Nothing fit because I never prepared to be outside in the freezing weather, just grabbed whatever I could find off the large wallhooks on the backporch, where lots of old coats and other winter wear hung like abandoned carcasses during the summer, and moved from hook to hook during the winter, simulating some type of rejuvenation or reincarnation.
Stephen and I were headed toward the creek where a mother cow stood bawling on the opposite bank. We had just kicked out 25 bales of hay from the back of the old blue pickup after I pushed them out of the top of the barn and he loaded them into the bed of the truck. The herd had thundered up to eat, with the exception of the bawling heifer.
He strode ahead of me. Keeping the boots on my feet was a continual problem, and I was having to stop every few feet to pull one or the other up. He focused on the mama cow, making his way straight toward her.
"What's the matter, mama?" he said loud enough for me to hear above the shrill wind.
'I hope it's nothing bad," I muttered to myself, feeling an uneasiness about why she stood there like a bawling statue.
He was almost even with her now, standing on the edge of the opposite creekbank. In the summer, the creek was often dry, except for the few deep holes that retained water between rains. In the winter, depending on the amount of rain we had, it could have a low flow of about two feet in the main channel, with sand bars cropping up every 20 or so feet. Rarely, it overflowed the banks, flooding the pasture for a quarter mile and on down its length, the gravel road leading to civilization, blocking us from passing through for school.
Stephen was looking at the mother cow, but I caught movement in the creekbed.
"What is that?" I yelled over the wind, pointing down. It looked like a muddy stick moving back and forth.
"Uh oh," I saw him mouth under his breath. "It's her calf."
Looking more closely, I felt a deep sob come up through my throat. The little calf had evidently fallen from the creekbank, about fifteen feet above, into the muddy bottom. It was caked in mud and thrashing about, though you could tell it was weakened.
"No telling how long it's been here," Stephen yelled. "I didn't hear her bawling earlier, though, so maybe it hasn't been a long time."
"It's coated with mud, though," I said loudly, almost crying.
"Yeah. We've got to get it out of the wind and rain."
"How?"
"I'll go get a toesack at the barn. We'll get him on it and take him to the barn. The mama can get in the barn with him too. She'll probably follow us."
I wasn't scared of cows. I seemed to be scared of everything else, but somehow, I was never afraid of them. I watched the bulls carefully, but I would just walk by them or run toward them if I thought they didn't move out of my way fast enough. The mama might get mad at us, but somehow I thought she would know we were trying to help her, and she did.
I sadly watched the little thing thrashing and bawling weakly while Stephen walked the hundred yards to the barn. He soon returned with the toesack, and we clambered down the bank. Once down there, we lifted the calf a little at a time until we had the toesack completely under him. Then Stephen pulled and I pushed, keeping the calf safely on the sack, until we got him up the side of the bank. Stephen went and got the truck, and we laid him in the back, then drove slowly to the barn where we unloaded him onto a bed of soft hay out of the cold wind.
We went back to the house and got warm water and rags so we could clean him up some, but we figured his mother would work on him too since she had followed the pickup to the barn.. We called Daddy, and he told us how to mix up some milk and syrup to feed it. I made several trips back and forth that day, trying to get the calf to eat, cleaning his hide some, drying him, making sure he was warm. But despite my intensive efforts, around sundown, he took his last breath. I was heartbroken.
It was my grandmother's cow, so I had called earlier to tell her about the events, and she wanted to be kept informed.
"Nettie," I blubbered into the phone, "the calf died. I did everything we were supposed to do, but he died anyway. It's so sad. His mother is just bawling."
"Honey," she said. "Ya'll did all you could do. Nature is just harsh sometimes. I'll give you another calf to replace that one. Tell your Daddy. He can brand one for you next time they work cows."
"Okay," I snubbed. "But it sure was sad."
"I know, honey. I know," my kind grandmother said, her voice soothing.
True to her word, she gave me a calf. I let it grow for four or five years, and when I married at age 20, I sold it to make the down payment on a cobalt blue 1971 Ford Maverick, the first car I ever owned, and our first purchase as a couple.
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