Cattleman

Abstract

CATTLEMAN by BARBARA SMITH Barbara Smith is a member of the English faculty at Alderson-Broaddus College, Philippi, West Virginia. They'd had a good farm—pretty good land down in Mingo County. Sixty acres of pretty good soil for that part of the country, good enough to keep him and his in vegetables and enough left over to pasture thirty head. First he and his wife had bought fifteen head of Angus, average four hundred dollars each—everything they'd ever saved and then some—a darned sight then some. He'd borrowed from a brother, his wife's cousin, but not the bank—bunch of Virginia crooks who wouldn't put up a nickel unless you didn't need it. They'd bought the cattle—finally gonna get on top. Elmer picked them out from a herd, picked the healthiest, the best. Four of the cows had already been bred, ready to calf anytime. He'd been ready for the first one—slept only six hours in three days just so's he'd be there the first time. He was. The cow went into labor, and Elmer'd been there with the cousin—coaxing the cow, pushpulling at the slimy calf, the sack, handling that scrwny newborn like he'd never handled his own. His own—one dead daughter, two grown sons who'd cleared out long since. His wife still praying over all three. The cousin had known, a good job. The calf was perfect, the cow in good shape. They'd cleaned up and fallen into bed. And in the morning it was dead—no reason, just dead. Four, five hundred dollars dead. "No reason," said the cousin , "just dead." Lying there in the barn, clean, glittering black baby dead. They'd buried it. The second one—two weeks later lived three days, and then he'd found it in the creek. Hadn't been dead long—still warm in the afternoon sun. But it was dead—drowned clean in the shallows of the only open water on the whole farm. He had been sick that day, sick of death—the two calves, an uncle the winter before, his own girl when a mean horse threw her seven years earlier. Sick of things going, going, never coming. The third cow was scheduled for a month later, and there'd been big trouble. She'd gone down in the field—lying over on her side, her great belly like an Indian mound in the middle of nowhere. She'd gone down once and they'd hauled her 59 up with the tractor. Three days later she was down again, this time at night, and a fox, darned certain a razor-toothed fox, had chewed off her tail. The next morning she was there with a bloody rump. Elmer was sick again, even scared. He'd got her up again, the tractor heaving in the spring-soft ground. That very night he'd found her dead, laurel branches broken and lying all around her, and the calf was dead inside her. There was no laurel growing in half a mile at least. He'd gone almost crazy, running around that pasture screaming at the other cows, cursing the dead cow, her calf, the rutted earth—cursing the farm, the land, and even himself. And then he'd cried, leaning hard on the scraggled hickory there in the middle of that nowhere. He'd asked his wife—she'd smiled like always and said, "We'll make out all right, Elmer—you'll see. It's the will of God." He'd asked the cousin—"You know I ain't been down in two-three weeks, don't know who coulda put that laurel there." He'd asked the neighbors—"Sorry, Nestor, can't tell you a thing." He'd given up on the dead ones, obsessed with the idea that the last calf must not do anything but live. He hung around the field all day, watching, waiting . He refused to eat except out there, his wife patting his arm, his head, as she waited for the empty plate. Then another near defeat. He'd gone to...