Which Station Is She?

I saw her when I arrived home tonight.

She had been in the same place last night when I got home, at the fence outside our bedroom window, in the shade of the massive pine tree. A new calf was with her then, but tonight, the cow was alone.

She was lying down in the rough grass, her flanks smeared with dried mud that had crackled into geometric patterns across her dark hide. Her black face was coated with crawling flies, and foamy drool dripped from her mouth. The calf was nowhere that I could see. I approached the fence slowly, staying silent because I know that human voices spook cattle in most situations. She looked at me with a flat expression, and I spoke to her, a few quiet sentences just between the two of us. Her ear tag, the color of a faded lemon, bore the number 14.

I looked around again for the calf and then asked the cow, “Where is your baby, Number 14?” She watched me, her ears moving in their restless futile waving, trying to shoo the flies. Then I looked again at the foamy drool. I looked down the hill at the stock tank, but it was too far for me to tell if there was water in it. “Are you thirsty, 14?” I have seen several acts of neglect and cruelty towards cattle and dogs in this county, acts committed by bellicose men who have no business holding power over any living creature, and I am alert for such despicable acts, unable to be immune to or unaffected by their sting.  “Stay here,” I said to the black Angus cow.

I went around back, got a five-gallon bucket and tied a hank of rope to the handle, then fetched one of the three-gallon jugs we keep filled on the back deck for sundry watering jobs. I returned to Number 14, who had not moved. She eyed the bucket with what looked like nervous interest. I lowered the bucket onto her side of the fence, pulled the rope tight and tied it to the post, and then tipped the jug  over the fence, emptying it into the bucket. “Come get you a drink, girl,” I said.

Number 14 didn’t move. But she eyed the bucket, and she licked her lips with her cat-sized tongue, and she drooled a little more. “Come on, girl,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing tone. Then I retreated and hid in the shade behind the azalea bush. In a minute, Number 14 lurched to her feet and approached the bucket. I heard the deep, liquid slurp as she began drinking. When I figured about half the bucket was drained, I stepped around the bush and approached her again. She looked up at me but kept her muzzle in the bucket. In just a few seconds, she had emptied it. She raised her head and looked at me, shaking her head at the flies that returned in a single-minded swarm. “Wait here,” I told her. “I’ll get you some more.” I untied the bucket, lifted it back over the fence, and took it and the empty jug with me.

When I returned a few minutes later, I was so focused on carrying the bucket and two jugs of water that I failed to notice something new until I had set down my load. The little calf was with his mama, and he was nursing. Number 14 eyed me, evaluating me, checking me to see if the water-bringer would turn out to be a calf-harmer. She settled down in a moment, her sharp gaze softening.

When the calf (whom I dubbed Sebbin) finished nursing, I went to the fence and repeated my operation, lowering the bucket, securing it, filling it. And this time, Number 14 walked right up to me, close enough for me to touch her face, and drank the full bucket down to the lees. I stood with them for a few minutes, and the mama cow allowed me to pat her head just once, then she stepped back into the shade and lowed at Sebbin, who came about and stood next to her. “Take care of that baby,” I whispered. I gathered my things and went around the house.

A few minutes later, I wondered if the pair were still near the fence. I fetched my phone and went to see. Sure enough, they were still there, though they had moved down the fence a bit. I took a photo, and Number 14 gave me a good, rumbling moo in return. Then they turned and ambled along the fence, headed for the eastern pasture where I have been known to walk in the mist of early mornings, thrilled at the sight of deer and eagles and turkeys and coyotes and hawks.

And what of me, the grizzled water-boy? I came in and took a shower, and as I did, I thought about Number 14, the pastured matriarch so thirsty and tragic and sweet and alive. She is a natural number, a fortnight lady, a one-stone girl, a bovine sonnet. She is embedded in much of Johann Sebastian Bach’s mathematical music, and she is the number of Joseph Smith’s age when he witnessed the First Vision. She is yet one more of the numberless beautiful, graceful creatures I never tire of watching. At one point while she was drinking, I said to her, “If we see each other after this life is over, maybe we’ll be able to communicate a little better.”  And I didn’t feel one bit foolish in making the remark.

There are fourteen Stations of the Cross. I wonder….in the holy fullness of time, in my quiet hours of devotion, which station will put me in mind of my friend, the thirsty mother of the little dog-sized dogie?

~ S.K. Orr