From the Sorting Pens by John O’Dea: Full pay

“Where’s my snickers bar, fat boy. I had it in my pocket before that bull started tossing me around. Figured you picked it up and snarfed it down.” That was the start of the conversation when Dad made it to post op.

I told Pappy I had never beat a cripple or an old man, but I was fixing to fill both squares on my violence bingo card if he didn’t start speaking with a little respect and gratitude. 

I need to back up a few hours now.

Jeff, CJ (my Dad), and I were working the final drovers alley and “pen 6” at Tri State in McCook.  Pen 6 is right behind the in gate to the sale ring. We would sort the weigh up cows and bulls there along with the smaller groups of calves and send them to the ring. This allowed more time for the sorting crews to work down the hill on the bigger consignments.

 It was a late summer day when the bulls are getting pulled and decisions are being made. I was swinging gates for another draft when the horseman brought him up under the steel barn where we worked.  He had been an exceptional bull once upon a time, but fate had other plans. He was thin, hot, and crippled.  Still weighed near a ton in his melted state. His right front foot was swelled up about the size of a basketball.  Looked like a break just above the hoof that wasn’t healing right. He was pretty much done people-ing for the day. He wasn’t fast, but he was deliberate.  I shut the gate behind him as the horseman went after another draft of culls. 

I got in the alley and started to urge him the last one hundred feet toward the ring. He wouldn’t respond. I got a little physical with him and he turned and treed me on top of the oilfield pipe gate. Jeff saw this from Pen 6 and swung gates to provide a path for him to go. The bull got to where Jeff was purched and went to pounding on the gate below him. Before I could pull the cross gate behind him, he took another pass at me. I went back up into the “sky box” on top of the alley where I couldn’t be reached.

CJ saw all of this from the next alley over. He went to swinging gates and then commented how “You puppies just as well go get some aprons and go help the Cafe girls do dishes if you can’t drive bulls no better than that.”

Now, in his prime, CJ had never backed away from one. He had answered the call from neighbors to load stock on several occasions when they had one they didn’t trust or they knew was salty. He was in his mid 60s when this story was taking place. CJs prime wasn’t even in the rear view mirror anymore, but his pride wouldn’t concede that fact. 

He got in the alley and proceeded to yell and scream and look big. The bull turned and started walking toward the ring. Then it happened.  You know like when you are in a rough bar and you have talked your way out of a beating from the rig crew and your mouthy little buddy cocks off one more time about the big guy’s sister?

CJ whacked that ol’ bull on the tail head with his oak sorting stick for added motivation.  

That old bull spun and went to hookin’ at him. CJ looked like the PBRs finest for the first spin in the the sand alley, but the bull had gotten him worked into a corner on the second time around. The bull made contact and bounced him off the 12′ steel roof then cracked him again coming down. 

By now I was on the ground and got him to come at me just as CJ landed in a pile in the corner. I got the bull headed up the alley and hollered “Get up!”

“I CAN’T! ” was the reply.

I turned as Dad was flexing his leg. His left leg took a hard right turn about halfway between his hip and kneecap. When he first tried to move, his Levi’s moved where I could only assume the end of his femur was.

Luckily, the bull went on through without hurting anyone else. I went to the ring and told them we needed an ambulance.  We shut the sale down for a bit. Pissed CJ plum off. “Ya got another alley to use. Keep going. I don’t need anyone holding my hand until they get here.” 

When I got back to him, the sand around him looked like nine convenience store clerks had taken a break at the same time. It was a generic cigarette graveyard. “They ain’t gonna let me smoke in the hospital. Better get it done now.”

Gayle came down from the block to check on him. “I gotta ask Gayle, am I gonna get full pay even though I’m leaving early?”

The snickers bar was recovered.  Six months after CJ’s pinata impersonation, I was treed in that same corner fighting back a rank cow. I glanced over as I started climbing down to see an unmolested candy bar perched on the red iron roof beam. I took it to him.