The Drought

(Content warning for animal birth)

When my husband left me, I felt like I was going to die. My heart ached so fiercely that I swore it would simply shatter into a million pieces within my chest. 

The only small consolation I could take from my husband abandoning me was that he hadn’t left me for another person. He just left because he didn’t love me anymore and he didn’t like the life we had created.

“I hate this place!” he had shouted at me over breakfast. He gestured aggressively out the open window to the rolling plains and sloping hills as far as the eye could see. I didn’t understand at that moment how he could hate a place so beautiful, so full of promise.

“This place takes and takes and takes and we don’t get anything out of it, Rebecca! It’s a prison!”

I stood up and pointed to the cows grazing peacefully in the pastures, and the birds chirping in the little apple tree in our front yard.

“How can you say that?” I had asked him. “We have so much here.”

Exasperated, he stormed out of the room before turning around to say one last thing.

“That answer is exactly why I think I made a mistake in marrying you. You can’t see it! You don’t understand me,” he had said before slamming the door shut behind him.

His words floored me. I crumpled into a chair, shocked and wounded. Never before that fight had he said our marriage was a mistake. I loved him with every part of my soul and every fiber of my being. How could it have been a mistake? How could he not love me the way I loved him?

That fight was our last fight. After that, when he returned home, he refused to even speak to me. I begged and pleaded for him to just explain to me in a way that I could understand. But all he did was shake his head and pack his bags.

He left the next morning and I fell to the floor and held myself together to keep from breaking apart. 

I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to smash things and tear my eyes out. The hurt was so big I wanted to jump into the void to forget it.

My dad’s words crept into my head, whispering in my brain as I contemplated giving up.

“You’re a rancher’s daughter. You come from a long line of ranchers who have worked to the bone to live this life. You don’t give up, you don’t cry. Wipe your tears and quit wasting your water.”

The memory hurt, bringing back all the years as a child when I had to hide my tears from my dad. He wanted me to be strong and thick against the hurts of the world. Well, my chance had come. What better time to show how strong I was than when I’ve been betrayed by the one person I truly loved.

I wouldn’t cry. I might die inside, but I wouldn’t cry.

“Wipe your tears and quit wasting your water…” my father’s voice echoed in my head.

I spent the rest of the day curled on the floor in a miserable heap, but I didn’t let myself cry. I locked the tears away, somewhere deep inside me.

When it came time for my husband and me to go to court, I wore my best clothes and rallied together the last of my strength. I did my hair, put on makeup, and met him in the mediation room.

As I walked into the room and saw my husband sitting beside his lawyer I almost ran away. How was I supposed to face him? How could I look that man in his eyes and discuss the fact that I would never have him again? I would never kiss him, never hug him, never share quiet evenings together. We would never again work side by side as we sorted cattle or stayed up long hours of the night to help a cow give birth. That life was gone.

“My client wants full access to the savings account and the new truck. That’s it. He is willing to be amicable as long as this process isn’t drawn out. He says Rebecca can keep the ranch and the old Chevy, as well as the SUV, and the checking account,” my husband’s lawyer announced.

My lawyer looked over at me carefully.

“No!” I gasped, grabbing my lawyer’s arm for support. “He can’t take the savings account! That’s got all the ranch money in it! How am I supposed to feed and doctor the cattle without that money?”

“My client says that money was contributed by his own income and—” the lawyer began.

“Bullshit!” I interrupted. “That money was built up by my father and his father before him! My ex-husband is just the one who convinced me to put it in the same bank as his account and put his name on it! It’s not his!”

My ex’s lawyer cleared his throat in annoyance. The man who once loved me stared at me, no emotion in his eyes. I hardly even recognized him.

“He can take the SUV, the new truck, and half the checking account,” I offered desperately.

“Rebecca…” my lawyer warned me.

“No, I don’t care,” I insisted. “Take most of what we’ve got. I just want the ranch, the Chevy, and the ranch account. I need that money to keep the ranch afloat,” I begged.

“I’m sorry, my client is very firm on what he wants,” my ex’s lawyer said.

“How could you?” I snapped at my ex-husband. “How could you?”

My lawyer fought on my behalf for what felt likes days, though it was only a matter of hours. But despite how hard we fought, we lost in the end. When it was presented before the judge a few weeks later, my ex won the account.

Once again, I wanted to cry. It was so unfair. But I held it together somehow, pushing the tears and the sorrow down, down, down.

Each day it became easier to not feel the pain. But for some reason, each day the world became a little bleaker.

It was as if the color was slowly leaching from the world. Once vibrant sunrises now seemed thin and pale. The birdsong I had loved so much sounded off-tune and annoying. Food lost its flavor, and I stopped cooking for myself. When I worked cattle, I only referred to them as numbers, rather than the loving nicknames I used to give them.

I had pushed that pain and sorrow down so far, but as it was drowning, it pulled my happiness and joy down with it.

Time ticked by in a monotonous cycle of work and sleep. Each day melted together into one blurry haze.

Without the ranch account, money was tight. There was a nagging voice in the back of my mind reminding me that I was one hardship away from losing the ranch. This ranch that my family had worked so hard for, that we had poured our blood into. Any second it could be taken from me.

Spring came around and I looked forward to the rains. It hadn’t rained all winter, since my husband left me. But with the spring here, I was optimistic that the land would get the water it needed. Rain was the life-giver on a ranch. Rain made the grass grow and filled tanks for watering animals. Rain nourished the fields of hay that would feed the cattle all winter. We needed rain.

March came and went. So did April. May rolled around and the skies were as clear and dry as my heart had become. The rain did not fall.

Tentative shoots of grass that had begun to grow in the warmer weather soon withered and died. The cattle lowed in protest as I shoveled them hay to feed them. They too had been looking forward to lush grass pastures.

My tanks began to dry up, the water levels dropping inch by inch every day. Panic soon choked my throat at night as I lay in bed, wondering how long I could afford to keep up like this if we didn’t get rain soon.

June came, blowing hot dry air over the rolling hills. July was worse, with a scorching sun that cracked the earth. August came and went. Still no rain.

Every day my account grew smaller. Every day I burned through the reserves of water and hay to keep my animals alive. Every day I pushed my emotions further and further down.

Inside, I felt like a dried-up husk, just like the ghostly remains of grass that crackled underfoot when I walked outside.

September came and it was finally time to bring a load of calves to auction. The check I got for them would help to cover some of the costs of feed that I was accruing.

At the auction, the cattle were a little thinner than I liked, and the prices were a little lower. Small-time farmers were unloading their steers as fast as they could, trying to stay ahead of any long-term drought. The influx of cattle kept market prices lower. Worry began to twist my stomach. 

With my measly check, I returned home to pay the vet bills and load up on more hay. I groaned when each bale of hay came out to an extra twenty dollars each.

My last, tenacious bit of hope reminded me that we still could have rain before winter came and froze the land. We still had time…

Winter came. It came hard and fast and early. The pastures frosted over, and the cattle devoured the hay to stay warm. I was almost completely out of money. 

The ranch I had loved so much was slipping away from me. I had nothing to sell to make up for the lost savings account. My old Chevy was on its last foot and I had sold the SUV to pay for my lawyer’s fees. 

I wandered the barns, walking amongst the cows and patting them each one by one.

“It’s ok girls,” I whispered to them. “We will make it through this.”

“You don’t cry,” my father’s voice reminded me.

So, I pushed it down again. I didn’t know how deep the reserve of my soul went, but it seemed endless. More color leached from the world as I thought about what I would have to do next.

The next week I rounded up ten of my breeding cows and took them to auction. A year ago, I would have never done that. A year ago, I would have sobbed as I said goodbye to each cow. They were the backbone of my entire life, and here I was, selling them off.

When I returned home with an empty trailer it seemed fitting to me somehow. Everything had become so empty.

The winter months dragged on. Christmas passed by as a forgotten holiday. There was no cheer this time, no flickering lights and fragrant trees. 

My herd grew smaller every week. I couldn’t stand to see the cows thinning out so miserably. The fat dissolved off their haunches from the lack of nutritious food. To try to combat it, to give myself just a little bit more time, I sold off a couple of cows every week. The money was less each time. There were too many farmers in the same situation as me, too many skinny cows coming through the auctions. I wasn’t making much money back, and the cost of feed just kept getting higher and higher.

Soon enough it was calving season. What had once been my favorite time of year had become something I dreaded. I used to get such joy from the sounds of baby calves mooing for the first time. My heart used to burst with joy at the sight of wobbly legs as the calves learned to stand. Each calf got a name, and I poured all my love into them.

This year all I could think was that I was going to have a hundred more hungry mouths to fill, and nursing mothers that needed extra supplements and nutrition. This year all I could think about was the muddy water that barely covered the bottom of my tanks and ponds.

About a week into calving season, my favorite cow began to show signs of labor. She had separated herself from the other cattle and was restlessly alternating between standing and laying down.

Dolly had been my first breech calf that I had pulled with my own hands, all by myself. Because of her traumatic birth, she required extra care and love. As she grew stronger, our bond strengthened as well. Out of all the cows, Dolly was the one who came when I called for her, who laid her head against my shoulder, and who comforted me when I needed it. She was my last friend.

I knew Dolly very well, and because of that, I knew that something was wrong. Her births were normally very fast and easy. This one wasn’t the same.

I got Dolly situated in one of the barns and I sat with her all night. By morning, she was finally beginning to push. Still, no matter how hard she labored, she wasn’t making any progress. Fighting back my panic, I made the decision to intervene. When I felt around, I realized the calf was too big, and its legs were folded back, causing it to be stuck behind Dolly’s pelvis. The situation had become an emergency. If I didn’t act fast to fix the problem, the calf, and Dolly, would die.

Dolly watched me with her baleful brown eyes, trusting me to help her. Gritting my teeth, I tried to move the calf’s legs to the proper position, but it was too stuck. Dolly grew weaker with each contraction.

Panic made bile rise in my throat. I couldn’t lose Dolly. I couldn’t bear to lose her too, after all the losses we had survived this last year.

With every ounce of strength that I possessed in my body, I worked to save Dolly and her calf. 

“Come on Dolly! You can do this!” I urged her desperately. She bellowed in response, exhausted and in pain. “We can do this together Dolly, I promise you! I won’t give up on you. I won’t give up on us!” 

At one point Dolly went down and refused to get back up. Her eyes rolled back, and she panted shallowly. Pulling on her halter I tugged her face towards mine.

“Don’t give up girl, please,” I begged. “Don’t give up just yet. I love you too much to lose you,” I whispered.

Dolly bellowed in pain but lurched to her feet one final time.

“That’s it! Cry it out, Dolly! Cry it all out! Cry that pain out of your body and let me do the rest of the work for you,”

I didn’t know if I was going to manage to do it, but somehow, I did. With one final tug, the calf’s legs pulled forward into position.

With a big push, and with me pulling on the legs, Dolly finally labored the calf out onto the straw of the barn.

As if she had just been given a big shot of pain killers and energy, Dolly turned around to care for her calf. She began to lick it clean, softly mumbling to it with gentle sounds of love. But the calf did not move. Its chest didn’t rise and fall with breath.

“No,” I cried. The labor had been too long for the little calf. “No!” I repeated.

Grabbing a towel, I roughly rubbed the calf, hoping to stimulate it. When that didn’t work, I cleared out its nostrils with a suction. Desperation kicked in. I had never done CPR on a calf before, but I started it then. I blew into its nostrils and pressed its chest, trying to force life into the body. Dolly watched me, patiently trusting me to save her calf.

“Come on little baby,” I urged as I blew into its nostrils. “Please don’t die. Please don’t die.”

Something warm and wet filled my eyes. My chest heaved with sobs. Before I could stop myself, I realized I had tears flowing down my cheeks. All the pain of the last year bubbled out of me. Deep racking sobs broke free, and I cuddled the calf to me as I cried into its fur. I don’t know how long I cried but it was as if a dam had broken and released a river.

Small movements shook me from my daze of tears. I lifted my head to see a dark eye blinking at me. The calf snorted, weakly looking around. Dolly nudged it, urging it to stand.

“Thank you,” I sobbed. I was crying so hard that I could barely see as I stumbled out of the barn into the fresh air. I felt mildly confused as to why my tears were splattering so hard against my boots until I looked up.

Rain hit my face, gently at first, and then harder as the clouds opened overhead.

It was raining.

Laughter soon took the place of my tears as I spun around under the thunderstorm, dancing wildly in the rain. Raindrops soak into the parched earth. Cattle bellowed joyfully in the pasture, licking water droplets from their damp noses. 

The drought lasted a year, and for a year I was a dry husk of a person. Bitter and broken, I did not let myself feel, for fear of breaking down completely. As the raindrops and my tears soothed the thirsty earth beneath my dancing feet, the color came slowly back into the world, as vibrant and wonderous as it had ever been.

We would be ok.