“You had a night, I hear,” Gladstone said finally.
“Tried to send Loveless over to get you,” Sweetland said. “Was your bull caused all the trouble to begin with.”
Glad smiled down at his boots. A faint odour of animal coming off him where he stood in the open doorway. “I tried to talk him out of it,” he said. “Offered to buy the cow off him, to save him the trouble.”
“You might as well talk to his little dog as talk sense to Loveless.”
“He come to see me just now. Cow’s laid down and he can’t get her up out of it.”
“You have a look at her?”
“Poked my head in,” he said. “You had some job getting that calf clear from the looks of things.”
“Like trying to pull a tooth.”
“Loveless wants we should try to get the cow on her feet.”
“I had enough of that animal for one day.”
Glad let a smile prick at the corners of his mouth, but wouldn’t look at Sweetland direct. “There’s no one over there to help but youngsters and old men,” he said.
Sweetland took a broom from the corner and swept up the spray of sawdust. It was their first conversation since Glad decided to take the package, against everything Sweetland had ever heard him say on the matter. Glad had a finger in every enterprise in Chance Cove, a position he inherited from his father. He and his wife ran the cove’s only store, shipped in fishing equipment and outboards and building materials, sold fresh lamb in the spring and beef in the fall. The resettlement talk never amounted to more than talk before Glad signed on. It was hard to blame the man, given the state of things on the island, but Sweetland blamed him regardless.
“I spose it’s a waste of time trying to get her up,” he said.
“Likely it is,” Glad said. “Still,” he said.
“Loveless got any rope over there?”
“I’d say Sara had just about anything a man could need, we minds to look for it.”
Sweetland took his coat off a hook by the door and they walked over together without speaking, stood just inside the barn entrance to let their eyes adjust to the dim. A crowd gathered at the far end near the cow. Every youngster in school had come to the barn during the dinner break and not a one was going back while the animal was down. Most of the men in the cove were there as well, including some who hadn’t spoken a civil word to Sweetland in months. Loveless holding court, both his arms going as he talked.
“He haven’t had this much attention since Sara died,” Glad Vatcher said.
Loveless was pointing at Sweetland as they walked over. “Sawed up the calf,” he heard Loveless say, “like a bit of old driftwood.”
Sweetland glanced around at the assembly, to see what they had to work with. Duke and Hayward, Reet Verge in her pink hoodie, Ned Priddle, a handful of others. Glad was the only adult under the age of fifty, the rest nursing one chronic infirmity or other. All the young folk off at jobs on the rigs or into St. John’s or somewhere on the mainland.
The cow was down against the wall, panting shallowly and staring blind at the barnboards. “She won’t have any life in them legs,” Glad said. “She’s going to be dead weight to get up.”
“You think we can lever her?”
“Might be. Get under her front and back. Move her off the wall. Maybe pass a rope underneath.”
They puttered around collecting two-by-fours and concrete blocks and rope and setting the materials in place. There was an old dory propped in the stall nearest the entrance, a plank-board pig of a boat that Loveless had built half a lifetime ago, and they dragged that behind the animal to use as a fulcrum. The cow lying there oblivious, like some biblical queen being attended by servants. They leashed a rope around her neck and put three men apiece at the levers shoved under her front and hindquarters. Counted to three and raised the cow a meagre foot off the ground before she canted off the two-by-fours and folded heavily back into place, the men scrabbling to keep their feet as she fell.
They made a dozen other attempts, changing the size and number of levers, their angles and fulcrums and positions, Loveless pacing uselessly on the periphery and calling, “Don’t hurt her, b’ys, don’t hurt her.” They finally managed to sneak a rope under her girth before she dropped back to the ground. Nailed a block and tackle to the rafters and Glad Vatcher and Pilgrim and every youngster in the barn set to the line. Between the levers and the pulley they raised the creature’s frame high enough she could scrabble feebly with her front legs, her weight full on the rope. The big head lolling, her breathing so attenuated they had to set her back for fear she might suffocate.
Two hours they’d been at her by then and they were all beat to a snot, their boots and pants fouled with cow shit and the previous night’s gore. They stood around the cow, catching their breath, wiping sweat off their faces.
“She don’t want to get up,” Loveless said.
“We could jimmy up a sling maybe,” Glad offered. “Let that hold her, see if she finds her legs.”
“A bit of sailcloth or canvas would do it,” Sweetland said.
It was another hour of jiggery at that, raising the cow and working the improvised sling under her torso, hanging the works from three ropes slung over the rafters.
“She looks like she’s wearing a goddamned diaper,” Duke said when they were done.
Glad Vatcher made a helpless motion with his hand. “We’re going to have to leave her there awhile,” he said to Loveless. “You’ll want to massage those legs, see if you can get some life into them.”
Loveless nodded uncertainly, terrified of the animal. They left him to the work, the rest of the crowd meandering toward the door.
“I got some homebrew over to the house,” Sweetland said when they were out in the fresh air. He turned to Glad Vatcher. “You’re welcome for a glass,” he said, and Glad tipped his head to one side, considering.
“All right,” he said.
Duke followed them over, and Pilgrim with Jesse hanging onto his arm.
Sweetland brought half a dozen bottles out of the pantry, poured them off one at a time into a plastic measuring cup, being careful to leave the gravelly sediment in the bottle. Passed around glasses of the brew. He handed Jesse half a glass and raised a finger to his lips, tipping his head toward Pilgrim. He opened the laptop and pushed it to where Jesse was sitting.
“Haven’t had a down cow to deal with,” Glad said, “since I was a youngster.”
Sweetland laughed. “Not hard to tell we was out of practice.”
“We should have looked it up on the Google,” Duke said.
“Not the Google,” Jesse said. “Just Google.”
“Well whatever the hell it is. Bet you there’s something on there about lifting cows.”
“Every Jesus thing is on there,” Sweetland admitted.
“I don’t give her much of a chance,” Glad said. “She’s a hell of a mess.”
They sat with that a moment before Duke said, “When do you start moving your animals off the island?”
“We was planning to bring them over September month. Winter them in St. Alban’s, at the brother-in-law’s place.”
“Taking them across on the ferry?”
“Going to have to hire a boat somewhere I expect.”
“What’ll that cost, a hundred grand?”
“Ha,” Sweetland said darkly.
Glad looked down at his shoes. “More than we can afford if the financial side haven’t been settled up by then. But we’re going regardless. The wife’s got her heart set on it.” He finished his beer in one draft and stood up. “She’ll have supper on,” he said.