JD
“Wanna tell me what the fuck is going on?”
I hang on to the handle above the passenger side door, as Janey takes a turn a little too sharp, and the back of her truck fishtails in the loose dirt.
“Mackey,” she forces out between clenched teeth. “There was a dead cow on one of the transports. Looks like some kind of poisoning, and I was gonna have a closer look after clearing the rest of the load.”
“Let me guess,” I volunteer. “He doesn’t want the delay.”
“He was irate when I told him to separate those cows from the rest of the herd,” she adds.
“So he’s afraid of what you might find? Like an infectious disease or something?”
“Who the hell knows. It may just be he’s pissed I’m here and wants to make my job extra difficult. He’s a miserable excuse for a man, and I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
Another turn that would do a rally racer proud, and then I catch sight of the fire. Janey aims her truck straight for it. She’s out of the vehicle before I can stop her, but the fire is too hot for her to get close. The smell of burning animal fills my nostrils when I get out of the truck. Whoever set it on fire not only used some kind of fuel, but covered the carcass with brush and old wooden pallets. It’s burning fast and hot.
“That son of a bitch,” Janey mutters softly as I step up beside her. “He knows damn well unless I can find another sick cow in the bunch, I can’t keep the rest of the load from auction.”
“So now what?”
She turns to me with a smug little smile on her lips as she pulls a plastic baggie with vials from the side pocket of her cargo pants. “I still have the samples I took.”
She walks over to the back of her truck and grabs what looks like a small lunch bag and places the samples inside. Then she pulls out an instant cold pack, activates it by scrunching it between her hands, and slips that in the lunch bag as well.
“Does that have to go to a lab?” I ask, when we get back in the truck.
“I can do some testing back at the clinic, but I have two more truckloads of cattle to check before I can get to it. It’s getting warm, I want the samples to stay fresh.”
I would offer to run them to the clinic to refrigerate them, but I don’t want to leave her alone with this Mackey guy and that slime bucket, Jericho. Janey doesn’t seem in the least intimidated, but I didn’t like the way Phil Jericho tried to run me off when I came looking for her, so for that alone I’m going to be sticking around.
Neither man is anywhere in sight when we return to the stockyard, it’s only Janey’s assistant, Logan, sitting on the fence of the cattle chute, chatting with a couple of guys who look like they work here.
“Where is your boss?” Janey asks the two guys.
“Left. Him and Jericho both. Some lunch meeting in town,” the younger of the two volunteers. “Said he’d be back this afternoon.”
“Call him,” she orders the guy.
He does what she asks, but it’s clear he’s not having any luck getting a hold of Mackey.
“Fine. All right,” Doc finally says, throwing her hands up in defeat. “Let’s get this show on the road, with or without him. Any change in these cows?”
The question is directed at Logan, who shakes his head. “No. They seem fine.”
“Good. Let’s hope it was an isolated incident. We’ll need to clear the animals that came off the second trailer, so we can get the third transport unloaded as soon as possible,” she outlines. “It’s already getting steamy out here.”
She’s right. It’s almost midday and the sun is high in a cloudless sky. The weather forecast promised sunny and warm conditions heading into the weekend and, so far, that seems to be accurate. Those cows will be overheating quickly in that trailer.
“If I can make a suggestion,” I start, looking at the two holding pens that are only separated by a walkway. “Those cows are gonna get hot in the trailer, offload those guys with the unchecked herd and then set the chute up between the two pens. Unless you still want to keep that first group separate.”
She shakes her head. “No. I think you’re right. It’s probably fastest that way.”
Logan and the two hands jump into action, tasked with moving the chute into the pathway between the two pens, while I follow Janey to where the driver of the third transport is sitting in his rig.
“Hey, we’re getting ready to unload,” she informs him. “Is it possible to back up to the other side of that pen?”
“No can do,” the guy responds with a shrug. “I was told by the boss to sit tight right here. So that’s what I’m doing.”
“You’re talking about Mackey?”
“That’s right.”
I can feel the irritation come off Janey in waves.
“Well, I’m the vet who’s responsible for the well-being of these animals, and keeping them in a trailer that must feel like a sauna by now is not in their best interest. Besides, I need to clear them.”
The driver looks her up and down and shrugs again. “Be my guest, check them out, but they ain’t coming off the truck unless the boss says so.”
I swallow a grin when I hear her mumble, “Motherfucker,” as she marches back to where Logan and the others are moving the metal fencing. I hustle to keep up.
“Change of plans,” she announces when she reaches them. “Logan, once you have the chute up, start moving the cows through. You know the drill. Don’t forget to mark tag numbers and note any observations on the log. Anything out of the ordinary, pull the animal aside until I can have a look.”
“Where are you gonna be?” the kid asks her.
“On the trailer.” She cocks a thumb over her shoulder. “Driver won’t release the load so I’m going in there.”
“I can do it,” Logan offers.
“That’s okay. You keep going here. I’ll jump in when I’m done.”
Next, she heads back to her truck and opens the tailgate, reaching for her veterinary kit. I get my hand on it first.
“I’ve got it.”
She shoots me a glance but doesn’t argue. Instead, she grabs a few other odds and ends from the bins in the back of her truck.
“I never asked what you were doing here. Were you just popping in?” she asks as we start walking back to the transport truck.
I didn’t really have a good reason to stop by, other than feeling the need to stick close to her. Both because I wanted to, but also because I don’t trust Jericho. I caught him watching us the other day and I didn’t like the vibes he was giving off.
Now that I’m here, I have even more reasons to want to stick close to Janey.
“I’m staying.”
“Good,” she states. “As you can see, I can use an extra pair of hands.”
The truck driver introduces himself as Trent when he gets down from his rig to open the gate on the trailer. He doesn’t appear to be a bad guy, and reiterates he’s only following the boss’s orders when he follows us up the gangway.
Working on a ranch, I’m used to the smell of animal manure, but—despite the ventilation holes all around the sides—the stench inside the trailer is overwhelming. The heat doesn’t help; a combination of the sun beating down on the trailer and body heat from the forty or so large animals occupying it.
“We’ll work from the front to the back,” Janey suggests.
“I’ll wait here,” Trent announces, sticking close to the door and fresh air.
I can’t say I blame him, but Doc needs a hand, so I follow her inside, pushing through heavy bodies and climbing over the occasional partitions, until we reach the very front of the trailer.
There’s barely any room to put down her kit. I end up keeping it slung over my shoulder so she can grab what she needs. I’m also keeping notes on the clipboard she handed me, jotting down the tag numbers and any other entries she wants me to make.
It’s by far not the first time I’ve seen Janey work, but I’m fascinated all the same. She’s apparently as easy and comfortable with these cows as I’ve seen her with horses, and mumbles nonstop, keeping the animals calm as she pokes and probes.
I lose track of time as we make our way through the trailer, settling into an easy rhythm where I can anticipate what her next move is going to be. Even though I feel a bit more accustomed to the heat and the smells, I’m sweating like a pig and my shirt is plastered to my body. Doc isn’t faring much better; a few strands of her hair have come loose from her braids and are stuck to her slick skin.
A sudden thud right behind me has me swing around. Looking over the next divider, I see one of the cows has gone down. Her eyes are wild and her breathing seems labored.
“You’ve got one in trouble here,” I alert Janey.
She immediately hops over the divider and crouches down beside the animal. I am right behind her as I climb over as well and do my best to keep the other cattle away from her.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask, watching Doc examine the cow.
“Heart rate is up; breathing is shallow and labored. The lungs sound fine, but she’s clearly in pain. Help me try and get her on her feet.”
I hop into action, but with the two of us pushing and shoving at what I’m guessing to be in the range of a twelve-hundred-pound animal it takes a while to encourage her back on her feet. As soon as she’s standing, Janey runs her hands along the cow’s flanks.
“Slightly distended,” she mutters to herself before putting her stethoscope where her hands were. “Lots of bowel sounds.”
Next, she moves to the back of the cow and lifts her tail. “No fresh stool.”
Grabbing a glove and a tube of lubricant from the kit, she examines the animal manually, a deep frown between her eyebrows.
“What’s wrong?”
“I thought maybe she was impacted, but it feels like something is constricting the anal canal. I think I’m going to need the portable ultrasound from the back of my truck,” she shares.
“I can go get it,” I offer.
I leave her with her kit and the cow, and start making my way to the back of the trailer, where Trent is hanging out by the gangway, smoking a cigarette.
“Everything okay in there?”
I’m not sure why, but something about the anxious way he’s trying to look inside the trailer has my antenna ping. It only adds to my suspicion something fishy is going on here after that cow’s carcass was set on fire earlier. So, I decide to keep Trent in the dark for now.
“Yup, you’ve got some of the animals overheating though. Do you think you could find some water? There’s gotta be a hose around somewhere? They need to be cooled down.”
“Yeah, sure.”
As he heads off in search of water, I jog to Doc’s truck and grab the portable ultrasound before heading back to the trailer, without anyone paying me any attention. Good.
Inside, Janey makes quick work of getting the machine up and running. She slides the wand along the cow’s flank as she stares at the small screen I’m holding up in front of her.
“That’s weird. See that?” She points at an area that looks white on the screen. “That’s her vaginal canal. It’s supposed to show up dark, but it shows white, which would indicate high density.”
She puts the portable unit down and grabs a fresh glove, squirting lubricant on it before positioning herself behind the cow again.
“It’s like she’s got something stuck in her vaginal tract. What on earth?”
She retrieves her hand, pulling what appears to be a silver sausage of some kind from the cow.
“What is this?”
She holds it up in the palm of her hand and when I take a closer look, alarm bells immediately go off.
“Shhh,” I shush her, grabbing the package from her outstretched hand and shoving it in my pocket. “Drugs,” I whisper my suspicion.
I don’t want to draw any attention to the discovery. Not until we know what this is and who is involved. I’ve read about this, it was an article on the smuggling of narcotics in cattle, they call it narco-ranching. If that’s what this is, it’s apparently not only growing in popularity in South America as the article claimed.
“Drugs?” she hisses back at me.
“Yeah. There’s probably more in there.”
“That could explain what killed the other one, if it somehow burst inside her,” Janey contemplates in a hushed tone. “I need to get these out of her.”
My instincts are to leave them right where they are, so their discovery can remain undetected.
“We need to call in law enforcement before we do anything,” I whisper urgently.
But Janey has other ideas. “Look, this cow may die if I don’t get these out of her now, which will definitely alert whoever is responsible for putting them there and focus attention on us. If we can save her, we can walk out of here safely and then alert law enforcement.”
I reluctantly have to agree with her. The sooner I can get her out of here the better.