Centennial

by James A. Michener

  “What’s your thinking on specific breeds, Tim?”

  “It’s all here in the book,” Grebe said, handing Garrett a pamphlet with numerous photographs showing the results of crossbreeding Hereford cows with bulls of the various European breeds imported recently into Canada. But before Garrett had a chance to leaf through the pages, he said, “One of the very best crosses, of course, is one you know well, Hereford and Black Angus. The dark pigmentation of the black bull eliminates eye cancer and udder burn. And you get a handsome calf, body jet-black like the Angus, face snowy white like the Hereford.”

  Now he let Garrett turn the pages. “Briefly, the story on the Europeans is this. The biggest animal is the Chianina from Italy, a white bull, but I don’t like the color of the Hereford-Chianina calves, and I don’t think you would either. Most popular has been the Charolais, and with the Hereford they throw a beautiful tan cross, but it has many weaknesses. Hottest new item is the Maine-Anjou, a French animal, black-and-white, very good on milk production and beef. But the beast I like—and I’ve put my money where my mouth is—is the Simmental, that big reddish animal from the Simme Valley in Switzerland. I’m not going to sing its praises, because you’ve seen the literature, but as an old Hereford man I will tell you this. Because the Simmental’s basic coloring is so close to the Hereford, you can have a Simmental-Hereford cross and the calves will retain a red body and a good white face.” He showed Garrett color photographs of sixteen such crosses, and the calves looked so much like Herefords that sometimes Garrett could not detect the cross.

  “I’m not concerned with color,” Garrett lied. “What else will the cross do for me?”

  “It will introduce hybrid vigor. Any cross will improve a Hereford ranch ten percent. Any fine European will improve the herd fourteen percent, simply because it introduces new strains of resistance. And the best Simmental will improve it eighteen percent.

  “Your cows will give more milk. Eye cancer and udder burn will be diminished. But the big difference will be that the Simmental has never been bred to look good in hotel lobbies. It’s a draft animal, big and rugged, and it shows in the calves. Look at these figures!” And he showed Garrett the comparisons:

  MeasurementHerefordSimmental Cross

  Weight of calf at birth7087

  Weight at 205 days410575

  Weight at 345 days9401129

  “And those extra pounds mean extra dollars. On the same amount of food, the crossbred will give you nearly two hundred pounds more per animal, and that’s profit.”

  He waited for Garrett to study the chart, then said confidentially, “I think that because of your fine reputation as a cattleman, I might be able to get you a couple of rabbits.”

  “Rabbits?”

  “Haven’t you heard about the latest development in Canada?” Garrett hadn’t, so he explained. “As you know, none of the European exotics can ever be imported into the United States. Hoof-and-mouth disease. So we bring them into Canada and export sealed and frozen semen from there. All those great bulls you see in the pamphlets live in Canada. We have none in the States.

  “But a team of brilliant Canadian veterinarians have developed a system that frankly amazes me. They do it with rabbits, and it goes like this. They identify the finest Simmental cow in the world. They inject her with hormones, so that she produces not one or two ova but scores. Then they inseminate her with the very best bull in the breed, so that instead of producing one superior calf a year, like an ordinary cow, she is prepared to produce sixteen or seventeen at one shot.

  “Of course, her womb wouldn’t be big enough to accomplish this, so as soon as the ova are fertilized, she is cut open—perfectly harmless operation—and the fertilized ova are stripped away from her tubes, and we have a dozen or so potential calves from the two greatest parents in the world.

  “But we don’t want them in Canada, we want them in the United States. And here’s where the rabbits come in. We take female rabbits ready to conceive and place in their uterus the inseminated Simmental ova, which grow there just as well as they would in the uterus of a cow. The rabbits are then flown to the United States and operated upon. The ova are taken from them and placed into any substantial kind of cow who happens to be at hand. Doesn’t have to be a Simmental, because the characteristics of the future animal are in the ovum, not in the substitute mother.

  “In due course the ersatz mother produces her offspring, and it’s a pure-bred Simmental, as beautiful as any reared in Switzerland.”

  Garrett sat back. Such manipulation of nature was beyond his comprehension, and the image of a two pound rabbit carrying a potential two-thousand-pound bull in her womb was preposterous. “Is it legal?” he asked.

  “Well,” Grebe replied, “it may not be for long, but I’d like you to import three or four of these rabbits, because I haven’t told you the best part. Each rabbit is impregnated with two ova, and they go into the mother cow, so that time after time what you get is not one Simmental but twins. We’ve found a way to make cows produce twins about eighty percent of the time. So with four rabbits you ought to get seven calves for sure and maybe eight.”

  The ideas were coming too fast for Garrett to absorb, so be strode about the room for a while, then asked, “Is the Simmental-Hereford cross a good one?”

  “I think it’s the best,” Grebe said. “But, of course, I may be prejudiced.” Watching Garrett carefully, he realized that now was the time to repeat the clinching argument required to close any sale. “The good part is, the Simmental looks like a Hereford. Before long you’ll like the new animals the way you did the Herefords.”

  “That I doubt,” Garrett said. For some minutes he looked up at the moose heads, then made his decision. “I’ll take thirty of your best bulls, Grebe. Fifteen half-bred. Fifteen three-quarters. I’ll keep thirty of my best Hereford bulls, and we’ll split the herd. See which does best.”

  “Splendid idea,” Grebe said quickly. “You want to come to Montana to pick them out?”

  “I’ll trust you, Tim.”

  “If you do, I’ve got to see you get the best deal.”

  When he was gone, Garrett went in to tell his wife, “I’ve done it. We’re selling off half the Hereford bulls.”

  She had never understood much about ranching and could not appreciate the gravity of her husband’s decision, but she was aware of his feeling for the white-faces, and she said consolingly, “We’ll get to like the new ones just as much.” This was little reassurance, so after kissing her he left the castle and saddled his horse, riding to the far fields. How history repeats! he reflected. A century ago it was English millionaires using textile profits to buy great ranches and introduce Herefords. Today it’s Texas oilmen and Chicago doctors using tax dollars to buy the same ranches and introduce things like Simmentals. They’re still absentee landlords buying the land for investment.

  When he reached the fields where his bulls were grazing he began the painful task of deciding which would be kept, which sent to the bologna factory, but after inspecting nineteen bulls, he had condemned only one and reprieved eighteen. “To hell with it,” he growled. “I’ll let someone else do the picking.” Riding off, he turned for one last look at the great beasts, their horns drooping down beside their eyes. They had never looked better. “Christ,” he muttered, “I hope I’m doing right in selling them.”

  Early Saturday morning, November 24, the governor sent Garrett, by special messenger, a confidential, prepublication copy of a report assembled by a team of research scientists working out of Montreal, Canada, with the notation: “What can we do about this?” With fascination Garrett read the study. He had heard rumors of its compilation and had wondered how his state would fare. He had expected Colorado to do moderately well, but the results staggered him.

  The scientists had posed a simple problem: “Of the fifty states, which ones provide the finest quality of life, and which the poorest?” They had isolated forty-two criteria which any sensible citizen would a
ccept as relevant. Garrett looked at the list and tried to rate Colorado:

  How many dentists per 1000 population?

  How many hospital beds per 1000?

  How many miles of unpolluted streams per 1000?

  How many books in public libraries per 1000?

  How many square miles of national park or forest per 1000?

  How many tennis courts per 1000?

  When scientists arranged the states in order, Garrett found to his astonishment that Colorado led the list! California came next, then Oregon, Connecticut, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The bottom slots were occupied by those southern states which until recent years had refused to spend money on parks and playing fields and library books because they were afraid that blacks might want to use them too.

  The rating would raise a serious problem for Colorado, for when it was published across the nation, as it would be, thousands of people who had only vaguely thought of moving to the state would now be inspired to do so, and there would be a flood of immigration and a’ corresponding torrent of local protest.

  Garrett was about to put the report aside, figuring that its problems would have to be faced by others, when he saw that the governor had flagged one of the footnotes. It said:

  Colorado would lead the comparisons by an even greater margin were it not for its shocking abuse of one of its greatest resources, the Platte River. As it passes through Denver, this stream is treated as a public sewer. Its condition is appalling, and it creates the suspicion that there has never been in either the Colorado legislature or the Denver city council one man or woman who cared. We recommend that Colorado send a commission to San Antonio, Texas, to study in detail what that city has accomplished in utilizing its trivial river. The imaginative creation of an old-style Mexican village, La Villita, could be duplicated by any city determined to salvage its history, and Denver with its great resources could do even more. That it allows its rivers to be devastated within its boundaries is a disgrace.

  By the middle of December this criticism would hit the local papers and editorials would begin asking questions as to why Colorado tolerated the continued abuse of the Platte:

  And the critics will be right, Vernor. Damn it, they’re right. The earth is something you protect every day of the year. A river is something you defend every inch of its course. All the men who tried to save the river are dead now, and what have fellows like me done in the past twenty years? We are judged only by the future, and men like me have allowed the river to go unattended ... to our disgrace.

  He then did something that would cause his neighbors to wonder if he were sane. He decided not to go to the Colorado-Nebraska football game, even though he had tickets!

  “Flor!” he called. “How about phoning Norman? And ask him to get the plane ready.”

  “We have to leave for the game.”

  “We’re going to skip the game.”

  “What about our picnic?”

  “We’ll take it with us.”

  “But the tickets?”

  The absolute apex of the social year in Colorado was the Nebraska game. Good tickets could be sold for two hundred dollars a pair, or even more if the day was good, and for a Chicano woman to be going to this almost sacred rite was something so special that even Flor, who had little sense of vanity, had to be pleased. Since Denver had no opera, no regular theater and no grand balls, the whole cultural scene was compressed into one football game, and Flor was right to wonder why her husband would waste their tickets.

  “Call Sam Pottifer,” Paul said. “I think he’d grab at them.”

  While her husband shaved, she called Pottifer, a Chicago millionaire who had recently bought a large spread in the foothills west of Centennial, and he was amazed that at the last minute such good fortune should befall him. As a newcomer, he had been trying vainly to get a pair of tickets, but not even his wealth enabled him to break so quickly into the magic circle of those who possessed season tickets.

  A lawsuit dealing with the value of these tickets was being watched, by important families in the state. It had gone through the lower courts and was now being adjudicated in the supreme court. A man named Colson and his wife had seats on the forty-yard line, which they had owned for some thirty years. Mrs. Colson died, and the university, deciding that Colson now needed only one seat, arbitrarily took the other one away from him and awarded it to someone who had been waiting eleven years. Colson’s suit was for a mandamus ordering the university to give back his second seat on the logical grounds that the deprivation condemned him to bachelorhood in that “no self-respecting woman of the type I might want to marry would consider me if she knew that I had only one ticket to the university football games.”

  So Flor’s picnic lunch, which should have been consumed from some tailgate in the shadow of the stadium and shared with the first families of the state, was stowed in the Beechcraft, and at ten the newlyweds were aloft, heading due west for the high Rockies.

  “Where are we going?” Flor asked excitedly.

  “I have to survey the Platte and report to the governor.”

  “The river’s down that way,” Flor said, pointing south.

  “Not the part we want to see.”

  Below them, there was no sign of the Platte, only the peaks, one after another in mighty congregation. The perilous passes were already blocked with snow, and herds of elk were gathering where only a short time ago summer campers had pitched their tents. It was a world of whiteness, and if a plane crashed here, and some did each winter, it might lie hidden for months before it was discovered.

  The plane turned south to enter the area where small mining villages had once flourished, and at Fairplay a small stream, barely noticeable, wandered through the snow.

  Garrett directed his pilot to follow this fork of the South Platte across level areas eight thousand feet high and down the cascades as it tumbled to the plains.

  In the distance Flor could see the smog hanging like a cloud over Denver, and she thought they would fly into it, but instead the pilot turned west again, to fly up the valley of another fork. This branch penetrated to the very highest mountains, a little stream lost among peaks.

  It was the confluence of these two forks that formed the South Platte, and for about an hour Garrett and his wife flew up and down them, finding not a single error in their utilization. So long as the streams kept to the mountains, they were pure and free; it was when they mingled with men that the abuses began.

  At the approaches to Denver the Platte became a squalid thing, compressed between unkempt banks; it was one of the ugliest stretches of river in America, not much better than the Cuyahoga, which caught fire in Cleveland one day because of its cargo of filth and oil. Garrett, looking down at the river and the smog asked Flor, “If Colorado is first on the list, what must the others be like?”

  Northwest of Denver lay the university town of Boulder, and Garrett directed his pilot to fly over the huge gray stadium, and saw the approaches to it clogged with thousands of automobiles. He wondered how the game was going. Each year Colorado enthusiasts vowed that this time they would defeat Nebraska, and each year their hopes were dashed: 1970, Nebraska 29 Colorado 13; 1971, Nebraska 31 Colorado 7; 1972, Nebraska 33 Colorado 10.

  Garrett, staring down at the frenzied scene of which he had so often been a part, both as player and spectator, reflected that if the most superior intellect on Mars had landed in the United States to study its educational system for a year, that brain could not have understood the accidental development whereby America’s state universities had become operators of professional football teams. The universities were judged not on their libraries or their research centers or their courses in philosophy, but only on their capacity to buy a football team, most of whose members did not come from the home state or reside in it. Often they were not even true students connected with the university; they were young men dedicated principally to the job of landing contracts with acknowledged professional teams after their so-called gra
duations from the institutions of which they had never been a real part. Garrett, who had been a tackle at Colorado when the team was truly amateur, could laugh at the system now:

  It’s the craziest pattern ever devised. Here you have the citizens of two great states growing apoplectic about a football game played not by their own people but by hired thugs imported at great expense from all over the United States. A large percentage of the players are blacks who would not be welcomed if they wanted to stay in the state after their playing days were over. They’re coddled and paid and pampered, then thrown out on their ass. And for one Saturday afternoon in November the prestige of two states depends upon their performance. And the whole damned thing is done in the name of education!

  North of Boulder they intersected the valley of the Cache la Poudre, and the plane turned back into the mountains where Garrett pointed out the lakes built by Potato Brumbaugh. When the Beechcraft climbed to an altitude of fourteen thousand feet Garrett pointed down to the tunnel Brumbaugh’s men had dug under the mountains in order to steal a river from Wyoming so that the Platte could be more fruitful.