A Miracle of Catfish

by Larry Brown

  He looked above him and could still see the saw marks in some of the rafters. Halter Wellums had sawed every piece of this wood out of some longleaf pines that Cortez and Toby had cut on Coy Patton’s place. Those were some mighty fine logs. And they had made some mighty fine timber. In its height and width, the sheer size of it, the loft had always reminded Cortez of pictures he’d seen of cathedrals. And it always smelled the same. It always smelled like hay. But there wasn’t any rope up here. And what was done with Queen was done.

  He climbed back down and went out the back door of the barn and opened the door on the corn crib and looked in there. There it was. It was nylon rope and he remembered sticking it in here now. He’d bought it up at Sneed’s, twenty feet of it, in a plastic bag. It was eight-hundred-pound test, dark blue, very soft. He grabbed it and went back through the barn, up the hall, out the big door and over to the chute. She was knocking her head against the boards of the chute and she was bawling. Her calf was bawling, down on the other side of the barn.

  “All right, you son of a bitch,” he said, and pulled out his pocketknife. He cut two pieces about four feet long from the rope and bent down next to her. He looked up at her. She had her foot right next to a post and Cortez threaded the end of the rope through the boards and around her foot just above the hock. She didn’t raise hell and she let him pull the rope back out through the boards and then he made an overhead knot, tying it twice. She tried to move her foot and couldn’t and she went crazy, jerking her whole body and trying to lift her foot. The chute was shaking. Cortez got up and went around and let himself into the catch pen and walked around to the other leg. He squatted down.

  Three times he tried to tie that leg and three times she kicked at him. One time she nearly smashed his finger against the post. He just squatted there and waited for her to calm down. She was gentle as a lamb unless you had her hemmed up. Or tied up. She was a good cow, but she was getting old. She probably wouldn’t have but one or two more calves. When one started having bag trouble, they were about like an old car: time to trade for a new one. Make some baloney out of her. Potted meat. Vienna sausage.

  He tried twice more before he got the rope around her leg. He didn’t get it up as high as he would have liked, but he had to settle for it. He made the same knot he’d made on the other side and then he opened the bib of his overalls and pulled the milk tube from its little cloth bag. He stuck it lightly between his lips while he twisted the top from the small tube of lubricant and then he squeezed some of it onto the tube, making sure the tip was coated with it. He set the lubricant on the ground and leaned toward the cow with the milk tube. It was hollow, made of aluminum, with a rounded end that would open up the teat and let the stopped-up, curded milk flow out through it. Get all that mess out of there. Let the calf nurse and keep her from getting her bag messed up. Teat might rot off or something. You didn’t want that.

  “All right, baby,” he said softly. “You let me get this up in you and you’ll feel better.”

  He put his hand around the swollen teat and pushed the tip of the milk tube up in it and things went wrong. She heaved backward toward him and he heard a post crack, and then she slammed herself forward and tried to break the posts in front of her. Cortez dropped the milk tube and she stepped on it, mashing it into the mud and cowshit in the bottom of the chute. She kept trying to kick, slamming herself against the boards.

  “You crazy son of a bitch,” Cortez said, trying to find the milk tube in the mud. He caught a glimpse of it and then she stepped on it again. She was spattering shit all over him with her lunging feet. But he stayed calm. Cortez was kind of like a doctor with a cow, is how he thought of it. You had to have patience. You already knew that you were smarter than the cow, who was a lot bigger than you, but the thing about it was that a cow, being one of the dumbest animals there was, might hurt you accidentally trying to get away from you because of something you were doing to it that maybe didn’t feel so good. Like punching holes in your ears to put in plastic identification tags. Sticking a pointed trocar into your abdomen wall to let out deadly fescue gas. Or cutting your balls off with a really sharp knife if you happened to be a bull. So you had to outsmart the animal, and you had to make sure that the animal couldn’t get loose until you were through doing whatever you were doing to it. This foot-tying business wasn’t the best idea in the world, but it was all he had right now until something better came along. They probably made leather hobbles for something like this. He could check in one of his catalogs and see.

  He had to reach in with his hand and go through the mud and the shit, squeezing gobs of it between his fingers, searching mostly by feel for the little aluminum tube. Which would have to be taken back inside the house now and washed and sterilized again. He’d have to stick a straw down through it to make sure it wasn’t plugged up. But he hadn’t even found it yet. He kept feeling around for it and finally got it back in his fingers.

  There was a man gate built into his fence on the side of the barn that faced the driveway and he went through it and walked back down the driveway to the house. He left his boots at the back door and went to the kitchen sink and washed the milk tube with soap and hot water. He turned a burner on under the pot of water that was still sitting there from when he’d sterilized the milk tube last night. He made sure it was clean on the inside and then he dropped it into the water on the stove and sat down at the kitchen table to wait.

  It was only about seven o’clock. Maybe he ought to just load her up when he got done with her and take her to Pontotoc and let her out at the sale barn and they could sell her for him Saturday. She wasn’t going to bring much, old as she was, but he could probably find another one to take her place. He could look in the Mississippi Market Bulletin, which he read religiously each month, from front to back.

  He sat there and waited for the water to boil and thought about going up to the Co-op this afternoon after lunch and see Toby and get a couple of bags of catfish feed. And then he probably needed to run by Sneed’s and get a steel garbage can with a tight-fitting lid to keep the feed in. And he had to remember to be sitting by the phone Friday, waiting for the fish guy to call. He couldn’t imagine why the fish guy would be getting out of the business since it looked like a pretty interesting business. He wondered how the guy raised them. Maybe he could ask him when he got here. He had to go get the money from the barn. He’d do that Thursday night and have it ready for him.

  He heard the Brahman bawl out in the chute. He wished he had somebody to help him. She’d already cracked one of the posts and that wasn’t good. He didn’t think she could get out. She probably weighed twelve hundred pounds, though. Some of that old rotten wood might not hold. But there was nothing to do but wait and see.

  He got up and went over to the refrigerator and opened the door, wondering what he was going to have for lunch. Just about all the food from the funeral was gone. Even the ham, which had lasted a pretty long time. He wished he had some more of it. Maybe he needed to go buy a few groceries this afternoon after he got the catfish feed. He thought he wouldn’t mind having some bacon for his breakfast since he was getting tired of pancakes. Or maybe he needed some cereal. Cereal was easy. Just pour some milk on it. He didn’t much like cereal, though. It didn’t seem like it filled you up very much.

  He shut the refrigerator door and walked back over to the stove and looked at the pan. Some small bubbles were starting to arrange themselves in rings at the bottom of the water. He saw one little piece of shit float out of the milk tube and he reached in with just the tip of his finger and dipped it out, wiped it on his pants. Then he sat down at the kitchen table again. He played with the salt and pepper shakers. He pushed one this way, one the other way. He wished the water would hurry up and boil. Get this shit over with. He wondered if his wife had gone to heaven. He hoped so. She’d always wanted to.

  When the water finally boiled he turned off the burner and took the pot over to the sink and poured out the hot water and reached in f
or the milk tube and wrapped it in a paper towel because it was hot. He went ahead and lubricated it and then stepped back outside and put his boots back on and walked back up to the barn.

  Then he stopped. He stood there for a minute, looking at the cow, who was watching him. He knew as well as he knew his own name that she was going to kick him again. And he didn’t intend to keep washing and sterilizing that milk tube half the day.

  So he went back inside the barn and walked back to the harness room and unlatched it and went in and pulled the feed sacks off the trunk and raised the lid. He lifted the tray and didn’t take time to look at the locket again because he had more important things to do. He took the Thompson out and walked through the hall of the barn with the butt of the stock resting on his hip and he walked out into the bright sunshine and looked at the cow. She turned her head to watch him.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said. “If you kick me again, I’m gonna shoot you with this damn machine gun. I swear fore God.”

  That did it. He couldn’t back out now. It wasn’t even up to him anymore. He put the gun on the ground and walked over to her.

  She was still standing there waiting for him. He looked at her and started right that minute to go back to his truck and back it around to his cattle trailer and hook it up and pull it up to the end of the loading chute and load her, just take her on to Pontotoc. The calf was plenty old enough to be weaned. But he didn’t. He went ahead and squatted next to her back end again and reached in and got his hand around the swollen teat and then pushed the milk tube inside it. Blood and mucus came out first, then some chunks of white matter, then some stuff that looked like bits of butter came out, and the old cow stood there and let it drain. He looked up at her.

  She had her head turned again, watching him with a big round peaceful eye.

  “See there?” he said. He looked back down at the milk tube. Pure white milk was flowing now. He let it keep draining. Taking the pressure off her bag. He didn’t care that he was wasting her milk. Her calf didn’t need that much milk now. But that milk was why that calf was so big. Why all hers had been so big. She was a good one. Maybe he wouldn’t sell her after all.

  He squatted there, letting the white milk spatter in the greenish mud between her hind feet, until it made a puddle she was standing in, and then, finally, after what seemed to be several gallons of milk, it began to ebb.

  When he got done with her he untied her feet, took the posts from in front of her and turned her out the side gate and let her go back to her calf. He opened the gate to the heifer pen so that they could get back in to their water and then he went back to his truck and drove it down to the house and parked it. He thought he might watch a little TV before he went to town.

  Floating catfish feed was eleven dollars per bag, and Cortez got two. He’d already backed his truck around to the side of the warehouse and Toby walked out with him, holding his green sales slip, and handed it to a sleepy black guy who was in a chair with a fan blowing lots of hot air on him.

  “Two bags of catfish feed, Sam,” Toby said, and they waited while the guy took his two-wheeler and pushed it into the shadows of the big tin-covered building. Cortez wondered if they’d killed any more woodchucks in there lately. He saw some guy across the road picking up cans.

  “I think I’m fixing to retire,” Toby said, and leaned against the wall in the shade. Cortez leaned with him.

  “Shit. You done retired three times,” Cortez said.

  “I know it. My old leg gets to hurting, though. It’s walking on this concrete all day’s what it is. Lurlene has to rub my leg with liniment at night it hurts so bad sometimes.”

  They stood there in the heat. Cars and trucks were passing out on the street and there were lots of pickups parked at the Beacon Restaurant just up from there. A colorful sign on a brick house said local color.

  “You heard from Lucinda?” Toby said.

  “Naw. She ain’t called. I don’t reckon.”

  “She might of called while you’s gone,” Toby said.

  “I guess she could have,” Cortez said.

  “Maybe you ought to get you one of them answering machines,” Toby said. “That way you wouldn’t miss any calls. We got one.”

  “You do?”

  “Yep. Plus if it’s somebody you don’t want to talk to, you can just let the machine catch it.”

  “Well how you know who it is?” Cortez said.

  “Caller ID,” Toby said.

  “What’s that?” Cortez said.

  “It’s a little screen on your phone that lights up and shows you who’s calling. Like if it’s one of them asshole telemarketers trying to sell you something over the phone, you don’t have to answer it.”

  “My phone ain’t got no little screen on it,” Cortez said.

  “You got to get a new phone that’s got one,” Toby said.

  “Oh,” Cortez said.

  The warehouse guy came back out with two big blue paper bags on his two-wheeler and Cortez walked over to his truck and let down the tailgate so the guy could slide them in. Each bag had a picture of a catfish on it. The guy looked like he was about to keel over from sleepiness.

  “How much is that, fifty pounds?” Cortez said.

  “Yes sir,” the guy said. “You must a got you some catfish.

  ” “I’m fixing to,” Cortez said.

  When the bags of feed were in, he raised the tailgate and fastened it shut and told Toby he’d see him later, then he got back in his truck and left. He drove through town and up to the square and had to wait for the traffic to clear before he could pull out. Somebody behind him blew their horn and he looked into the rearview mirror to see some person looking at the back of his head.

  “Don’t you be blowing at me,” he said.

  It was very hot already and his truck didn’t have air conditioning. That had always seemed like a waste of money, to pay extra for air conditioning in a vehicle since you could always just roll the windows down. But Lucinda couldn’t drive one without it. Refused to. She damn sure hadn’t been raised like that. He hadn’t agreed to buy a window unit for the house until 1973, but he had to admit it was nice when the weather was really humid, like it was now. But he still liked sleeping with the windows up. He thought that night air was probably good for you. The traffic kept coming around the square and there wasn’t any way to pull out. The person behind him honked the horn again and Cortez pushed his truck into neutral and pulled out the hand brake, opened the door, and walked back to the car behind him. More horns started blowing. He didn’t pay them any attention. Some kid was behind the wheel of the car and Cortez knocked on the window. You could bet he had air conditioning.

  The window slid down just a crack. It was a boy about nineteen, and he looked a little scared. His car was shiny and new.

  “Yes sir?” he said.

  “What you blowing that damn horn at me for?” Cortez said.

  “I don’t know,” the kid said.

  “Don’t know?” Cortez said. He was about to get riled.

  Some more horns blew and Cortez looked up briefly. Some people in cars were staring at him. He looked back down at the boy.

  “I’ll pull out when all this traffic lets me out, all right?”

  “Yes sir,” the boy said.

  “But don’t blow that damn horn at me no more. I’ll pull you out of there and jerk a nanny goat in your ass. You understand me?”

  “Yes sir!” the boy said, and rolled his window back up fast.

  Cortez walked back to this truck and got in and released the hand brake and pushed in the clutch and pulled it down in first. There was a big break in the traffic and he pulled right on out.

  Some people were mowing the grass around the courthouse and a lot of people were out walking around. Things had changed a lot around the square but they were still kind of the same. Most of the stores were different. He remembered the hardware stores and dime stores that used to be on the square. A long time ago he used to bring his cotton
to town to get it ginned just off the square, down on Fourteenth. That was one of Lucinda’s favorite things to do when she was a kid, come to town with him in the fall to get the cotton ginned. He could remember a time when they were close and he could talk to her and all that had changed one day. He didn’t know what all her mother had told her about him. He felt like she’d told her some things about him. He just didn’t know what. Mostly he wondered if she knew about Queen. But he couldn’t ask her that.

  […]

  He drove out the other side of the square and followed the traffic down to the red light on University Avenue and sat in a line of cars and trucks waiting for the green arrow. He didn’t get to town very much these days and every time he did, something new had been added. A new business, a new place to eat, some kind of shop. More traffic. More people. He guessed it was like that everywhere. He was sure glad he lived out in the country and didn’t have to put up with all this every day.

  The line was so long that he had to wait for a second light and by then he was ready to get on home, just as soon as he got a few groceries. He finally got to turn and he went down the hill, past Sneed’s, and he glanced out that way to see if they had any steel garbage cans sitting out there. They did, and he put on his blinker to turn right and pulled into the parking lot. He parked and got out and put the keys in his pocket.

  They had some picnic tables and some grills set up outside under a big metal awning and he walked over to the garbage cans and looked at them. They had the prices posted on some cardboard signs. A thirty-gallon steel garbage can with a tight-fitting lid was $16.95 and one about half that size was $12.95. He stood there looking at them. He didn’t think the little can would hold both bags of catfish feed, so he grabbed one of the big ones and carried it over close to the front door and set it down and left it there and went inside.