Amy’s little calf body shuddered. Like I’d done a few moments earlier, Bash wiped sweat from his eyes. He shuddered too. Or maybe it was me.
“Ray-Ray, put some hay bales around her like a fence to protect her. I’ll be right back.”
Bash ran back into the barn in two minutes, holding a phone and dragging the quilt from his mom and dad’s bed behind him. “Claudeenetta needs it.”
I folded that big blanket over Amy’s little body three or four times. Then I squished it in good around her on the bed of straw I spread for her on the barn floor. “C’mon, girl, get better!”
Bash paced around the hay bale fence, the phone clamped to his ear. “Pops must’ve left his phone in the truck again. This one’s Ma’s.” He slammed the phone shut. “What’s taking Ma and Pops so long?”
I perched on one of the bales and watched the patient. Bash ran from the barn. He dashed back inside a minute or two later, carrying a radio, a scrap of paper, and a Hershey’s bar. He handed me the chocolate. “Here. Doctors need their strength. Uncle doctors.”
Bash dug the cell phone from his pocket and held up the ripped paper. “Had to find Jig and Jag’s phone number.”
I watched him punch in numbers. “Jig and Jag get to have cell phones?”
“No. It’s their house number.” Bash listened. “Busy. How come they don’t have call waiting like normal people?”
I nibbled at the candy but left the radio off. Bash held the phone and watched Amy. I’d never seen either Bash or Amy this still.
“She’s so tiny, isn’t she, Raymond?”
“Yeah.”
Amy shivered. Bash dropped the phone into his pocket. “They never leave me alone for more than ten minutes, even when I beg them. I guess they figured with you here, they could.”
“Yeah, fat lot of good letting me be in charge has done so far this summer.”
Bash paced. “Ma said when they left that they’d be back in five minutes and not to get into any trouble and to listen to you. She must have been kidding about that last part.”
My stomach flipped and flopped as Amy’s belly quivered. “Does God hear prayers for cows?”
Bash took off his ball cap and twisted it. “Sure. Pops prays for everything. I’ve heard him pray for the crops, the tractor, the bills, the house. He prays for me. A lot.”
“Does he pray for cows?”
Bash fitted his cap back onto his straw hair. “I’ve heard him thank God for every new cow, including when Claudeenetta Louisa Amelia Jones was born. Don’t you remember family devotions that day after dinner?”
“Kinda. That’s the day he read us something about God caring for sparrows.”
Bash nodded. “Sparrows are pesky birds. But God knows every one of ’em. He watches everything He made.”
I glanced around the barn ceiling looking for sparrows. “So nothing’s too silly to pray about?”
Bash dug his hands into his pockets. “Spelling tests. That never works.”
“Don’t you still have to do your part? Study?”
“I could try that . . .”
Amy jerked.
“Um, God?” I prayed. “Thank you for my little Amy. But she’s sick. Please make her better.”
Praying felt strange. I didn’t do it except for over dinner and if Mom made me at bedtime. And for spelling tests, though that didn’t work for me, either. But maybe prayer would work on cows. Maybe cows were like big sparrows.
Bash knelt down and propped his elbows on a hay bale. “It’s me again, God. Show us what to do. We’re her uncles.”
“Thank you, God.” I looked up. I didn’t see God. Just a bunch of fly gunk on the barn ceiling. I hoped He could see through it.
Maybe God would listen to Bash. I didn’t think God would bother with me.
Amy shivered. It wasn’t just the normal shakes a cow sometimes gets after guzzling five pails of water. Her whole body shook like an angry rooster. Her neck arched, her teeth clenched tightly when she wasn’t coughing, and her eyes scrunched up real hard.
“Amy!” Bash yelled. Wow. He’d called her by the name I gave her. “Beamer, she’s in trouble! What do we do?”
“Me? You’re the farm boy. You’re the guy who says he knows God. I tried it out and look, she’s worse!”
Amy’s breathing turned real raspy. I snatched the comforter off Amy and started trying to get my arms around her. “We’re going to do the Heidrich maneuver.”
“The what?”
Amy felt like dead weight. “The Heidrich maneuver. That thing you do on people who are choking. You get behind them, put double fists below their rib cage and yank up real fast.”
Bash jumped up. “Oh, the Heimlich maneuver. We learned about it in health class.”
“Whatever. Just help me figure out where to put my fists.”
I had an arm slipped beneath her side. I joined my hands. Bash tried to pull her up as much as he could while I felt under her stomach. Oh, no. I remembered that cows have four stomachs! Now what? Find one and go.
I felt the rib cage and slid my hands down until I ran out of ribs. I stretched out over her back until I had Amy in a big bear hug. Then I yanked my fists into her gut.
“Mwaap.” Amy coughed.
“Another one!” EMT Basher yelled.
I did it again. Stomach Number Two? Amy coughed harder. One more time. Fire Three! Hard.
“Mwaaap!” Amy gagged. And burped. And something that looked like a crumpled ball of hay rolled out of her mouth. Other stuff came out too. Yuck! I almost threw up, too, but Aunt Tillie’s quilt seemed messy enough without my help.
Amy sucked in a deep breath. So did we. She looked around and wobbled to her feet. I hugged her so hard she almost started choking again. She coughed and breathed and pounced around the hay pen, tiny hooves tearing into Aunt Tillie’s quilt.
“Thank you, God!” I gasped through giggles as I tried to pull the quilt from beneath her tumbling feet.
“Yep.” Uncle Bash shook some straw off the blanket before dropping it back to the floor.
Maybe God did care about sparrows and cows. Or was He just up there somewhere eating popcorn and watching us do all the work that really saved Amy?
Bonkers told us a few days later that maybe the ball of hay had gotten stuck in Amy’s throat and it was slowly choking her. Some air could get by, but eventually it would work its way down to snuff her out. Or maybe something she nibbled on made her sick. Or maybe she just didn’t want to be squeezed anymore, so she jumped up to get away. He told us he’d be going to vet school in about eight more years and he’d let us know then and send us a bill.
Right then, we didn’t know what had happened and we didn’t care. We had our cow niece back.
Amy leaped for a hay bale, but only made it halfway over. She teetered, her front legs dangling over one side and her hind legs dangling over the other, like she was caught sideways on a balance beam. She looked back at us, bleating, “Maaawwww.”
We fell onto the comforter and laughed.
Which is when the barn door opened and Uncle Rollie and Aunt Tillie walked in.
Uncle Rollie stared down at us and scratched his head through his cap. “Ol’ Gobby and I got to talking about our corn crops—”
“And baseball,” Aunt Tillie said.
“—and baseball, and I just noticed as we pulled into the drive that I had fifteen new messages on my phone, which I left in the truck, and—”
Aunt Tillie’s eyes bugged out. She grabbed Uncle Rollie’s shoulder and launched herself in front of him. “Is that Grandma Hinglehobb’s quilt? On the barn floor? What . . . what . . . what . . . We can’t even leave you hooligans for twenty minutes while we’re just two houses away, right in plain sight, and yet you still . . . you still . . . Roland! Those boys . . .”
Bash ran up to her. “Ma, Ray’s a hero! He saved Claud . . . He saved Amy’s life. He finally got it all right.”
“What do you mean ‘finally?’” I shoved him down onto the quilt.
“Boys.” Uncle Rollie said the word quietly, barely above a whisper. But we heard trouble. We stopped rolling around.
Uncle Rollie took Aunt Tillie’s arm. His voice remained unnaturally calm. “I’m taking Mattie, here, to the house. I will be back in five minutes. Try to have your story straight by then. I can hardly wait.”
Time to pray again.
“Mwwwaaaaap?” Amy asked.
I knelt down and helped her off the hay bale. “Yep. I think we accidentally fell into trouble again.”
Uncle Bash ruffled Amy’s noggin. “But your Uncle Beamer still is a hero. He saved your life.” He rubbed his chin and said, “Amy. That is a kinda cool name. Short, but okay.”
I traced the white hair just behind her stubby, black nose. “Um, Amy, can we sleep out here with you tonight? It might save our lives.”
“Maaawwwww!”
“Thanks.” We started rolling up Aunt Tillie’s quilt while we waited for Uncle Rollie to return for us two heroes.