When Your Pets Do Creepy Stuff

[Snarl]

Here's a short one about cows...

Grew up on a farm.  We had cows.  One of 'em my mom named Freezer Bill.  I liked him.  Only pet cow I ever had. When I'd go out to feed 'em in the morning, I'd get a hug from Bill and Bill was treated to his own feed bucket. Bill's momma was Ol' Meany, but she'd let me get that hug from her calf.  Sweet Pie was an eccentric.  Kind'a like your Piper, only not a jumper (never had one of those BTW).  Meanie led the herd and Sweetie Pie was a follower.

Them cows didn't know what to make of the relationship me and Freezer Bill were working on.  The only person who had ever been able to walk amongst all the cows and lay a hand on 'em was my old man. One day, Sweetie Pie got between me and Bill.  She blocked me from getting my hug.  So I walked away from the barn and out the gate.  That was that.  Let 'em all go hungry.  When they came in from the grazing pasture, Sweetie Pie cut me off again, and they went hungry ... again.  Things went on like that for a couple of days.

Those couple of days later, I went into the barn and came out with Bill's bucket.  It wasn't the normal order of things.  The normal order was for me to come out with a bag of feed and dump half of it into one trough, half of it into another, go back and get another bag and dump that into a bunch of individual buckets all around the barnyard.  Bill knew his bucket though and broke through and chowed down. Them other cows understood fair and that they weren't gettin' treated fair.  We had one other steer named Al ... and Al had horns. We kept a weightlifting bar within reach of the barn door to fend that sucker off with.  He had an unpredictable streak in him like Sweetie Pie (who was his mother come to think of it).  Anyway, Bill got fed, Al got bashed in the head ... and things went on like this for a few more days.  Never did figure out why my old man didn't cull Al and leave him with the range cattle.

One morning I walked out into the barnyard, and those cows opened up a path between me and Bill.  I walked up to Bill, gave him a hug around his neck, and everyone got fed.  Every day, twice a day, rinse and repeat.  Those cows had learned.  Something ... I don't know what, but something.

I was also the only person Bill ever trusted.  I could climb up on him, crawl in between his legs, jump up on on his head, pull his tail ... nothing phased him. He stood still once for over an hour to let me clear out a bot fly infestation from his back (the coke bottle treatment). Seemed the bigger he got the gentler he became.  He never stepped on me maliciously like my horse would if you took your eyes off of her. Never mashed me against anything solid.  Never butted me hard even when we were rough housing.

The day they came to haul him off, my old man handed me a halter without a word. And, I lead Freezer Bill up into that cattle trailer. Though that day ended my childhood, it didn't have a hand shaping me into a man. Felt more like a trust had been broken ... a bond braided by the very hand of God Himself.  Surely my mom felt it.  Never ate at her table again until she was a grandma and then only a handful of obligatory times after that.

Never shared the details of this with anyone. Rarely even go back to memories of those last days there.  Why it cropped-up and got typed out by my fingers I don't even know.  Let's just forget about it again.