1
BARBED WIRE ETERNITY
A green valley flanked by the jagged mountains of the Salt River Range of western Wyoming lay in slumber beneath a full moon. Lights of small farmhouses and barns twinkled like bright stars among the night-washed fields. All was quiet, except for a few coyotes taken by a sudden obsession to howl. Their voices wafted over the pastures and up the hillsides like a poignant, homeless wind looking for company, then disappeared somewhere out of hearing and out of mind. An owl, cocked and ready on its pine-hidden perch, blinked sharp amber eyes, eager to sustain its life by taking another’s. Beneath its perch padded a skunk, unaware and unconcerned, as skunks are apt to be, about anything but themselves. A burly raccoon, nose low to the ground, ears alert, trotted swiftly along the edge of an alfalfa meadow toward a distant dairy barn, hoping a carelessly-latched gate on the nearby henhouse might provide it with an opportunity. Disappointingly, it found all was secure when it reached its destination. It would have to search elsewhere this night for a meal to feed its growing brood.
Suddenly, a loud “mmaaahhh!” emanated from inside the barn. Startled, the raccoon scurried off, disappearing behind a mountain of baled hay.
Michael Johns awakened at the sound and sat bolt upright. From the barn fifty feet away, he could hear a cow bawling. He heard his father stir in the bedroom across the hall and call, “Michael?” Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Michael checked the time on the big, wind-up clock at his bedside. Three AM.
A moment later his father called again weakly, “Michael?”
Michael already had his boots on. “Go back to sleep, Dad. I'm on my way.”
He finished dressing, scrubbed his hands and arms at the kitchen sink, and made it to the barn in less than five minutes. He hated to leave his father alone, even for a few minutes; but both of them understood that when a $5,000 prize dairy cow is ready to calve, and her baby's worth at least another $500 before it hits the ground, a rancher has to be there.
She was well into it when Michael arrived, with part of the calf's head crowning. Michael could see right away that the angle of the head wasn't quite right. If he couldn't get the calf twisted around the right way, the mother's strong contractions might damage her defenseless offspring before it was born. Quickly smearing lubricant from fingers to elbows, he knelt beside the straining cow and gently slid one arm deep into her birth canal. Between every contraction, he worked to turn the young one's body and head.
When he was satisfied with the calf’s position, he waited for the next contraction and pulled the calf forward with all his might, encouraging both animals as he worked.
“Push, Becky, you old bucket-kicker,” he said through gritted teeth. “You can do it. Come on, Calf. Don't make your mama and me do all the work. You gotta put out at least a little effort to get into this world!”
A white, wet nose appeared. With one hand, Michael cleared out the calf’s nostrils and, with the other, guided the head. Becky loudly announced the coming of the next contraction. Then, suddenly, the head was out, its eyes wide open. They looked right into Michael's, brown-to-brown, spirit-to-spirit, and blinked. Michael could not help but laugh, then braced himself for the next step.
Reaching again into the birth canal, Michael manipulated his hands past the calf’s neck, grabbing its shoulders. He took a great breath and held it, waiting for the next contraction; tightening his stomach, his arms, his back, his legs into one straining halter of muscle, bent on a single purpose—bringing that calf into mortality, head to tail. With a loud protest and a final, desperate effort from Becky, the calf pumped forward, greased with birth fluids. The calf fell into Michael's arms, plastering him with blood, mucus and afterbirth. His knees buckled under the weight and they both fell backwards in the hay, Michael still holding the newborn.
Becky bent her head around with a wild-eyed stare and called her calf. Its body lay heavy on top of Michael's chest for a moment as they both rested from their mutual effort, but it was not long before it began squirming out of his grasp, just missing Michael’s face as it kicked with its tiny, but sharp, front hoof.
“Happy Birthday, Calf! Welcome to the world!” Michael said with a grin, and let it go.
Becky was immediately on her feet, gently nosing her offspring. Over the next several minutes, Michael watched the mother lick the newborn clean and the little one struggle to find its footing on wobbly legs. Within ten minutes the calf was up and able to make its way over to its mother's udder.
Sitting back in the hay, his arms covered with blood up to the shoulders, Michael wearily, but happily, watched the mother inspect the calf proudly as it butted and slurped at her teat. He would allow them to stay together only a few days and then he would separate them. The calf would be bottle-fed. But for the moment, all three were content to let nature take its course.
Seeing birth on the Wyoming ranch was a thing Michael Johns had witnessed time and again, but the miracle of it never diminished. He came to his feet, dusted the hay off his clothes, and began cleaning up the mess around him. When he was finished, he looked at his watch; a half-hour, barely, till the other cows would need milking. Just time enough to clean himself up and make a quick check on his father.
Walking through the blackness of a morning not yet dawned, he opened the screen door and went straight to the deep, metal, back-porch sink to scrub clean. He stripped off his shirt and bent under the faucet, letting the stream of warm water splash on his face, arms, and chest. The brisk, cold air that tingled his skin afterward and the wholesome smell of soap filled him with exultation. He had just brought a new life into the world. It was going to be a beautiful morning. His father would be glad to know the birthing had gone well.
He pushed open the back door and strode into the kitchen. “Dad,” he called, mounting the stairs up to the bedrooms. “Dad, you should have seen old Becky. She was telling the whole world....”
The words broke off as soon as he looked through the open door to his father's bed. His father’s eyes were closed, his hands folded peacefully on his chest, but somehow, even through the shadows of the darkened room, Michael knew he was gone. His father's pain was over.
Quickly, he walked to the side of the bed, knelt down, and took Robert John's limp hand in his own, holding it tenderly. It was still warm, but completely lifeless.
“Oh, Dad, I'm sorry,” Michael choked, realizing that after all the months of constant, loving care, when the final moment came, he hadn’t been there. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to say good-bye.”
He gently stroked his father’s leathery hands, and tenderly rubbed the square, stubbled cheek. Memories came flooding back of special times he’d spent with the man who now lay so still and gaunt upon the bed beside him. Up until the cancer, Robert Johns had been a robust, big-hearted, hard-working, loving parent entirely devoted to three things: his son, his ranch, and enjoying life. He preached his philosophy of life by example: work hard, but when it’s done, you get to play. In his book, both were equal ingredients in the recipe for happiness.
Robert Johns lost his wife when Michael was still a little fellow and spent the rest of his life in her sorely-felt absence determined to provide the best he could for his son. That included giving his all to the hard, day-after-day labor to build up a well-run, profitable dairy ranch his boy would someday inherit.
Michael learned at his father’s side the value of sweat and toil, but also to make every spare minute away from it count just as much. “Ya better like what ya do, son,” he heard his father say a hundred times, “because you’re gonna spend most your life doin’ it. But remember,” he would add with a grin, “work’s the thing we do to support our fun habit.”
While growing up, Michael was never far from his father’s heels and his father, in turn, spent every moment he could spare with his boy. There had been fishing trips every weekend in summer, hunting trips every fall and, in winter, they never missed a chance to take out the snowmobiles. Oh, if Michael had a dollar for every time they rode horses up the canyon to pick chokecherries for jelly and syrup! If