Little Joe Read online

  To my father, John Neil,

  who comes from a farming family,

  and my oma, Anna Koenig, who lost her farm to war.

  Like Eli’s grandpa, she encouraged me to roam.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One - A Special Delivery

  Chapter Two - Tattoo Day

  Chapter Three - Sweet & Sour

  Chapter Four - Don’t Let Go!

  Chapter Five - Mending Fences

  Chapter Six - Sorry

  Chapter Seven - Big Night

  Chapter Eight - Missing Mama

  Chapter Nine - First Cut

  Chapter Ten - Trading Eggs

  Chapter Eleven - Cow Tipping

  Chapter Twelve - In the Show Ring

  Chapter Thirteen - Poison Weeds!

  Chapter Fourteen - No Trespassing

  Chapter Fifteen - Broken Bones

  Chapter Sixteen - All Jittery

  Chapter Seventeen - Sold!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  A Special Delivery

  Little Joe came out on Christmas Eve, when he wasn’t supposed to. Larger than most and trembly, with only Eli there and Grandpa. Pa had gone to fetch the in-laws and some ice cream to go with the pies.

  “Fancy’s been like this for over an hour, son,” Grandpa said to Eli, stroking Fancy’s matted hair. “She’s gonna need some help with this one.”

  A nervous hen fluttered a wing, then clucked. One of the barn cats purred. But their movements were blurred by the darkness. All Eli could see in the barn was what stirred beneath the pen’s only lightbulb: two little black hooves no bigger than Eli’s wrists, peeking out of Fancy. Then a head, black and furry and shiny, with two slits for eyes shut tight.

  Eli stared at the hooves just dangling there. He’d seen calves being born before—even twins last year, back when he was eight. But they were little Holstein heifers, not Angus like this one. And they’d come out right away, splashing slick as a waterslide onto the bedding and bawling for their mama.

  “Push against Fancy’s side,” Grandpa told Eli. Grandpa took hold of the tiny hooves and pulled while Eli pushed against Fancy. But the calf stayed put.

  “Looks like you’re gonna have to pull on a hoof with me, Eli, just like you would a wishbone. You pull thataway and I’ll pull this way,” Grandpa said. “Now make a wish and when I holler three … pull! On a count o’ three. One …”

  Eli clenched his teeth, grabbed hold of a hoof and shut his eyes tight as he could.

  “Two …”

  Then he wished for the calf to come out right.

  “Three!”

  Eli yanked on the hoof. Grandpa tugged hard on the other. Then Eli heard a plop and the rustling of straw.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Grandpa said, grinning. “It’s a fine bull calf, Eli.”

  Lying on the straw bed was a shimmering black clump of a calf. Perfectly shaped and nearly as long as Eli, he’d come out right and big.

  “Your pa says this one’s yours,” Grandpa said.

  “Pa said so?” Eli looked down at the newborn and fought back a smile. His own calf! And Pa was giving it to him.

  Grandpa stopped smiling. He got down on his knees again and stroked the bull calf’s side. Its eyes were closed and it wasn’t moving. Not like the heifers. The heifers moved, Eli remembered. The heifers tried to get up, raise their heads. The heifers tried to do something—anything—to get a feel for the outside. This one did nothing.

  “He’s not breathing.” Grandpa knelt closer and felt the calf’s nose. “It’s too late to get Doc Rutledge. Breathe into this nostril while I close off the other. Now, Eli!”

  Eli grabbed hold of the bull calf’s head, took a deep breath and blew into the shiny gray nostril, hard as he could. The nostril was slippery cold, and Eli was sure it hadn’t moved.

  “Again!” Grandpa shouted as he felt for the calf’s heart. “And through the mouth, too.”

  Eli drew in another deep breath and forced it into the gray nostril. This time he pressed his lips against the calf’s mouth, too, blowing through a tiny row of baby teeth.

  “Keep going!” Grandpa yelled.

  Lying on the straw bed was a shimmering black clump of a calf. Perfectly shaped and nearly as long as Eli, he’d come out right and big.

  There was pounding in Eli’s ears now. He was sweating and sure his face must be red as a summer radish. His hands had gone all shaky, too. Eli worried they might not be any good to the calf. His calf. Still, he took another gulp of air and fed it into the bull calf’s nose.

  “He’s got a heartbeat,” Grandpa said.

  The bull calf coughed and sputtered, then spit up a big wad of goo into Eli’s face.

  Eli didn’t know what to do, so he swiped at the goo and just sat there, leaning against the wall of the pen until the coolness came back to him. Grandpa always said those stone walls held history and the stories of all the Stegner seasons. That they soaked up the cold and kept it there, year-round, soothing you in summer and forcing you awake in winter to get your chores done. Eli couldn’t imagine going to sleep now. He shivered as the stone’s cold bore through his chore coat.

  “Feel the heart, Eli.” Grandpa took Eli’s hand and placed it under the calf’s left foreleg, below the rib cage. The heart was warm and restless. It kept fluttering, just like the monarch butterfly Eli’d cupped in his hands last spring.

  “It’s beating because of you, Eli. You got it goin’!” Grandpa smiled and looked at Fancy. “Come, Mama,” he called. Fancy got up, turned around and smelled her calf for the first time.

  “Better wipe that slobber off your face unless you want Fancy to give you a lickin’, too,” Grandpa teased. “Now go get her some water, son.”

  Eli grabbed the water bucket and ran to the hose fast as he could. He thought about taking that hose and hauling it right over to Fancy, but decided to stand and wait for the bucket to fill. He’d forgotten it was snowing. That it was Christmas Eve. Eli pawed at the snowdrift that had found its way into the barn below the old stanchions. He ran a frozen clump of it down the side of his face where the goo was. Then he carted the bucket over to the calving pen, trying not to spill too much.

  When Eli got back, Grandpa was putting a piece of straw up the little calf’s nose to make it sneeze. It sneezed.

  Eli laughed. “My bull calf sneezed!”

  “Just checking his breathing, son.”

  It sneezed again.

  “Gave us quite a scare, didn’t he?” Grandpa slid his hands across the bull calf’s loin, past the rump, then stopped to massage its hindquarters. “You know, I was bigger than most, too, when I was born, oh, about a hundred years ago.”

  “Grandpa, you’re not that old,” Eli said.

  “What you gonna name him, son? He’s sired by Apple Wood, and if he’s anything like his daddy, he’ll be worth keeping as a bull. But you can call him anything you want to, on account he’s all yours.”

  The bull calf raised its head, sniffed at the pen and mooed.

  “Pretty soon you’ll know his moo, Eli, and he’ll get familiar with your voice—how you smell. Now don’t go washing that chore coat. The more it’s got the scent of him on it, the better. Once a calf trusts you, it can be gentled.”

  The barn seemed different to Eli now that it had new life in it. There was sneezing and bleating and the rush of warm milk. All because there was something to fuss over.

  “Merry Christmas, everybody!” Hannah burst into the barn out of breath, with her puffy coat undone and her jeans halfway tucked into pink cowboy boots. “Ma said if you’re in here this long, th
ere must be … Ah!” Hannah gasped. “There is a calf being born!” She rushed right up to the little bull calf. “Oh, look how cute it is.”

  “Careful, Hannah,” Grandpa warned. “This here’s Eli’s bull calf, and your big brother’s just about to name him.”

  “Can I touch him, Eli?” Hannah pleaded. “Oh, can I? Please, please!”

  Eli nodded.

  “How ’bout Kris Kringle!” Hannah gushed, rubbing the curly knot of hair on the bull calf’s forehead. “Since it’s Christmas Eve and all. Santa Claus seems too … babyish. But Kris Kringle, that sounds royal.”

  “Don’t you want Santa Claus to come visit tonight?” Grandpa asked.

  “Yes, but I’d rather call him Kris Kringle.” Hannah puckered out her lower lip. “That’s who I wrote to, anyway, about the trampoline I wished for. If it happens to go on sale. Plus, the Misty Mate rabbit cooler, the pony beads and the unicorn-mane-braiding kit—either/or.”

  Eli stroked the top of Fancy’s tail, ignoring Hannah and thinking of a name instead.

  “Grandpa, do you think Kris Kringle knows anything about unicorns?” Hannah asked. “Since he’s only got reindeer?”

  Both Grandpa and Eli knew whenever Hannah got this way, the best thing to do was just let her go.

  “I know,” Hannah said. “How about Jesus! He was born tonight, too. Who wouldn’t be impressed with the name Jesus?”

  Grandpa said he didn’t think calling the bull calf Jesus and having it hollered out over the loudspeaker above the fairgrounds would help Eli in the show ring much.

  “Remember how you get to name all your bunnies whenever Snow White has a litter?” Grandpa reminded her.

  Hannah nodded and tied the fuzzy scarf around her neck into a bow.

  “Now go inside and tell your ma there’s a calf out here. And that we’ll be inside soon for dessert.”

  “Hey-Ma-there’s-a-calf-out-here!” Hannah yelled as she headed for the house.

  “How about Joe?” Eli said. “That’s your name. Huh, Grandpa?”

  Grandpa’s nose turned red. “Well, he is big….”

  The calf was so big, Grandpa said he just had to put “little” in front of Joe. Said he’d like to see the look on all the people’s faces when they heard his name announced at the County Fair and out walked the biggest little bull calf they’d ever seen. Then the bidding would start and they’d all be giddy to get a piece of Little Joe.

  “You’ll make good money off this calf,” Grandpa said. “Once he wins the blue ribbon. It’s a Stegner tradition.”

  Fancy finished licking Little Joe clean, then her and Old Gert started doing what mother cows do, hiding Little Joe by covering him up with so much straw and hay and mud that only they could find him.

  When Eli came back to the barn after pie and ice cream, his heart crept into his throat. He couldn’t see Little Joe anywhere. He pulled up the switch on Fancy’s tail and got down in the straw on his hands and knees, poking around Old Gertie’s legs.

  The cows got so bothered they walked right over to the heap where Little Joe was. Eli felt so relieved to uncover him, he gave them all more water and took a drink, too.

  The wind groaned in the rafters above. It lingered high in the hay mow, causing the mice to scatter. Eli looked up and eyed the lightbulb flickering. At their end of the barn, Ma’s broody hens cooed faintly. They knew something was different.

  Fancy gave her calf a nudge, and in no time he was up on his wobbly legs. Trembling on all fours, he looked up at Eli with the biggest blue eyes Eli had ever seen. Blinking back wonder, Little Joe leaned and swayed in between Fancy and Old Gert until he gave up and flopped back down to give it a rest.

  Grandpa walked into the birthing pen with a little brown jar and some rubber gloves. “Now it’s important that you take care of the navel.” He took hold of the brown stringy cord still hanging from Little Joe’s navel and dipped the end into the jar.

  Little Joe’s belly shivered as his navel cord got dunked.

  “It’s important that it doesn’t get infected. The cord’ll fall off in a few days, but you still need to rub the navel with iodine, Eli. So Little Joe won’t have any problems.”

  Eli’d make sure nothing would happen to that navel. That nothing would happen to Little Joe. His first calf. The scare was over and done with. He’d gotten Little Joe to breathe. Now the calf was safe under Fancy, sucking on warm milk. Fancy deserves some grain for all this, Eli thought. And a good rest.

  Carefully, Eli took the brown jar and the rubber gloves from Grandpa and put them back in the medicine cabinet hanging in the tack room. Then he spotted the pictures above the feed bin. There was Grandpa and Pa, not much older than Eli, smiling with their milkers at the County Fair. Grandpa’s photo was in black and white, but Eli knew the ribbon was blue—FIRST PLACE it said along the shiny side of the satin. Pa’s picture with his grand champion was in color and he was kind of smiling, sort of. That was smiling for Pa—pressing both lips together tight.

  Eli had a checked shirt just like the one in Pa’s picture. Maybe he’d wear it to the fair next year when he’d show Little Joe. Eli would be the first Stegner in the ring with a beef bull calf, now that they weren’t a milking operation anymore. “No money in milkers” is what Pa had said. He’d sold every one of the dairy cows last year, except Old Gert. So Eli’d be starting a new tradition.

  Eli clutched the scoop and dug it deep into the feed bin. He poured the golden kernels into the red rubber tub and ran with it to give to Fancy. She looked tired and a little dazed. Her eyes were glassy, too; still, she took the feed. Eli scratched the back of her ears. Then he whispered, “Merry Christmas, Fancy,” in one. This was the best Christmas present he’d ever had. Better than the John Deere cast-iron tractor he’d gotten two Christmases ago. Or the junior bow and arrow set from last year.

  Eli reached out and touched Little Joe for the first time without being scared. Little Joe’s spotted gray muzzle was wet with milk and warm as a hot-water bottle, only softer and loaded with whiskers. Eli didn’t even care if he got a fishing rod from Kris Kringle or Santa Claus this year. He’d just gotten the best present ever. More than he could have imagined. He’d gotten Little Joe.

  “You can’t stay here all night, son.”

  Eli didn’t know how long Pa’d been standing there, scratching his head with his cap still on it.

  “Is he really mine, Pa?”

  “Isn’t that what Grandpa said?”

  “Yeah.” Eli nodded. “I named him Little Joe.”

  Pa took off the Carhartt coat he’d gotten for Christmas last year and hung it over Eli’s shoulders. “You’d better get to bed or Santa Claus might not show.”

  “It’s Kris Kringle,” Eli murmured.

  “Says who?”

  “Hannah. That’s who she wrote to this year.”

  Chapter Two

  Tattoo Day

  Snow had made the farm so quiet Eli couldn’t hear the morning coming. But he could feel it: the frosty chill of his breath against a bare elbow as he turned over and remembered he had a bull calf, just four days old. It was barely light out. The windowpanes were still crusted over with ice. Scratching them to get a good look outside would only wake up Hannah next door. Besides, he knew the barn was knee-deep in snow. Had been since Christmas. Eli’s window faced the barn’s McIntosh red shingles. If he sat straight and balled up three pillows just right, Eli could usually catch sight of the silver-tipped weather vane and the SWEPT in WINDSWEPT FARMS. Not today, though. Just a cloudy mess that looked like chicken feet scratches running up and down the glass.

  Eli felt a draft shoot up his back. He tugged at the comforter. It wouldn’t budge but gave a familiar grumble. Taking the flashlight from under his pillow, he aimed it at the foot of the bed, where the dog lay. Tater had snuck in trying to get warm and was hogging all the covers. Tater opened one eye and followed the beam for a bit as it traced his potato-colored fur. But he soon lost interest and was snoring by the time Eli
turned off the switch.

  Eli crept out of bed and winced as his bare feet touched the floor. He wondered if Little Joe was warm enough in the maternity pen. Its windows would be frosted over, too. Reaching under the bed for yesterday’s socks, Eli snuck out as quiet as he could.

  Icy pellets of snow began to smatter against the window between Eli’s and Hannah’s rooms. It looked over the pastures where Little Joe would be tasting timothy and white clover in a few months. Now they were bloated with snow and dotted by deer tracks crisscrossing the fence lines.

  Hannah would be sore he hadn’t woke her up. But she’d just spook Little Joe anyway and take over with all her talking. Besides, Eli liked being the only one in the barn.

  Eli’s boots broke through a crunchy layer of snow as he cut a path to the barn. He didn’t mind getting up so early winter mornings, now that he had Little Joe. But he wished he’d taken the time to put liners in his chore boots. His toes felt prickly and his Steelers cap was no match for the sleet.

  The market steers’ll take shelter under the tin roof next to the corral, Eli thought. They’d already been weaned off their mothers when Pa bought them in the fall. They didn’t get warm milk like Little Joe.

  Must be twenty below with the wind, Eli figured. He saw the ax leaning heavy against the barn. He knew the first thing he should do was take it and chop the ice off the water trough the steers drank from. But the trough was a quarter mile away and all Eli could think about was his bull calf. I’ll make sure to fork out more hay and scatter it around the herd, he thought, eyeing the barn door.

  Eli sucked in his breath and slid the door open. He leaned back, feeling for the stone step with his foot as he always did before putting his full weight on it. Then he descended several feet into the world inside the barn. Darkness surrounded him, cave-like and moist. He’d welcomed that dampness in summer, when it was a soothing wetness. Now it was stone-cold and icicle-tingly. Eli’s pulse quickened as he made his way deeper, guided by the gullies cut into the cement floor.