Drive - A Memoir 75th Installment
all
the ferals and strays alike. One morning all we found of our white
duck was a pile of feathers and some body parts in a red stain in the
grass. I figured the duck fell victim to the pack of wild dogs
roaming the farms. Nope, there’s no question about it – farm
animals have it hard.
Trudging
back to the house after the incident with Heidi, apparently with cows
on his mind, Russ asked if I remembered about the two headed calf.
“You
mean the one the Old Man kept in the freezer?”
“The
very one,” Russ acknowledged.
“Yea,
I remember when it was born. It was the only time Vern ever called a
vet.” The cow had lived, but the two–headed calf didn’t. Both
heads – dead. The second head was connected at the ear and jowl
giving the odd animal four eyes, three ears and two snouts with
mouths. “If the calf had lived, that critter could eat twice as
fast, maybe even faster than me. Freaky,” I said with a shudder.
The
whole incident came up again when one day we heard Edith yell,
“What’s this thing in the freezer with our food?!”
“It’s
the two headed calf!” the Old Man said smugly.
Edith
in a higher octave screamed, “What’s this thing in the freezer
with our FOOD?!”
“I
rolled it up in plastic and then an old canvas dam. It’ll be okay.
Besides, when it freezes no more stuff will leak out!” Vern
answered defensively.
“Get
it out of my freezer!” she cried.
“It’ll
be worth a lot of money. If we get it stuffed, people will come from
all over the world and pay big bucks to see it,” Vern maintained,
adding up the big bucks in his mind, eyes gleaming.
“It
will not. Who’s going to come to Idaho and drive forty miles into
the desert to see this freak of nature?” Edith countered.
“We’ll
take it to town, or better yet, we’ll sell it.” Vernon was still
scheming.
Edith,
calmer now said, “Dream on you crazy old fool.” That calf stayed
in the bottom of the freezer for about a year. The Old Man didn’t
sell it, and nobody came to see it. The event just made great
conversation from time to time among the farmers.
Eventually, after
the freezer became too full to hold all our food, Vern reluctantly
took the two–headed calf to Bone Hill.
“You
know we’ve been to Bone Hill several times since then, and I
haven’t seen a two–headed skull!” Russ said.
“You
know you’re right, neither have I. Just maybe. . .” I mused.
“Just maybe the Old Man really didn’t take it to Bone Hill. Maybe
he took it to someone else’s freezer or sold it and kept the money
for himself!”
Bone
Hill was a grotesque monument to the near constant presence of death
on our farm
500 more words tomorrow
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