Shortgrass Song (36 page)

“What is it?”

“There's a cow down across the creek. See her?”

“Yeah,” Caleb said. “She's calving.”

“I believe you're right. Let's see how she's doin'.”

They rode nearer, being cautious not to startle the cow.

“That's ol' Allegheny,” Pete said. He knew the cow by name because she was the last of the original Holcomb herd, the only one of the Missouri cows to have survived the wolves and the Texas fever.

“Good God,” Caleb said as they eased still closer to the cow. “Look at the size of that calf's head. It must weigh well-nigh a hundred pounds.”

Pete got down from his horse, his slick boot soles slipping on the muddy creek bank. “She's gonna have trouble,” he said. “We better pull it.”

Allegheny was flailing her head and legs in agony, kicking mud, trying to push her newborn calf from the womb. Pete calmed her with his voice as he approached. He cleared the mucus from the nostrils of the half-born calf. “Bring your rope,” he said. “At least we won't have to worry about choking the calf. It's already dead.”

They put the rope around the head of the calf and pulled. The old cow bellowed and flailed her legs harder than ever. They wrapped the rope around their waists and leaned with all their weight. Pete put one boot against the cow's hip and pushed. The stillborn calf didn't slip so much as an inch from the laboring cow.

“Dang, that's a big calf,” Pete said as he and Caleb paused to rest. “That's one thing about them longhorns. They sure drop their calves easy. Never seen one have this kind of trouble. I'll pull the rope. You pull on the front feet.”

They pulled another five minutes, grunting, rocking against the dead weight, but the stillborn calf would not come through the birth canal.

“Get my rope,” Pete said. When Caleb brought it, Pete told him to tie a knot in the end of it.

“What for?” Caleb asked.

“Gonna have to whip her.”

“What the hell for?”

“She's got to push that calf out.”

“Can't we try pullin' it with a horse?”

“You could drag her a mile. That calf won't come out till she pushes it out. If we whip her, maybe she'll get the idea.”

Caleb stood as if in handcuffs and leg irons, the rainwater dripping from the brim of his hat. “She's hurtin' too much. Maybe we should just put her out of misery with a pistol.”

Pete took the rope from his brother. “You're sure sellin' our stock cheap. I'll whip her. You pull.”

Pete tied a hard knot in the end of his rope and reared back to hit the cow. Caleb couldn't stand to watch, but the sound of the hemp slapping against the cow's flanks hurt him as much as watching would have. Allegheny bellowed, wheezed, and slammed her head against the ground in pain. The number of lashes mounted until Caleb lost count.

Pete shouted at the cow: “Come on, push it out, dang it!”

Caleb's muddy boots slipped out from under him as he pulled on the rope. He couldn't believe his brother could whip an animal so. Matthew would have done it but never Pete.

Pete paused a moment to catch his breath, but then Caleb heard hemp whistle through the air again and pop against the old cow's hide. Allegheny bellowed in anguish and moaned as if with her dying breath. Caleb looked around at her. Her eyes rolled back in her head, her tongue lolled out, and still the rope smacked against her ribs. He had to stop it. He couldn't stand another lick. He made up his mind to tackle Pete and shoot the poor cow with his pistol. But just as he loosened his grip on the pull rope, he felt the stillborn calf slipping from the birth canal. He leaned back a little harder on the rope, the cow's legs kicked stiffly, and the calf came out.

“That a girl!” Pete shouted. “I told you she could do it!”

Caleb dragged the giant calf out of the way and took his rope off of it.

Pete was rubbing the welts he had raised on Allegheny's side. “Go get your hat full of water,” he said. “Maybe she can drink.”

Caleb ran to the creek for the water. When he came back, Allegheny was trying to get up, but there was something horribly peculiar about her gyrations. She tried to roll to get her back legs under her, but they wouldn't obey. She moaned in protestation and fell back against the rocky ground, exhausted.

“What's wrong with her now?” Caleb asked.

Pete pursed his lips together to hold back the curses. “I don't know. Her legs won't work. I think pushing that calf out must have paralyzed her.”

“Paralyzed her?”

“That's what I said! Have you gone deaf?” He shook the rain from his slicker and walked away to look at the mountains.

Caleb pushed the cow's head upright and put the hat full of water under her nose, but the poor dumb brute only sighed into it. He dumped the water out and looked back at his brother.

Pete had the bridge of his nose pinched between his thumb and forefinger, head bowed, eyes closed. Caleb had seen him in the same attitude the preceding Sunday as he conducted a cow-camp Sunday-school meeting. He knew it was the pose Pete struck when praying, for Caleb had peeked at him when he was asking God for healthy calves, good rains, and grass.

Caleb figured maybe he should pray, too, but he knew he couldn't do it as well as Pete; he didn't believe in it the way Pete did. If there really was a God, Caleb didn't want to bother him with inferior prayer, so he patted Allegheny on the head and used his hat to shield the rain from her eyes. He knew she was too dumb to appreciate it, but it was the least he could do since Pete was probably going to shoot her when he got through praying.

His brother prayed for a long time, and Caleb got impatient. What did Pete know that he didn't? He felt as if he were missing something. He pinched his nose like Pete.

That didn't help. Nobody listened when he prayed. “Damn it,” he thought, “that's enough praying!”

“Caleb, ride down to the ranch and fetch Buster,” Pete said suddenly. “Tell him to bring that low drop-tongue wagon of his and a team of strong horses. Bring some lumber, too, so we can make a ramp and pull this cow up on the wagon.”

“What are you gonna do with her?”

“I don't know, but I'll be danged if I'll whip a cow half to death, then shoot her. Maybe Buster can think of a way to get her back on her feet.”

When Caleb left, he looked back and saw Pete collecting wood to burn the carcass of the stillborn calf. A lot of good all that praying had done. Allegheny was still lying flat on her side.

*   *   *

When Ab saw Buster stop the wagon with the prostrate cow under the doorway of the barn, his curiosity got the better of him. He didn't care if Caleb was there, he was going to find out what was going on.

Caleb was almost panic-stricken when he saw his one-legged father coming. He turned his back and pretended not to have seen him.

“Pete, what in Hades are you and Buster doing with old Allegheny?” Ab demanded.

Caleb shoved his hands into his pockets and stood as if his legs were paralyzed like the cow's.

“She strained herself calving,” Pete explained. “She can't stand up.”

“Well, then, haul her to the slaughterhouse—don't leave her here in the way.”

“Buster thinks we can get her back on her feet,” Pete said.

“Just how do you plan to do that, Buster?”

“We're gonna make some straps to fit under her belly and hang her from the barn door.”

Ab looked at the cow, at the barn door, at Buster, at Pete. But he wouldn't look at Caleb.

“We're gonna let her stand on her front legs and hang her back end up for her. Buster says if we let her back end down a little every day, where she can put a little more weight on her back legs, she might get used to standin' on 'em again.”

Ab smirked. “What happened to her calf?” he asked.

“It died,” Caleb said. He saw his father's gaze shift to his boots. He felt the nervous stare climb up and down him a couple of times, but it would not look him in the eyes.

Ab pivoted on his peg and marched to the bunkhouse to dole out orders. He wanted fences repaired, prime beeves chosen for butchering, arbors built, cord wood piled for the barbecuing. The First Colorados—the old Pikes Peakers—were coming any day for the reunion, and he wanted them to suffer for nothing. It was a puzzle to everyone on the ranch that Ab had developed such a sudden streak of hospitality.

“I guess them old soldiers feel obliged to one another,” Buster suggested as he rigged Allegheny's sling.

Caleb was furious to think that his father would invite his old war chums to stay at the ranch, yet would not welcome his own son. He was almost sure that Ab was holding the reunion to gall him. Well, he had learned to gall back. He didn't have to stay where he wasn't wanted.

FORTY-ONE

Allegheny was still hanging from the doorway when the old soldiers began arriving. Some came on horseback with bedrolls to sleep on. Others rode the narrow-gauge tracks down from Denver or up from Pueblo. Some walked across plains or mountains, some brought wagons, some brought tents. Ab organized a committee among the early arrivals to designate chosen areas as campgrounds, speech platforms, and picnic grounds. The committee also approved a three-day schedule of events. Of music and food there would be no shortage.

Pete brought Amelia to the ranch on Friday, the first full day of festivities. A former infantry captain was slated to give a patriotic speech as they arrived. Amelia listened politely to an hour of it, then heard a fiddle tuning up near the barn and nudged Pete.

A bunch of old soldiers' children were feeding handfuls of grass to Allegheny as Amelia turned the corner of the barn. “My gracious!” she said. “Why have you hung that poor beast from the barn door?”

Buster and Caleb were just passing by with their instruments, on their way to join the band.

Pete shouted at Caleb. “You haven't said hello to Amelia,” he reminded his brother.

Caleb removed his hat and approached. “My pleasure to see you again, Miss Amelia,” he said.

“Charmed,” she said, only glancing away from the swinging cow. Allegheny's back feet had been lowered just enough to scrape circles in the dust and straw of the barn floor. She seemed to like shifting her weight around on her front legs to make her tail end sway. “Charmed,” Amelia repeated. “But why have you allowed your brother to suspend this poor creature here to be tormented by children?”

“She can't walk on her back legs,” Caleb explained.

“Can't walk? Why in heaven's name not?”

“She had some trouble dropping a calf,” Pete said.

“Dropping?”

“Yeah,” Caleb added, “that calf looked like a yearling. She got it stuck halfway and couldn't push it out.”

Amelia's lip began to curl in horror.

“It was a dead calf, but it was a big one,” Caleb said.

Amelia glowered as Allegheny swayed in her sling, merrily eating grass given to her by the children.

“You know, I had a thought about that,” Pete said to his brother. “Since the calf was dead anyway, I was thinking maybe we should have cut it out of her. Maybe that would have…”

“Stop it!” Amelia shouted. She clapped her hands so suddenly over her ears that she knocked her chiffon hat off. “Stop it this instant! I won't hear another word. I'm going to listen to the musicians, Pete Holcomb. Join me when you will.”

Pete handed her the chiffon hat, and she stalked away.

Buster could barely contain his amusement. “I guess we ought to let her down a notch,” he said, jerking his head toward the cow.

Caleb put down his instruments to help lower Allegheny's hooves more firmly onto the ground. “Sorry if I said anything wrong,” he said.

Pete lent a hand with the rigging. “It ain't you. Amelia hates ranches and cattle and all. She keeps tellin' me she'd rather die an old maid than marry me and move out here.”

“
Marry
you?” Caleb said. Pete had talked a good deal about seeing Amelia, but the subject of matrimony hadn't come up.

“Said she'd marry me in a minute if I'd go to work for her father on the railroad and move to town.”

Caleb watched Amelia walk away, the skirts swaying and the hair bouncing behind her, and knew that if he were in Pete's place, he would be considering working for the railroad about now. “When do you start?” he asked.

“You know me better than that. I'm a ranch man. She'll get used to the idea of livin' here, and I'll build her a big house when we get the money, and then we'll see if she won't marry me my own way.” He threw a double half hitch into the rope he had let out to lower Allegheny and patted her bony hip. “I think she's usin' those legs some, don't you, Buster?”

“I don't know,” Buster admitted. “But that little gal of yours sure used hers gittin' out of here.” He almost tore himself open holding back the laughter. Amelia, with all her refinements, was a regular source of amusement to him.

*   *   *

The infantrymen held a shooting contest that afternoon, the winner shooting the neck from a bottle of Hostetter's Stomach Bitters at three hundred paces, freehanded. The fiddlers, guitarists, harmonica players, banjo pickers, and accordion squeezers rotated among the three areas designated for musicians. Children splashed in the flumes and fed Allegheny green grass and alfalfa hay. The few women who had come found lines of dancers waiting.

Ab was everywhere, flaunting his wooden leg, shaking hands, slapping backs, laughing at jokes. Buster saw lines on the man's face that had never before appeared—laugh lines. The reunion's able host seemed particularly interested in what had happened to his former comrades since the war: the places they had seen, the work they had taken on, and most important, the hardships they had suffered. He pretended not to see the occasional flask of whiskey.