.”
But the light seemed to leave Anya’s eyes just a moment before the kid finally came out, small, but alive. Breathing.
“Oh, honey,” Meadow whimpered, leaning downward, resting her head on Anya’s forehead between her ears, her breath shuddering out of her, likely finally losing the battle with her tears, her grief for an animal that – prior to maybe half an hour ago – she had never had any connection with. “Did it make it?” she asked, turning her head a little to look at me, eyes red-rimmed, wet still stuck to her cheeks and lashes.
“He’s small, but he’s alive,” I told her, reaching to hold out the little gray/brown kit.
The grief didn’t leave her eyes at seeing him. Instead of eyeing the baby, she turned her attention back to Anya, pressing her eyes closed, resting her forehead back to hers. “We’re gonna take care of your little one. Don’t worry,” she promised her, pressing a kiss to her soft fur before pushing back onto her heels, scooting her knees closer to me, hands reaching out.
When I placed the kid there, she pulled him to her chest, slime and blood and all, cuddling him close.
“Is he going to make it?” she asked.
She was already attached. There was no denying it.
“Maybe. He’s small. If one of the other goats will…”
“Can I?” she cut me off.
“Can you what?”
“Take care of him? I know it will be extra work. And I don’t really know that much about it. But you have your phone, right? I can look it up. I won’t make you help or anything. I promise. I will take full…”
“Breathe,” I told her, her voice getting airy as she rushed to make her case. “If you want to, you can give it a try. But he’s small. It was too early. I can’t make any promises that he’d survive. As for research, you’d need to bottle feed him four or five times a day for the first few weeks, then cut it down to three. Then introduce solid foods. I’ve raised goats for years,” I explained when her brows knotted. “I’ve watched the process. You can give it a go. You’ll need the milk from the other goats. I’ll get that,” I offered when her eyes went panicked at the idea of milking.
“I can’t ask…”
“You didn’t,” I cut her off. “I’ll handle that. And I have some bottles. They came in a starter kit I got ages ago just in case.”
“Can I keep him in the house with me?”
“You’ll have to. He’s got no mama to keep him warm.”
“What happens to Anya?” she asked, looking over at the still body, eyes going a little wet again.
Normally, I didn’t waste anything. It went against my survival instinct, my dislike of waste. I would typically use the meat to dehydrate and give to the dogs as treats. But I found I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t do that.
“I’m gonna bury her.”
It was right about then that I realized how good and fucked I was, how much this little, damaged woman was going to change things. Sure, this was a small thing in the grand scheme of things. But little things led to big things. Until, one day, everything is different.
But, somehow, I couldn’t muster the energy to care.
“Can I wet him?”
“Can’t figure out how else you would clean him off.” Cringing a little at the way her gaze ducked, like she was offended or hurt by my tone, I took a deep breath. “The moms would lick them clean. Don’t soak him in a neck-high bath, but he can get a little wet. Go on. I’ll handle the burial and get some milk.”
“Hey Ranger?” she called, her voice soft-sweet, and I won’t lie, there was a response to it. Not in the way I had responded the night before. But something else. Something maybe even more worrisome, something that felt like a warmth in my chest.
“Yeah?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at her. Standing in the doorway; the sun shone out behind her, making her glow. And that sensation in my chest grew stronger.
“Thank you,” she told me, tone heavy before turning and rushing away.
When I saw her next about an hour later, the goat was cleaned up, as was she, dressed in another of my flannels – this time a mustard yellow and gray that I never wore. Standing in the kitchen whipping eggs in a bowl, she had the backpack Miller had shown up with turned around to hang off the front of her shoulders, the straps stretched long, so it hung around her waist, the sides half zipped upward, a little goat head poking out of the top.