As Kane hopped out of the truck, Callie looked around in stunned disbelief. How many of their animals were hurt? The mama goats were huddled against the gate but not going into the pen. Greg was on one side of the moms, looking in one direction, and Turbo was standing between the moms and the house on high alert. As Callie started to get out of the truck herself, she saw that part of the chicken run was ripped.

  “Shit,” Callie said barely above a whisper.

  “‘Mom, what’s going on?” Eliza asked from the back seat.

  “‘I don’t know Eliza, but it isn’t good. Can you go inside and get the flashlights?” Callie said as she got out. Hearing the back doors of the truck open as well.

  “‘Mom, they are crying, why are they crying?” Josie asked, sounding scared.

  “‘I don’t know, help your sister get the flashlights and the animal med kit, please,” Callie called over her shoulder as she headed for the goats.

  Callie worked her way in the rising darkness to the goat pen. Thankfully, she triggered the motion light on the shed, and that is when she saw that Turbo's normally blonde hair had red-brown blotches all over it. Callie paused in her determined walk up to the goats. She looked in the direction of Greg to see if he had the same. Greg’s dark brown and black hair made it hard to see if there was anything different, but he had an almost wet appearance to him.

  “Turbo, what happened to you?” Callie asked in a hushed tone, meant more for herself than anyone else.

  “Ma’am, they came out of nowhere, there were so many of them!” Turbo cried as he let out a loud grunt.

  “‘What came out of nowhere?” Phillip asked startling Callie, who didn’t know he was walking up behind her.

  “‘My Lady, you need to look at the babies,” Alexandrus announced as he came out of the darkness next to Greg.

  Callie looked at Phillip next to her and ran past Turbo into the pen that normally held the momma goats and the babies. On the ground next to their pallet A-frame shelter was one of the older boy babies. A few paces away, the other five babies were huddled together on the ground. Mabel suddenly stepped in front of Callie as she tried to move towards the baby on the ground.

  “‘You will not touch my baby!” Mabel cried, ducking her head, looking like she was about to charge at Callie.

  “‘Mabel, I need to take a look at him. I need to see if I can help him,” Callie tried to reassure the worried mom.

  “‘The spider got him, you will not take him!” Mabel screamed as she half ran at Callie with her head down.

  Callie, having dealt with Mabel’s antics before, stepped aside at the last minute and grabbed her by the horns.

  “‘I’m not going to hurt him or take him away!” Callie yelled as she used Mabel’s momentum to turn her around by the horns.

  “‘You will not take my baby!” Mabel was still screaming and grunting, frantic now.

  “‘Phillip, I need you to grab Mabel!” Callie yelled to Phillip. As Phillip took a step toward Callie, Callie saw Eliza running up with the flashlights. Josie was right behind her with another flashlight and the medical kit.

  “‘Eliza, I need to get Mabel and the moms out of the pen!” Callie called out the instruction as she tried to wrangle the hysterical Mabel. Mabel’s reaction was telling her that something was really wrong with the baby. Mabel is normally their most protective momma goat, but this was above and beyond.

  Phillip grabbed Mabel by the horns and started trying to drag her out of the gate. Eliza dropped the flashlights on the ground and ran, waving her arms at the other momma goats trying to scare them away from the gate. Josie followed suit, waving her flashlight. As Phillip got Mabel through the gate, Fearne ran past them over to the group of huddled babies.

  “Fearne, OUT!” Callie yelled as Eliza thankfully shut the gate behind Mabel.

  “NO! I won’t interfere, but I need to stay!” Fearne yelled back, lying down next to the group of babies. She had placed herself between the huddled group and the motionless baby goat.

  “Eliza, Josie, get in here with a flashlight and the medical kit! Phillip, don’t let the big goats in, but get in here!” Callie yelled as she walked over to the goat lying on the ground.

  Callie gently knelt next to the baby and put her hand gently on its side. Thankfully, she felt the slight up and down motion of breathing on her hand. The baby goat was soaked through. Without any light, she couldn’t tell if it was sweat, water, blood, or what it could be. She heard the gate open and shut quickly behind her. The light of the flashlight came over, and as it did, she could tell that there was definitely blood on the side of the baby. Callie grabbed the flashlight from a crying Eliza.

  “Eliza, I need you to start looking at the other babies. Figure out if any of them have blood or anything else on them. Josie, give me the medical kit and take your flashlight to help your sister,” Callie instructed, reaching for the medical kit in Josie’s hand.

  Josie just stood there staring at the baby goat on the ground. “Josie, help your sister!” Callie yelled at her daughter, breaking Josie’s trance, and she went to the group of babies with her sister.

  Phillip walked over to Callie, “What can I do to help?”

  “I need water to wash off this blood and figure out what happened,” Callie told Phillip as she stared at the goat’s head and started feeling and looking at the goat’s body. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Was she looking for punctures? Was she looking for exposed bone? Was this baby going to live out the night? Callie was scanning her mind and all of the ‘helpful’ goat chat groups she followed online. The closest thing she could remember was the sporadic advice fellow goat owners had given after coyote attacks. The problem was that all of those goats were found dead already, and the number one piece of advice was ‘get a livestock guardian dog (LGD).’ None of which is helpful right now.

  “Callie, we have injured cows or cowks, where are the flashlights!?” Kane yelled as he came running over.

  “Dad, they are on the ground by the shed door,” Eliza replied, not looking up from the pile of baby goats.

  Callie heard Kane’s sliding feet on the loose gravel as he ran to the shed and started running back in the direction he had come from. Phillip was still standing next to Callie. She looked up at him and then elbowed his leg. He made a *humph* but turned and walked towards the gate. Callie hoped he remembered what he needed to get for her.

  Callie shook her head and went back to checking the baby goat. Its tongue was sticking out unnaturally, and its eyes were closed. She couldn’t help but remember the one goat they had lost, which had been from bloat, and the poor goat had a similar look, but its eyes had been open, and it had foam coming out of its mouth. Callie had learned a lot from that first loss, but this was still new to her.

  Starting at the poor boy’s head, she started looking and feeling for punctures and abnormalities while she waited for Phillip to come back with a bucket of water. She gently lifted the head to feel the other side. Not feeling or seeing anything with the limited light of the flashlight, Callie moved on to looking and feeling around the goat’s neck. As she moved her hand gently down the side of the goat’s head to the neck, Phillip was back at her side with the bucket of water.

  “Thank you, can you hold the flashlight for me?” Callie asked as she took the bucket of water from him and handed him the flashlight.

  “Is this a trick like holding the light for dad while working on the truck together?” Phillip had a bit of a laugh in his voice.

  Callie couldn’t help but look up at Phillip, “Don’t be an ass,” Callie sighed with maybe a touch of anger.

  Callie started looking and gently feeling around the goat’s neck. As Phillip held the flashlight, Callie gently walked her hand about halfway down the goat’s neck, where she suddenly felt moisture. The rest of the head and neck had been dry and crusty. As she touched the area again, she felt the baby boy’s body give a slight flinch. She looked up at Phillip and then grabbed the water bucket. After a quick debate, she decided to scoop the water with her hand onto the neck. Callie was concerned that if she just dumped the whole bucket onto the goat, it could cause more damage.

  Carefully spooning the water onto the goat’s neck, she slowly revealed a slowly bleeding double puncture on the side of the goat’s neck. Thankfully, the wounds weren’t spraying blood but more gently bleeding like they were only halfway coagulated. Callie sighed and started scooping more water onto the area to see if there were any more punctures. Not seeing any, Callie reached into the medical kit and started grabbing the gauze pads. Callie hesitated when she saw the ‘bleed-stop’ bottle. She looked back at the wound and shook her head lightly. Gauze first, then apply the powder if needed, she thought to herself before putting the gauze on the wounds.

  Callie started turning the goat slightly; she needed to make sure the wound didn’t go all the way through the neck. As she gingerly moved the goat’s neck and head, it let out a soft bleat. This set Mabel back into hysterics. Mabel started screaming and ramming the fencing.

  “Mabel! Stop, you will bring those things back!” Turbo and Fearne yelled together.

  “Mabel! Stop!” Greg was now shouting as Mabel kept ramming the fencing.

  As this was all happening, Callie confirmed that the wounds didn’t continue to the other side of the neck, thankfully. She continued down towards the body of the goat. At the chest, she found another wet spot; this spot was larger than the other. She quickly started putting water on the area, trying to discern where the blood was coming from.

  “Phillip, I need the flashlight over here. This spot is bigger than the other,” as she said that the baby goat let out a louder bleat of pain and opened its eyes. This made Mabel absolutely lose her mind. The noises coming from Mabel were enough to make Zeus and Olive inside the house start barking.

  “Shit! We need to get her to quiet down!” Phillip tried to yell over the noise, dropping the flashlight’s beam, giving Callie only a quick look at the larger wound that was oozing blood.

  “Shit! I need light!” Callie cried up at Phillip as she reached into the med kit to grab more gauze. Suddenly, Mabel was silenced. Callie looked over to see Mabel slumping to the ground with Alexandrus on top of her.

  “What the hell did you just do?” Phillip asked as Callie was opening her mouth to ask the same thing.

  “I’m sorry, she was going to bring the badgers and arcanus and snagon’s back if she kept up with that noise,” Alexandrus tried to explain.

  “YOU KILLED HER!” Turbo screamed, ducking his head to charge at the smaller creature.

  “NO! NO! NO! SHE IS JUST ASLEEP!” Alexandrus screamed back as he tried to climb the fence. Turbo charged anyway, but couldn’t stop in time before he hit Mabel. Mabel grunted but didn’t wake up, thankfully. Hearing the noise from Mabel made Turbo stop and then start sniffing her.

  “I will make you pay later for this indignity,” Turbo growled, kind of, at Alexandrus.

  “If you want to repeat the fight we barely survived, then be my guest and wake her,” Alexandrus retorted. That seemed to silence Turbo, who proceeded to go back to his watch position.

  “Phillip, I need the light,” Callie said again, but with a bit more gentleness in her voice, but the same urgency as before.

  Once the beam of light was on the chest area, it was clear to see that there was a large gash on the goat’s chest. Callie grunted at the sight of the wound. Doing a quick assessment, Callie realized that the gash was pretty deep and was showing a layer of white as she washed the blood away. That could either be the muscle tissue under the skin or it could be the breastplate. Either way, it wasn’t good. With a quick debate with herself, Callie decided this wound needed the ‘blood-stop’ powder. She grabbed it and sprinkled a little at first on the wound. Seeing that it was kind of working, she sprinkled on more. The goat was quietly bleating through all of this, but the noise reassured Callie that the goat would be okay if they could just find all of the wounds.

  After seeing the ‘blood-stop’ was working, Callie moved onto the front legs, checking each before moving onto the body of the goat. She found another double puncture on the side of the goat’s stomach. Thankfully, it wasn’t a very deep puncture, and after cleaning the area, it just needed some gauze. Callie continued to the back legs, and she found that one of the legs was broken and was at a strange angle to the other legs.

  As she started feeling along the suspected broken leg, the baby started kicking and trying to get up. Callie backed up to see if it could get up. The goat made it onto its feet, but it was holding up the broken leg. Callie sighed with relief. If the goat couldn’t get up, then they probably would have had to put it down permanently.

  “I need to straighten and wrap your leg,” Callie cooed at the poor baby. It just bleated sadly at her, “Phillip, I need you to hold him while I splint the leg. I need to find where it is broken first, though.”

  “Okay, do you need the flashlight still?” Phillip asked.

  “Shit, yup. Josie or Eliza, are one of you able to come and help?” Callie called over to her daughters not looking as she watched the baby try and walk.

  “Coming!” Eliza said, “You need to look at the baby girl when you are done, she has some dried blood on her.”

  “Okay, we need someone to hold a flashlight,” Callie said as she heard them walk up behind her.

  As one of the girls, Callie didn’t bother to look, held their flashlight up, Callie moved over to the injured leg and Phillip moved to the head of the goat. Phillip grabbed the baby goat's horns, which it did not like.

  “Eliza, can you hold the baby goat please?” Callie asked, seeing what Phillip was doing and not wanting to take the time to explain how to do it properly.

  Eliza pushed Phillip out of the way and grabbed the goat to stabilize it as Callie started gently running her hands down the injured leg. Despite the goat trying to kick her, she found the break quickly and reached into the medical kit for the small splint they kept just in case the normally unbreakable babies did something stupid. Callie made quick work of putting the splint on and securing it with stretch wrap. Seeing her mom was done, Eliza let go of the goat, it hobbled over to the rest of the babies, bleating and crying as it went.

  Callie took a big sigh of relief, “Eliza, you said there was another one I needed to look at?”

  “Yeah, she is over here,” Eliza said, pointing in the direction of another baby on the opposite side of the pile.

  Callie nodded and grabbed the water bucket. She followed Eliza and Josie who walked over to the baby girl goat who was softly crying. As the flashlight beam shown on the little girl, Callie realized this was the baby boy she had just been treating’s twin sister. Callie worked with Eliza to separate the little girl from the rest of the group. Eliza showed Callie where the blood she had found was. It was on the chest and side of the goat. As Callie started to wash off the blood she realized there wasn’t an actual wound.

  “I think she leaned up against her brother after he got injured,” Callie sighed letting go of the baby girl who went back to standing next to the other baby goats, “Fearne, since you are in here, let me take a look at you.”

  “One of the arcanus tried to bite me in the leg. I didn’t think it got me but that leg hurts,” Fearne commented as she limped away from the babies giving Callie room to fully look at her.

  Callie took the flashlight from Eliza and stared at Fearne’s head looking for injuries. Fearne had hardly any blood on her making it easy to look over her. When Callie got to the leg that Fearne was avoiding putting pressure on, it was obvious that the arcanus didn’t miss. There were two small punctures on Fearne’s leg, but the punctures almost had a drag-like appearance coming off of them, almost like the arcanus had bitten but didn’t get a good bite before Fearne moved. Callie walked over to the medical kit and got some of the antibiotic spray and some gauze and stretch wrap.

  Callie applied the treatment quickly, “There you go Fearne, thank you for making that easy. Who else is injured?”

  “Please look at Greg and Turbo, they worked hard to protect us. Mabel tried to protect her babies, but they were the first ones the arcanus went after,” Fearne answered Callie.

  “Phillip, I think we can open the gate now,” Callie said looking over at the gate and seeing Carlie holding Giana and Cosette standing next to her with her arms wrapped around her mom. Callie had completely forgotten about them.

  “I’m sorry Carlie, you can go in the house, the girls opened it up” Callie said, feeling incredibly guilty that she had forgotten about her friend.

  “Okay, I think Giana is ready for bed. Let me go put her down and I can help you look over the rest of the goats. Something happened to the cowks and cows too. Kane and Stern have been shouting and running back and forth in the pasture,” Carlie said.

  “Shit! Do you need me here or should I go help them?” Phillip asked.

  “Yeah, take the medical kit with you. I’m going to take a few things out, but I think the baby had the worst wounds over here,” Callie said after some thought.

  “Thanks,” Phillip said as he waited for Callie to take the things out of the medical kit she thought she would need. Then he grabbed the kit and a flashlight and headed for the other pasture where they heard the cowks and cows baying.

  Callie turned and found Greg still standing in the spot they had originally seen him. She grabbed the nearly empty bucket of water and walked over to the spigot to fill it up. With a full bucket, she walked over to Greg and started looking for where the glistening blood was coming from. She found a similar double puncture wound at the base of his neck. One of the punctures had gone straight through to the other side. She quickly cleaned off the blood and was thankful when she found it was barely still bleeding.

  Callie made quick work of bandaging those wounds and moved on to find another double puncture with a similar tearing pattern on Greg’s rump area. Although pretty deep the punctures were also barely bleeding so she made quick work of cleaning and bandaging the cuts.

  Turbo only had one set of punctures on his side when Callie went to examine him. The wounds looked like they were freshly opened, probably from him trying to charge at Alex. She had to put two extra pieces of gauze to get the bleeding to stop, she had debated after the second layer of gauze of sending a kid to grab the ‘blood-stop’ but thought better of it. At least here, the girls had seen the worst, over there she didn’t know what they would see or how bad it was comparatively.

  Carlie made it back out when Callie started examining Blonde. Thankfully there weren’t any punctures on Blonde, so they quickly moved onto the still sleeping but restless Mabel.

  “We better hurry, I think she is waking up,” Carlie said as she looked at Callie.

  “Yeah,” Callie sighed back as she started at Mabel’s head as she had with the others. They found two sets of double punctures on Mabel too, one on her chest and one on her leg. The punctures weren’t as deep as Turbo’s, so they were able to clean and bandage them pretty quick. Which was a good thing. As they were putting gauze on Mabel’s leg and starting to bandage it, she woke up and started crying for her babies. It took everything in Carlie and Callie to keep her laying down long enough to be able to finish bandaging her leg.

  Once they were done they let her get up and she immediately ran into the pen to her babies. Callie and Carlie watched her go and then looked at each other.

  “Time to look at the chickens?” Callie shrugged as she turned to look at the hole in the chicken run.

  “Are there any left?” Carlie asked, stepping forward to stand next to her friend.

  “Maybe we check the coop first?” Callie said, questioning herself.

  Callie walked over to the chicken coop door and did a quick inhale and exhale before opening the door.

  “ATTACK!!!!” was all Callie heard before a bunch of hens came flying straight at her face.

  Callie screamed as she fell back, nearly taking Carlie down with her.

  “STOP!” Charzar yelled as he came flying out after the hens.

  “What the fuck!” Callie screamed, swatting away the hens.

  “Sorry, we thought you were those snag . . .snake . . . snagon creatures,” Charzar said settling on the door frame as the hens continued to scream and attack Callie.

  “Stealer of babies!” they were screaming as Callie continued to bat them away.

  “Heretical nut cases,” Charzar sighed as he hopped off the door frame and started flapping at the hens to get them away from Callie who was still half laying on the ground with the onslaught of hens still going after her face and arms.

  “Get away from me!” Callie cried, batting away another hen.

  “SNAGON!” Callie heard screaming from behind her. The hens all screamed and ran back inside the chicken coop.

  Callie looked behind her to see Alex laughing on top of one of the fence posts.

  “Idiots,” Charzar sighed as he returned to his post on the door stoop as the hens angrily clucked away inside.

  “Thanks Alex,” Callie said as Carlie helped her to her feet.

  “My Lady,” Alex laughed, making an attempt at a bow on the post.

  “No thank you for me?” Charzar feigned hurt.

  “Sorry, thank you Charzar,” Callie said, dusting herself off in the dim light from the flashlight.

  “What happened here?” Carlie asked no one in particular.

  “We heard them coming but thought it was just thunder,” Blonde said as she walked over, “The first wave passed right past us.”

  “The second group didn’t,” Greg sighed, walking up and standing next to Blonde.

  “What came?” Callie asked.

  “Snagons, badgers, and arcanus, they were lucky there were no rhinoca’s,” Alex said as he jumped down from his post, eyeing Turbo as he walked towards the small group that was forming.

  “Aren’t those the same creatures we saw heading this way in Fountain?” Carlie asked.

  “Shit, you are right. I didn’t see any snagons though. Where did they go?” Callie asked, looking around, though it didn’t do much good in the dim light of the truck headlights.

  “They just suddenly stopped and continued south,” Charzar commented, fluffing his feathers.

  Callie and Carlie looked at each other unsure of what that could mean.

  “How long ago was it that they just moved on?” Callie asked, looking around the group.

  There was silence for a moment as all of the animals that had gathered looked at each other.

  “The sun was going down, but it wasn’t at the mountains,” Blonde finally said.

  “Would that have been when we took out the badger?” Carlie asked, looking towards the trucks, “How many creatures attacked?”

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  “Umm, there were at least two arcanus,” Greg said thoughtfully.

  “There was at least one snagon, it couldn’t get into the coop through the hen door,” Charzar said indignantly, fluffing his feathers again, “I never thought I would be happy about those windbags not leaving the coop.”

  “Shit, the meat chickens,” Callie suddenly said, taking a step towards the other chicken coop.

  “Oh they are fine, snagon got one idiot, but the rest ran for their door as soon as the first wave came over the hill,” Charzar harumphed.

  Callie sighed with relief, “Okay, only three creatures attacked over here.”

  “The cowks didn’t fare as well,” Alex sounded like he was on the verge of tears as he said those words.

  “What happened to them?” Carlie asked in a sad voice herself.

  “They had the badgers attack,” Alex said through sobs.

  “Shit!” Callie said in almost a whisper.

  “We need to go help the boys,” Carlie said.

  “Yeah,” Callie sadly agreed, “Is everyone okay until morning over here now?”

  “Don’t lock us in, we need to be able to get out if we need to,” Greg said, “That is how the little one got hurt, he was cornered.”

  “Okay, just please stay close if you can,” Callie sighed, “Charzar, can I lock you in?”

  “I don’t want to be with these twits,” he said, pausing, “But it is the safest place right now.” With that, he hopped back inside the coop.

  Callie shut the door to the chicken coop and latched it. As she turned around, the goats were retreating into the pen with the baby goats. Callie looked at Carlie and then looked at Eliza, Josie, and Cosette.

  “Girls, could you go inside, please?” Callie said, “Leave us all but one flashlight.”

  The girls handed over all but the one flashlight and headed back to the house, using light from the flashlight to guide them.

  “I’m going to move the truck so it is facing the cowks,” Callie said as she moved towards the truck. Carlie nodded and started heading at a quick pace to the pasture to join the boys.

  Kane immediately noticed the ripped fenceline as soon as Stern moved his truck into position, facing the cows and cowks. Thankfully, without being told, Phillip had pointed his vehicle in the same direction. Kane swore and then hopped out of his truck and ran over to the broken fenceline and what he assumed were injured animals. Kane had heard content bays and distressed bays out of Charlotte and Jonny Boy before; these were definitely distressed bays.

  As Kane got closer to the fence, he could see there were masses lying on the ground; he couldn’t tell without better light if they were cows or cowks or something else. The cowk bull glistened with what Kane guessed was red blood; the female next to him also had the same substance on her, but nowhere near as much.

  “Oh my god, what happened here!?” Stern exclaimed as he ran up next to Kane. Kane hadn’t realized he had stopped; the shock had gotten the better of him.

  “I don’t know, see if the girl will let you get close enough to look at her. I’m going to go look at the bull,” Kane instructed, moving into action once again.

  Kane approached the bull slowly. It looked at him but didn’t move. As Kane got closer, he could hear a dripping noise. Not a lot, but just enough to tell that something was running off this bull. As Kane reached his hand to touch the bull’s side, the bull snorted and made a small step away from Kane.

  “Whoa, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to check you,” Kane said in the most soothing voice he could muster. As he did, he heard a cry from the female cowk next to him. This agitated the bull, and he turned on Kane, almost hitting him with his horns as he turned.

  Kane thankfully ducked out of the way in time. Practice from Jonny Boy, when he got excited, had trained Kane for the duck and dodge. The bull proceeded to move toward the female, who was still crying but in a much softer tone. Kane could tell just by the noise that she was hurting. Then he heard a grunt from what he assumed was Stern.

  “Woowa, woowa,” Kane shouted again as the bull tried to run, but Kane could tell in the very dim light that it was too injured to fully run. The hobbling motion showed Kane that at least one of its legs was damaged, maybe broken.

  “Kane!” Stern was shouting from somewhere next to him in a very worried voice. The shout came from lower than Kane had expected. Maybe Stern was on the ground?

  Kane moved in the direction the voice had come from, which ironically was the same direction the bull was headed. Despite being clearly injured, the bull was moving at a fairly quick pace.

  “Watch out!” Kane yelled back in Stern’s direction. He heard a rustling in the grass along with a grunt and a muffled cry. Unfortunately, the grunt and cry came too late as Kane was running, and he tripped over Stern, who let out a not-so-muffled cry.

  “Shit!” Kane shouted, startled.

  “Damn it! That was my hurt rib!” Stern wheezed on the ground next to where Kane had landed on his knees after tripping over Stern.

  “We need a flashlight or something,” Kane said as he tried to get up, feeling something wet and sticky under his hands on the dirt. He tried to lift his hands into the light from the truck's headlights, but his hands just looked dark. Kane heard the front door open and shut to the house, and he heard the commotion from the goat area, along with yelling. Something had happened to the goats, too.

  Kane tried to get up again and heard grunts behind him like Stern was doing the same. The bull had come to a stop next to the female cowk and Kane saw the outline of something coming out of the dark. As he got to his feet, he focused his vision on the outline. It was smaller than the cowks to his left; it had to be one of the cows, but which one?

  “Sir, we need your help!” Jonny Boy said as he came close enough for Kane to see clearly the outline of his bull.

  “What happened here?” Kane asked, dusting himself off a little, looking past Jonny Boy’s outline.

  “A big attack, so many things attacked! There was a badger, it tried to take the babies. Please, sir, we need help!” Jonny Boy sounded frantic in his explanation.

  “Okay, I need light. Stern, try to take a head count from here. I’ll be back with a flashlight,” Kane instructed as he took off at a run back towards the headlights. He didn’t realize how far into the pasture they had gone. He saw Eliza and Josie run out of the house with flashlights and the animal medical kit in their hands. He slowed his pace just a touch to contemplate whether he should follow them or run into the house to see if they had grabbed all of the flashlights. Kane sped up again when he looked through the image in his head of the girls running out to the goat area. Josie had at least one flashlight, but Eliza had to have multiple flashlights in her arms.

  As he ran up to the goat pens, he saw blood-drenched Turbo and a hysterical Mabel.

  “Callie, we have injured cows or cowks, where are the flashlights!?” Kane yelled as he came running over, sliding a little on the loose gravel as he rounded the shed corner.

  “Dad, they are on the ground by the shed door,” Eliza replied.

  Kane didn’t slow his pace, seeing the flashlights on the ground. Kane ran and reached for the flashlights like he was doing a ‘touch the line’ drill in high school basketball warm-ups. He slid instead of coming to a stop on the gravel, but he used that momentum to grab and go back the direction he had come. Kane saw Phillip struggling with Mabel and decided that Callie needed him more than Stern, and he did.

  Thankfully, three flashlights were lying on the ground, so Kane had grabbed two. As he ran back towards where he could see Stern’s slightly slouched form, he turned on the flashlights and cast their beams to where the headlights weren’t hitting. As he ran up to Stern, he could see there were at least two cows or cowks lying on the ground, glistening red. Kane stopped next to Stern, taking a couple of deep breaths, wishing he was in better shape.

  “Here,” Kane panted slightly, handing one of the flashlights to Stern, “How many do you count?”

  “Ten, but I can’t tell where the two babies are,” Stern said with some pain in his voice.

  “Shit, we should have thirteen plus two babies. We need to start looking,” Kane felt despair starting to creep in. Although the cowks weren’t his, technically, he felt a responsibility for them; they had chosen his property after all.

  “Priority is to find the babies first, then we look for three bodies,” Kane announced as he took a deep breath to collect himself and started moving towards a huddle of standing cowks.

  As he got closer to them, hearing Stern’s footsteps following, Kane could hear the pained cries coming from the hornless forms. As Kane directed the beam of his flashlight onto the gathered forms, he could tell that most had some amount of blood on them; a few looked like they were actively bleeding. The cowks were in a tight circle around something or somethings on the ground.

  As Kane approached, he saw Jonny Boy off to his right coming towards the group. He had one of the yearlings just behind him. Kane slowed his approach, trying not to startle the cowks. When he got within arm's length, he reached out and gently touched one of the cowks who didn’t have blood on her while gently cooing at her. She made a startled jump, but didn’t kick out at him, thankfully.

  Kane gently pushed on her rump to get her to move slightly so he could get past. The cowk at first refused to move, but a second, slightly harder push made her move just enough so Kane could slip forward. As he did, Kane looked back at Stern, who thankfully had stopped short. Kane turned his head to look at the ground where the bodies were. Tears immediately welled up in his chest. On the ground was a clearly dead baby cowk. One of the new babies they had just celebrated the birth of. Kane sorrowfully pulled his eyes away from the baby to the other body a few paces away. Another dead cowk, this one a female. Next to it was a baby cowk, but Kane couldn’t tell if it was dead or alive from where he was.

  Kane started moving forward to investigate the other cowk when a female cowk stepped in front of him, blocking his way. Kane stopped his forward movement and looked at the cowk. Anger was in her eyes. Kane put up his hands slightly.

  “Woowa, momma, I’m not going to hurt you,” Kane tried to say gently.

  “She is protecting her baby,” Kane heard from behind him. As Kane looked over his shoulder to his left, he saw Charlotte come limping up to the gathered cowks.

  “I’m not going to take her baby, I need to see if the other one is alive,” Kane tried to explain, putting his eyes back on the angry cowk.

  “It is alive, barely, the mom died protecting it,” Charlotte said sorrowfully as she ducked her head.

  Kane unconsciously dropped his hands a little, “I’m sorry.” That was all he could think to say out loud. But Kane heard the crack of emotion in his voice and felt like he was choking on the words from the sorrow and hurt he felt for the herd.

  Not knowing what else to do, Kane backed up out of the small circle that had formed around the baby and mom. When he was free, Kane turned and jogged over to the dead mom and the baby lying next to her. As he approached, he could see a little bit of movement in the baby cowk. Kane knelt down and gently touched the baby; it was still breathing, however slowly. Kane could feel moisture on the red-brown fur of the cowk. Using his flashlight, Kane started feeling around to see if the baby had any cuts or wounds. As Kane felt around, the baby started to stir, letting out the most sorrowful cry Kane had ever heard.

  The baby cowk started to stand up, although it was still shaky on its feet. Kane let out a sigh of relief, realizing that the cowk had probably been nuzzling its mom, so the blood on it was probably from her. Kane heard hoof steps coming up behind him.

  “The baby is weak,” Kane said over his shoulder, seeing two female cowks walking up to him, “It needs to eat. I know she is in pain, but can the other mom feed it?”

  The two cowks seemed to look at each other and then turn away. Kane wasn’t sure if they understood what he was asking or not, but Kane couldn’t focus on that. He started going through the mental inventory of their medical supplies. They tried to keep colostrum or a milk substitute on hand during the baby season, but he couldn’t remember if they had used it all up with the last set of goat babies. As Kane came to the conclusion that they were probably out and started to think of what they could use for this baby, the cowk that had been angry with him had walked over.

  Kane was so deep in thought the cowk nudged him out of the way with her head. Kane nearly jumped out of his skin, being so focused on how he was going to take care of this baby. The action knocked him on his butt. The cowk paid no attention to him after knocking him over and had gone straight to the baby. She was nuzzling the baby like a new mom would to her calf, trying to move it towards her overly full udders. The baby took some convincing but finally moved down. Kane held his breath until he heard the familiar suckling noise.

  Kane got up dusting himself off again, “Thank you. I know it hurts, but this baby needs you now.”

  The cowk made no reaction but Kane could see the strength starting to come back in the baby as it happily sucked. Kane looked over at the rest of the ladies, he made a quick count. Five female cowks, Charlotte, Jonny boy, and it looked like one yearling. One mom cowk and one baby had died, that was of little assurance to Kane right now. If cowks were anything like cows the foster mom could still reject the baby and the rest of the herd could follow suit.

  Kane shook his head slightly, he needed to look around for the other two bulls and the other yearling. Kane started looking around for where Stern was. Kane eventually found him standing next to one of the other bodies. Kane walked over to him, as he got closer Kane saw it was one of the bulls. That meant one was still missing. The dead bull was slashed pretty bad and was almost unrecognizable other than its size and the horns sticking up.

  “This isn’t right,” Stern murmured as Kane came up next to him.

  “No, it’s not,” Kane replied. Stern gave a startled side step taking his eyes off the dead body. Through the dim light of the flashlights Kane could see the dampness on Stern’s face. His normally joking, ‘too much fight in him’ friend had been crying over the body of the dead cowk.

  “We need to find the other bull that is still missing and we have wounded animals we need to treat,” Kane said though he hated that he had no comforting words for his friend.

  “Yeah,” Stern took another look at the bull then, “Is it just one more that we are missing?”

  Kane had to think, “I . . . I don’t know," Kane said feeling his silence had gone on too long. Kane shook his head to try and clear the haze, “No, we need to find the other bull and a yearling.”

  “Okay, split up or go together?” Stern asked.

  “Split, if one of them is hurt we need to know immediately,” Kane said after a quick moment's thought.

  “Okay, I’ll go this way,” Stern said, pointing his flashlight to the left and north.

  “Got, I’ll go east,” Kane pointed his flashlight in the direction he was going to go further out into the pasture.

  Without another word the men separated going in different directions. Kane didn’t have words for his friend, he felt grief. Somehow losing the animals that weren’t even his felt devastating. Maybe it was because they had gotten to witness the cowks ceremony the night before, maybe it was the feeling of possession. Either way as Kane walked the grief was turning into anger at whatever it was that had attacked his animals. To brutalize them so badly and leave their bodies to rot.

  “Here!” Kane heard Stern call behind him, “Found one!”

  Kane took a quick look with his flashlight around in front of him and to his sides before he turned around to head to Stern. As Kane did however his flashlight caught something gleaming. Kane quickly moved his flashlight back to look for the shining object again. As he did he saw a body and then something standing over the body.

  Kane held his flashlight on the objects and reached behind him for his rifle, “Shit,” he muttered. He realized in the frantic moments of seeing the injured animals he had left his rifle in the truck. Kane reached down for his pistol and sighed in relief. He still had that at least. Taking out his pistol and holding up his flashlight to support the barrel as he moved forward towards the objects.

  As Kane got closer he could tell that it was the missing bull standing over something else. Kane did a quiet prayer that it wasn’t the body of the yearling they were still missing. The bull was covered in blood and was breathing heavily as Kane moved closer.

  “Whoa boy, it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you,” Kane said gently to the cowk as he got closer. He moved the beam of this flashlight to the body on the ground. Kane nearly jumped back as he saw it was the body of a humanura. The creature was bloody and in a crumpled position. Its eyes were wide open, and its mouth had an evil grin with the sharp teeth exposed. Kane took a step towards it and kicked its leg with his foot, keeping his pistol trained on its center mass.

  His kick didn’t elicit a response from the creature. Kane stepped back towards the cowk, not letting his eyes leave the figure. Thankfully so because as Kane was taking his third step back, he saw the creature's eyes turn in his direction, and that evil mouth opened like it was getting ready to say something. Kane heard the bull behind him start snorting.

  The humanura sat up, its mouth open in a gruesome smile, one of its arms not visible. Kane didn’t hesitate; he put a shot into the chest of the creature. The humanura lurched and then exposed what it had in the hidden hand. It was a long, sharp dagger, almost like a Roman dagger but wider at the base. Kane pulled the trigger again, putting a bullet through the creature's forehead. The humanura had been getting ready to throw the dagger, so it flew a foot or so and then dropped to the ground. The body of the humanura slumped to the ground. Kane wasn’t going to take any chances, though, and put another bullet through the top of the creature's head.

  The bull came up to Kane’s left shoulder and snorted at the humanura. Kane lowered his pistol a bit, and the cowk nudged Kane’s arm with its nose. Kane holstered his pistol, switching the hand the flashlight was in so he could scratch the bull gently between the horns.

  “Thanks, buddy, let’s go find your friends,” Kane said, not quite ready to take his eyes off the humanura but also knowing he needed to see why Stern was calling to him. Kane saw the dagger the humanura had attempted to throw at him on the ground, and he picked it up.

  “Kane!” Stern yelled from behind him as Kane saw the beam of the other flashlight coming towards him, “What happened?”

  “Attempted ambush,” Kane said with very little feeling in his voice as he heard Stern's running footsteps come up to him.

  “Shit, you okay?” Stern asked, stopping on Kane’s right side.

  “Yeah,” Kane said, snapping himself out of looking at the dagger, “I have a Frowler dagger now. What did you find?”

  “There is an injured yearling in a gully and a dead humanura next to it,” Stern said as he looked from the dagger in Kane’s hand to the dead humanura on the ground.

  “Are you sure it’s dead?” Kane asked, remembering this humanura trying to trick him.

  “Umm, now that you mention it, I’m not sure,” Stern said apprehensively.

  “Let’s go check, either way, we need to get that yearling out of the gully,” Kane said resolutely, carefully putting the dagger in his belt, “Lead the way.”

  As they turned, Stern took the lead, shining his flashlight back and forth a little like he was uncertain exactly which way he had come from. As they moved slowly west and north, their flashlights caught a large creature moving northward. Kane immediately grabbed his pistol out of its holster, and he heard Stern do the same. Kane moved a little further to Stern’s left in case they needed to open fire; he didn't want to risk hitting his friend. As they got closer, Kane recognized the figure to be Jonah.

  “He’s heading towards the gully,” Stern whispered.

  “Flank him,” Kane whispered back, heading left as he heard Stern head right to get on either side of Jonah. Kane dropped his flashlight beam a little so it wouldn’t give away his position. Kane saw Jonah stop at the edge of the gully. Kane moved as silently as he could in the cactus-filled terrain. He heard the truck door shut behind him and slightly to his right. He suddenly realized he hadn’t heard the screaming goats in a bit. Callie must have finished patching them up.

  As Kane got closer to Jonah, he heard the creature say, “Cur, frater, cur?”

  Kane saw Stern’s flashlight just on the other side of Jonah. They both took a step closer to him, “I am not a threat,” Jonah said, looking first from Stern then to Kane.

  “Are you sure?” Kane said a bit gruffer than he meant to.

  “Maledictus. They were cursed. They will disappear soon,” Jonah said, and then jumped down into the gully next to the humanura.

  Jonah knelt next to his fellow creature. Stern and Kane brought their flashlight beams up so they could see Jonah and the yearling cowk. The cowk had one leg in an awkward position as it lay on the other three legs. It was covered in drying blood, but other than the leg looked like any other resting cow Kane had seen.

  Jonah was whispering something over the humanura who had the same wide-eyed expression that the other had, but the mouth wasn’t in a smile but was slacked open, only exposing the tips of its sharp teeth. Its body was twisted with its legs and an arm in one direction and the other arm and head in another. As Jonah finished, whispering, he moved his hand to shut the eyes of the fallen creature.

  Kane couldn’t hear what Jonah had been whispering, but as Jonah stood, he heard, “Iter ad proximum mundum tuto.”

  As Jonah finished the phrase, he looked up at Kane and Stern, “He is gone.”

  Kane wasn’t sure what to do or say, so he did a slight nod of acknowledgement at Jonah. Jonah walked over the yearling. He whispered something to the creature and then touched his forehead to the cowk’s between its horns. He paused there for a moment, then Jonah put his hands on the cowks injured leg. The cowk let out a pained cry as a slight glow came from Jonah’s hands around the cowks leg. After the glow went away, the cowk stood up and lowered its head almost like a bow to Jonah, who was still kneeling on the ground.

  “He needs help up, could not fully heal,” Jonah called up to Kane and Stern as he switched from being on his knees to sitting on his butt with his legs bent in front of him. The position made him look so defeated and so human-like that it caught Kane off guard.

  Kane looked over to Stern, who had his mouth hanging slightly open with disbelief on his face. Kane poked Stern’s arm to jolt him out of whatever he was thinking. Stern gave him an angry expression, then a slight smile.

  “So, property owner, how do we get that thing out of there?” Stern said with a bit of humor in his voice.

  “Look for a way out,” Kane smiled back at his friend, “I’m not lifting that thing out of there.”

  Stern let out a slight laugh as they heard footsteps coming up behind them. Phillip was walking towards them with a flashlight.

  “Hey, you guys know there are some bleeding cowks up by the fenceline?” Phillip said with a gesture behind him.

  “Yeah, we have a stuck yearling, though,” Kane said to his friend as Phillip stopped in front of him and Stern.

  “Okay?” Phillip questioned.

  “Let’s see if the gully opens up or at least opens into a ramp further down,” Kane explained as he headed off up the edge of the gully, looking for a way to get the yearling out. After about 40 yards, the gully opened up to a less steep ramp. Kane paused at the top of it. He shone his flashlight further along, not seeing a better angle, he carefully stepped over the edge and tested his footing on the way down into the gully. Not an ideal area to go up with an injured cowk, but better than trying to lift it up the normally steep sides of the gully. Kane heard Stern and Phillip follow him down the slope. At the bottom, Kane turned to head back towards where the cowk and Jonah were.

  As they came around a slight bend, they saw that Jonah had started scraping dirt onto the body of the humanura. The cowk had lain back down and was watching Jonah silently. Kane slowed his pace towards the two, slightly not sure if Jonah was performing another ritual or just simply burying the dead. Once Kane was next to the cowk, the cowk stood up.

  “I must return body to earth, take cowk,” Jonah said with a tone of seriousness, not turning to look at the men.

  Kane looked at Stern and Phillip, who had stopped just behind him, “Take the yearling back to the females.”

  “What are you going to do?” Phillip asked at the same time as Stern started to say something.

  “Help Jonah,” Kane said as he moved towards Jonah.

  “Let’s go,” Stern said as Kane heard him take a couple of steps towards the cowk. The cowk let out a mournful but quiet cry and then let Stern direct him back along the gully.

  “Need help?” Phillip asked, taking a couple of steps towards Kane.

  “No, meet up with Callie and have her look at the injured cowks,” Kane said as he put down the flashlight so it was angled at Jonah. Kane heard Phillip walk away as he started pulling dirt from the side of the gully onto the body of the humanura, as Jonah had been doing.

  “Thank you,” Jonah said as they finished covering the body.

  “Thanks for not being cursed,” Kane said with a half smile. Jonah looked at Kane with what seemed like a confused expression on his face. Then Jonah squatted and jumped to the top of the gully, about an eight-foot jump.

  “Show off,” Kane grumbled as he grabbed his flashlight and started walking back towards the ramp they had found earlier.

  “Here,” Kane heard next to him. As he turned his flashlight, he saw Jonah had lain down on the rim of the gully and had his arm and hand extended for Kane to grab. Kane hesitated for a moment and then reached for Jonah’s hand. With Jonah’s help, Kane made it to the top of the gully.

  “Thanks,” Kane said, dusting himself off.

  “Thanks for not being cursed,” Jonah repeated and then put a half smile on his face mimicking Kane.

  Kane couldn’t help but laugh. Jonah’s half smile turned into an awkward but relaxed closed-mouth smile.

  “Let’s go see how the others are doing,” Kane suggested.

  Jonah just nodded, and then the two of them headed towards the other flashlights. As they headed over, Kane caught movement to his left. When he moved his flashlight beam over, he saw the bull he had left walking up towards the noise of the female cowks. Kane sighed in relief; he wasn’t sure if he had the energy to fight at that moment if it had been an enemy.

  As Kane and Jonah walked up to the first bull and female they had seen at the fenceline, Callie was bandaging up the female's side with Carlie’s help. Kane looked around for Phillip and Stern. He found Stern had the cowk’s head, trying to hold it still as Callie and Carlie treated her. Kane guessed that Phillip was the flashlight moving towards the water spigot.

  “What can we do to help?” Kane asked his wife as he came up next to her.

  “Phillip went to get water. I need the bull washed off so I can see where he is bleeding from and how bad it is,” Callie grunted, not looking away or stopping what she was doing.

  After numerous trips back and forth with the water bucket, Kane and Jonah finally got the bull cleaned off enough to see the numerous claw scratches. Jonah, in his typical broken English, explained to them that the marks were badger claws, but cowks have a natural resistance to UNHEALING WOUNDS. Callie had sighed with relief, hearing this.

  The injured yearling had required Callie to use HEALING WORD on an extra deep slash on its side. Both bulls had required a CURE WOUNDS because they had some deep gashes on their head and necks, respectively. The rest of the wounds, thankfully, required some bandaging but should heal on their own. The female Callie had been working on first collapsed as they were finishing checking and treating the other females.

  “Shit, what did we miss?” Callie muttered to herself as she ran over to the down cowk, “I need light!”

  Kane and Phillip lent their flashlights to where Callie was pointing, illuminating the cowk from two different angles. Callie started examining the head of the cowk, directing the boys where to shine their flashlights as she went down the creature. When she got to the back leg, she noticed a puncture mark she had missed before. Just a single puncture, not the doubles like the goats had. Callie took the flashlight from Phillip and shone it directly on the wound. As she did, she noticed a green tinge to the skin around the wound.

  “Shit,” Callie said out loud.

  “What is it?” Carlie asked.

  “I think . . . I think poison, but I don’t know from what. It is only one puncture,” Callie said as she looked up at her friend. Then she looked at Jonah. Jonah had a questioning look on his face, but didn’t say anything.

  Callie took a breath, “Phillip, I was going to use LESSER RESTORATION on your arm again tonight before going to bed, but I think I need to use it on her. I’m sorry, I only have one more chance to use it today.”

  As she looked up at Phillip, Phillip gave her a half smile, “It’s okay, I can at least feel my hand and arm now, she isn’t going to get up unless you use it.”

  “Thank you, I’m sorry,” Callie said before casting the spell on the wound. As she finished the cowk whose breath had been very labored a few moments ago, was breathing much easier. As Callie took her hands off the cowks leg, the cowk opened her eyes and got off her side. The cowk didn’t get up but looked back at Callie and gave a slight bow of her head.

  Callie nodded back and then stood up, “I think we have done what we can tonight. Do you want to try to fix the fence or do that tomorrow?”

  Stern looked at his watch, “You mean later today? It is past midnight.”

  “Shit, where are the kids?” Kane asked.

  “They are supposed to be inside, hopefully asleep,” Carlie said with a stern but exhausted tone.

  “We all need rest,” Callie sighed, “Let’s go inside.”

  “The fence can wait, anything that would come tonight I have a feeling would go through whatever repair we made anyway,” Kane said as he moved his flashlight to look at the groups of cowks and cows.

  The group slowly moved towards the house as Kane finished his scan of the area. Jonah followed them for a bit but veered off, disappearing into the dark. Kane guessed to find someplace to sleep.

  As they got close to the house, they heard the whining of Titan and Olive inside the house. Callie entered the house first, followed by Carlie. Only the kitchen light was on; all the girls except Giana were lying on the couch and chairs, fully asleep. Callie and Carlie looked at each other with exhausted smiles.

  “Leave them,” Phillip said, “We need to get the cars unpacked.”

  The group slowly made its way back outside. Kane and Stern moved their trucks so they were backed up against the house. The group quickly unpacked and put away all of the cold and perishable items. Callie and Carlie stood in the kitchen looking at the full kitchen table. Callie felt overwhelmed but completely unmotivated to finish putting the rest of the items away.

  Phillip walked up to the ladies, taking his wife’s hand and pulling her towards the stairs.

  “The rest can wait,” he said as they rounded the top of the stairs.

  As they hit the bottom of the stairs, Callie heard a giggle come from the two of them. Callie just smiled.

  “Well, I’m off to the camper,” Stern said quietly, “I’m going to let Dani stay in here.”

  Stern then headed down the stairs as well. They heard the basement door open and shut shortly after.

  Kane and Callie looked at each other. After a moment of quiet looks, Kane took his wife's hand and they walked to their bedroom. Time to rest.