Bonding
And the pain keeps coming. No matter how I move I can’t escape it. It burrows into my bones. It’s part of me. It’s a second animal within the first. I want to shake it off, to be free of it, but I must endure. This cannot last much longer. One of us will win. The strange small Being stands beside me. Her soft murmuring encourages me. She’s not like the others. She understands. She lives beyond her years. I know this because I’ve watched her grow. She spends most of her time in this barn—a lonely little creature hidden among hay bales and mangers. Now her fingers stroke my body. She’s been with me since first light. By instinct she knows this day will not pass unnoticed. Today I will birth a healthy offspring or perish with my never-born, but the Being does not know this. She only knows I need her. And the pain keeps coming.
Goldie moans. “It’s going to be okay,” Dotty whispers into the cow’s ear. “I know it hurts, but it’s going to be okay. You must believe me. Last night God gave me a beautiful dream. The part I remember best is when your baby stopped drinking and looked at me. Your baby isn’t going to die, Goldie. Not this year.” Dotty rests her head upon Goldie’s body and closes her eyes. In her mind’s eye she sees the unborn calf inching closer to birth as each labor pain intensifies. This is the first year Dotty is allowed to witness the birth of an animal.
Through the barn’s south window, late afternoon sunlight streams through and spreads its frail warmth on the expectant mother and her young companion. Goldie’s manger is full of untouched hay, rich with last summer’s clover and timothy. Her feedbox contains the daily ration of ground corn, molasses, and oats. A green metal pail of cold water sits to the left of the manger. There are seven other cows in the log barn, all contentedly chewing their cuds as their little heifers and bullocks cuddle close to them. Soon the weaning process will begin, and Dotty’s father will push their noses into other granite pails filled with warm milk. But for another week or two, mothers and newborns rest next to each other, nuzzling and lowing and getting acquainted.
For the past eighty years, this barn has witnessed the same sight every spring when calves arrive to the thankfulness of their owners. Sturdy bullocks mean ready cash at fall auctions. Heifers will eventually replace old cows. When the bovines no longer produce milk rich in butterfat, their owner rewards them with green pastures. They grow old at their own pace. On this farm the cycle of life and death is unhurried, one following the other as naturally and effortlessly as the seasons.
Goldie shifts her weight. “I wish I could help you,” Dotty says, slipping her arms around the cow’s neck, forming a circle that doesn’t quite close. “Daddy will be here soon,” she whispers. “He’ll know what to do.” As Goldie sways, Dotty moves with her as if proximity could lessen the pain. The child’s body is sturdy, willing to share it. “I could sing to you,” she muses. “Or I could tell you a story.” She begins with the story.
“Once upon a time, a long, long time ago in a faraway land, there was a cow, a beautiful cow named Goldie. More than anything in the world, she wanted a baby, a perfectly formed, healthy little baby. Every spring she hoped her wish would come true, but every spring there was a new red cross in the graveyard behind the barn. Her baby would be born missing something or having too much of something else. The farmer would have to shoot it. Goldie would run along the graveyard fence and bawl for days, calling to her little one, but the wind never sent an answer. Years passed and more crosses appeared. Then one warm spring day, as March was turning into April, a miracle happened. Goldie’s wish came true, and she delivered a healthy little heifer. Everyone called her Shadow because she never left her mama’s side. They lived happily ever after. The end. There, now wasn’t that a nice story?” Dotty stares into Goldie’s enormous black eyes. “Wasn’t it?” Goldie does not answer as the child knew she wouldn’t.
The barn is quiet. Warmth rises from the animals. Cookie, one of the barn cats, paws at Dotty’s leg. She pets her. The cat meows a thank you, then stretches. She smells rich milk. In a moment, she’s underneath Goldie’s bag, her mouth open, receiving the drops that cannot be contained. “Silly cat,” Dotty tells her, but she does not shoo her away. Cookie and Goldie are friends. When she was a kitten, Goldie allowed her to swing from her tail. Now she drinks her fill and washes her face with her paws. Dotty watches her. “Silly old cat,” she repeats. “Silly old Cookie,” but she isn’t old. She was named after her mother who was named after her mother who was killed when the tractor ran over her when she was too old and deaf to hear it and get out of the way. Cookie works the loose hay in Goldie’s manger until she makes it into a nest. She curls into it and purrs until she falls asleep. Goldie ignores her.
“Daddy will soon be here,” Dotty says. “I don’t know what’s keeping him. I can see your baby moving inside you. If I put my ear next to your body, maybe I can hear her, too.” Dotty presses her ear against Goldie’s side. “I think I hear her. I think she says she wants to come out. If she gets born, then the pain will be over. Won’t that be nice? I should get Daddy, but I don’t want to leave you.” Dotty glances toward the barn door, but her father does not fill the empty space. She watches Goldie’s pain. “Help will be here soon,” she repeats.
Four o’clock shadows play on the wall beside Goldie. Fatigue gathers on Dotty. She shakes herself. She’s hungry. Mama brought ginger cookies and milk two hours ago, but now she is ready for supper. Mama made her promise to call for help as soon as Goldie appeared ready, but Dotty wants to do this alone. All day both parents checked the barn every hour. Now Dotty must prove herself. If the calf is born deformed, what difference will it make if Daddy and Mama and all the vets in Chippewa County are with her or if she is alone? No one will blame her if the calf comes out wrong and must be shot. It’s what they all expect.
“Hurry up,” Dotty says. “You must have your baby now. You must push her out. I’ll help.” The girl’s hands begin to push against Goldie’s heaving body. “You must push hard.”
I hear the change in the young voice, but I’m so tired. Why is getting born so hard? I know you want to help me, but if I do as you command, I will lose what I carry. I feel two hearts beating within me. If I obey, I will feel only one. Is it better for the unborn never to leave the secret place or is the unknown better? Pain surrounds me. Ripping and tearing, searing my body. Do you Beings know such pain? I must escape it. I’m cut in half. My body no longer belongs to me. I’m two now, but I’m only one. Maybe this time it is my turn to pass. Maybe the new cross will mark my place. I feel the unborn stretching inside me. I feel it reaching for life. I’m not ready to release it. As long as it is part of me, it is safe. I feel my milk dripping. I long to suckle the life within me, to nourish it as I was nourished. My mother rests in the Place of Red Crosses, watching over the others I have lost. I’m not ready to part with the life alive within me. I’ll endure the pain. I won’t open. They can’t make me. I am only an animal, but the Creator made us before he made them. I’ve served my Master well, but when the Spirit of Night passes over this barn, it will take us with him. I’m holding and releasing. I feel the pain slipping from me while holding me in a tighter grip, forcing that which is mine from me. Heaving, contracting, I’m losing. I cannot breathe, but I do not stop breathing. Living, I feel death. Dying, I feel life. Nothing is everything and everything is nothing until life and death and birth and pain intermingle, one becoming the other until there is no beginning and can never be an end because no one can tell where one leaves and the other begins. Leave me or don’t leave me. Don’t die or let me die with you. I imagine the cool stream hidden deep within the woods where other cattle won’t go. They feel Spirits of the Dead, but I feel only peace. I’m walking through the fence and not stopping until I come to the clearing that leads to the Great Unknown. I’m not afraid. It’s quiet now. I must be alive, but I’m empty. Only one heart beats within me. The grass is green. Yellow wildflowers grow next to pink clover. Blue swallows swoop from black lines hanging high above brown ditches. Red salt blocks replace white ones. Mist hangs heavy over ripe fields. I hear the call to come home, but I’ve lost my bell. A lead cow without a bell. No bell. The Being’s voice changes. I am so tired.
Daddy hears Dotty’s words of joy before he opens the barn door. Once inside he embraces the sight before him. Dotty is, indeed, his daughter. Pride at her strength brings tears to his eyes. Covered in blood, crying and laughing she runs toward him, thrusts herself into his arms. “Look Daddy, look,” she says. “Look what we did! Look at Shadow.” They watch as the newborn struggles to stand. “The baby’s alive. Alive, Daddy.” I watched her being born. I helped Goldie do it.” The young girl’s joy becomes an entity and fills the barn with tenderness. For years to come, the story will grow more poignant as the main characters age and change. But for now, all that matters is that the cross intended for Shadow will remain hidden. Before their eyes, the newborn finds what instinct told her to search for. She wobbles toward warm nourishment. Goldie comes alive, forgets the pain, licks her baby.
“I knew, I just knew Shadow would be perfect,” Dotty says. “I hope Mama isn’t mad I didn’t call for help. I had to stay with Goldie.”
“She’ll understand,” Daddy says. Dotty’s arms encircle Goldie’s neck. She stretches until her fingertips touch. Goldie lows.
You are a strange Being who lives among us as one belonging to us although not of us. May the Spirit of Night not soon find you. When it finally descends and calls you Home, may it place you where we are. The Spirits of the Long Dead will not forget this day. You will be blessed for helping my little one escape the Place of Red Crosses.
