Pansy: Bovine Genius in Wild Alaska

by Charles D. Hayes

  The Deal

  Ed was amazed at how much a person could get done in a few days and how many life-altering decisions one could make in a short time, decisions that would change things forever. Now, the hardest part was yet to come. He wasn’t concerned about telling his nephew. He’d already told Randy he was thinking about moving, and for that matter, Randy was welcome to come along to Idaho. Ed was much relieved, though, that he wasn’t going to have to sell the place. The university wanted to lease the property for ten years for experimental purposes and as an attempt to interest students in farming and ranching in Alaska. It had surprised him because the university already had lots of land, but they were especially interested in his place because of its remoteness. He had always thought his location was a liability, but they seemed interested in it for that very reason.

  As he drove past Palmer and Sutton, he thought about how things used to be when his family first moved to the Kellogg place. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It was a time when his daughter was the greatest joy in his life. Now she was his biggest worry, but not because he thought she would get into some kind of trouble. He just didn't know how to communicate with her anymore. Every attempt seemed to make things worse. At least he didn’t have to tell her he was selling out. True, it was a bit unfair to do that without discussing it with her, but leasing the place out while she was in college made sense. A provision in the lease would allow him or Mandy to live in the guest house at any time or for the whole ten years if they wanted to.

  This was the best of all possible deals. Even so, trying to explain to Mandy why he was just now telling her about his plans was going to be hard because it would be so obvious that he already had most things worked out. He had even made tentative plans to get rid of the herd. The move would clearly change her life forever. But now, with the lease, she could move back after college if she wanted to. She stood to inherit the place, and that was much better than the alternative.

  In Anchorage, Dave Tupelo had indeed offered Ed a job, and he had accepted. Of course, he would still have to pass tests and a background check, but he wasn’t the least bit worried. The university chancellor had flown from Fairbanks to Anchorage to meet him, and they had signed the lease agreement with their attorneys present. It had happened so fast, he wondered if he shouldn’t have held out for more money. Obviously the university administrators had been thinking about this project for a long time.

  No sense beating himself up over what might have been. This was a good deal and so much better than selling out that he would banish thoughts about second-guessing the transaction. The hardest thing now might just be Mandy’s having to part with her calf. But going off to college, she would have to do that in any case. Although he didn’t see her that way, he knew down deep that she was nearly a grown woman. How attached could she really be to a pet cow? How could anyone be that attached to a bovine beast for that matter? She had grown up on a cattle ranch, so she knew what happened to all of their stock, and she ate beef.

  This last thought brought him up short. The more he thought about it, the more he could not recall seeing her eat meat of any kind in months. Instead he’d noticed her eating some unusual entrées—food she didn’t offer him or Randy when they all ate together. It was interesting and a bit puzzling. Trained as a lawman to pay attention to detail, he should have thought of this earlier. Could this be another way for Mandy to punish him, by rejecting the very way he was working to make a living? If he built houses, would she want to live in a tent?

  Friends

  “How many people take their pet cow for a walk?” Mandy wondered. Probably not that many. Even if there were such people, it’s not likely that anyone else would ever know about it, and she didn’t plan to say anything just yet. Pansy would get restless and then start pacing in circles. Before long she would ever so gently nudge Mandy as if she wanted her to do something. So Mandy took her for walks. The third time this happened, Pansy had disappeared for a few minutes and come back with another cow. Thereafter, Mandy and two cows went for a walk each day, and each day, before and after the walk, Mandy would study in the shed with Pansy near at hand.

  Being so far away from a school to attend, Mandy had chosen correspondence study as an alternative. Working at her own pace, she had jumped far enough ahead that she was about to graduate high school almost two semesters early. Her grades were good enough to get her into the college of her choice, but she had only just recently decided on a career. Knowing her likes and dislikes, she wondered why it had taken her so long to figure it out. But now that she knew, she was discovering that what she had chosen as a career was one of the hardest and most competitive fields to get into. Who would have thought that the best medical students choose to be veterinarians instead of doctors? That they would rather treat sick animals than care for their own species?

  Mandy had been inspired by the television movie about the life of animal science professor Temple Grandin, and she was deeply sympathetic with the plight of large farm animals. Now, like Grandin and because of Pansy, cows were first on her list. Much of what she’d learned about cattle from Grandin's book she had long suspected. She had sensed that cows do not like to be yelled at, that they can tell when people are angry, and that they’re scared of sudden moves but are not as fearful as horses. Most of all, cattle are highly social animals who maintain close friendships and are very curious.

  Nellie. That’s what she would call Pansy’s new friend. She had named Daisy only a day before the bear killed her, so Mandy hoped that the act of naming this cow wouldn’t seal her fate. Of course, her dad had said he would spare Pansy, but he didn’t say that about any of the others. She would wait for a while to bring it up. No need to say anything now.

  Maybe after they saw her videos, Randy and Dad would start to think differently about her animals. Not likely though. They would want to think of Pansy as a freak of nature. The thought made her both angry and sad because blaming Randy, after all he had been through in the war and losing his mother, seemed unfair. She would have to wait and postpone her judgment. No sense being mad at people because of what you think they are going to do. Time would tell, and who knows what Pansy might do in the future?

  Nerve

  Doc wasn’t happy that Randy had blown out his stitches so fast, and the way he restitched the wound spoke louder than if he had expressed his annoyance verbally. This time the leg hurt. This time Randy would take the pain medication. In fact, it made him feel a little bolder than usual, so now was the time to act.

  When he walked into the deli, he could see Nadia behind the counter looking directly at him. He crutched himself to an abrupt halt and said, “Sorry about the commotion in here yesterday.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Those two are troublemakers, big trouble all the time. I wish they don’t come back, but they do always.”

  “Yeah, not likely they will stay away. Not many choices of places to go in a community as small as this one.” Randy knew he shouldn’t look at her so intently, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “What can I get for you today, kind sir? Is it true, a bear attack you?”

  “Nothing, thanks. And yes, it’s true about the bear. I just wanted to ask you something.”

  “What to ask?” She stepped toward him.

  He felt like an enemy sniper had sights on him, and if she said no, a bullet would pierce his heart.

  “I was wondering if I might take you out to dinner this weekend and maybe to a movie or something.” She studied his face for a moment that, to Randy, seemed like an eternity. She seemed to be at a loss for words. He watched as her lips began to move, and then a melodious sound reached his ears.

  “Yes, I would like that,” she said, smoothing her hair.

  “Is Saturday night okay?”

  “Yes,” she nodded.

  “Where should I pick you up? What’s a good time?”

  “Seven, and I meet you here.”

  “I can pick you up at home, it’s no trouble,”
he said.

  “No, I meet you here. Seven okay. Can I get you something to eat?”

  “No,” he said, smiling as though he’d won a raffle. “I got what I came for. See you Saturday at seven.”

  As he emerged from the deli, his crutches seemed weightless. Not only that, he felt alive, truly alive. This was the first time he had felt this way for as long as he could remember without also being in imminent danger. It also occurred to him for the first time that Nadia looked a lot like Mandy—same hair, same eyes. They could pass as sisters. He must remember to ask Mandy if she had seen Nadia or if she knew anything about her.

  Life seemed better today. Now, at least for the moment, reengaging in combat seemed ludicrous. If only he could maintain this stance, but he sensed it would be difficult to stop those ever more frequent nagging feelings. They would come over him at times like a wave of nausea, but instead of feeling sick, he felt terribly unimportant. If he wasn't putting his life on the line, his effort at whatever he was doing felt disingenuous and like a waste of time. How was he going to stop this cycle that was slowly turning into a kind of self-loathing?

  The worry was enough to blot out any joy he might feel about his upcoming date. All of those people he had ridiculed before, believing that they were faking symptoms of PTSD. Now he was beginning to understand firsthand what it’s like to crave something you should despise and to despise yourself when deprived of the privilege. A privilege, that's what it was, wasn't it? Wasn't serving your country a privilege?

  Secrets

  For weeks Nadia had hoped Randy Kellogg would ask her for a date. He seemed surprised that she knew his last name, but she knew a lot about him. She had become interested when her friend and fellow deli employee, Elena, told her one day about the young man who kept looking at her, especially when she couldn’t see him. So both she and Elena started asking around about Randy, and before long she began returning Randy’s glances and wondering why it was taking him so long if he was really interested. All the while she worried and wondered what he would think if he knew the truth about her situation. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Surely a good person would not be bothered by such things. Still, she worried, and what would Uncle Vadim think about Randy?

  The English language was still a challenge and so was trying to understand the culture of interior Alaska. To her way of thinking, the rudeness she witnessed sometimes daily was astounding; people were so rude and disrespectful here compared to the community where she grew up. At least that's how it seemed, so she was surprised to hear locals say this was such a friendly community. Maybe people here seemed rude simply because she did not understand them.

  She had left Ukraine just a few months before she turned eighteen, having already adjusted to a world very different from the one she was now exposed to. To her, it felt like a contradiction of sorts that Randy Kellogg’s treatment of the town bully did not make her think less of him. Instead she thought the better of him for having dealt harshly with the man. In a way, she considered it an act of chivalry. Atwood had asked her out repeatedly, and he’d been mean and impolite to her ever since she’d made it clear that she would never go out with him. Elena said Atwood had been watching her and the Marine exchanging glances on several occasions, and he appeared to be angry about it.

  Nadia was a little disturbed upon hearing that the Kelloggs were very rich by her standards, because rich to her meant greedy and very likely abusive. Of course, Randy appeared to be nice and a little shy, perhaps as shy as she felt in a land very much at odds with her homeland, and this helped explain her concern that Randy would find out her secrets. She assumed that people in Alaska would expect the kind of hospitality that her countrymen expected, but she and her uncle could not provide it simply because they were too poor. So poor that she feared letting anyone find out where and how she lived, and that was only the beginning of her worries.

  At times she wondered if she wouldn’t be better off going back to Ukraine. Alaska was just so different. She’d grown up poor, but then she’d had so much company that for many years most of her friends didn’t even know they were poor. It was just the way things were. Then things began to change rapidly, and now, here in this country, the poor stood out. They weren’t thought of kindly at all, but instead as a scourge of sorts.

  If she had more American friends, maybe she could determine why their views seemed so different from hers. She suspected it was mostly based on a misunderstanding among cultures that made people overly suspicious of people who seem different, but this was just a hunch, a hopeful one, because she had no real evidence to show that it was true. She would make an effort to find out. If Randy proved to be a disappointment, she might consider going back home to Ukraine.

  Nadia’s life in Ukraine had been hard, but it was familiar, more familiar than this strange country. Not much was left in Ukraine to go back to, though. Her grandparents had died before she was born, and she was only nine when her mother died. Since her father’s death a few years ago, Uncle Vadim was her only living relative, and she feared his time was limited. She needed something to believe in, especially this country, but first she needed to understand it. She needed to figure out what made Americans different from Russians, and she needed to know if it would make any difference in the way she felt about both. So far, she thought Americans worked harder but enjoyed their lives less than Russians. Americans, it seemed, lived too much in the future and Russians too much in the past. She wondered how hard it would be to find middle ground.

  Nadia had one problem that mostly likely would end with her new-found happiness blowing up in her face. She didn’t know what to do. The only thing she knew for sure is that she was scared, and this was a bad omen.

  Plans

  Ed wasn’t angry when Randy phoned to tell him about the incident with the bear. He was just glad Randy wasn’t hurt worse than needing a few stitches. This was one thing he would take care of before they left the state. That marauding son-of-a-bitch had to go. When he’d discussed the matter with Fish and Game, they had told him that if they weren’t so short-handed they would do it themselves. No matter, though. This time he would not get sidetracked the way he had so many times before. If he were selling the place, he might let the matter pass, but he didn’t want any students at the ranch one day finding dead livestock on the property.

  He’d already agreed to sell most of the herd to three members of his livestock association, but he was going to have to slaughter about eighty head. He’d made the necessary arrangements to use a new portable on-site slaughterhouse that would come to the ranch to set up instead of his having to truck the cattle in. They said it would save time, money, and stress on the stock, and it made sense. The day after he got home from Anchorage, he asked Randy to bring the subject up to Mandy about moving. He wanted her to come to him and broach the subject instead of the other way around. He thought it would be easier that way, but as usual, when it came to second-guessing his daughter, he would come to understand he was wrong about this too.

  So, for several days, no one mentioned anything about moving. The strain was getting to him. He couldn’t have the meat packer show up without having told Mandy about what he was doing. She would soon be leaving for college, he rationalized. Moving at this time in her life shouldn’t be so bad. There was a lot they would have to do to get out of Alaska before winter set in again. Lots of things to do and so little time. Wasn’t that the very crux of life, though? No matter his age or the time and place, there was never enough time. But somehow Alaska seemed to make the time shortage worse. The long days of summer and the short days of winter added a sense of urgency for anyone with plans.

  It seemed always to be his fate that he had a plan on the table or in the wind, and always there were personal matters he needed to attend to but kept putting off. It had even been true when Amy was alive. As a peace officer he was so good at helping others with personal problems and so inept when it came to his own. Why was it that he would not hesitate to enter a building
in pursuit of an armed fugitive but would rather take a beating than have an emotional confrontation with his daughter? It made no sense, and the fact that it didn't added to his disgust with himself. This wouldn't be nearly such a big deal if he hadn't put it off for so long. Something would have to change. They had to talk.

  First Date

  It was clear now that Uncle Ed and Mandy would be moving on soon. Randy felt pressure to decide what he was going to do. Should he stay here or go with them? Should he reenlist? What about Nadia? He didn’t know her, although he wanted to know her as much as he wanted anything. He had also learned that she and the uncle she lived with were poverty stricken, but you couldn’t tell by the way she dressed. Her clothes were simple but clean and not out of style, that is, if you could say style and Delta Junction in the same sentence. Could her interest in him be real or could it be that she was simply desperate to escape poverty? Thinking about it made him uneasy and a little disheartened.

  When he’d told his friend Gus that he had a date with Nadia, he detected a little jealousy. But then Gus told him all about Nadia, at least what he knew, which seemed like a lot from someone who had never talked to her except to place food orders. Gus said he’d heard that you never wanted to say anything negative, or the petite little lady from Ukraine would hand you your head. Perhaps it was just the cost of being the prettiest girl in a small town that everything she did was discussed by most everyone, as if it were public business.

  His thoughts grew further tangled by Mandy’s reaction when he mentioned to her that Ed wanted to move but was worried about telling her. She had not said a word at first, and then she said, “Great,” seconds before bursting into tears and leaving the room. Sometimes he thought combat was much simpler, and even more desirable in some ways, than domestic life, but then he also knew that when he was on the battlefield, all he could think about was home. How awful, how unfortunate, and how absurd life can be to always wish you were somewhere else. The only time he didn’t feel that way now was when he was thinking about Nadia. He needed to think objectively, but he wasn't even sure he knew how. His recent marathon of deep reading had upended his worldview to such a degree that he wasn't sure about anything. He wasn't even sure about his uncertainty. The only thing he was sure about was Nadia.