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Mine pulled.

She corrected the angle. I supplied force only when she nodded. The calf came into the straw blue-tongued and still.

Josie cleared its mouth.

I rubbed.

"Come on," she said. "You made us work too hard for this."

The calf shuddered.

Then drew one wet, ugly breath.

Best sound in the world.

We didn't stop.

The storm became hands and tasks.

I hung lamps. Josie made me lower two and raise one. Cash killed the generator while I installed Doc's regulator with fingers too cold for the screws. Wyatt held a flashlight and read voltage numbers. The engine caught again and settled into a cleaner rhythm.

Amber light returned across the barn.

Josie stood beneath it with iodine on her cheek and her braid half undone.

I wanted to put my mouth against that mark.

Instead, I handed her a tube feeder.

She took it without looking.

That was us too.

Biscuit moved underfoot, pushing confused heifers toward their calves and planting herself beside anything weak. Twice she tried to follow Josie into a pen. Twice I lifted her out by the middle. The third time she showed me her teeth.

"Let her stay," Josie said.

Biscuit stayed.

Hours passed by.

A red heifer delivered standing.

A black baldy tried to claim another cow's calf.

One newborn got stepped on but rose again.

Near midnight, Cash came through the door carrying a calf wrapped in his coat.

"No suck," he said. "Mouth's cold."

Josie put two fingers inside its mouth, then looked at me.

"House."

I took the calf.

It lay across my arms with its head against my chest, forty pounds of fading heat. Josie came beside me carrying towels, colostrum, and the tube kit. We crossed the yard bent into the wind.