Hello Dolly
The old man was just that. He was old. Old and I think relatively well off, though you wouldn’t have known it by looking. He had this old truck and my guess would be that it was a pre-1970 model, but I have no way of knowing now. I’m not sure either, how he came to be well off, but I don’t guess it matters. Basically, I only know for a fact is that his name was Fred, he held the lease on a piece of 16th section land, and that his cows were gentle and accustomed to the old truck and would come running when they heard it and saw it.
And it came to pass that Mr. Fred either died or had fallen on bad health and was subsequently unable to tend to the cows. I don’t know the timeline, but enough time passed so that the cows had become wild, due to the absence of Mr. Fred, his truck, and the daily feeding associated with the old truck and Mr. Fred. Having the full run of the 640 acres of pasture, woods, creeks, and swamp, and having been left on their own, the cows became more and more skittish of human beings.
It also came to pass that my father, who was always in search of arable land, struck up a deal to rent this wild cow infested property giving us a substantial amount of work to do. You see, it was the dream of Avon Earl Bracey to be a row cropper. He started small, planting about 50 acres of cotton. Then he planted 100 acres, and then 300 acres. Later he switched to planting soybeans and his twin sons were getting old enough to be full-time help, so his goal was to plant 1000 acres of soybeans and corn in the spring and 500 acres of wheat in the winter. Assisting in attaining this goal was the tillable portion of this 640-acre plot, and 25 or so crazy wild bovine was standing in the way.
In the case of this particular land transaction, the lessor was responsible for extracting their cows off of the premises. By the time that my twin brother and I learned of this lofty goal of dad’s, the lessors had already exhausted the first two options of collecting the cows for relocation or for sale. The first option was to hire professional cowboys who I heard, had guaranteed that in less than a day’s time, the cattle in question would be removed. Option two was to hire a bunch of rednecks on ATVS to herd the cow into the loading pen. Both options had failed miserably due to the expanse of the property, the thickness of the forested areas, and the professional cowboys and ATV riders, as well as the lessors, had greatly underestimated just how wild and crazy these cows had become.
The day that my brother and I, along our ex-brother-in-law, got involved was option number three. This is where a man, somehow connected with the lessor suggested that 30 – 40 men in a line can start on one end and make a sort of “human chain” and push the crazy wild cows to the pen. So we started off walking and talking and yelling and moving across in the direction of the pen. Quickly, the distance between guys got wider as we spread out. First I could see three guys on each side of me, then two guys, then one, and eventually I was walking alone. I could still hear people yelling, and I would hear gunshots every time someone shot a snake and wasn’t feeling very comfortable with the number of shots I was hearing. The woods were thick with saw briars and vines and there were hornet nests, and mud and sloughs. I’m not sure how long I walked, but I began to feel as though I was involved in a Chinese fire drill and just assumed that the cows were somewhere laughing at us. After a couple of hours, I came upon a fence and found my ex-brother-in-law who was of the same thought process as I. We made the decision the find the truck and more importantly, the contents of the ice chest on the back of the truck. To say the least, the cows were leading by a score of 3 to 0.
I’m not sure what the next step was from the point of view of the lessors, but I remember my dad deciding to proceed with the planting of the soybeans and initiated his own option four, which consisted of him buying a tranquilizer rifle like the used on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. To be honest, I’m not sure if he ever got close enough to get off a shot.
Then one day, lady luck shined her light down on me as I was driving the truck out of the field on my way to lunch. I came upon one of the cows that had just had a calf and as wild as she was, she wouldn’t leave her calf. I had the bright idea that I would be the hero and be the first to catch one of the cows. I stopped the truck and located a long rope. I fashioned a loop and made a few practice throws with it to make sure that it wasn’t going to be a tangled mess. I eased around the truck and the cow never took her eyes off of me, poised to charge me at any second. I studied my surroundings and devised a plan. I had a cow. I had a rope, and there was a sweetgum tree that was about 7 or 8 inches in diameter behind the cow. Step one of my plan was to lasso the cow. Step two, assuming step one was successful, was to quickly assess the cow’s response to the rope. Step three, and again, assuming I was still alive after step one, was to run in a counter-clockwise direction and get to the other side of the sweetgum. The sweetgum’s purpose was two-fold here. First, it would serve as a barrier between me and the crazy wild cow, and secondly, if I expected to hold her, I would need to get the rope wrapped around the tree.
Of course, those of you who know me would know that this is all BULLSHIT. I was 15 or 16 years old, I didn’t have a plan. But that is exactly how it went down, and it all happened a lot quicker that one would have imagined. But after I had her tied off to the tree, I took a knee and realized that I was hassling for breath and drenched with sweat.
I wish I had a video of my dad’s reaction when I told him that I had caught one of the cows. Disbelief doesn’t begin to cover it. If fact, I had to explain what I had done twice, and only then, did he kill the tractor and get in the truck with me to go see it.
The triumphant “win” took a sour turn later as the lessors were informed and a trailer brought to the field to attempt to load the wild beast. To this day, I’m not sure why my role in the adventure didn’t end at that juncture. I mean really, it wasn’t my place to still be involved. But I picked up the calf and carried her to the front of the trailer. A second rope was placed around the cow’s neck and strung up to the front of the trailer and out the side and handed to an old black man who was there helping. His job was to keep pulling slack out of the rope as we got the cow moving forward and into the trailer. With several grown men around, I untied my rope from the tree and all hell broke loose. The cow was now fully in self-defense mode, crazy out of her head, yet still trying to protect her calf. She kicked and charged and men were yelling “cattle drive speak” at her and instructions to each other. The kicking and bucking against the rope had churned up the damp ground and by now, her hooves were caked in mud. We kept the forward momentum and finally she had no choice but to lunge forward onto the trailer.
What happened next is one of those life experiences that no matter how long I live, I will not be able to “UNSEE,” and I will preface it by saying that by now, the entire herd of cows had grown so wild that their fate was sealed. Humans would forever be unable to own them for use as breeding stock, they were just too dangerous. If you accept that their next stop was the slaughterhouse, it might serve to ease the sting of the next part of the story.
Once the mama cow realized that she was enclosed on the trailer, she went into full panic mode, kicking, bucking, stomping and wailing against the rope. I reached for the gate, ready to close it behind her as soon as all four hooves were inside. Then I saw what was happening and found myself helpless to intervene. The old black man pulling tight on the rope had reached full panic mode as the cow’s muddy hooves began to slip and she lost balance. She almost fell once and the rope was tightened more. Recovering, the cow kicked more and again lost traction due to the mud. She slipped in the direction opposite of the rope and in his panic, the man held the rope with a death grip. The weight of the cow went one way and her head held steady. The fall broke her neck and she died instantly.
The incident ended there. Several discussions were going on about how it all had gone down, and the consensus of the group was that it could not have been helped. Plans were made for next steps and what to do now, and I busied myself collecting the ropes and cleaning mud from my boots and such, just trying to get the horror out of my head. For some reason, it was decided that I should keep the calf for my efforts to help.
I carried the orphaned white face calf to the truck and put her on the passenger floor and started for home. Daddy told me to build a pen for it and to go to town and get a bottle and powdered calf milk, and he headed back to the field. So without help or experience, I used what materials we had on hand, constructed a pen, and placed the calf inside. I purchased the bottle and milk, and a new experience began with the white-faced red calf that I named Dolly.
Dolly did well, and every morning, I would be out at the pen by 6:00 AM with a warm bottle. I started from day one yelling, “oooooooooooh Dolly,” as soon as I’d step outside and she would usually holler back. Later, she was outside of the pen more than she was in it, and consequently, spent most of her time under our carport. I’m pretty sure she felt like she was one of the dogs. It seems that we kept Dolly for a few months and she got pretty big. She would just wander around the yard, and it was always strange to drive up at night to see a cow on the porch.
My mom kept reminding me that we would never be able to do with Dolly what ultimately would have to be done. I agreed and finally consented to selling her to my aunt for $50. I saw her one last time maybe a year later and I am pretty sure that my aunt and cousins found themselves unable to make the freezer Dolly’s last destination.
Over the years, I contemplated my entire childhood and youth growing up on a farm. I can say that in many, many ways, there is no better life. But I can tell you and my twin brother can attest that life on the “Nova Brah-cee Farm” as my dad called it was not for the faint of heart. But at the same time, I can say that nothing short of joining the U.S. Marines could have better prepared me for the world today. Just as the Marines honor the concept, “Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome,” the same concept perfectly describes what it took to grow up on a farm in South Mississippi in the 1970s and 1980s.
Great reading