Between Grass And Sky: Where I Live And Work

Whirlaway

W H I R L A W A Y 2 5 We’d named the old black white-faced cow for a famous racehorse, because she was fast on the straightaway and tricky on the curves. Besides speed, Whirlaway possessed intelligence, or instinct if you prefer, that alerted her when humans were going to do something she wouldn’t like. She preferred not to cooperate with them. Whenever we moved the cattle anywhere, she ran the opposite direction. If she had a calf, it galloped along in her wake, eyeballs rolling white, tail straight in the air just like mama’s, genetically programmed to cause trouble. We knew she’d be difficult to handle when we gathered cows that fall, culling out the old ones for sale. We’d already discussed the alternatives: it was time to sell her because she was fifteen years old, and dry. That is, she was not carrying a calf, so she would not contribute the next year to the crop we rely on to pay the bills. Had she been younger, we’d have kept her, giving her a year’s vacation, and relying on her good breeding to pay us back in better health and future calves. But at fifteen, she was nearly at the end of her productive life. We can’t afford to run a nursing home for elderly cows, feed them while they stand around the pasture waiting to die. Best to sell her this fall, rather than risk her teeth going bad during the coming winter, causing her to starve and suffer. ••• Hasselstrom/25-66 6/13/02 10:47 AM Page 25 2 6 • b e t w e e n g r a s s a n d s k y Furthermore, she was pastured three miles from the corrals, the only place where we had plank fences tall and strong enough to guide her into a truck to haul her away. My father, having spent fifteen years handling the cow quietly in the hope she’d calm down, suggested half in jest that we just shoot her in the pasture and consider it our donation to the coyotes and vultures . “Might be the most sensible thing we could do,” he pointed out. “Because she’s going to tear down fences and run you around, and we’ll be lucky if you or the horse doesn’t break a leg before we get her outta there.” Foolishly optimistic, I convinced my husband, George, that I could drive her to the corrals with the rest of the cattle. I rode to the pasture with George following in the pickup, and eased the horse along behind the little bunch of cattle, paying no attention to Whirlaway. If all the other cattle moved ahead of the horse, maybe she’d follow them out the gate and down the trail home. My horse that day was Oliver, a beautiful gray part-Arab with a wonderfully easy gait. But he was lazy, willing to get along with as little work as possible . Only when he was really angry, hot, and tired did he turn into the cutting horse his sainted mother was. Then he spun and pivoted on his hind hooves, slashing back and forth behind a cow, anticipating every move she made, crowding her with his chest, biting when he could, until she had no choice but to go in the direction we chose. Whenever you see a “cowboy” yelling and swinging his rope as he thunders along behind a herd of cows, he’s either in a movie, or he doesn’t own the cows and he’ll soon be unemployed. In real life, running cattle causes them to lose weight on a hot day, poundage that translates into hard-earned money lost because of haste or ignorance. When I’m handling cattle, I don’t care if my horse is fast, but it must be nimble and alert, be smart enough to anticipate a cow’s moves, and turn with her to block her escape before she breaks into a run. The rest of the cattle were quiet as they reached the gate George had opened. Ostentatiously relaxed for Whirlaway’s benefit, he leaned against the pickup nearby with his young son, Mike, a summer visitor. I’d slowed the horse so much a few cows began stopping every few steps to graze. Quietly, I maneuvered among them, gently separating the ones to be sold. Each time...