The Plenty

  Chapter 16.

  The last steer backed out of the chute. Spattered blood dotted the white shirt Ethan wore, a shirt he had put on before knowing his agenda included dehorning. Judd Blanks and Ethan made short work, not dithering in conversation after their argument. Other topics offered no relief. A radio program that Judd listened to made a lot of sense to him. Judd began to talk about the Rapture and the end-times, the second coming. When Ethan started asking questions that Judd did not know the answer to, they returned to square one. Judd said, "You go off to college and know everything."

  "Actually, it's the opposite," said Ethan. "But I can call bull when I see and hear it."

  "People get a lot of funny ideas in college," said Judd. "Lose their common sense."

  "I guess some of them take jobs in AM radio," said Ethan.

  Time came to turn the steers outside, back to their gated area and the two worked in silence. The steers turned into mules. When a steer wanted to run, it could move like a sprinter. When it wanted to stand, Gibraltar. Ethan hissed at the herd. The steers stood, licking nostrils and chewing cud, enjoying the indoors and avoiding the rain. Before Ethan could step into the herd, Judd grabbed a pitch-fork and knocked the tines against the hamstring of the nearest steer, causing the animal to kick and start.

  "Judd," shouted Ethan. "Easy on 'em."

  "Yah! Get out of here!" He struck another in the head when it turned around and tried to go the wrong way. "Yah! Get!"

  Ethan pulled the fork from Judd's hands. "What's your hurry?"

  "I got things to do today," said Judd.

  "Then go do them," said Ethan. "I'll chase them out."

  Judd walked away with a snort. Ethan set the fork against a wall of the barn and started walking the steers out, slipping between them to break up the bottleneck near the front of the cluster. A few of the bloodier ones he visually inspected to make sure the hot iron had sealed off the blood flow from their heads. Pausing, he gazed into the dark eye of the cow, a pool of mystery. The ghost behind the eye, in a steer, in a man. And if there was no ghost, then still conscious, as conscious as Judd Blanks. Ghost or no ghost - he feared the latter to be the correct answer and this very question was the ongoing plague of his dormitory thoughts.

  Five minutes and the steers were outside. Five minutes instead of three minutes – Judd might have bought two minutes by punching and puncturing the cattle with the pitchfork. A few minutes – the difference between agitated cattle and calm cattle. Ray preached it. Even when Ray occasionally twisted a tail or clubbed a cow's head, it was never for fun or out of anger.

  Fifty horns lay on the ground near the cattle chute. Ethan gathered them up in an empty oil-pail and walked outside to toss them into the harvested cornfield. When he heaved the contents, he thought he heard a door shut behind him, but when he turned around he only saw Jacob's truck, and it appeared empty. He shrugged, set the pail back into the shed, and walked up to the house. The only other car in the yard had been Judd's, but it was already gone. He was convinced he'd heard a door slam.

  Inside the house, he took off his boots and entered the kitchen and saw Ray with his swollen foot, black-and-blue, sitting on the table with a bag of frozen carrots on it.

  "Ethan."

  "Defrosting dinner?"

  "Brushing up on my biology," Ray said, closing the Chemistry book. "Didn't understand a word of it."

  Ethan sat down next to Ray and observed the black-and-blue foot. "You really twisted it this time."

  "That's why God gives you two legs, in case one breaks," Ray said. "Those steers bellow much?"

  "They did," said Ethan. "Judd's a sadist."

  "What's that?"

  "Poking steers with a fork, beating on them."

  "He was, was he?" Ray poked his thumbnail between two of his teeth. "Poke him with a fork and see if he likes it."

  Ethan said, "Did Jacob get those wagons?"

  "I put him to better use. Renee!" Ray shouted.

  She appeared under the arch that led to the living room. "Christ alive, I'm right here. Do you have to yell?"

  Ray said, "You creep around like a mouse."

  "Going deaf and getting crippled in the same day. I'll get you a bell, so you can ring it. Kathy's sleeping, so be quiet. I told her to go to sleep. She's been through a lot, so we're babysitting the Werther kids this afternoon. Ethan – can you take the girls outside and find something for them to do? You could put some hay down. I'm sure they'd like helping with that. The little one can stay in here and bounce off the walls until he naps."

  "Sure," Ethan said, and stood up. He started to follow his mother, who departed the kitchen to find the girls, but stopped when Ray spoke.

  "I need you and Jacob to come with me this afternoon. Wasn't expecting you both to be here, but it works out well."

  "Sure Dad. What for?"

  "Paperwork," Ray said, shifting the frozen carrots to another spot on his ankle. "Just some paperwork, so when I kick the bucket, you all know who gets what."

  "You mean, who gets the farm?" Ethan sat down again.

  Ray nodded. "You'll each get half, and one of you can sell it to the other, or you can be buddies and farm together. Guess I won't care much by then, but I want it straight so there's no bickering about it."

  "You know I'll farm it."

  "Don't get excited, I'm not dead yet. Quiet, now, here comes the mouse."

  Renee returned with the Werther girls. Ethan smiled, delighted at the thought of his inheritance, and his inclusion to the family.

  The girls put their raincoats on and ran outside with Ethan, his mood buoyed by the words from Ray. The rain continued but had slowed to a drizzle.

  An old teeter-totter of decayed planks dwelled in the yard near the detached garage, long out of use since the boys had outgrown it. Rhea sat on one side and Dawn pressed the other side downward, lifting Rhea into the air. Having twenty pounds of weight on Rhea, Dawn sat idle on the ground and did not allow Rhea to touch the ground, even as she bounced and kicked her dangling feet. Pausing to watch, Ethan listened to Rhea protest.

  "Let me down."

  "Not until you say the words."

  Rhea's shoulders sunk and she capitulated. "Farmer, farmer, let me down."

  Dawn replied, "What will you give me, Charlie Brown?"

  "A penny," said Rhea.

  "No."

  "A dollar."

  "Nope. I want your Kit 'n Kaboodle make-up case."

  "No way."

  "And your Cabbage Patch doll. Otherwise you will stay up in the air forever."

  "C'mon girls," said Ethan, seeing the fraught expression on Rhea's face, telling of her attachment to the toys. "Let's get out of the rain."

  "What will you give me, Charlie Brown?" Dawn said to Ethan.

  With his foot, he pressed Rhea's side of the plank down to the ground and when Dawn elevated he said, "What will you give me, Charlie Brown?"

  "Nothing! You'll have to keep your foot on there forever."

  "Let's go, you'll get a cold standing in this." He coaxed them to dismount and race him to the barn.

  In the milkhouse, having won the race, Dawn pulled her hood off and gloated until she witnessed a cat slip through a hole near the door that led to the inner barn. Both girls grew excited and wanted to see the cats but Ethan explained that the cats were feral, not friendly. "Follow me," he said. "I know where a friendly cat is." Through the parlor and into the barn, Ethan led the girls. He reached into the ceiling and pulled out a fat orange tomcat. "Here he is, in his usual spot. This is Fonzy."

  Rhea asked, "Can I hold him?"

  "You can do just about anything with this cat," said Ethan, handing the slumped animal over to Rhea. "He doesn't care if you pet him, or pull on his ears. He doesn't move when the kittens bat at his tail or bite him."

  Dawn said, "He's lazy."

  "He's good at being a cat," Ethan sa
id, stretching the cat's loose neck skin and massaging it. "He doesn't have anything to do all day but lie around and eat. Too much free milk made him a bad mouser. Even when he finds a mouse, he'll just play with it until he gets bored."

  "Mommy won't let us get a cat," said Dawn. "She hates cats."

  Rhea said, "She's allergic to cats."

  "She hates them. Did you know in China they eat cats? I wonder if Mom would eat a cat."

  "She would not eat a cat!"

  "With salsa. She likes salsa."

  "She probably likes cats," Ethan said, "but if she's allergic, she can't be around them."

  Dawn took the cat from Rhea, who tried to keep it, curling the cat in her arms, mothering it in the same manner that she cared for her dolls and for Bryce. Dawn said, "I saw a dead cat on the side of the road on the way here." She turned away from Rhea and hunched her shoulders to block her sister from touching Fonzy. "Got ran over. Just like Rhea almost got ran over yesterday."

  "But she's didn't," said Ethan, "and I'm sure glad for that. Otherwise, who would help me put the hay down?" He smiled at Rhea.

  Dawn continued, "And Ray almost killed her. She's your sister, too, you know. Daddy says Ray already killed a man. Did you know that?"

  The change of subject startled Ethan, as did her understanding of the families. "I don't know about that, Dawn. It's not something to talk about, for him or for us."

  "We're brother and sister," said Dawn. "Rhea is your sister, too. You're her brother. Bryce is your brother, too."

  Rhea said, "We're not brother and sister."

  "Sure we are," said Dawn. She nuzzled the cat's nose with her nose and turned away again when Rhea attempted to touch the cat. A pair of swallows flew through the barn. She said, "Did he kill a man?"

  "I don't know," said Ethan. "I really don't know."

  "The sixth commandment is thou shalt not kill. But if he killed a man, then he broke that commandment, and my religion teacher said that's the worst commandment to break."

  "It is a bad thing," said Ethan. "But in a war, it's different."

  "Why?"

  Ethan did not know the answer. The question made him feel like he was in philosophy class again. "It's different," he said. "I don't think the commandment includes war."

  "It says you can't kill. Daddy says that the only good war was World War II and that the Gulf War was a joke. Do you think it was a joke?"

  "Let's throw down some hay bales," said Ethan, seeking escape from Dawn, uncomfortable instructing children with his opinions. Not his place to tell a parent's child what to think, when the parent was already hard at work doing just that. "Fonzy can come with. Rhea, I'll help you get up the ladder."

  Dawn scrambled to the top of the ladder and released the cat, and started to sing I'll Be There, a Michael Jackson remake, currently a major hit on the local radio stations. Rhea climbed slowly as Ethan coached her to the top. In the loft, the stacks of square bales awed the girls for a moment, until they started to climb the staircase of hay toward the top of the barn. A light in the window shone in the apex with the outline of several pigeons standing guard over nests. Dawn sat on a bale and waited for the others, kicking her feet back and forth. The sound of Dawn's voice made Ethan stop climbing to listen, since he could not believe the purity of the notes the little girl produced, almost in awe until she said, "Can I roll one down?" in her rude talking voice.

  "Wait until we get to the top," said Ethan, grabbing Rhea and tickling her sides so that she laughed at the same time, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her to the top. "Ok, now you can roll them. We need ten bales."

  The girls started to pull on the twine string to loosen the bales from the stack, where Judd and Ethan had packed them tight in the summer, tight enough to pass Ray's inspection. Both Jacob and Ethan had learned the hard way how tight the bales needed to be placed. Ray once made the boys un-stack and re-stack three hundred bales that didn't meet Ray's standard of stacking excellence. Rhea struggled to loosen one of the bales from a row, so Ethan yanked it out and helped her roll it down the loft, toward the bale chute, where it dropped into the center of the barn. By the time Rhea had rolled two bales, Dawn had sent ten tumbling. On her third bale, Rhea's foot slipped and she shrieked and sat down, refusing to continue, as the fear startled her.

  "Are you all right, Rhea?"

  "Yes," she said. "I just don't want to help. I think that's ten bales."

  "Don't worry, we can roll more than ten down. My parents will appreciate not having to climb up here all week if we roll thirty or more down. They don't think it's as fun as we think it is. Want to roll some more bales down?"

  "No," said Rhea. "I don't want to. I'll do it wrong."

  Ethan said, "Wrong? You were doing just fine."

  "It was wrong. I was doing it wrong."

  Together they sat down on a bale and watched a histrionic Dawn pull and kick and flail about. Ethan said, "Why do you think you were doing it wrong?"

  "Because I can't do anything right. My hands don't work."

  "Your hands?"

  "That's what Dawn told me. That's why I'm going to be a nun."

  Ethan stifled a laugh. "Give me your hand. Can you shake my hand?" He extended his hand and squeezed hers. "There, see. Your hands work fine. You can be a business woman, or a politician, or a teacher." She frowned and turned her eyes down. "Or a nun," he said. "If you like. A nun would be fine. In fact, lots of people thought that I was going to be a priest."

  "You are?"

  "Yes. No, I mean, I'm not. I was going to be. I thought I would be a priest for quite a while." He sighed and thought about his conversation with Father Dimer during his Confirmation year.

  "You could still be a priest."

  "No," said Ethan. "I think I'm going to be a scientist." He wondered how children could ask such provoking questions.

  "I'm going to be a nun, because Dawn said that in the old days, the oldest girl would marry the Duke or the Prince and the second girl was usually ugly and ran away to the convent."

  "I think Dawn is making things up. I'll tell you a secret. The second girl is always the most beautiful. But don't tell Dawn."

  "Really?" Rhea seemed pleased. "I won't tell her because she said if a girl is not beautiful she will never get married."

  "Don't listen to Dawn."

  "But if I'm a nun, I won't get married at all. Just like if you become a priest. Then we will both be good."

  "Don't you think you can be good without being a nun?"

  She shrugged.

  "Did someone tell you that you were bad?"

  "No," she said. "I just know."

  "I need to talk to your mother." He felt frustrated. "I think little girls are good, especially little girls. You too. Why don't we go and spread the hay around so the cows can eat it when we let them in?"

  They climbed down the ladder, the girls skipped over to the bales and started fighting over one bale, despite there being a dozen or more identical bales nearby, they focused on a single one and bickered. Ethan paid no attention and picked up two other bales, setting them in front of the free stalls, where the cows would lounge before the milking hour.

  The girls argument ended when Ethan pulled the bale out from under Dawn and carried it away. They both laughed and chased him. Dawn said, "Want some candy?"

  "No thanks," said Ethan.

  "It's my last piece," she said, holding up a PEZ dispenser with a clown's head on top. "Otherwise I'm going to eat it."

  "You eat it," said Ethan. The girl popped the last candy out of the clown's head and then threw the dispenser on the ground, discarding it. Rhea ran to pick up the dispenser, brushing it off and blowing the dirt off before putting it into her pocket. Ethan said, "Don't you re-use them?"

  "No," said Dawn. "I can get another for a quarter."

  The girls took chunks of the hay bales and spread them down the lin
e of the free stalls. A single cow lingered at the back of the barn where the open air blew through the building. Subtle moos came from the animal and this drew the girls' attention as they walked to the gate at the rear. Ethan followed and said, "What are you doing up here, Sharon?" Ray had increased his production and number of cows to ninety, but they still had names.

  The girls laughed when Dawn tried to pet the cow's face. The rest of the herd was nowhere in sight. Dawn's hand brandished the cow just enough that she turned sideways and Ethan noticed that the cow was about to give birth. Suddenly the quiet moos and the solitude of the cow named Sharon made sense. Ethan said, "It might be your lucky day girls. I need your help chasing this cow into that pen in the back." He pointed to a gated pen, squared off in the far end of the barn. "Stand back," he said, and opened the metal gate so that the cow could enter the barn. But she backed up and Ethan grabbed both girls by the hands and pulled them out into the yard.

  "Is there a bull out here?" asked Dawn.

  "No," said Ethan. "Nothing to worry about. Just cows." He pulled them over to one side and left them standing near the electric fence. "If you can both stay here, I can chase the cow toward you. When she gets close, just yell and make noise, but hold your ground, and she should run right inside. Oh, and don't touch the fence, it's hot."

  "What if she charges?" asked Dawn, eyeing the electric fence behind her. "Does she have rabies?"

  "She won't charge," said Ethan. "Not a chance of rabies." He winked at Rhea and said, "Just put your hand out and make lots of noise. Say, 'Get, cow, get!'"

  Seeing Rhea nod, Ethan trotted around the cow, making a wide flanking circle. He started walking forward and the cow loped to one side. With a quick movement he corrected the cow's path and she ambled toward the girls. When the cow neared, Rhea put her hand out and shouted the words that Ethan had told her, almost with confidence. Ethan closed the noose on the cow and she jumped onto the concrete in the barn. To keep her there, Ethan quickly closed the gate, pulling it shut so that he could fasten the latch.

  He heard Dawn say, "Rhea, grab my hand."

  "What for?" asked Rhea, still smiling from chasing the cow.

  "Just grab it," said Dawn.

  By the time Ethan turned, he was too late. He dropped the latch and the gate started to swing open again. The younger sister offered her hand to Dawn, who grabbed it and held on tight. With her other hand, Dawn touched the electric fence. Rhea's eyes bulged when the shock struck her.

  Ethan rushed toward them and broke up the link, pulling their hands apart at once. In disgust he yanked Dawn by the arm away from the fence. Rhea had already started to cry and he picked her up, carrying her back to the gate so he could shut it before the cow escaped again.

  Words of comfort to Rhea did not settle her. In her ear he complimented her on standing her ground, said what a good girl she was – but the flicker of confidence in her had been doused. When Dawn laughed, Ethan became unable to look at the older girl without glaring. To deal with her he set Rhea on the other side of the gate, out of the way so he could scold Dawn.

  "Dawn, get over here." He said it sternly, but the girl wandered in circles, avoiding his glare. Twice more he said it, but she didn't listen, and so he marched over and grabbed her hand. "Say sorry to Rhea."

  "No," said Dawn. "I don't have to."

  "Yes, you do."

  "No, I don't."

  How to deal with a child. Ethan had never dealt with them, not being around kids since he himself was a child. He said, "You hurt her. Don't you know what it means to hurt someone?"

  The girl did not answer, but turned her eyes toward the gray sky, ignoring his earnestness. Detached and distant, she raised his ire enough that he set Rhea down and seized Dawn's hand, lifting her and dropping her on the other side of the electric fence. "Go," he said.

  When she did not move, he tried to sound commanding. "Go to the house." Behind him, Rhea wrung her hands, still jarred from the pounding of the current undulation that had throbbed in her head and fingers. Dawn did not move but her eyes came down to earth to meet Ethan's. "Go to the house," he said, "and tell your mother what you did to your sister."

  "No," she said.

  "Then you can stand in the rain," said Ethan.

  "I've been shocked," said Dawn. "It's not that bad."

  "She wasn't expecting it. It hurts when you are shocked by someone who you trust."

  Dawn said, "I didn't think it would hurt her."

  "But that's not true, Dawn," said Ethan. "You thought it would be funny to hurt her. Go to the house and think on it. Come on, Rhea."

  As he fastened the latch on the gate, he glanced at Dawn standing on the grass outside of the fence. He pursed his lips at her, wondering if he had been too harsh with Dawn, who was in fact his half-sister. Now that he had excluded her, he felt pity. Was it his role to scold her at all? In any case, her action was unacceptable. Years ago, Judd had shocked both Jacob and Ethan in this way, grabbing their hands and touching the fence. But they had laughed about it and spent the afternoon trying to trick each other into another shock.

  Inside the barn, the cow meandered slowly, beset by labor pains. Ethan walked around the cow and trotted to the back of the barn to open the pen. He returned and asked Rhea to help him shoo the cow into the pen. In a procession, the cow led them down the center of the barn, with Ethan walking a few steps ahead of Rhea, she with her hands folded. The cow did not deviate from its path to the pen, seeming to know its destination, since this would be its second calf. Head rising and lowering with each step, the distended body of the cow turned into the pen. Ethan grabbed a bale of straw from a stack near the pen. He tossed it into the pen and nodded to Rhea to go inside, with the cow. She hesitated, so he entered first and pulled the strings from the straw bale, which released the sections of the golden straw into a fan-shape. A chunk of straw in each hand, he shook the bedding onto the floor. Rhea mimicked Ethan, shaking a small chunk of straw, letting it pile up around her sneakers.

  "I don't think we'll have to wait long," said Ethan. "She's pretty far along already."

  A second bale of straw and the floor turned golden, well-covered and clean. Sharon the cow fidgeted in the corner of the pen, uncomfortable. Strange that Ray hadn't already penned her up, but maybe this birth came earlier than expected. Some cows don't show early. A discharge wetted her rump and legs. Rhea asked questions and Ethan did his best to explain it, knowing more about labor and delivery than most twenty year old boys. Never had to explain it before, other than in an agriculture class in high school. Sharon's tongue stretched far out of her mouth and she mooed, long and loud. Was she in pain, Rhea wondered. Yes, he imagined, but perhaps not as much as her first time. They stepped outside of the pen and sat upon the stack of straw, out of sight, but Rhea stood on the bale to watch with intense eyes, like a concerned nurse, asking if they could make a pillow or get her some water or food. Ethan said no to the pillow and yes to nourishment, but Sharon wanted neither. The moans became loud and regular.

  For an hour, Rhea and Ethan sat on the straw bales and monitored the cow. Questions about the cow came in threes. Did all cows have babies in them? Would a baby calf have the same spots as Sharon? How come only girl-cows have calves? Ethan found some orange sodas and stale pretzels in the milk-house and brought them back to the straw bales. They snacked and played rock-paper-scissors. The little girl laughed and talked about show-and-tell in kindergarten and asked Ethan to come with her to class on Monday.

  With wide-eyes Rhea watched. Her cheeks flushed when the water-bag underwent metamorphosis. An odd shape appeared behind the translucent bag. For some minutes the feet did not emerge, but stretched amid the mother's discomforted writhing. Two clean ankles, one cloven-hoof crossing over the other, slipped out through the dilation. Ethan explained the sight to Rhea, but she looked confused. The cow laid down, mouth open and tongue ext
ending with each cry. The straw around her stuck to the hide. The legs of the calf moved an inch forward and backward with each push. Ethan grabbed Rhea's hand and pulled her to the pen, opening the gate and going inside. "Now we can help her," he said.

  "How?"

  Ethan leaned over and pulled gently but firmly on the feet. Sharon did not protest when he pulled on the feet. "There, do you see it?"

  Rhea nodded, but clearly did not. Disgust and amazement filled her face.

  "Do you want to pull with me?"

  She shook her head.

  "Ok, then watch for a nose."

  She nodded and watched when the next pull brought out the entire head of the calf. A gasp came from Rhea. Suddenly it was there, a calf, but still she could not understand the configuration of the calf – the legs appeared to be pinned to the ears, the calf must be crumpled like paper inside the mother. A black head with a white spot on the crown. The head moved, wet nostrils flared, eyes opened under a smear of gunk. Another tug and the neck extended further from the widening opening. Another pull and the entire trunk of the calf slid out at once onto the straw, sticking immediately to the bedding. Sharon wailed twice. Again Rhea gasped, her disgust giving way to wonder. Then the hind legs were out, and the calf was born. The cow lifted her head from the ground to see what awaited, the instincts driving her past any pain. Laying in the straw in a half-moon shape, the calf blinked and wobbled its head. In a few hours it would stand and walk.

  "Would you like to name this one?" said Ethan. "It's a girl."

  "Me?"

  He nodded and told her, "Whoever finds the calf gets to name her. Or him. But this one needs a girl's name."

  "Can we call her Rhea?"

  "You want to name her after yourself?"

  She did.

  "Do you want to touch her?"

  She did.

  Seeing her excitement, Ethan dared not tell Rhea that the calf and cow would be separated at milking time that night and not stay together for more than a few hours. Rhea's face, too sanguine for what came next, too full of awe to be spoiled with reality. Schoolwork and classes faded from Ethan's concerns. He did not feel like a bumpkin, but rather grateful, remembering that the farm offered more and he resolved once again that he could never truly leave it, just as the black calf would never leave it. Each season on the farm was a semester – the subject was life and death, birth and disease, hunger and feeding. No lesson the same, every lesson similar. The new calf in the pen, squinting against the light, searching for succor, moist from labor and head swaying under its mother's heavy tongue. He could see the rest of the herd wandering in the distant pasture, heads down, foddering on the browning grass. And somewhere in the draw, or down by the pond, in a day or a week, an aging cow's brittle legs would crumple on the cowpaths, the herd leaving her in solitude, the last flies of autumn would circle and stuff the nose and ears, waiting for the spark between the eyes to extinguish. Eggs would be laid, the lowly would inch from under stones to reign atop the soil for a spell, the earth alive with the perishing, the last being first, their grimy search temporarily sated, and by that time this newborn calf would be kicking and cavorting over these same hills.