The Lasso

The Lasso

Copyright 2017 by Tony Bowman

All Rights Reserved

The old man sat in his chair under the apple tree and listened to the cattle wail. The sound was monotonous and loud, though only two of the herd were actually calling: the cow standing at the foot of the steep mountain calling for the newborn calf, and the calf standing in a meadow high above, calling for its mother.

The old man sighed. He took a deep breath, which after they had cut away most of his left lung the summer before, was more of a half breath.

The cicadas sang in the Appalachian afternoon with the sun beating down. It was cool under the apple tree, the smell of rotten apples wafted up from the grass – the tree never birthed anything bigger than a crab apple, and these tiny apples formed a spongy mat of rot underneath the spreading green canopy, carrion for yellow jackets and ants.

He stood up and walked across the damp yard, feeling the apples turn to mush under his feet.

The boy lay on the concrete carport, a fleet of Matchbox cars arrayed in front of him. He looked up as his grandfather passed by on his way to the side yard.

A transistor radio sat beside the boy. “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” droned on endlessly from WRIC AM as it seemed to do that entire summer of 1973, adding the singer’s voice to the cacophony of insect jubilation and bovine lamentation.

“That how you solve a problem?” the old man asked. “You just turn up the radio loud and drown it out?”

“I don’t know.” The boy got up and followed the old man. His eldest daughter’s boy was tall for an eight-year-old but pudgy. “Where we goin’?”

“Away from that racket,” the old man said.

The silver leaf maple at the edge of the yard kept the silver side of its leaves pointed toward the ground, a sign there would be no rain to cool the heat of the day.

The old man reached up and plucked a fat green caterpillar from a leaf.

The boy watched mesmerized as the old man took out his pocket knife and cut the caterpillar in two.

“Why’d you do that?” the boy asked.

“’Cause he’s eatin’ my maple.”

He held one of the caterpillar halves in front of the boy’s eyes. “What’s that look like?”

The boy stared at the gooey center of the former caterpillar. “Lime Jell-O.”

“Reckon it tastes like lime Jell-O?” the old man asked with a grin.

The boy laughed. “No, sir.”

“Naah, I expect it tastes like leaves.” He took another half breath. It was infuriating to have to gulp for air after walking twenty yards.

The old man dropped the caterpillar halves on the ground and turned back toward the mountain. The cow and calf continued their harmonizing.

“How come they do that?” the boy asked.

“Newborn calf’s legs work just fine going uphill, not so much coming back down. Followed its mama up the mountain, but couldn’t follow her down.” The old man looked into the backyard of the farmhouse at the empty clothesline. Three long strands of green plastic-coated, wire-core line ran the length of the yard.

The cicadas buzzed and the cattle complained, and the old man formed a plan. He walked to the clothesline and began untying one of the strands from the T-shaped steel post.

“What are you doin’, Pa?” the boy asked as he ran to keep up.

“You’ll see,” he said. The boy called him Pa and the old man’s wife was Ma.

“I don’t think you oughtta be messin’ with Ma’s clothesline…”

“Reckon she’ll be ill about it?”

“Reckon so.”

“Well, I won’t tell if you won’t.”

The boy smiled. “I suppose we can just string it back up once we’re done…”

Pa smiled, took out his pocket knife, and cut the line in half about midway down the yard.

“Now she’s going to be ill,” the boy said

Pa laughed. He started to cough.

The boy looked concerned.

Pa held up his hand. “I’m all right.”

The boy stayed worried.

A few weeks before, the old man had fallen asleep in the house while he and the boy watched television.

He awoke to find the boy holding a mirror under his nose to make sure he was breathing.

“I ain’t dead,” Pa had said.

The boy had put the mirror away quickly. “Sorry. You were breathing awful shallow.”

They took the length of clothesline back to Pa’s chair under the apple tree. He sat down and took some deep breaths.

The boy watched as Pa’s weathered fingers made a knot in the end of the green plastic line and fed the other end through it.

“You makin’ a lasso?” the boy asked.

“Yep.”

“What for?”

He paused and caught his breath. “Because you are going to go up that mountain, lasso that little bull and lead it down to its mama.”

The boy’s eyes grew wide. “I’m going to what?”

“You heard me. Can’t leave that calf up there like that. Pack of dogs might come along.” He put the loops of the lasso in the boy’s hands.

“But, Dad will be home in a couple of hours. He can bring it down.”

“No sense in botherin’ your dad with such a thing. Ain’t nothin’ to it.” He held his arm over his head and swung it in a circular motion. “You just get the loop a goin’ and throw it on the calf’s head. Then pull the rope tight.”

The boy looked at the rope in his hand with a look of awe and terror. “What if he don’t want to come down?”

“You’re a big boy – make him.”

*    *    *

Growing up on a cattle farm, the boy learned all the dangers at an early age. Angry bulls were at the top of the list, though the only bull on the farm at the time was the forty pound, howling Black Angus standing in the flat spot halfway up the mountain.

Snakes came next, though he had only seen the non-venomous variety on the mountain.

However, the boy’s bane were cow pies. They were like landmines planted throughout the pasture. Most were out in plain sight, but quite a few could hide in high grass and strike when you least expected it.

There were two types of these excremental dangers: dry and fresh. Dry were of little concern, sort of like stepping on a dud mine. They were little more than processed grass.

Fresh was a different matter altogether. These destroyed sneakers. Worse, if you happened to be walking barefoot through the field, as the boy often did, ‘Fresh’ would engulf your feet and encase your toes requiring a shower with the garden hose and a healthy supply of Joy dishwashing detergent.

On top of that, ‘Fresh’ stunk worse than any skunk ever dreamed. At least, in the boy’s opinion, it did.

So, the boy kept his eyes on the ground as he entered the pasture through the handmade gate. He instinctively found the path made by the cattle that wound up the mountain.

Cattle were natural born engineers, laying out an intricate network of paths with the shallowest grade as sure as any railroad planner.

The mama cow eyed him suspiciously as he walked past. He paid her no mind. Flies buzzed around her in a cloud. After he passed, she returned to her now hoarse cries to the calf above.

The boy climbed the mountain.

The middle flat where the little bull stood was the boy’s favorite place on the farm. A flat meadow that seemed perfectly suited to a small house with a picture window that would look out on the green valley beyond. This spot was filed away in his mind as the place for his home and family at some point in the future before work and necessity would take him elsewhere.

There was a Beech tree there, a massive, gnarled old thing that had limestone boulders under its roots. It looked like a giant’s hand gathering rocks from the mountainside.

Beyond the clearing was a thick cedar forest, another forest of big pines, and yet a third of tall locusts.

The boy reached the flat to find the little bull waiting for him.

Its broad head was lowered, shiny black nose dripping from the bawling it had done for hours. It looked at him with a look of distrust.

He heard Pa’s voice call up from his grandparents’ house. “Go on, lasso him!”

The boy sighed.

At the foot of the mountain, the mama cow began to cry louder, but she made no move to climb up to them.

He held the lasso above his head and started it swinging.

The calf watched with the general expression all cattle shared: mild curiosity coupled with utter incomprehension.

The boy aimed for the black dripping nose and let the lasso fly.

It snapped against the bull’s nose with a wet slap and fell on the ground.

The little bull leaped into the air, turned on its hooves, and charged away into the high weeds.

“Damn,” the boy said. He regretted the word instantly. It would be another eight years before he realized God did not strike you dead for uttering curse words, but at the time he was sure God was taking aim at him with a lightning bolt for the transgression.

“Get after him!” his grandfather yelled from below.

His prayer to not be struck dead by a vengeful God interrupted, the boy chased the bull, swinging the lasso over his head and letting it fly when he thought he had a good shot.

The bull continued to run in circles, unhindered by boy or makeshift lasso.

The boy’s legs were on fire, and he realized he was following the calf through a miasma of one of the other farm dangers: stinging nettles.

The jagged leaves raked at his bare legs and raised blisters wherever they touched.

“Damn!” the boy yelled. But, he did not stop or slow down, he pursued the bull through the biting weeds, the lasso above his head singing in the hot summer sun.

And, below him was the sound of laughter, far louder than lungs ravaged by cancer should have been capable.

When the boy’s father came home, he found his son and the calf on the mountainside, two young kids, hot and tired and well exercised.

“He’s tricky,” the boy wheezed as his father walked past him.

Dad simply reached down and picked the bull up in his arms and carried him down the mountainside.

The boy followed, regaling his father with tales of stinging nettles and near misses with the lasso.

Back home, he told the stories again to his grandfather, who laughed and nodded as Ma admonished Pa for setting the boy on such a fool’s errand. The boy required Mercurochrome for the briar scratches and Calamine lotion for the stinging nettle blisters on his legs.

But, to the boy, these were battle scars received fighting the good fight. In reality, it was only an afternoon’s amusement for an old man and his grandson.

Author's Note: This is based on true events. I was the eight-year-old boy, and Pa was my grandfather, Glen Bowman. He died in 1975 at the age of fifty-seven. I believe it is a common trait among people of Appalachia that the passing of a family member sticks with us and causes us to continue to mourn after forty years.

The picture at the top of the page is Pa with one of his horses. The mountain behind him is the mountain I climbed to lasso the Black Angus calf. 

"The Lasso" won second place in the adult short story competition at the Appalachian Heritage Writers Symposium in June, 2017.