8. Eight Seconds to Change a Life

“I think I just killed him.” Dad stared in horror at my limp body. Mom, Uncle Darin and my siblings all ran to the edge of the pen, looks of terror on their faces. My skull ached, and stabs of pain shot from my neck as I slumped off of my head. Flash back thirty minutes to the car pulling up to the sunbaked corral.

            The noonday sun blanketed the earth, shrinking shadows to small black dots. Inside the corral stood the champion. Roughly 600 pounds of muscle bulged black and white hide stood, ready to take on any challengers. Or at least to my nine-year-old eyes it was. The cow looked up as it heard the laughter and joking from my family as they piled out of our mini-van. My Uncle Darin pulled up in his big burgundy truck, a silly grin pasted on to his face. In his hand was a long blue rope, tied into a bowline knot; a cow-head sized loop dangling at the end. He called to my brother and me.

            “What I need from you both is to go into that corral and heard all the cows out through the gate. Leave the best one in there, and try to get this rope around its neck. Once you get all extras into the next corral, shut the gate and we can get started.”

            It must have been a silly sight, watching two boys adding up to maybe a hundred pounds running around trying to scare a bunch of cows five to seven times their combined size. The cows thought it was pretty funny as well and didn’t take the slightest of interest in our efforts. Eventually we managed to get one cow cornered, and with a whole lot of luck managed to get a rope around her neck. Dad and Uncle Darin came into the corral at this point, and with a lot more effort, we managed to get the roped cow isolated. Now the fun began.

            First up was Ellie. Mom glared at Dad as he held onto the back of her pants as she “rode” the cow. At three years old, her instincts were strong enough to know that it would be bad if she fell, so we all got a laugh seeing her scream and hold on for dear life as the cow pranced around the hard-pressed manure.  As the cow picked up its speed, Dad lifted her off to avoid the sting of falling four feet onto the hard dung.

Derrik was not as lucky. As a strong, independent seven year old, he didn’t need the supporting grip of his father. Unfortunately his landing wasn’t as smooth as his sister’s. After a few seconds of prancing around, the cow was successful in shaking my brother off its back and onto the ground. Derrik landed on his side, smacking his head onto the concrete like surface. He blinked the stars out of his vision as my dad and uncle laughed, remembering all the times they had done the same thing as children. Here they were, passing on a family tradition to their posterity. Their laughter intensified as Derrik picked some of the small bits of dried cow crap out of his shirt and hair. Even Mom stopped her worrying for an instant as I dove around trying to grab the rope tied to the cow as it ran around evading its next rider.

            Eventually I caught the rope and attempted to drag the massive animal to my dad and uncle. Moments like these were what I looked forward to every year when my family made its annual trip back to the farm. My dad still referred to this place as home, and tried every year to give us the kind of childhood experiences he had had growing up here. The farm was full of mystery and adventure. I remember bonfires at the river under the train bridge, aluminum foil boat races in the drainage ditches, driving the four-wheelers and gaiters around, always looking for new places to explore. This cow riding was introduced last year, and was a huge success for Derrik and me. What is cooler than being a bull-rider? Maybe we weren’t bull-riders, but it was still pretty cool to be atop an animal 10 times my size, using all my strength to hold on. I had been waiting all year to go again. Last year I lasted six seconds before falling to a hard defeat. This year I had more ambition. I was going to go a full eight seconds, just like the bull-riders on TV.

            As my dad and uncle held the cow in place, I jumped onto the back of the beast. My legs felt like they were in the splits as I straddled the cows bare back, holding onto the rope until my knuckles turned white. As my family let go, I felt a rush of adrenalin and knew this was my time.

            “One,” yelled Dad as the cow took off. I grinned from ear to ear as the cow ran sporadically through the corral, my head down in concentration as the numbers climbed closer and closer to my goal. “Two, Three, Four, Five.” I began to slip off the side as the cow turned, but somehow managed to keep my place on its back. “Six, Seven, Eight!” I heard my goal yelled out from across the pen. I looked up just in time to see the cow darting straight for a cast-iron fence. With my goal met, I confidently started to shift my weight off to the side and release my grip to prepare for a quick getaway before I was slammed into the fence.

            As I committed to the jump, I felt a sudden change underneath me. Instead of a level back, suddenly I felt a wall of flesh bucking up through me. With my weight shifted and the rope not in my grip, I experienced the delight of weightlessness as my body flew through the sky. I watched as my world went upside down as I flipped over five to six feet in the air, and then saw the sky start to get farther and farther away. I heard my mom’s shriek as the back of my neck made contact with the hard earth, and my body crumpled over.

            I honestly can’t remember much of what followed. All I know is that it involved a lot of pain, and yelling, and that I spent the next few hours lying down in my grandmother’s bed. In the middle of all of the fog, I can clearly remember one thing. My dad looking down at me, his usually strong confident facial expression replaced with one of concern. He cleared his cleared his throat and said, “Dalton, you have my permission to never listen to Uncle Darin or me on the farm again.” As the days went by and my body started to feel normal again, I could see a shift in the way he treated my siblings and me. Though we still did fun things, my dad no longer tried to push us to the limit. He started using words like “be careful,” and “that’s risky.” Though we might have missed out on some of the more fun things to do on the farm, we were able to see the care our father had for us, and knew of his love.

            One year latter, back on that same farm, things seemed pretty normal. Derrik and I were still having bonfires with the cousins, still driving the four-wheelers and gaiters, just like before. But this time, when Derrik asked me to help him take the four-wheeler off a rickety homemade jump, I thought of the risks involved. We ended up driving off the jump, but not before I said, “Maybe we should think about the landing part too.”