The Bluffing Cow

“Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.” –Maya Angelou

Hi everyone, I hope this blog post finds each of you well. Earlier this week my second magazine article was published in the column that I write for The Cattle Business In Mississippi. I still find it rather strange to open up a magazine and see my name and wee little picture printed above my very own story column. I will guiltily admit to carrying around a copy of the magazine to show off to anyone who will listen to me. The guy working the drive thru at McDonalds was rather terse and indifferent to my accomplishments, but the old lady pumping gas at the Shell station seemed very impressed. Although, she did clutch her purse and then drive away pretty fast. But that is neither here nor there. Today, I am going to share with you my second article. It is a lovely story about me, my brother, and a cow. So without further ado here is my story:

 

The Bluffing Cow

Some years ago Hurricane Katrina blew in and decided to wage war on every barbwire fence in the South. When the storm settled, the Dickens family was left with roughly eight and half feet of barbwire fence still standing on our hundreds of acres of cow pastures. With no way of fixing a thousand miles of fence in a timely manner, my father visited each one of our farms to speak with the cows. He’d say, “Listen here Brahmans. I am putting all of you on the honor system. Ya’ll be good cows now. Just eat your grass, chew your cud, and ignore all those gaping holes in the fence.”

                Brahmans are noble creatures of good moral fiber when they’re not trying to kill you. The cows nodded sagely at my father’s words and followed his every command. Well, most of them did anyways. We were keeping about twenty head of cattle in a leased field down the road from our main farm. They were a rebellious lot. Once they realized that the honor system wasn’t nearly as pointy as barbwire, some of the more disreputable cows began wandering off the property.

                We tried to give them the honor speech again, but they ignored it. Threatening and cursing loudly didn’t seem to work either. It was then decided that they needed to be moved to the main farm. There at least we still had eight and half feet of fence for them to completely ignore.

                I along with my oldest brother, BJ, headed out there with the trailer to haul them home. We lured them into the catch pen with false promises of feed. Actually, I’m playing it fast and loose with the term, “catch pen.” Whoever built the pen had clearly never intended it for sorting cattle. It was a circle, twenty feet in diameter. The bull wire fences stood eight feet high, too tall and too poorly constructed to climb quickly to safety. The dreadful structure seemed to be designed as some sort of fighting cage or arena where gladiators would battle to the death. I can think of no other reasonable purpose for building such a complete and utter deathtrap.

                The work day had passed by with no real problems, and we were attempting to load the last of the cows. I stood behind a gate, watching as an incredibly angry momma cow snorted and bellowed at me. At some point during the day, she’d been separated from her calf and was none too pleased by it. We were trying to run her onto the trailer, but she seemed only interested in getting to me, hence why I was behind a gate. BJ shouted at me over the snorting, “Chase! Stop being such a pantywaist. That cow’s an old show calf. She is over 14 years old for crying out loud. You’re basically running away from a great grandmother. Now push her up. She won’t hurt you. She’s just bluffing!”

Exert from The Dickens Family Dictionary:

Bluffing- a word often used by liars to goad stupid people into believing that a cow doesn’t really want to hit you.

To prove I was a man and also stupid, I opened the gate and stepped into the pen. The cow’s ears pulled back. Her dark, smoldering eyes never left me as I stalked cautiously around her. Then proving that my brother was a filthy liar, she charged me. She was spry for a great grandmother, but I nimbly dodged her first attack. I made a break for the fence and began to climb, but when my hands grabbed the top of the fence, the uppermost staples holding up the bull wire pulled free. The fence bent and bowed over. I hung suspended over the pen for the space of a long breath. I had just enough time to mutter, “Son of a…” before the section of fence broke free, dropping me back into the gladiator arena. I landed on my back but got to me feet quickly, shoving the stupid broken fence off of me. I turned around just in time to see a whole lot of cow about three inches from me. Her head connected with my chest. My back struck the fence with all the force a 1500 pound great grandmother can bring to bear. She thrust her head up and down, dragging my back roughly across the fence. The bull wire felt like a giant cheese grater, and I felt like a man-sized block of cheddar.

                I heard BJ shouting something from the gate. The cow stopped trying to grate me for a moment and turned towards him. When she moved away I fell to my knees but only for a second. I jumped up and ran quite literally like the Dickens to a more stable section of fence. Just as I began to climb, BJ gave another shout. I twisted to see the cow once again charging my way. I scrabbled wildly up the rickety fence but only made it half way when the psychotic cow reached me. She didn’t ram me into the fence this go around. Instead, she threw her head straight up, catching me directly in the rear end. The blow threw me high into the air. My knees hit the top of bull wire, and I flipped over the fence and began falling head first towards the ground. In a feat of acrobatics that I will never match again, I somehow grabbed the fence on the way down, swung my legs forward, and landed firmly on my feet like a ninja in a martial arts movie. However, unlike a ninja I remained standing for only a brief second before I crumbled to the dirt in a writhing heap of bruises and scrapes.

                BJ jogged over to where I lay. Squatting down he said, “Man, that was an awesome landing. You cut a complete flip.” I answered with a few indistinct moans followed by some rather salty language describing my opinion of him at that moment. My brother helped me to my wobbly feet. Slapping me across the newly formed bruises on my back, he beamed with an infuriating grin and said, “You know what? I don’t think she was bluffing after all.” He laughed and laughed and laughed.

I couldn’t think of an appropriately witty retort. So, I picked up a stick, knocked my brother unconscious, and fed him to our bloodthirsty cows. I sold the cows, stole the truck, and made my escaped to sunny Mexico. And everyone lived happily ever after. Well, except for BJ of course. He was eaten by cows.

The End

 

I hope you enjoyed the story for today. Before you grow bored with me and stop reading, I have some exciting news to share with you. This July I will begin writing for my second magazine. The Brahman Journal is official magazine of the Brahman cattle breed and is distributed in 52 countries around the world. I literally just found out about the 52 countries thing when I looked it up on their website three minutes ago. It kind of blew my mind a little bit. I would like to thank The Brahman Journal for giving me this amazing opportunity and allowing me to share my stories with a much, much larger audience. My first article for them will be the story I posted on here a while back, Why Do Brahman’s Have a Hump? If you are interested in reading it or more of my stories, you can click the link on the right side of this page that says My Life Stories under the Categories section. You can read about all of my adventures and weird ramblings by perusing through the archives of the blog. You can go like my blog on Facebook as well; the link is at the top of this page. I swear I am going to change the name of the Facebook page one of these days.

Thanks for reading,

Chase

P.S. If you or someone you know is affiliated with a magazine or journal that may be interested in publishing some of my stories, you can get in touch with me through Facebook or by commenting below. It would be really awesome of you. Even if you are not a magazine person feel free to comment or message me. I’d love to hear your feedback. Also, please feel free to share the link to my blog on Facebook or other social media site, so others may see it as well.