Here went nothing. She dove back in, this time with both arms, each hand holding a chain.
The cow bucked forward.
“Oof!” Isobel was knocked off balance, stumbling forward with the cow. There wasn’t far for the cow to go—unless she nosed at the gate to push it open. Which she immediately did.
The gate started to swing back, widening the V and making space for the cow to get loose. Isobel yanked her right arm out of the cow and grabbed the gate to pull it back in position.
“Cassandra!” Isobel yelled. “Naughty cow!”
Once the heifer was still, Isobel tried again. But the second she took her hand off the gate to try to attach the first chain around the calf’s hoof, Bessie/Cassandra was taking off again.
Isobel grabbed the gate at the last second to stop her, again.
Hair had escaped Isobel’s ponytail but she couldn’t push it out of her face because, yeah, cow goo all up and down her arms. She tried to blow it out of the way but it just settled right back in place.
She pursed her lips and huffed out a breath. She needed three hands—two to put the chains on the baby calves hooves and one to hold the gate shut—but obviously, she only had two. And Hunter was just sitting there behind her, probably gloating and laughing at her.
Ugh!
Okay, well maybe she could get the cow to lay down. If she would lay down, that would solve all of Isobel’s problems.
“Why don’t you take a load off, honey?” Isobel crooned, pushing down on the cow’s rump. “Let’s have a lie down.”
The cow just started to the side again, knocking into the gate so that Isobel had to grab it before it opened again.
Fine. Isobel would just attach the chain one handed. How hard could it be?
Turned out it was hard. Very hard.
The latch for the little cuff was almost impossible to do one handed. Especially with the plastic glove on. With her hand all the way up inside the cow, she couldn’t see what was going on either. She ended up shoving both hands inside the cow and quickly latching one of the chains around the first hoof, then stumbling along behind the cow before yanking out and grabbing the gate to push the cow back into position.
Then she repeated the process with the second cuff.
Finally, finally, she had both cuffs in place. She was soaked in sweat and cow muck. A cow’s back end was not the most sanitary place, suffice to say. Not to mention, she couldn’t tell how many times she’d been smacked in the face by the cow’s swatting tail. A tail that was coated in manure.
But she had the chains on, goddammit, and this calf was coming out, come hell or high water. She attached the chains to the calf puller, a long flat metal shelf she braced behind the heifer’s hips for traction. It worked similar to a car jack. She started cranking the lever that gave her torque to pull the calf out by the chains on the hooves.
Isobel only got a couple good pumps in before the cow started heading sideways, pushing against the gate again. But dammit, Isobel was done with it. So beyond done. She was getting the damn calf out.
So she didn’t stop gripping the calf jack. She dug her feet in and pulled until she felt the veins in her neck straining.
And then was yanked off her feet by the cow starting forward again. She stumbled forward after the cow.
“Dammit, keep still,” Isobel shouted, digging her feet again when the cow came to a standstill. She strained, leaning backward, and thought she felt some give as the calf shifted. She reached forward to massage around the cow’s opening to help ease the calf’s way. The hooves and front nose were peeking out now. Okay, now to just crank it a few more times and—
But before she could get in position, the damn cow darted forward again. Isobel wasn’t about to let go of the calf puller. The heifer was booking it though and—
Shit!
Isobel was yanked off her feet. The heifer started dragging her along behind it. Ugh! Oh. Fuck. Gross. They were halfway across the paddock before Bessie stopped. Meanwhile Isobel had been on a chest-first slip and slide through the mud and shit filled barn yard. Isobel spit out a clod of what she could only pray was mud as she got to her feet and grabbed hold of the calf jack.
“Stop fucking with me, Bessie!” Isobel jammed her heels in the mud, solidified her grip on the handle and then started pulling the lever and maneuvering the jack and then pulling some more.
Out came the calf’s head. The jack’s lever was so taut she could barely get it to move. She managed one more crank and then she just pulled with everything she had. More than everything she had. She gave a primal scream as she yanked and pulled and strained, and then when she had no more to give, she yanked some more.
Oh God, oh God. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have any more in her.
No, dammit. Just a little more. A little more!