Ashes of the Red Heifer (2 page)

Annie jerked, her blood freezing. This drill was going too far. “Criminy.”

David shouted at Annie, “We’ve got to go!”

Annie turned back to Esther, inspecting the front half of the wobbly calf protruding from her. “You two go. I’ll stay with Esther.”

When Esther strained, Annie gave one strong lunge on the chain with all her weight and the calf’s hips slipped free. The calf shot from the heifer and landed on the barn floor with a crack of knees and hooves. Annie crashed to the floor and flung herself toward the calf.

The sirens stopped, leaving an eerie echo in the barn.

The calf lay with his eyes open, barely breathing. A cloudy film began in the corner of his eyes.

“You aren’t going to die now, you little bugger.” Annie ripped the mask from her face. Saving the calf took precedence over protecting herself from BA 23.

“Annie, no.” David’s hands on her shoulders tried to pull her away.

She tugged loose and put her mouth over the calf’s nose. With all the will in her soul she breathed her life into his weakness. The birth fluids tasted coppery on her tongue, the softness of his tender muzzle tickled her lips.

One breath for the calf, one for her. “Come on, baby. Don’t quit me. Please live, please live,” she whispered. Thoughts of BA 23 faded; she wanted to save this one little life.

The calf shuddered. His fragile legs kicked and his head slammed into Annie’s mouth, making her bite her lip, mingling her blood with Esther’s.

A low rumble sounded then the sirens blared to life again.

The calf took a breath on its own. Annie sat up, triumph surging through her. She thrust her fist in victory. “Yes!”

She looked up at Hassan and David. “We did it.”

Neither paid attention to her. Their faces turned up, staring at the ceiling.

That was when Annie recognized the sound. A plane. It wasn’t a drill. The sirens…

David reached down and grabbed her arm, jerking her toward the barn door.

Too late.

The explosion ripped through the barn. A flash of light—roaring in her ears. David’s hand tore from hers. Shattered glass bit into her arms. Hassan’s wild curls disappeared in an avalanche of debris.

Everything went black.

TWO

       From what seemed a great distance, voices called Annie. She wanted to stay where she was, sitting on her strawberry roan, riding through the purebred cattle that bore their brand. “
Wait ’til you see the way the calves are growing, Dad
.” Perfect cattle…

The voices called for her again and the ranch faded. She lay on her stomach, straw and dust choking her. Dull pain radiated from the base of her head, hot needles stabbed at her elbows.

She identified the voices: Hassan and David, but they sounded muffled. A bomb. The world had exploded.

It didn’t make sense. A bomb? Who? Why? As frightening as the frequent sirens and drills had been, Annie had never really believed she was in danger. She was working to find the cure for BA 23, success that would give Israel a chance to save their decimated agricultural industry. A cure would stop BA 23 from wiping out the world’s cattle herds and halt the spread of the disease into human populations. Yesterday, she’d found out BA 23 had caused the death of two young children in a village inside the Israeli border. Who would want to stop their research?

Hassan and David. Were they all right? She forced her eyes open. Early morning sunlight filtered through thick dust. Black smoke swirled. She lifted her head and saw half the roof blown away, strips of aluminum tossed among the glass and hay. An acrid, chemical smell filled the air.

Annie pushed herself to her knees. Rubble slid from her back. Though she felt banged up and stinging, nothing seemed broken. She looked around at the destruction, confused.

David stood with his back to her, lifting gnarled railing from a stall panel. He turned, searching the destruction. A gash at his temple spilled blood across his cheek. Dirt streaked his face, but his eyes came alive when he spotted her. “Annie. Hassan, she’s here.”

Annie swung her head to find Hassan, but a sharp pain made her stop. She turned carefully and saw him stumbling through twisted aluminum and litter. Dust powdered his wild mane and face, his glasses sat at a wacky angle on the bridge of his sloping nose and he looked close to tears.

They were alive. She hadn’t realized that despite hearing their voices, her heart needed to see them to know they were okay. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she held.

David reached her first. He threw his arms around her and pulled her close. “Thank the Lord.”

Hassan joined them. “To Allah, all Merciful.”

She hugged them ferociously. She didn’t believe in any god she wanted to thank, she just blessed their good luck they’d all survived.

She pulled back. “What about the rest of the kibbutz? How many bombs? Is anybody hurt?” Though she was a veterinarian, certain medical skills transferred.

Hassan shook his head, dust flying from his curly hair. “I think it’s just one bomb. Just us.”

Annie turned her attention back to the barn. “Where is the calf?”

Only the east and south walls still stood. What was once the west wall that had opened to a corral was nothing but a gaping hole letting in dull light. Debris littered the corral.

The plane had come from the north. The bomb hit at dawn, a time when even Hassan and Annie weren’t usually in the barn. Was that on purpose? Or was the bomb intended to hit the apartments? Questions swam in Annie’s head as she looked around trying to get her bearings.

The headgate sat at an angle, swinging loose from the concrete. The opening was sprung, and Esther had vanished. Annie hopped through clutter to the demolished wall and scanned the corral. She hated the thought the bomb might have killed the cattle.

Another wave of relief washed over Annie. Esther stood in the corner, sides heaving, ears straight up, her tail slashing. She startled when she saw Annie and ran along the fence line, then raced back.

Annie spun back to the barn and saw David and Hassan flinging aluminum sheets and other debris from the spot where the calf had been.

She hurtled the mess and joined them.
Please be alive
.

In despair, she looked at the spot where the calf should be. Debris piled high, including a section of roof beam. Maybe it hadn’t crushed the little calf she’d breathed life into. Maybe. “This is where he should be. Help me get this off.”

Together, she and David manhandled the twisted steel beam, sliding it a few feet away.

Hassan gasped. “Most Merciful and Compassionate…”

She rushed to see. The calf lay on his side, a bleeding gash through his gut, almost split in half. She slapped the beam and whirled away. “Damn, damn, god damn.” Compassion rushed through her for Esther, who would never suckle her newborn.

Proof of the cure had been within their grasp. Cows would have calves because of them. People would be safe from the virus. Finally Annie would have done something for someone else that really mattered. Maybe then she could find forgiveness for letting her family down. But her success lay in the rubble, as far from her reach as the ranch from Israel.

Hassan stepped back from the calf, his soft eyes sad. “We don’t know if it was going to survive or not.”

Annie tried to stop the pang of sorrow. She couldn’t mourn another dead calf. This was science, after all, what was one more dead newborn? But the baby had been alive. She ran a hand across her forehead to shove her hair back and felt grit from the explosion. A bomb falling might not be her fault but the fact remained that Annie had failed again.

Put aside the emotion, it doesn’t help. Think
. “Okay. It might not have survived the birth if we hadn’t helped. Even then, it still might have died. Maybe the vaccine prevented Esther from aborting, or causing the obvious birth defects of BA 23. Let’s get a full blood workup ASAP.”

She turned around and stared at the dead calf, shutting off the sadness. “We need to vaccinate healthy cattle before breeding, maybe a booster mid-way through. And then give them a shot in late gestation to protect calves at birth.”

Hassan’s mouth opened slightly and he stared at her. After all their years working together she was amused to see she still shocked him. Hassan had been Annie’s partner in biology class in college. He wasn’t big on biology, but he was a whiz at computers. She helped him through the natural science classes, he got her through computer courses and they’d been working together since. They’d even arranged most of their post-graduate studies at the same universities.

Hassan blinked. “We were just bombed.”

David’s eyes crinkled at the corners and his lips turned up into the heart-stopping half smile. “Mind if I get a bandage for my head first?”

She studied both of them again to make sure they were okay. “You need to have Doc clean and bandage that cut, David. Then come back. No one is as close to the cure as we are and a day’s delay might cost a child’s life.”

She glanced around the ruins. “So we can’t use our lab.” She thought a second. “You can requisition what equipment needs to be replaced,” she said to David. “In the meantime, we can set up a lab in the laundry room.”

David gingerly dabbed at his cut with his sleeve and winced. Like her, he was in his early thirties. Technically, he was her boss, a project manager with PharmCo heading up the BA 23 research.

And personally? She wasn’t sure what they were. Not lovers yet, but heading that way, maybe.

“Slow down, will you?” David said.

“Slow down? We’re too close to a cure to back off now. I’m not about to let a bomb stop me.”

She absently rubbed at the sore spot on the back of her head. “I’ll get the blood and fecal samples. Hassan, get cleaned up and have Doc check you out, then run a check on Esther’s RNA sequence for the phylogenetic relationship to BA 23.”

He brushed dust from his head and looked confused. “Annie…”

A sudden scream took Annie’s breath. She jerked convulsively and peered through the dust to where the barn door used to be.

Sophie, one of the women who lived at the kibbutz, stared at the wreckage, her hands covering her mouth. She tore through the ruins. “Avrel!”

What was she doing? No one was in the barn except Annie, David and Hassan. Annie waded through the metal and hay and tried to calm the woman. But Sophie shook her off, sobbing and calling for Avrel.

Two men from the kibbutz arrived and spoke rapidly to Sophie in Hebrew. They called for Avrel and started searching the mangled remains of the barn.

David’s face frozen in pain. “She said Avrel had just come to the barn.”

“Oh, no.” She only knew Avrel as the teasing, friendly cook. What could he be doing here? And where was he now?

Annie, David and Hassan began to dig beneath the ruins, carefully picking their way. Within minutes a dozen or more people crowded the barn.

Several older women surrounded Sophie.

Two men shouted in Hebrew from close to what used to be the lab. Sophie tore free from the women and ran to the spot.

Annie watched in horror as the men stepped back and let Sophie close.

She screamed, a sound so scorching it burned into Annie’s bones.

The other women rushed to her and put their arms around the new widow, pulling her through the wreckage out of the barn.

Her wailing echoed through the remaining building. It sank into Annie’s stomach and chilled her blood. How had this happened? Why?

David put his arm around her, his eyes wet with tears. “Damn them,” he whispered.

* * * *

A few hours later, showered and bandaged, Annie stood in the rubble that once was their lab. She tapped into the river of determination she’d learned could keep devastation at a manageable level. Sorrow for Avrel and Sophie was stuffed into a dark corner of her brain, where she tossed thoughts of the dead calf. She’d have to take them out and deal with them later, but not now.

She pictured her father, arms folded across his chest, a smile of satisfaction on his face. Nothing would please him more than for her to quit and walk away, admit she’d been bested. But he’d have to get his jollies some other way this time.

When BA 23 broke out in Israel three years ago, Annie had itched to join the research. She’d applied to every pharmaceutical company and university with a project in Israel. But she was too young, had no credentials, and she’d been passed up. She kept up on the research as best she could and never stopped badgering project directors for a job. Something deep in her heart told her she could find the cure for BA 23 and it nearly drove her crazy not to be able to try.

Then, six months ago, David called. PharmCo had been slow to get their research project underway and were willing to take a chance on a young researcher.

The BA 23 virus caused abortions in cattle and if it crossed into humans it attacked major organs causing kidneys, heart, and lungs to fail. It could be treated with an antiviral, which Annie had already begun after resuscitating the calf, but it was expensive and in the poor countries of the Middle East, where medical supplies and information could be scarce, that wouldn’t bring much relief. The problem with research was that it had to be conducted in Israel. Because of the highly contagious nature of BA 23, no one was allowed to take tissue or blood or even DNA beyond Israel’s borders.

Her near success with Esther had her aching to get back to work. But she needed more cows, another lab, and her data. Avrel’s smiling face rose unbidden to her mind and she pushed it away.

Annie heard rustling in the debris and turned to see David picking his way toward her. He’d showered and cleaned the cut on his face. He looked surprisingly good for a man who’d been through a bombing.

Hassan trailed slowly behind David, a new plastic protector and pens nestled in his chest pocket. She felt a rush of thankfulness that they’d survived, followed by a new stab of sorrow for Sophie. Hassan had been Annie’s only family for over ten years. And David—she couldn’t say what he was but she knew she wanted him in her life. What would she do if either of them were hurt?