WAKE (Wattpad edition)

49. Just you.

{Cary}

Cary finished clearing the garden in a fury of activity, chopping out the last tough roots and hurling them so that they rattled the chain-link fence. He was sweating and parched when it was done, but not nearly tired enough. He slung the pair of shovels over his shoulder and trudged to the barns.

He found Tru squatting in a stall, her cheek leaned against the glossy brown side of a cow with dainty hooves. The metal pail at her feet rang with streams of milk hitting the bottom. Her eyes were closed, and Cary stood a moment watching her, catching his breath.

"Aunt Tru," he said.

Her eyes opened and narrowed at him, but the rhythmic splash of milk didn't falter. "Sweetheart," she greeted him gruffly.

"Garden's done." He swung the shovels off his shoulder. "Got something more for me to do today?"

She shut her eyes again, and the barn was quiet except for long streams of milk and the stamp of a hoof. The cow turned her broad head to gaze at him with wide, long-lashed brown eyes, her mouth chewing thoughtfully.

"Think I'll get you to feed the calf," Tru said. "Might as well start learning the livestock now you're here."

Cary brushed dirt off his gloves, then took them off and stuck them in his pocket. That job didn't sound as hard as he would have liked. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying not to think about how close to the city Jon and Pete were right now.

Tru hung her stool on a peg on the other side of the pen and lifted the bucket of frothy yellow-white milk smoothly from under the cow. She unlatched the gate with one hand like she'd done it a thousand times. "Your friend gone?"

"Yuh," Cary said shortly. He pulled a utility blade out of his pocket and silently held it out to her. Jon had left it lying on the pillow in his room.

Her eyebrows twitched and she put it into one of her many pockets. "Wondered where that had got to."

He was grateful when she didn't ask anything more.

The bottle for the calf seemed enormous compared to the bottles he used to make for Liam: it was as long and wide as his forearm. Tru snapped on an equally huge rubber nipple and shook the milk inside. The calf was in a separate pen lined with straw, all knobby knees and furry attentive ears. It spread its hooves and bawled loud and long when it saw Tru coming, then kicked up its heels in the straw.

Tru handed Cary the bottle and fiddled with the latch on the gate. The bottle was hotter than he'd expected, straight out of the warm udder of the mother cow.

"Come on in here and crowd him in the corner," Tru said. "He gets too excited and pulls away otherwise. Young and dumb."

Hesitantly, Cary edged into the pen. It wasn't very big with Tru and him and a calf energetically bumping the leg of Tru's coveralls. As soon as he held the bottle down, the calf turned its attention to him, shoving its wet nose in his palm and tugging on his fingers with its sandpaper tongue.

He laughed, surprising himself. He did as Tru showed him, and the calf latched onto the bottle, leaning on Cary's legs, milk dribbling down its whiskery chin.

"You're a natural," Tru said.

"Does it have a name?" Cary asked.

"Big Mac," she said wryly. "We'll feed him up and sell him for beef. I'm hoping we get a little heifer next year. Milk's of more use to me." She watched the calf happily switching its tail for a moment. "Don't usually keep boys around here for the trouble they make." She squinted at him. "Guess I'll make an exception for you."