Holy Cow

22 A MOMENT

The next couple of days passed in a blur. The nights were filled with hushed planning as Shalom, Tom, and I finalized our route, and tried to figure out the best use of the phone without running the battery out. We also had to practice walking on two legs, at least Shalom and I did, so we could better fit in without drawing so much attention to ourselves as four-legged creatures, and that didn’t come so easy. We worked our tails off at it night after night.

Think of this (screenplay alert!) like the “Feeling Strong Now” montage from Rocky, where he’s training for the big fight. Almost exactly like that, except it doesn’t end with someone punching the hanging carcass of a cow. (Does that sound bitter? Maybe I am a little. I’ll have to think about that.)

“We also had to practice walking on two legs.”

The afternoon before the night we were to leave, all of us cows were out to pasture. Mallory was huge now. She was ready to give birth at any moment, and I was sorry I might not be there for that, when lo and behold, she gave out a low grunty mooey sound and went down on her side. The bulls somehow knew what was happening before we did. They were lined up by the fence, Steve as nervous as any father-to-be. Mallory lowed in pain, but I couldn’t tell if she was grimacing or smiling, and then almost as quickly as it began, here it was, the calf, spilling out of Mallory like a small surfer on a small wave, and immediately trying to stand, immediately trying to join life.

It was then I noticed the farmer and his boys watching from another point along the fence. And for a moment, it was as if this little calf had brought us all, man and animal, together. I could see the man smiling. Was that a tear I saw gathering in the corner of his eye? Just for a moment, the moment of birth, I felt like we were all one on the green planet and everything was gonna be okay. But that was just a moment, and moments, by definition, are momentary, and pass. Then I saw one of the boys make a joke about all the gooey afterbirth on the ground, and the bulls horsing around with one another like they’d actually done something, and just like that, the moment was gone, replaced by reality.

And the reality was that Mallory had had a baby girl calf, a beautiful healthy baby girl. Even though I could tell she was dead tired, she was licking the blood and slime from her just as the newborn stood up on wobbly legs. “I’m gonna name her Elsie, Jr.,” Mallory said.

It was my turn to cry.