We had already been fishing that morning.
Dad liked catfish. Mom and I hated it, and I still can’t stand the stuff. So whatever I pulled out of the river that day—I’m pretty sure it was either a bass or a crappie—was enough to save me from having to eat it for dinner.
We were down along the river on the same pasture where I’d once lost the first saddle I ever cinched.
Normally we checked the cattle on horseback, but it was a weekend and the hired hands were off. It was just Dad and me, and since we’d already driven the F-150 down to the river to fish, Dad decided we’d check the cattle on our way home.
It was calving season.
The grass was tall, and Dad slowly drove the pickup through it while we looked for cows and their calves.
Then he spotted a coyote.
Everything changed.
Coyotes weren’t welcome around newborn calves. And where there was one, there could be others. They traveled in family groups, and Dad wasn’t going to let one hang around the herd.
He took off after it.
The ground along the river was silty sand, so even though Dad was moving pretty fast, the truck wasn’t moving smoothly. I remember holding on as we bounced across the pasture, following that coyote through the tall grass.
Eventually Dad flushed it out into an open cornfield that hadn’t been planted yet.
There was nowhere left for it to hide.
Dad stopped the truck, got out his rifle and shot it.
The report echoed across the pasture.
The cattle heard it too.
The herd started moving, so Dad wanted to get back to them and keep everybody together. We headed back through the tall grass—not nearly as fast as we’d chased the coyote, but still moving at a pretty good pace.
Then we heard something underneath the truck.
Thump.
We knew immediately it wasn’t normal.
Driving through a pasture, you get used to sounds underneath a pickup. A mound of dirt has a soft, almost squishy sound. Brush bristles and cracks against the undercarriage.
This was different.
Solid.
Like we’d hit a rock with the axle.
Dad stopped immediately.
We got out and looked underneath the truck.
Nothing.
No damage.
So we followed our tire tracks backward through the grass.
Maybe twenty feet.
That’s when Dad saw it.
A calf had been curled up asleep in the tall grass.
Its mother must have run with the rest of the herd when the rifle went off, leaving the calf hidden where it had been napping.
I think it raised its head just as we passed over it.
The underside of the truck struck it.
The calf was still alive.
Barely.
Dad and I looked at each other.
There wasn’t anything to say.
And there wasn’t anything we could do to save it.
Dad walked me back to the pickup.
Then he reached inside for his rifle.
He told me to wait there.
I knew what he was going to do.
I don’t need to describe what happened next.
Dad had already used that rifle once that day.
The first time, he’d used it to protect the herd.
The second time, he used it because one of the animals he was responsible for was suffering and couldn’t be saved.
When Dad came back to the truck, there were tears in his eyes.
My dad loved animals.
Seeing him cry made me cry too.
Neither of us said much after that.
We just climbed back into the F-150 and slowly drove home together.
I learned a lot of things from my dad growing up on that farm.
Some of them were about cattle.
Some were about machinery.
Some were about knowing when something needed to be done and doing it.
But that afternoon I learned something I wouldn’t have known how to put into words at the time.
Sometimes caring for something means protecting it.
Sometimes it means saving it.
And sometimes, when neither of those things is possible, caring means making sure it doesn’t suffer.
Dad had to use the rifle twice that day.
I only remember seeing him cry after one of them.
