The Beef Princess of Practical County

by Michelle Houts

  The judge stopped in front of her steer. Obviously day-dreaming, Lil was suddenly jerked back to reality as her steer reared his head back, spooked by the judge's slight touch on the nose. Lil snapped to attention, yanking roughly on the halter and using her show stick like a cattle prod. Her steer bolted forward, the audience gasped, and Mr. Fields from the Cattlemen's Club leaped into action to help her get the animal under control.

  I caught the whole thing from the corner of my eye, never taking my attention from Mule. I whispered softly in his ear, telling him what a fine job he was doing, all the while remaining keenly aware of the judge's movements.

  After several minutes and with much assistance from Mr. Fields, Lil and her steer were back in line. Lil looked disgusted, the animal looked impatient, and the judge looked completely unimpressed.

  Lil's control of her steer didn't last long. As she was picking at her fuchsia fingernail polish, her scraggly Hereford lurched forward. She jerked hard on his halter and muttered something I couldn't hear in his ear, but I was willing to bet it wasn't very complimentary.

  Suddenly, the steer leaped out of line and bolted across the show ring, spooking several others with his wild motion. Instantly, there was chaos in the ring. Around me, everyone else was struggling to keep control of their own situation. Lil's steer had set off a chain reaction.

  “It's okay,” I told Mule, who never flinched but instead blinked his long eyelashes as if to say, “I know.”

  Running and kicking wildly, Lil's steer made a complete circle around the ring with Lil still hanging on to his lead rope, screaming for help.

  “Don't you let go, girl!” I heard Mr. Darling command as the men from the Cattlemen's Club dashed into the ring to rescue Lil.

  “Let go, baby! Let go before that thing hurts you, sugar!”

  That was Mrs. Darling yelling from the stands. I caught a glimpse of her peeking out from behind her own fuchsia finger nails as her hands covered her face in horror.

  Precious stood in the bleachers and shouted, “Don't let him drag you, Lil. Those are my jeans you're wearing!”

  Beside her sat Ohma, looking somewhat unsympathetic to her older sister's plight. She looked directly at me, and just as I was about to smile at her, an enormous crash turned all heads to the far end of the arena.

  Lil's steer had jumped the gate and was headed toward the midway, leaving Lil sprawled in the sawdust. The other exhibitors circled their nervous animals around the ring, the roar of Mr. Darling's voice echoed through the show arena, and Mrs. Darling grabbed a reluctant Ohma to go help Lil.

  “What'd you let go for?” Mr. Darling bellowed.

  Lil was in tears, rubbing the rope burns on her palms. Her father didn't even wait for an answer as he jumped the gate and joined the other men who had gone to try to bring the steer back.

  Lil was in her mother's doting care when the announcer called for everyone's attention and the judge resumed the show. He gave us the signal to walk. Here goes nothing, I thought. I tucked the show stick under my arm and pulled with both hands as hard as I could.

  Mule's big blue eyes met mine and with a slow blink he took a hesitant first step and then another and another. He was walking! Mule, my stubborn steer, was doing just as he was supposed to just when he was supposed to.

  “Good fella, good guy,” I praised him as I returned my gaze to the judge.

  Twice around the ring with Emmett Erickson's fuzzy red and white Shorthorn on my tail, and the judge gave us the motion to stop. Now, “Stop” was a command I knew Mule would obey.

  I set him up, all four hooves in perfect position. Lifting his head, I stepped behind him so that the judge could get one final look at his long body, muscular shoulders, and perfect back.

  Just then the judge motioned me to the center of the ring. A hush fell over the arena as I silently pleaded with Mule to move. As if he'd read my mind, he set off for the center of the ring just as soon as I pulled on his halter.

  My mind raced as I set up Mule again in the center of the ring. Had the judge liked my steer? He put Karen Elliott and her Angus beside me.

  The audience was silent except for a few whispers each time the judge placed another exhibitor. Everyone was speculating, trying to guess what was going on in the judge's mind.

  Mule remained patient. I glanced from Mule to the judge and back again, but once when I looked up, I saw Dad. He was standing near the gate, and we made eye contact. With a knowing, confident smile spreading across his face, he winked.

  The judge finished lining up the last few steers, took one long, final look, and picked up the microphone. If he stood close enough, I was sure the mike could pick up the pounding of my heart.

  “Good afternoon, folks. Let's give each of these young people a round of applause, as they've done a real nice job with these animals.”

  The silence was broken with a smattering of applause that quickly died as the judge continued. Everyone was anxious to hear what he would say next.

  “I think we've got a real clear winner in this weight class here today.”

  My heart was pounding. The winner was clear, he said.

  “We're going to start off this class with the young lady on the end here.”

  He was pointing at me!

  Mule had just won his class!

  A round of genuine, rousing applause broke out over the arena as the judge handed me my ribbon. I couldn't stop smiling. I quickly clipped the blue rosette to Mule's halter and whispered my congratulations in his ear. I was so proud of him.

  Karen was awarded second place, and together we headed for the gate.

  Dad was right there, waiting, grinning.

  He hugged me and gave Mule a congratulatory slap on the side at the same time.

  “Here, I'll take him,” he said, reaching for the lead rope.

  “It's okay, Dad, I got him. Are we done?” I asked.

  “For now. But the class winners will go back in for the final drive after supper. You're in the running for Grand Champion!”

  A class winner and a real shot at Grand Champion. Things couldn't have gone any better.

  With Mule back in the beef barn, munching on a reward of grain and hay, my family and I took a seat in the bleachers to watch the other weight classes. The winners of these would be my competition in the final round.

  The next weight class to come out into the ring was a good-looking group of steers slightly smaller than Mule. As they entered one by one, I began to evaluate each steer in my mind. There were two I could dismiss immediately. Second one, too thin. Fourth one, a little fat for his frame. That left five others that all looked great to me. I began to appreciate how difficult it must be for the judge to sort out these animals.

  Granddad whispered, “I'm going with the Shorthorn.”

  I took a long look at Josh Joseph's red and white steer. The Josephs’ Shorthorns were known throughout the Midwest, and Josh had raised a nice-looking one to show this year.

  Minutes later, the judge was greeting Josh Joseph with a congratulatory handshake. Granddad had called it right, as usual.

  As the judge lined up the next class, Dad returned with a box that smelled so wonderful I knew what was in it before he even opened it. Cattlemen's burgers, hot and juicy. There was only one week a year to savor those one-third-pound, one hundred percent Grade A lean beef burgers. The rest of the year, a person could only savor the memory and dream of the next Practical County Fair.

  Why didn't I wait until after the fair to become a vegetarian? I moaned to myself. I was starving. I hadn't eaten a thing before the show. Dad passed the burgers down the row of bleachers, and one by one I sent them on until everyone had one but me.

  “You gonna eat?” Dad asked.

  “Naw, not right now,” I said with a shrug.

  He shook his head but didn't say another word. I turned my head toward the arena, hoping to catch a whiff of sawdust and manure. Anything to get my mind off those burgers.

  Jack Evans won the heavy
weight class with a monster of an Angus.

  “Whoa.” Carol Ann drew in her breath. “That one is massive.”

  Yeah, no kidding, I thought. A massive threat to Mule in the final round.

  The last class of steers was the lightest class. Precious Darling's thin little Angus with the white Ohio-shaped spot would be in this class, along with some other smaller but nicer-looking animals. As they entered the ring, Precious pulled her small black steer along, flashing her brightest smile at the judge. Her show clothes were perfect, her hair sprayed so it wouldn't move an inch in the draft of the fans. If she couldn't impress the judge with her steer, she was hoping to win him over with her stunning good looks.

  Precious set up her steer. How had that calf learned to stand so well? Lil's animal was so wild it took three men to keep it in the ring, and even they had failed. And Precious's steer stood perfectly on command? I doubted that she had spent a single minute more in the barn all year than her sister had.

  “Hey, Libby,” Carol Ann said. “When we saw that calf in the beef barn the other day, wasn't his hair a lot messier?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed as Precious passed by us with her spotless steer. It would take weeks of washing and brushing to make a steer's hair that shiny and smooth. Something was up.

  But another thing was bothering me. Of all the lightweight steers out there, Precious Darling's was the best-looking.

  Granddad whispered, “It's gonna be the Angus.”

  The judge walked to the microphone.

  “These calves are just a little smaller framed than the rest of those shown here today, but there's one out here that you just have to like for the muscle he's got on him despite his smaller size, and that's this smiling young lady's steer right here in front of me.”

  The applause in the arena was nearly drowned out by the whispers in the crowd. One of Jim Darling's daughters had a class winner after all these years of Darlings being at the bottom.

  “Who would have thought?” Dad commented later that evening when we got Mule ready for his second show.

  The hot breeze of the afternoon had settled, leaving us with a still, humid night. Flies buzzed around Mule's head as I used the last of the fly spray on his neck.

  “There's another can in the truck,” Dad told me.

  “I'll be back in a bit,” I replied.

  There was something going on with Precious Darling's steer, but I wasn't sure what. I thought about it as I walked out across the field of parked trucks and empty livestock and horse trailers.

  That was when I heard something coming from the trailers. It sounded like a long, low moo.

  There shouldn't be any livestock this far from the barns, I thought.

  Had a steer gotten loose? I had to move closer to listen better, so I took a few more steps toward the lot. Just then, a shadow moved across the trailer to my right, so I quietly slipped behind a pickup truck and peeked up over the bed. I couldn't believe my eyes.

  It was Jim Darling, walking up to a parked stock trailer. Mr. Darling opened the back of the trailer, revealing a black steer inside. I watched breathlessly as he gave it some feed and water and then jumped out of the trailer, closed the door tightly, and walked away toward the beef barn.

  It was all starting to make sense. Precious's surprise win, her steer's sudden makeover. But there was only one way I could be sure. I stole from one trailer to the next until I was standing right beside the red trailer marked DARLING FARMS. I could hear the steer moving around inside.

  I looked around quickly, and seeing no one, I stepped up onto the wheel cover on the side of the trailer. Peering through the metal slats, I could see the steer with his head bent over his feed pan. Even in the dim light, I could see that his mottled fur was anything but well groomed. I clicked my tongue twice to get his attention. I needed to see his face to be sure. Then he lifted his head and turned to face me, still chewing, hay hanging out of both sides of his mouth.

  There before me was the proof. This was the black calf with the small white spot in the shape of Ohio on his fore-head. If this was the steer Precious Darling had brought to the fair, then the one in the show today, the one in the barn now, must have come from somewhere else.

  “Libby Ryan!”

  The voice startled me so that I lost my footing and fell squarely on my butt in the grass.

  “What are you doing?”

  It was Precious who had caught me looking into the trailer. From my point of view there on the ground, she looked older, taller, and more intimidating than ever.

  “I, um, I…”

  Think fast, Libby. Think fast.

  Why was I so nervous? She was one who'd just been caught cheating. She was the one who should be shaking in her pointy-toed pink boots.

  I stood and looked her in the eye. I knew the truth, and she couldn't lie her way out of it.

  “You switched steers, didn't you?”

  “I did not,” Precious lied.

  “You did. I saw your steer the first day of the fair. He was a scraggly-looking thing with a white spot on his forehead.”

  “So? Maybe I cleaned him up good. Everyone cleans up their animals for show, Libby. You know that.”

  She was going to try her best to talk her way out of the corner she'd put herself in.

  “No, Precious, I know that's not true, because the first steer, the one you really raised, is right here in this trailer. Where'd you get the other one? My guess is that your daddy paid a whole lot for it not all that long ago. Say, yesterday, maybe? After you got here and realized that the competition was just too tough for your own neglected steers to stand up against?”

  I had her now. I could see it in the look on her face and the way she opened her mouth and nothing came out. I had just one more thing to say.

  “I am going to the Cattlemen's Club right this minute and telling them that you've been cheating. You'll lose your class winner, and your entire family will be banned from showing at the Practical County Fair this year and next year, too.”

  I was standing up to Precious Darling, and it felt great. There was almost nothing she could say now.

  Almost.

  Precious Darling seemed fazed for only a minute before she shook her long blond hair, batted her long fake eye-lashes, and leaned in close to me.

  “Libby Ryan, you hear this,” she hissed. “You may think you have things all figured out, but let me tell you that if you so much as breathe one word of your suspicions to any-one”—she was right up in my face now; I had no idea what was coming next—“I will tell all of Practical County that your stupid, sorry excuse for a pageant gown came from a thrift store.”

  I stared at her. I liked my dress. I didn't care where it came from, or who knew it, for that matter. I opened my mouth to tell her, but Precious wasn't done.

  “Have you ever even been to a pageant, Libby?”

  I didn't answer. I hadn't. It wasn't exactly the part of the fair that had appealed to me in the past.

  “Do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into?”

  Again, I didn't know what to say.

  “I didn't think so.” She smirked. “Let me tell you this much. Pageants are for pretty girls, Libby. The judges look for poise. And beauty. They pick girls who stand out onstage. Not tomboys who need the scholarship money.”

  I hated to think that she might possibly know what she was talking about. But, of course, she did. She held the record for having won the pageant more often than any other girl in Practical County.

  “And let me tell you what the others will be wearing. Gorgeous, name-brand evening gowns from department stores in Fort Wayne or Indianapolis. Not cheap, pathetic little dresses from secondhand stores.”

  I was speechless. The triumph showed on her face.

  “Oh, don't worry, Libby. Your dress will be fine,” she said sarcastically. “I just hope something doesn't happen to it before the big night.”

  Was she threatening to mess with my dress before the pageant? I had no dou
bt she would stoop to something so drastic. She knew I had nothing else I could possibly wear.

  “Well, I guess that settles it, then.” She glared. And with that she stomped off toward the beef barn, leaving me dumbfounded.

  The exhibitors and their animals left the beef barn one by one and entered the ring where the judge already paced. First I noticed the stands. There were so many more people here this evening than there had been this afternoon. Dad was standing at the end of the arena with a few other anxious fathers. My eyes searched the bleachers. Mom and Ronnie and Frannie. Granddad. Carol Ann was there. Mayor Thompson and Dr. Susan. And my dentist. It seemed like all of Nowhere had turned out for the final round of the beef show.

  So far, Mule was walking well. Calm, cool Mule.

  Suddenly the exhibitor in front of me stopped, and Mule nearly rear-ended Josh's Shorthorn.

  Pay attention, I thought. Focus.

  I'd had very little time to consider what to do about Precious Darling, her cheating, and her threats. My first plan had been to turn in Precious and quit the pageant. But my goal since I decided to enter had been to make sure an-other Darling didn't represent the cattle farmers of Practical County for another year. I couldn't win if I didn't even try.

  My second thought, and probably the one that burned me the most, was of Ohma. I had befriended her the night her steer died, and she had betrayed me by telling her sisters about my dress. How could I have been so dumb as to trust a Darling? I'd thought Ohma was different from her sisters, but it sure looked like I was wrong.

  At some point while I brushed and haltered Mule for the evening's competition, I decided to keep my mouth shut and see how the final round of the beef show went with Precious in it. I was still sure Mule could beat her, even with her counterfeit steer.

  So there we stood. Josh Joseph with his Shorthorn, Jack Evans with his enormous Angus, Precious with her impostor, and me with Mule. Four class winners battling it out in the final drive for Grand and Reserve Champion Steer at the Practical County Fair.