Page 18 of Mud & Moxie
I cut the engine so fast I nearly stall twice, jump down, and sprint. The small pen off the north shed has a latch that apparently qualifies as decorative. Six goats flow onto the yard like spilled marbles.
“No problem,” I say brightly to no one. “I have a plan.”
“Don’t run,” Dylan says, already moving with that loose, competent stride that makes you believe him even before he opens his mouth. “They think it’s a game.”
“Copy that.” I tiptoe. I rustle the bag of saltines I tucked into my back pocket after learning all of the goats know how to unzip backpacks.
Gray Chaos swivels toward the crinkle. He considers me, considers Dylan, considers the pocket, and moseys over with the exaggerated nonchalance of a cat.
I break a cracker and hold out a corner, “C’mere, Hashtag.”
Matthew chokes on a laugh. “You named the goat Hashtag?”
“I didn’t name him,” I say, lying while Hashtag nibbles delicately like he didn’t just lead an insurrection. “He named himself.”
We coax two more with crumbs and dignity. A pair of neighborhood kids—Maya and Theo, gap-toothed and fearless—appear on bikes and volunteer as auxiliary wranglers. Dylan nods thanks like this is normal. Because it is. Because farms don’t run on one person’s strength; they run on borrowed hands, shared jokes, and the kind of neighborly barter nobody writes receipts for.
When the last goat sashays back into the pen, I fix the latch with a length of baling twine and one savage glare.
“You’re posting that,” Matthew says, smug.
“Maybe.” I make a show of aiming my phone at Hashtag.
The camera accidentally, absolutely accidentally, catches Dylan grinning at the kids.
It’s a quick, crooked thing, unguarded and beautiful.
I freeze the frame and see something I am not ready to name.
My thumb hovers over Save. I press it. Then I tuck the phone away.
***
By late afternoon, the light has that thin gold edge that feels like a promise. We’re in the small north barn when the heifer starts labor. I know enough to know that birth is work, not a crisis; I also know the way Dylan’s shoulders set is not the way they set when someone misfiles a seed invoice.
He calls the vet anyway. We give the cow space, keep the pen quiet, check the clock. I hold the flashlight the way he tells me to, steady and low. He keeps his voice level, hands sure. The vet’s truck bounces up the lane in a timed way that says everything is under control.
Sometimes everything under control still breaks your heart.
There is no gore. There is only effort, and then there is stillness. The vet’s face is kind in a way that makes my throat hurt. Dylan presses his palm once to the heifer’s neck, once to the small body that will never stand. We do what needs to be done. We don’t talk about the part where we don’t breathe for a minute in the dark.
After, we bury the calf under the line of cottonwoods on the east edge, where the soil is soft and the light is good in the mornings. Matthew brings the small shovel Ray used for this exact kind of loss and doesn’t say how he knows where it is. Thethree of us stand there, useless and necessary, and say nothing that isn’t the truth.
Back at the barn, I sit on the tailgate of the truck and open my phone. The cursor blinks in the caption box, patient. My fingers type anyway:
Today the farm reminded us that doing everything right doesn’t always mean you get the ending you want. We keep showing up. We keep loving what we can’t control. We make the soft place for the next fragile thing.
I stare at it. I read it out loud in my head and hear how it’s more about me than the heifer, more about my need to be witnessed than the farm’s right to grieve in peace.
I close the app. I put the phone face down.
Dylan appears beside me like he was grown from the same tailgate. He doesn’t look at the phone. He doesn’t look at me. He looks at the field, jaw tight.
“I wasn’t going to post it,” I say.
“I know.” His voice is rough, but not with anger. “Thank you.” He swallows. “She’ll be all right. The heifer.”
“I know,” I say, and only then realize that I do.
