Ulysses by Anselmo Ray

Author:Anselmo, Ray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Ulysses felt bad about his crazy dash from the dinner table, but heavens, his mouth felt like it was on fire! He didn’t know what was in the stew Maggie had made – gumbo, she called it – and it sure was delicious … for the first ten seconds. Then the pepper or whatever it was took over and he had to do something about it. Even while others at the table were praising it, he could feel his face turning red and sweat breaking out on his forehead and the back of his neck.

He apologized to her later, but it didn’t quite make up for the display – and besides, the roof of his mouth still hurt, even after two glasses of milk. They went to bed with a wedge still between them, it felt like. He got to sleep eventually, and hoped she did.

“Uly, Uly!”

Someone was shaking his shoulder. He rubbed one eye and got it to open – what time was it? It was still dark as the inside of a closet.

“Uly!”

“Grrghh … wha’izzit, Danny?” His twin brother was reaching over Maggie to stir him.

“Sweetie Bell’s calving. It’s started.”

Uly sat up like he was popping out of a jack-in-the-box. “Oh, boy.” He’d noticed that when one cow started giving birth, it acted like a signal for all the others to do the same, like a string of firecrackers. If Sweetie Bell was exploding now, that meant they could expect the other twenty-plus to follow quickly – and there’d be little rest for the next week. It was a shorter harvest, but for the men it was even more exhausting than picking and sorting fruit.

“Get dressed and meet us in the cattle barn.” Danny marched out.

Uly heard him descend the stairs as he climbed over the foot of the bed. The bed was against the wall, and he’d taken the portion closer to it so Maggie could have the outside. Right now, that was looking like a tactical error. Once he was standing on the floor, he stripped off his clothes and fumbled to the dresser for fresh ones – ones that he didn’t mind ruining if it came to that.

“Could you not?”

He had no idea what Maggie was talking about. “Could I not what?” he replied as he pulled his shorts up.

“Throw your dirty clothes on the floor. Yesterday I fell because I slipped on them.”

She had to bring this up now? “Darling, you heard Danny, didn’t you? A cow’s calving – I need to hurry out there.”

Maggie groaned as she sat up. “It will not take you a minute to pick up after yourself. Surely the calf can wait a minute …”

“Tell that to the calf. Look, I’ll deal with it later, all right?” Here he was in the middle of the night, stumbling around in the dark, rushing to get out to the barn so Sweetie Bell’s calf would make it out of the womb all right – far from a guaranteed thing, as a

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