Michael Crummey - Sweetland

“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.

After Glad shut the door behind him, Pilgrim pointed in the general direction of Duke’s seat. “It’s too bad you can’t learn to cut hair with that fucken mouth of yours.”

“I was only asking,” Duke said.

Sweetland went off to the pantry after more beer.

“I never thought Glad Vatcher would take the package,” Pilgrim said.

“Glad Vatcher can kiss my arse,” Sweetland called from the next room.

“It was his missus talked him into it,” Duke said. “Wanted to be handier to her crowd in St. Alban’s.”

“His missus can kiss my arse too,” he shouted.

He was half-cut by the time he’d finished his fifth beer and still hours of light left to the day. Everyone gone off to their suppers and he sat in the quiet, rolling the empty glass back and forth between the palms of his hands. Feeling sorry for himself, he supposed.

He sat at the laptop, trolled around the handful of sites he knew. Typed in a Google search on cow lifting . Five and a half million results. The Upsi-Daisy Cow Lifter. Harnesses, slings, cranes, buckets, hoists. An infinite library of information and none of it any practical use to them. A window they could peer through to watch the modern world unfold in its myriad variations, while only the smallest, strangest fragments washed ashore on the island.

He went through to the porch, took his coat and hat and walked down to Loveless’s, let himself into the barn. Loveless at the far end, sitting on one of the concrete blocks they’d used as a fulcrum, rubbing at a foreleg of the doomed cow with a towel. Sweetland crossed over to them, put a hand to the cow’s neck, rubbed between her ears awhile. Her breath intermittent and shallow.

“She don’t want to be up,” Loveless said. He was chewing angrily at the unlit pipe as he sat there.

“Don’t look like she do.”

“Sara wouldn’t be happy to see it.”

Sweetland straightened, put his hands in his pockets. Turned to see the little dog back in its place along the wall. “Hello, Smut,” he said.

Loveless twisted around on his concrete seat. “I had that one barred in the porch.”

“Well, that’s a regular Houdini you got there.” Sweetland bent at the waist and held a hand toward the dog, kissing the air to encourage it over, but it only stared.

“He won’t come near, you don’t have a bit of something to give him,” Loveless said.

“What do you use?”

“Steak mostly.”

“Is that why he’s so interested in your cow, I wonder?”

Loveless raised himself awkwardly off his seat and Sweetland had to reach a hand to keep him upright. “I don’t know how Sara managed all of this,” he said.

“She was a tough woman.”

“I can’t do nothing here without her.”

“Go lie down for a bit, I’ll take a spell.”

Loveless started away, but turned back to Sweetland before he reached the far end of the barn. He took the pipe from his mouth and stared at it. He said, “I’m going to take the package, Mose.”

Sweetland looked him up and down. “You’re tired,” he said. “Go lie down a while.”

“I got my mind made up,” Loveless said. “I got nothing here without Sara.”

“Go on,” Sweetland repeated quietly, and he watched the shabby figure push out the barn door. Then he dragged the concrete block to the cow’s hind leg and went at it with the towel, trying to massage blood back into the flesh. After fifteen minutes he moved to the opposite leg. He leaned his head against the cow’s flank a moment, a quiver still discernible in the muscle. “Well now, Sara,” he said aloud, missing the woman suddenly.