I regard cows the way political refugees regard border guards armed with Kalashnikovs. The common cow can turn a bird hunt into a nightmare of pursuit and degradation.
When I was eight, I tried to milk a cow and first she stepped on me, then kicked the milk bucket over, then kicked ME over. It established the ground rules between me and cows.
I like cows best separated into their component parts and grilled over charcoal and hickory chips.
Contact between me and cows probably would have been minimal were I not a game bird hunter. Cows and bird hunters don't mix. First, there is the red clothing which, if legend is right, turns Bossie into a rodeo Brahma, walleyed with rage.
Second, bird hunters are accompanied by dogs. I'm convinced the common bovine possesses a runaway gene that makes Lillybelle imitate a murderous African water buffalo at the sight of a bird dog.
My bird dog.
Lassie may be brave enough to save drowning maidens and smart enough to have bought IBM when it was $25 a share, but I'll guarantee you that if an enraged cow comes after Lassie, that Superbitch is gonna do what every dog in history has done--run to her master for help, thus attracting the cow's attention to the man behind the dog. The kindest looking milk cow, the one on the Borden's label representing Elsie, that lovable old milk machine, will come at you, her bag banging her hocks like the clapper of a bell tolling a death knell. She wants to stomp you and your rotten dog to rags.
Possibly it's because in every cow there is the genetic memory of a wolf hanging to its nostrils while another gnaws at its Achilles tendon.
My Brittany represents the ancestral pack. All we want is get to the other side of the pasture where there is an alder swamp with woodcock and a few grouse. Naught stands between us and those birds save 200 yards of bare ground and a surly knot of cows, glaring in our direction and muttering.
It's impossible to go around because of bogs that come right to the fenceline. If we try to sidle along the fence and the cows charge, we'll rip those new brush pants six ways from Sunday. If we opt to gut it out and angle warily across the pasture, Flossie and her compadres will wait for us to reach the exact geometric center of that pasture before they make their move.
A good bird dog is oblivious to cows. You could stampede the cattle holdings of the King Ranch past Ol' Streak when he's tracking a running bird and he wouldn't raise his head. That's how he gets into the middle of enemy territory before he realizes the trouble he's in. But once he finds he is surrounded by large animals, he panics and runs for Daddy, pursued by roaring creatures with large hooves and wicked horns.
Cows are prone to mob mentality. If they don't stampede toward you, they stampede over the hill away from you, past the startled herdsman who then comes looking for whoever is molesting his livestock.
"But I didn't do anything!" you protest to the red-faced landowner. "I was just standing there!"
"I knew I never shoulda given you permission to hunt!" he cries. "It's that damn dog!" He stabs an accusing finger at Sal, the pointer you wouldn't take $2,000 for, and she tucks her tail between her legs and looks as guilty as a junkyard rat. The cows, meanwhile, have come to a halt 50 yards away and stand with half-hidden smirks.
Cow attacks can be either frightening or degrading. If a 2,000- pound bull gets you down on rocky ground, he's going to do bodily damage to you. But if a cow butts you spraddling through a stack of manure, the damage is emotional.
Two friends stopped at a farm house to ask permission to hunt. One had a large Labrador that leaped from the car and gleefully assaulted the farmer's chickens. Don plunged after his rampant Lab, wrestled him to earth...well, earth is not quite the word since it was a barnyard...and they rolled around a bit which attracted the attention of the farmer's cows who proceeded to wool the two unmercifully, butting them back and forth, like seals playing with a soccer ball.
The other friend, ever helpful, did the only thing possible. He leaned against the car and laughed until he nearly wet his pants. "I hate cows," says my hunting buddy, Ted Lundrigan. "I absolutely hate them." Perhaps that is because he must cross the pasture of No. 13. She leads a herd that seeks to catch grouse hunters in the open and destroy them. He has fled from her more than once.
Her ear tag number is prophetic, for she once got the farmer's son down in a manure pile and mauled him, rolling him over and over. "You shoulda seen him," guffawed the farmer. "Only thing white on him was his eyeballs!"
Cows are menacing in themselves, but they also are equipped with a secondary booby trap. It is well-known to anyone who has owned a bird dog for more than five minutes that nothing in the dog's life is more refreshing than a cowpie break. Who has not watched in stunned disbelief as his noble dog lowers its shoulder and slides gracefully through the juicy and copious leftovers of the last cow to pass by? This may be a high point in the dog's day, but it is a low one for the owner, who suddenly remembers that he left his Porta-Pet kennel at home, so Ginger must now ride in the seat where Grandma usually rides en route to church.
I don't want to dwell overlong on cow manure, for it is not the stuff of essays on anything other than politics, but not only does Ol' Streak anoint himself with Eau de Hockey, he also regards cowpies as you and I regard apple pies and then he wants to breath on you and lick your ear.
I thought about cows and their interaction with hunters late one afternoon in Minnesota as we trudged wearily out of Uncle Willie's covert.
Uncle Willie had separated his heifers from his bull calves. The boys had broken out and now were looking for a way into the girls' dorm. The heifers were leaning against their fence, giggling and batting their long lashes at the boys across the road.
Uncle Willie had shared his land with us and we now must give our labor in return. No matter that we were exhausted from a seven-hour grouse hunt through boggy, tangled country, leg-weary, sore of foot and sinew, hungry, chilled, wanting only rest. We had to return those cows to their pasture.
Tiredly, we ran up and down the road, waving our hands and shouting hoarsely at horny bull calves. I gained great sympathy for the superintendents of high schools who deal daily with hormone- scourged teenagers.
I brood on cows sometimes until I remember the story of Frank and Walt Olsen. Frank and Walt are Minnesota Norwegian bachelor farmers. They had a prime herd of dairy cows and routinely got up about 5:30 a.m., winter and summer, to tend to them. Frank would go to the barn to ready the milking machinery and Walt would round up the herd in a nearby pasture and bring them to the barn.
A summer storm passed in the night. The brothers rose, wordlessly, for they have lived together so long they communicate without speaking. Frank went to the barn, Walt to the pasture. Walt was back uncommonly quickly, without cows. Frank looked at his brother. Walt, a man of economical speech, said simply, "Well, you don't need to hook up the machines, Frank. De're all dead." Lightning had struck down the entire herd, a tragedy for the cows but, as it turned out, a bonanza for the brothers.
The two brothers made a small fortune on insurance and selling the meat from their defunct herd and have lived happily ever after. Much as I have after learning that a higher power can intervene when cows become too pushy.
Copyright (c) 1996 Joel M. Vance. All rights reserved.
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