Author: Gail Picado

A COW NAMED JOHN

GAIL PICADO

Note by Nik

Author photos of farm in grayscale/illos to be added, perhaps as chapter headings

Dedication
To my Aunt Evelyn Elsasser, who always opened her home to us and never complained about the extra work or crowded conditions. She greeted every situation with a smile. Everyone should have an aunt like her. 

Chapter One 		

Two weeks before the fourth of July in 1959, the Elsasser family slept as black, billowy clouds hung in the night, blocking the moon and stars. The lightning cracked; chirping crickets lay silent. Buzzing grasshoppers, the babbling spring, and fish and pollywogs nipping at mosquitoes, all were silent too. Nothing made any noise to alarm the family of John’s intent.
	John’s nose rubbed against the rough rope fibers that held her captive and kept her from exploring. Higher and higher went the rope, until at last, it went over the top of the post and fell to the ground below. John was free! Free to roam. Free to run. Free to be. 
	A coyote yelped and yipped such news, but the family didn’t stir. Hungry was this coyote. Hungry to the bone. 
***
Twelve-year-old Mike Elsasser crouched in the barnyard the next morning and put his right index finger in his mouth. Getting it nice and wet, he stuck it in the air to check which way the wind blew. He didn’t want Old Red to smell his scent as he snuck up on her. 
	“Sow, boss,” whispered Mike, as he crept quietly behind the cow. Last night’s summer storm made the ground perfect for this: all wet and slippery. He inched closer. When he was within reach of the cow’s tail, Mike grabbed it and hollered, “Whoop, whoop!”
	The startled cow jumped in fright and ran for her life, dragging Mike along! He hung onto her tail, fighting to stay on his feet over the wet, slippery mud. Cow skiing wasn’t easy, and he prided himself on being pretty good at it. 
“Whoop, whoop!” Mike repeated, throwing one arm in the air. He skied for almost thirty feet before falling over. He looked up from the mud and watched Old Red run to the safety of the barn. He laughed. 
	“Crazy cow!” he yelled. He got up and brushed himself off. Hope Dad doesn’t find out this time, he thought. He’d sure be angry if he knew that I tried to ski behind another cow. 
	Mike walked into the barn and patted the backside of Bessie as she stood eating hay. “Sow boss,” he said, while taking a wet cloth from his hip pocket. He wiped the cow’s teat clean and then sat on the three-legged stool to milk her.
 	Three kittens came over and he squirted them with milk, much to their delight. After he finished milking Bessie, he moved on to Molly and milked her too. Done, he picked up the milking pails, groaning from the weight. 
	Mike had blond hair and blue eyes like his dad, with lean muscles from carrying milk from the barn to the white, wood-framed bunkhouse, a porch-length away from the farmhouse. They used the basement under the bunkhouse only in case of tornados. Hired hands, the men who used to help work the farm, and their beds were long gone, but it still held an old wood-burning stove and a milk separator. The separator looked like a large stainless steel funnel on legs. It had a crank handle like on the front of an old-timey car. 
Mike set two buckets under the large funnel and poured the milk in the top. Taking hold of the crank handle with both hands, he began turning it in a continuous circle. The large metal funnel spun around and around until the cream separated from the milk. The milk filtered down one side of the funnel, and the cream filtered down the other side. 
 	Once this was done, Mike took the cream and milk to his mom. One day, thought Mike, I’m going to move off this farm, away from this town, and then I won’t have to do all this milking. I’m going to buy my milk from the store, just like city folks. 
	Mike lived in Brady, Nebraska, a small town shaped like a horseshoe off Highway 30, just east of North Platte. Brady couldn’t be found on any map, and a house number wasn’t needed in the address on letters. With a population of 240 people, the mailman delivered the mail by just the name on the envelope.
	Unlike the city, the town had no paved roads, only dirt, and it had wooden walkways in front of each establishment. The restaurant behind the gas station had most of the local branding irons tacked up around the walls as its décor. The town also had a bank, a drug store, a post office, a feed store, and a community center, where every Saturday night people would come to square dance. An outdoor movie theater used the white wall of the drug store as a movie screen. Logs split in half and placed on the ground served as benches, and other logs outlined where walls would have been. The best part? It was free to watch. 
	“Take your boots off,” Mike’s mother, Evelyn, reminded him as he put the milk and cream into the refrigerator. “And go wash up for dinner.”
	Evelyn was a slim, pretty woman. Her blue eyes contrasted with her black hair, which she tied up in a bun to keep out of her face. 
	Mike did as he was told, and then walked to his room without saying a word. He tossed his straw cowboy hat on his bed and went to the farmhouse’s one bathroom to wash up. The bathtub stood on four legs in the corner, and they didn’t have a shower. 
He heard the screen door bang shut and knew it was his dad.
	“Where’s Mike?” asked his father, Arno.
	“In the bathroom,” said Evelyn. “Why? What did he do now?”
	“I think he’s been cow skiing again. I got to the barn just after Mike left and Old Red’s acting all nervous and upset. Dang kid! I’ve told him a hundred times not to do that!”
	Arno was a fair-minded man, but also hot tempered, and he had a short fuse. His good looks – almost six feet tall, blond wavy hair, blue eyes, and long dimples on the sides of his face that showed off straight white teeth when he smiled – hid his quick temper. 
	Mike listened to his parents’ conversation through the open bathroom door. Oh man, he thought, should I lie or should I come out with it? 
Mike dried his hands and walked into the kitchen: time to face the music.

Chapter Two

	John was free to roam. She roamed through the cornfields, the rope dragging beside her. She nibbled at a cob or two or three. She was free to nibble to her heart’s content. Nibble. Nibble. Nibble. 
***
	Arno stood with his hands on his hips. His blue overalls hung off his left shoulder and his eyebrows came together as he looked Mike up and down. 
	“You’ve been cow skiing again, haven’t you?” This came out more as an accusation than a question.
	“John always lets me ski behind her,” Mike answered. “She wouldn’t get all upset like Old Red does.” He hoped his dad would accept this simple explanation. 
	“Yeah? Well, Old Red isn’t John! And by the way, John’s gone missing and I don’t know where she is. How many times have I told you not to cow ski?”
	“What do you mean, John’s gone missing?” Mike’s heart sank.
	“I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t put the rope over the post like you should have.”
	“Yes I did! I know I did.” Mike thought about this for a minute. He was pretty sure. “I’ll go look for her.”
	“Not until you feed the chickens and pigs.”
“If I didn’t have to feed the chickens and pigs, I’d have lots of time to look for John.”
	“Don’t sass me, boy. It doesn’t take much time to feed them. We don’t have that many.” 
	“Knock, knock,” said Doris, Arno’s younger sister, as she tapped on the screen door and stepped inside, followed by her daughter. “Hope we’re not disturbing anyone.” Doris and her family lived 276 miles east of Brady in the big city of Omaha, Nebraska. Because of the distance, she drove to the farm only once a year, less if money was tight. 
	“No, no. Come on in,” said Evelyn. She wiped her hands on her apron. 
	Doris looked like everyone in the Elsasser family: blonde hair and bright blue eyes. “I can’t stay,” she told them. “I’m just here to drop Gaylyn off. I sure do appreciate this. With her father working two jobs to make ends meet, he just can’t watch her. I hope she won’t be a problem for you.”
	“She’ll be fine,” Evelyn said. “Don’t worry about her. You just get well.”
	Doris hugged and kissed her daughter. “Be good for your Aunt Evelyn, okay? It’s just minor surgery, and in a week I’ll come and get you.” Doris lowered her voice to a whisper. “And remember what I told you about your cousin.” 
	“Okay,” Gaylyn replied, hugging her mother good-bye. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
	“I know you will.” Doris turned to her brother and said, “And don’t you be so hard on Mike.” She smiled and then hugged both Arno and Evelyn before leaving. 
	Mike’s eyebrows narrowed as he studied his cousin. What’s she doing here? he thought Gaylyn stood behind her brown suitcase and smiled. She was taller than most ten-year-old girls, and about twenty pounds heavier. Her blonde hair refused to hold a curl, causing Doris to bobby-pin her bangs out of her face. Gaylyn was always smiling and that irritated Mike. He didn’t know why. It just did.
	“What’s going on?” Mike asked.
	“Gaylyn is staying with us,” said Evelyn, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “As soon as her mom recovers, she’ll pick her up. Simple as that.” 
	Oh no, thought Mike, as his mother escorted Gaylyn to the guest room, and he followed six steps behind. Not Gaylyn. She’s a girl! What good is a silly old girl who stands around smiling all the time? She’s only been here a couple of times, mostly as a baby, and she doesn’t know anything about this place. I bet she can’t even milk a cow. And I’ll probably get stuck having to entertain her!
	The farmhouse had seven bedrooms in total, four upstairs and three downstairs. The guest bedroom was the first one on the left at the top of the stairs; the other three rooms were closed off for storage.
	They climbed the narrow stairway with out-stretched hands, running them against the walls to keep their balance. It was steep and didn’t have any handrails. If someone started to fall, there would be no stopping them.
	Evelyn showed Gaylyn the guest room with its nicely polished hardwood floors. The double bed without a headboard sat on a steel frame, pushed up against one wall. A plain white bedspread outlined an old mattress, badly sunken in the middle. Trying to fall asleep on either side of the bed was impossible without rolling to the center. A white throw rug lying next to the bed would trip anyone who was not careful.
	The wallpaper was a pattern of large red roses splattered over a yellow background. One light bulb hung in the center of the ceiling, and the lack of a lamp-cover created shadows on the walls. At night, mosquitoes buzzed around the hot bare bulb as the heat from it drew them in.
	A sunbeam entered every morning through a paper shade yellowed with age. The sunbeam showed ‘dancing fairy dust’, as Evelyn called it. She said anyone could put their fingers into the dust particles and the dust would dance all around without them ever feeling it. When pulled down to shut out the sunlight, the shade cracked with stiffness.
	“I’ll leave you to put your things away,” Evelyn told her niece. “You be nice to Gaylyn,” she said, patting the top of Mike’s head as she walked past. He knew she liked the feel of his flat-top hairstyle. 
 	Both children listened to her footsteps slowly descend the narrow stairway before saying anything.
	“Want to see something?” asked Mike, standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.
	“Sure.” 
	“Sit here and I’ll go in the closet.” He motioned for her to sit on the edge of the bed. “Keep your eyes on the closet and don’t look away.”
	She watched as he disappeared. She looked at the yellow cotton curtain, adorned with clusters of tiny red roses, which hung over the doorway in substitute of a door. Suddenly, Mike appeared outside the bedroom’s entry.
	“Boo!” he said, coming into the room.
	“How did you do that?” she asked, jumping up from the bed. 
	“There’s a secret passage. Come here, I’ll show you. But you have to promise you won’t tell anyone else.”
	“Okay,” promised Gaylyn. 
	Mike led her to the back of the closet, and showed her a latch that secured a wall panel in place. When the lever was pulled back, the panel opened like a door and allowed one to step out onto the octagon-shaped hallway that served as the entrance to the four second-floor bedrooms. 
	No one knew the original intent of the secret passage. Mike imagined that it had been used by outlaws to give the sheriff the slip, or maybe to help runaway slaves to hide. The house was old enough for that era, but since the Elsasser family was neither outlaws nor abolitionists, the door would remain a secret passageway. 
	Arno had once made a batch of beer and stored the bottles in two of the room’s closets. The whole family was startled out of sleep in the middle of the night when the caps started exploding off the bottles. They thought they were being attacked. Pop! Pop! Pop! Such a racket! No one got much sleep that night. That was the last time he made any beer.

Chapter Three 

	A coyote came near John while she nibbled on the corn. The coyote was hungry, but John didn’t plan to be dinner. She planned to stay free. She kicked the coyote and ran, the rope bouncing behind her.
***
	Gaylyn sat at the kitchen table and watched Evelyn, who stood there mixing cookie dough. 
	“You look a little bored,” Evelyn said. 
	Gaylyn shrugged her shoulders and looked around the big country kitchen. White lace curtains hung at the window above the sink. Next to the cabinets was a white, wood-burning stove. A white refrigerator sat against the wall, opposite a six-foot long, white floor freezer.  
	“What’s that big freezer used for?” 
	“I keep it full for when guests come over.” Evelyn began chopping nuts to put in the cookie dough.
	“Oh. Where’s Mike?” 
	“He’s either feeding the pigs and chickens, or milking the cows. Why don’t you go see if you can find him?”
	“Okay.” Gaylyn slid off the chair and went out to the barn, where she found a baby sparrow lying on the ground. Other sparrows flew down at it in a dive-bombing flight pattern. She picked up the ugly, featherless thing and took it back to the house.
	“Look what I found out by the barn,” she said, holding the baby bird out for inspection. “The other birds were trying to get it back up into the nest, but couldn’t.”
	“No, honey,” said Evelyn. “When birds fall out of their nests, the other birds will kill them. Or, if the baby bird isn’t healthy, the mother bird will push it out of the nest.” Seeing the expression of horror on Gaylyn’s face, Evelyn quickly added, “I think the other birds try to kill the ones on the ground before a cat can come along and eat them.”
	“Can I keep it?” asked Gaylyn.
	“You can, but you’ll have to catch a lot of insects to feed it,” Evelyn responded. “It will probably die during the night when it gets cold. It needs its mother to keep it warm.”
	Gaylyn looked down sadly at the defenseless, featherless bird in her hand.
	“Wait a minute,” her aunt said. She searched around in the cupboards and drawers. “Here, use this.” She handed Gaylyn an empty, wooden matchbox and some cotton. “Keep it warm in this. But I want it kept on the back porch, not in the house. There should be plenty of flies and mosquitoes out there that you can catch for it.”
	Gaylyn put the sparrow in the matchbox, and then went out on the back porch to catch insects. 
***
	After he finished milking the cows, Mike came into the house, letting the screen door bang shut behind him. 
	“What’s Gaylyn doing?” he asked.
	“Catching insects,” said Evelyn. “She’s trying to keep a baby sparrow alive.”
	“Didn’t you tell her that she’s wasting her time?”
	Evelyn ignored his question and said, “How about you take Gaylyn out to the west field to give your dad some water? He’s not too far out. It will be a nice walk for both of you. I’ll get you the thermos.”
	“I was going to look for John,” protested Mike. “She might have jumped the fence. She could be out on the highway, out in traffic, and a car might have hit her or something. She could be dead!” 
	Gaylyn came inside just then. ”Who could be dead?” she asked. 
	Evelyn handed Mike the thermos and said, “Go.”
 	Without saying anything, Mike brushed past his cousin, letting the screen door bang shut on his way out. That’ll teach her, he thought. 
	Gaylyn rushed out to follow him. 
	The morning temperature was warm, but not yet hot. It would be another hour before the real heat set in. The wheat rippled in the warm breeze and grasshoppers bounced from one plant to another. A fly buzzed around Mike’s face and he swatted it away. He dug his toes into the dirt as he walked, watching Gaylyn from the corner of his eyes. Her straight blonde hair flew into her face and she brushed it away while trying to keep up with him. 
	She could stand to lose ten pounds, he thought. I should put her to work on the separating machine. An hour of separating the cream from the milk everyday would be good for her. That would take the weight off her! He smiled, just thinking about it. 	
	In the distance, they heard clanking. Loud clanking.
Clank. Clank. 
They followed the sound and came into a clearing in the wheat field. Arno beat his 1948 John Deer tractor with a wrench. Between the clanking of the wrench against the tractor, he shouted obscenities. The children watched in silence as Arno beat the tractor and cussed. He must have felt their eyes on him — all of a sudden he stopped and looked over at them.
	A sly smile spread slowly across his lips. “This is how you fix a tractor. I’ve been keeping her running this way for six years now and I hope to keep her running for another six years.”
	“Here’s your water.” Gaylyn took the thermos out of her cousin’s hands and stepped forward, handing it to him.
	“Thanks,” he said, and then looked at Mike. “Did your mom send you kids out here?” He reached into his pocket for a hankie and wiped his forehead.
	“Yes,” said Mike. “She said the walk would be good for us, but I think she just wanted to get rid of us.”
	“My dad cusses when he fixes things too,” Gaylyn said. Mike thought she sounded almost proud of this fact. 
	Arno wiped his hands on the hankie. He screwed off the thermos cap and took a long drink. He replaced the cap and handed it back to Gaylyn, and then walked around the green tractor. He hit the tractor with the wrench a couple more times, but not nearly as hard, and without any cussing. He climbed up onto the seat of the tractor and turned the switch. The tractor responded with a smoky start-up of exposed cylinders.
	“See,” said Arno proudly. “It works!” He released the brake and eased the tractor forward, leaving Mike and Gaylyn watching in silence.
	“Well, I guess our mission is accomplished,” said Mike.
	Gaylyn didn’t say anything. She just watched as Arno and the green tractor chugged away. 
	Together, Mike and Gaylyn took the thermos back to the house. 

Chapter Four

	Night fell. John looked at the stars gleaming overhead. She roamed and moseyed, and when she felt tired, she plopped under a tree and slept.
***
	When the cousins got back to the two-story farmhouse with its white wood paneling, they found Evelyn baking her famous oatmeal cookies. They weren’t really famous, but that’s what she called them. Mike thought they tasted almost as good as the jams she made from small red buffalo berries, wild grapes, or wild plums that Mike would pick when in season. 
	“Did you find your uncle?” Evelyn asked Gaylyn.
	“Yes. He was next to the cornfield fixing the tractor.”
	Evelyn looked up with a puzzled expression. “I didn’t know that it needing fixing. So, did he fix it?”
	“Yes. He beat it with a wrench!” 
	Evelyn laughed. “Works every time! And Mike, how many times have I told you not to let the screen door bang shut?” 
	“Sorry,” Mike said, but he wasn’t sorry. Not one bit. He got a little satisfaction out of annoying his mom. After all, he thought, it’s her fault I’m stuck entertaining Gaylyn. I could be looking for John. 
	“Why don’t you take Gaylyn fishing down at the creek? If you kids catch any fish, I’ll cook them for supper.”
	Mike’s shoulders slumped. That’s the last thing I want to do, he thought. Aloud he said, “With Gaylyn? She’s a girl! Besides, I want to look for John. Maybe some cow rustlers stole her! Maybe she’s out there right now, all tied up, and the rustlers are putting a hot branding iron over our brand! She’s probably crying, ‘Moo! Moo!’” Mike cupped his hands around his mouth for effect. 
	“Really Mike? We need to get you some toys,” said Evelyn, as she wiped her hands on her apron. 
	“I’ve never been fishing,” said Gaylyn. 
	Mike let his hands drop to his sides and looked at her. She sure is stupid, he thought. Didn’t she hear a word of what I just said? 
	“That’s okay,” Evelyn said, ignoring her son’s theatrics. “Mike can teach you. The poles are on the back porch. Mike, go get them.”
	Mike’s head fell back as if he looked at the ceiling for answers. His shoulders slumped even more and he let out an exaggerated sigh before doing as he was told. He knew better than to give his mom too much attitude. He feared the wrath of his dad if he did.
	“Come on,” said Mike. “Let’s get this over with.”
Gaylyn followed Mike outside. He smiled when she let the screen door bang shut. She watched him grab two poles and a tin can.
	The two walked in silence through the backyard towards the barn, and then turned right to reach the dirt path that led to the creek. They were almost to the small, wooden bridge when Mike asked Gaylyn if she knew how to bait a hook.
	“No,” she said. “I’ve never done that before.”
	“You use live worms,” he said. He bent down and dug at the dirt with his pocketknife, gathering some worms. “You have to run the hook right through the live worms, just like this.” Mike delighted in putting a hook into the worm to creep her out. 
	“Ewww! I’m not going to touch a live worm!”
	“Then how are you going to fish?” Seeing Gaylyn’s disappointment, he said, “I guess I can bait your hook for you.” 
She smiled. 
	They crossed over the wooden bridge and turned left. They found a good spot along the creek and sat down in the moist dirt. Mike made good on his offer to bait Gaylyn’s hook, then he showed her how to cast the line in the water.
	“How will I know when I catch a fish?” Gaylyn asked.
	“When you see the cork being pulled down into the water, that’s when you’ll know you have a fish. Now be quiet or you’ll scare the fish away.” 
	It was a great day for fishing. It didn’t take long for Gaylyn to catch several fish. Every time she caught a fish, Mike would put it on a line, keeping it fresh in the water without letting it get away. But every time that he caught a fish, he let it go, saying that it was too small.
	“That one looked bigger than the ones I caught,” said Gaylyn. “Why did you let it go?”
	“It wasn’t the right kind,” Mike lied. “Yours are catfish. Mine was a bullhead.”
	“Oh,” Gaylyn said.
	The two sat quietly and fished for a little over an hour.
	“Well, I think you’ve caught plenty,” said Mike. “And the sun’s starting to go down. We’d better head on back.”
	“But you don’t have any fish,” Gaylyn pointed out.
	“That’s okay. You have enough for both of us.” 
	They gathered up the poles, tin can, and fish, and then headed back. When they got to the house, Mike didn’t let the screen door bang shut when they went inside.
	“Wow!” Evelyn said. “Look at all the fish!”
	“I caught them,” said Gaylyn, proudly.
	“That’s right,” said Mike. “She caught ALL of them herself. NONE of them are mine.” 
	Mike had the biggest smile on his face. Gaylyn smiled back at Mike. 
	“Well, you know the rules,” said Evelyn. “Whoever catches the fish has to clean them.”
	“That’s right!” said Mike, pointing at his cousin. He began to laugh. “YOU caught them and YOU have to clean them.”
	“But I don’t know how to clean fish,” said Gaylyn.
	“Then Mike will have to show you,” said Evelyn. He stopped laughing. Again, his shoulders slumped.
	“Dang!” Mike said. “Doesn’t she know anything?” 
	“Take her out on the back porch and show her,” his mother told him.
	“Come on,” he grumbled. He laid out plenty of newspaper on the porch and showed Gaylyn how to peel the skin off a catfish, being careful of the thorny fin behind the head, and how to slice down the middle of the belly to remove the innards. 
	“Eww! I can’t do that. It stinks! And it’s gooey. And there’s guts! Yuk.” 
	“No surprise there,” grumbled Mike. “You wouldn’t even hook a worm.”
 	Mike began slamming each fish down on the newspaper as he continued cleaning and gutting the fish. He muttered under his breath, saying several times, “Dumb girls don’t know nothing.” 
	Evelyn fried the catfish for supper as promised. She told Arno that Gaylyn caught them, but gave Mike credit for being the one who cleaned them.
	“Only because girls don’t know nothing,” said Mike. It made him feel good to finally say it out loud.
	“She knew how to get you to clean the fish,” said Evelyn, and they all laughed – except for Mike.

Chapter Five

	John wasn’t aware of time. She didn’t know how long she’d been free or how long it had been since she ran away from the coyote. Time didn’t matter to her. She was free, free to roam.
	Oblivious was John to the slithering snake about to strike.
***
After supper, Evelyn made an ice cream mixture with fresh milk, cream, and eggs from the farm. The sugar, vanilla, and salt came from the store. She put the mixture in a container, packed salt and ice around it, then took the container outside and placed it on the wooden picnic table.
	“Gaylyn, you sit on top to keep it in place, and Mike, you churn this and we’ll have ice cream for dessert tonight.” 
	“You heard her Gaylyn, get on up here.” Mike patted the top and held it steady.
	Evelyn went back into the house, leaving the two cousins to make the ice cream. 
	Gaylyn climbed up on the table and sat on top of the churn. 
	“It’s cold!” 
	Evelyn came back out of the house with a towel, which she handed to her niece. “Of course it’s cold,” she laughed. “Here, put this on top and then sit down. You’ll keep the ice off of your legs using this towel.” 
	Evelyn went back into the house as Mike started churning the ice cream. At first, the handle turned easily, but it got much harder as the ice and salt started to freeze the cream and milk. 
	Gaylyn hung onto the sides of the bucket, struggling to stay on top as he kept churning. Several minutes passed without any conversation. 
	“My mom told me you’re shy,” she said. “But I don’t think you are. Are you?”
	Mike kept churning without saying anything. 
	“I think you don’t like me.”
	Mike didn’t respond. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her. But she was just a girl, and a dumb one at that. How could he tell her that without hurting her feelings? He couldn’t. 
	“So who’s right? Me or my mom?” 
	“I don’t know. I never thought about it. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. Maybe I just don’t have anything to talk about. Or maybe my mom told me not to say anything if I don’t have something nice to say.” 
	Gaylyn sat quietly as Mike continued to churn the ice cream. 
	“Do you know any stories you could tell me?” she asked after a while.
	“Stories? What kind of stories?”
	“Made up ones. Our cousin, Georgie, is really good at telling scary ones. He’s always making up stories about the boogieman under the bed. Or the man who lost his hand and how the hand goes around and —”
	“That’s stupid,” interrupted Mike. “A hand can’t go around and do anything on its own.”
	“All right, then you tell me a story.” 
	“About what?”
“Anything. It doesn’t have to be scary.” 
	Mike eased off churning the ice cream and thought for a moment. He had fond memories of their cousin, like the time Georgie taught one of the horses how to open the gate. He had watched as Georgie kept rubbing the horse’s nose over the rope until the horse caught on. The only problem? The horse kept getting out of the corral and getting into the corn and alfalfa fields, eating too much. Arno had wondered how the horse kept getting out until one day he saw the horse rubbing his nose on the rope. It had made Arno angry.
	“That’s it!” said Mike. “That’s how John got out!”
	“What? What are you talking about?” 
	“I know how John got out!” 
	“Got out of where?” 
	“Never mind. I don’t have any stories.”
	“Want me to tell you a story? I could tell you one of Georgie’s.”
	Mike smiled at the thought of his cousin. He remembered how Georgie loved riding horses, but that one horse kept running into the barn whenever he got tired. One day, Georgie put his hands over the horse’s eyes so that he couldn’t see the barn. How fast the horse ran! But when Georgie took his hands away, the horse saw the fence right in front of him and stopped on a dime, throwing him off into the haystack. 
	“No thanks. I could tell you how I started cow skiing,” said Mike. 	
	Gaylyn leaned forward. “I’m listening.” 
	“Well, one day, I went out to the barn to milk the cows, and it had rained the night before, making the ground all slippery with mud and muck. I was looking for the driest parts to step on, you know, trying to stay clean. John was out there just poking along, sort of watching me, when all of a sudden, I slipped and went forward, grabbing onto her tail to keep from falling. Well, she started to run and I stiffened up, trying to stay on my feet, and I did. I stayed up and she pulled me right across all the muck, right into the barn.”
	Gaylyn laughed at this, rocking back and forth on the cold container. “Then what happened?”
	“Ever since then, I can grab her tail and she’ll take me skiing. She’s the only cow on this whole farm that will let me ski behind her without trying to kick me off.” 
	“How funny!” said Gaylyn. “I wish I could ski behind a cow.” 
	“Maybe you will, but right now, this ice cream is ready to go into the freezer and it’s too late for me to look for John. Mosquitoes are starting to come out, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
	“Okay,” said Gaylyn. She slid off the cold container and stepped down from the table, letting Mike to carry it into the house.
	After dessert, she resumed catching insects for the baby sparrow she’d found earlier. She was quite successful and kept it well fed, but when she ran out to the back porch the next morning and opened the matchbox, she found it dead.
	Evelyn had been right. A matchbox filled with cotton was no substitute for a mother sparrow.
	She buried the bird in the backyard under the large, old tree. Evelyn gave her a Popsicle stick to mark its grave. 

Chapter Six

	John grazed on the knee-high grass in the field. That slithering snake’s attempt to bite her failed when she stepped forward, leaving the snake to bite nothing but empty air. 
	She spied a yellow butterfly flittering from grass stalks to green weeds, sniffed it and mooed, and then moseyed on by.
***
	The next morning, Gaylyn called out from the guest room, “Mike! Is it time to milk the cows yet?”	
“No!” Mike called up the stairs. “Be quiet and go back to sleep!”
	Five minutes later she called out again, “Mike, is it time to milk the cows yet?”
	“No! Go back to sleep!” 
	Five more minutes passed.
	“Mike, is it time to milk the cows yet?”
	No response. Mike hoped she would quit asking if he didn’t say anything. 
	This continued until Mike’s alarm went off at six. 	
“Okay,” Mike yelled. “NOW it’s time to go milk the cows!”
	Gaylyn came running down the stairs. “Can I help?” 
	“No! I don’t need your help.”
	“Please!” Gaylyn begged. “I’ve never milked a cow before.” Mike thought about it. Maybe she can milk while I look for John. 
	“Okay, I’ll teach you how to milk a cow if you’ll do something for me.”
	“Anything. I promise.” She made the sign of the cross over her heart. “Cross my heart. Hope to die.” 
	He nodded. “Good. Follow me.” 
	The two walked out to the barn with Gaylyn close behind Mike. She stepped in his footsteps to avoid stepping in any manure. She was just about to put her right foot down when all of a sudden a black snake slithered right under it. 
	Gaylyn froze. Pointing to the ground, she said, “S-N-A-K-E!” 
	Mike turned and looked, but the snake was gone. “Probably just a King snake. Won’t hurt you. Better off seeing one of those instead of a badger.”
	“A badger? What’s a badger?”
	“It’s just a furry animal with razor-sharp claws that can rip your legs apart.” Mike smiled at this. He gained a certain amount of satisfaction in tormenting her. He couldn’t believe how dumb Gaylyn was. Then he had a thought. He asked, “Have you ever been snipe hunting?”
	“No. What’s a snipe?”
	“A cute little bird. I’ll have to take you hunting for one. You can take it home in a cage to show all of your friends.”
	“Oh, that will be great! When can we go?”
Mike didn’t answer. He just laughed and shook his head as he continued walking towards the barn. 
	Gaylyn swallowed hard, looking both ways before calling out to Mike. “I don’t know what to be scared of the most: snakes or badgers!”
***
	The large red barn stood about forty yards behind the farmhouse. Loose hay scattered over the dirt floor, and lots of spider webs were suspended in every corner. Various tools and riding gear hung on nails. The hayloft above the entrance’s double doors had one large door that opened to the outside. One could jump into a haystack, if one wanted, but Mike had discovered that this wasn’t a pleasant experience. Hay was brittle and it hurt him the first time he tried jumping into it. 
	Mike had also learned that jumping out of the hayloft onto a horse’s back was not a good idea. The horse didn’t like the sudden weight from up so high and bucked him off; he landed face down in manure. 
	The inside of the barn was one large area and had no individual stalls for the cows. Milking cows generated heat, and many times Mike would remove his shirt while milking. The cows would sometimes startle him by licking his bare back to get the salt from his skin. Cow tongues felt like giant cat tongues – rough, like sandpaper. 
	While milking took place, each cow seemed to know where to stand. Cats would come running from every direction when they heard the sound of the fresh warm milk hitting the metal bucket. They meowed constantly until Mike silenced them with a few squirts of milk right in their faces.
	Mike made milking a cow look easy, but it wasn’t: a certain rhythm and motion with the fingers, thumbs, and palms had to be mastered. Gaylyn’s hands would not cooperate, no matter how hard she tried. In fact, the only thing that she mastered in the barn was how to say, “Sow boss,” which Mike constantly said to calm the cows. They seemed to understand.
	“I’m sorry,” said Gaylyn. “I can’t do this.”
	“You’ve got to!” Mike told her. “I need you to milk them so that I can go look for John.”
	“Is that the same cow that you ski behind?” 
	“Yes,” said Mike, growing tired of her questions.	
	“Why do you have a cow named John?” asked Gaylyn. “John is a boy’s name. I thought cows were girls. John is a funny name for a cow. Why not Maybell or Annabel or Clarabell?”
	Mike thought back to when John was born. Her eyes were too close together and her face was too long. Arno had teased him about her, saying, “She’s too ugly to have a girl’s name. Better name her Rocky, Harry, or John.” 
At the sound of John, she had coughed and let out a weak bawling sound. John had answered up, as if to agree that was her name.
 	But Mike didn’t want to explain this to Gaylyn, so he said, “We just do! Okay?” 
	“What does she look like?” 
	“Well, she’s this high.” He put his hand up to show Gaylyn how high John’s back stood. “And she’s black and white.”
	Gaylyn looked around. “You’ve just described every cow on this farm.” 
	“She has three white spots down the front of her face, in a single line. No other cow does. And she’s not really a cow. She’s a heifer, not that you could tell.”
	“What’s a heifer?”
	“A heifer means that she’s never had a calf, so she’s not giving any milk yet. Because of that, we don’t have to worry about her getting milk fever,” explained Mike.
	“What’s milk fever?” 
	“Dad says it’s when a cow has a baby and afterwards their calcium drops, making them all mopey. Their legs fold up and they drag themselves around. They stop eating and drinking and their heart beats real fast. If we don’t get to them in time, they die within a day and a half.”
	“That sounds awful!”
	“Yeah, but like I said, we don’t have to worry because John’s a heifer.”
	“What’s so special about her?”
	“She’s different from other cows.”
	“How?” asked Gaylyn.
	“She lets me ski behind her without getting upset, and in the winter time, when it’s cold and I don’t want to go inside, she’ll let me warm my cold hands on her, right between her udder and her leg. The other cows don’t like it. They’ll jump and run away. But not John, no sir, she’ll just lay there and cough.”
	“Cough?” said Gaylyn. “I’ve never heard of a cow coughing before.”
	“Yeah, she has this cough. Whenever she lays down, I climb up on her stomach and say, ‘Cough, John. Cough!’ And when she coughs, I bounce right off. I go flying!”
	Gaylyn looked at Mike. “How high do you fly?” 
	“High enough. It’s all true. I swear it is.” 
	“I believe you,” said Gaylyn. “Why don’t we both look for her? If we find her, can I sit on her and go flying too?”
	“Sure you can,” said Mike. “You sure can.” 

Chapter Seven

	Munch. Snort. Munch, munch. John pulled three short tugs at the tall grass before chewing a clump. She ignored the flies and gnats buzzing her head and blinked them from her eyes. Munch. Snort. Munch, munch. 
***
	Mike and Gaylyn finished milking, so they went looking for his favorite cow. They walked out of the barn and along the side, coming to barbwire fencing. They followed the fence to the east pasture and could see cows grazing on the tall grass in the distance. But the closer they got to the cows, the further away the cows went. 
They decided to go under the fence. Mike easily slipped through ~~it~~. He then turned and held the barbwire for Gaylyn to squeeze through. He let go of it too soon, and it sliced the back of her leg, behind her left knee.
	“Owwww!” she cried. She twisted her upper torso to see the damage and saw a thick trickle of blood coming from the curled up skin.
	“It’s not too bad. You’ll be okay,” said Mike. “Go wash it off in the water trough.”
	Gaylyn went to the side of the barn to wash off the blood. Mike followed.
	The water in the trough was very dark, greenish-brown, and they saw a goldfish swimming in it.
	“Slime.” Gaylyn wrinkled her nose.
	“It won’t hurt you,” Mike said. “The cows drink out of it all the time. You don’t see anything wrong with them, do you?”
	She looked around. 
	“Well, do you?”
	“No.” She cupped her hands and drew enough water to wash the blood off her leg. 
	“That’s better,” said Mike, encouraging her. “Bet you can’t walk along the edge of the trough.”
	Gaylyn looked at the trough and sized it up. “Bet you I can.” Without saying another word, she climbed up and walked along the edge, balancing herself like a tightrope walker. She took five more steps before losing her footing. 	
	SPLASH! She fell in. 
	Mike sat down next to the trough, rolling back and forth in laughter. 
	Gaylyn gasped from the cold. “It’s freezing! It’s like a swimming pool, only colder and with slime all along the walls!” 
	She tried to scramble out, but her feet kept slipping. She finally inched her way up the side and then fell out onto the grass. She lay there a few minutes to catch her breath before looking at the cut in her leg. 
	“Hey, it stopped bleeding. And it’s clean!” Gaylyn smiled. “Now, I just need to dry off.”
	“Don’t worry,” said Mike as he stopped laughing. “You’ll dry in no time from this heat.”
	“It’s hot all right.” She looked to the north where the cows had drifted. “Those cows keep walking away from us. We’ll never catch up to them.”
	Mike looked at the cows in the distance. “Yeah. You’re probably right. But we have to try. Come on. Let’s go.”
	The two cousins walked in silence until they came to a small, dried-up riverbed. Fish lay on the cracked, dried dirt, their blank eyes not seeing the flies that buzzed above them.
	“What will happen when the rain comes and fills the riverbed back up?” Gaylyn asked as they stood on the little wooden bridge and looked down at the dead fish. The bridge was only twenty feet long and ten feet wide, just wide enough for one vehicle to cross. It didn’t have any handrails. 
	“What do you mean, what will happen?” asked Mike.
	“Will the fish come back to life?” she wanted to know.
	“No, they can’t come back to life. The rain will fill the stream back up. Then the pollywogs will show up. Next thing you know, the catfish and bullheads will be biting.”
	“Do pollywogs turn into fish?” 
	“No,” Mike told her. “They turn into frogs.” He looked at her and thought, how dumb are you? 
	“Then, where do the fish come from?”
	“Boy! You don’t know nothing!” Mike said, irritated. “Come on, let’s get back to the house.”
	The two walked back in silence. Mike never did tell her how the fish got back into the water. That was something he didn’t know. He didn’t want her to find out that sometimes boys didn’t know either. 
***
	“Wash up! Come and eat.” Evelyn took dinner off the wood-burning stove and placed it on the table. 
	They always ate dinner at noon, and it was the biggest meal of the day. Arno worked the evening shift for the Union Pacific Railroad and would leave the house around one o’clock and work until eleven, five days per week. 
Arno would sit at the head of the table, with Evelyn on his left and Mike on his right. As a guest, Gaylyn sat next to Evelyn. 
	“Smells good,” said Arno. “Gaylyn, would you like to say the blessing?”
	“Okay.” She waited for everyone to bow their heads and fold their hands and then began, “Thank you for this food. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” 
	Evelyn smiled at her and winked. Gaylyn smiled and winked back. 
	Arno reached for the roast, put two slices on his plate, and then passed it to the left. He then took the bowl of mashed potatoes and did the same; likewise with the rest of the food until everyone had a full plate.
	Everyone was quiet, enjoying the food, when Gaylyn spoke up and said, “Mike’s going to teach me how to hunt snipe. Aren’t ya, Mike?” 
	Mike looked up in surprise. He knew snipe didn’t really exist, but would his parents tell his cousin?
	“Um, I don’t know,” Mike said softly, looking at his dad. Arno eyed him for what seemed to be forever. Mike’s eyes drifted over to Evelyn, but she just looked down. Was she hiding a smile?
	“When are you going to take her?” asked Arno.
	“Tonight? After supper?” Mike said, more in a way of asking. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. His parents were going to go along with the joke! 	
	“Alright. Hopefully, the mosquitoes won’t eat you both alive. And don’t be too late in getting back,” said Arno. He winked at Mike and Mike smiled. “Be sure to take the flashlight with you.” 
***
	That night, Mike produced a gunnysack for each of them and led Gaylyn out the door. They got to the river and Mike said, “Here. Here’s a good place to catch snipe because the grass is tall and easy to hide in.”
	Gaylyn took one of the gunnysacks and crouched down so that only the top of her head showed.
	“That’s good,” he said. “Now you have to make cooing sounds like this. Coo. Coo. Make them real soft so you don’t scare them. When a snipe comes along, you throw your gunnysack over it and squeeze the bag shut. After you catch one, we’ll take it back to the house and find a box to keep it in so that you can take it home with you.”
	“Okay. Move over there so you don’t get in my way.” 
	Mike walked a little ways from her and started making cooing sounds, trying hard not to laugh.
	“Coo. Coo,” said Gaylyn. Smack! “Coo.” Smack! Mosquitoes were already biting her. 
	“Coo, coo, coo, coo, coo,” said Mike, flapping his gunnysack in a half-hearted way.
	“You’re not doing it right! You’re not supposed to say, ‘Coo-coo-coo-coo-coo’! You’re supposed to just say, ‘Coo’ one or two times, not five times. And you’re not holding the gunnysack right. Why don’t you just leave me to catch one by myself?”
	Mike couldn’t believe his ears. 
“Fine. I will. See ya’ back at the house.”
	When he got there, he went into the kitchen where Evelyn cleaned the dishes and Arno sat reading the newspaper. 
	Arno looked up, folded the paper, and set it to the side. “Where’s Gaylyn?” 
	Mike burst out laughing. “I left her out there. She was still cooing and calling for snipe when I left.”
	“Is she going to be okay?” asked Evelyn, more concerned.
	“Yeah,” said Mike, still laughing. “She actually told me to leave. She said I wasn’t doing it right! So I gave her the flashlight and came on back. If she’s not here in another hour, I’ll go and get her.”
	They all laughed at the idea of Gaylyn sending Mike away for not snipe hunting correctly. 
	Fifty-two minutes passed. Mike was just about to look for her when she came through the kitchen door. Her gunnysack was empty.
	“Boy, I thought I almost got one!” Gaylyn said. “But it turned out to be a skunk!” 
	Laughter broke out again at that news.
	“You wouldn’ta thought it was so funny if I’d gotten sprayed!” said Gaylyn.
	“We’re laughing because there’s no snipe out there,” said Arno. “Snipe doesn’t exist.”
	“No snipe?” asked Gaylyn, looking around at each of their faces shaking back and forth, indicating no. “I got bitten by mosquitoes for nothing?”
	All heads shook yes.
	“Well,” said Gaylyn, laughing. “I guess the joke’s on me!”	 

Chapter Eight 
 
	John wandered through the field, munching and chewing the sweet grass. She liked exploring. She liked going wherever her feet took her. She mooed loudly, so happy to be free. Free to roam.
***
	“Where have you kids been?” Evelyn asked as Mike and Gaylyn entered the kitchen. “Come fix yourselves a plate.”
	“We’ve been looking for John,” Mike said.
	“Any luck finding her?” Evelyn looked at the sweat on Gaylyn’s face. “It’s only noon. How hot is it out there?”
	“Pretty hot,” said Gaylyn. 
	“Yeah, it’s pretty hot out there,” Mike agreed. 	
	Evelyn wiped her hands on her apron. “Well, it’s good to hear that you both agree on the weather. After you eat, take Gaylyn to help you put Buck back in his pen. He’s out again.”
	“What about Dad?”
	“He’ll be here in a minute. You kids go ahead and start eating,”  
	The two cousins ate quickly and then went outside, passing Arno on their way out. They made sure the screen door didn’t bang shut. Gaylyn followed Mike past the chicken coop and stopped. Mike pointed to a ram grazing by the barn.
	“There he is!” said Mike. “Come on. We need to get him back in his pen.”
	“Why did you name him Buck?” Gaylyn asked.
	“Because that’s what he does. He’ll buck you good, so don’t let him get too close.”
	Mike walked over to what used to be the back of a flatbed truck. It now sat idle, unattached to the rest of the truck, with one end of it sloping towards the ground. They used it as a makeshift trough to hold husks of corn to feed the animals.
	“Here, take a bunch of corn,” Mike said. “When Buck starts to follow you, give him one piece of corn, and then another, and another. When you run out, I’ll give him some of mine until we get him locked back up in his pen.”
	Gaylyn began doing as instructed. She started out behind Mike as he called, “Here, Buck. Here, Buck.” 
	Buck raised his head. Mike could see the ram’s nostrils breathe in the aroma of the corn that had been warmed by the sun. They flared a couple of times before he lowered his large head and charged right towards them. 
	Mike dropped his corn and shouted, “Run!” 
	Gaylyn froze. She watched Buck’s large head dip down as he charged towards her cousin. Mike turned back around just before Buck’s head went right between his legs. When Buck raised his head, he scooped Mike off the ground, landing him on his back. It looked like some sort of rodeo trick, with Mike riding Buck backwards. He hung onto the thick wool on Buck’s back. His feet dragged the ground and kicked up dust.
	This made Buck angrier, and he started charging Gaylyn. She dropped what little corn she had left and jumped onto the wooden fence and clung on to the top, too high for Buck to reach. After Buck moved away, she hopped down and ran for more corn. She started throwing the corn towards the pen, creating a path to it. When Buck saw the corn, he made a quick turn and his rider fell off. Mike scrambled to his feet and ran for the safety of the fence. Gaylyn threw more corn in Buck’s path, until he was led back into his pen by the airborne corn.
	Mike slammed the gate closed behind Buck. He quickly tied a rope around the posts. “This should hold him,” Mike said proudly. 
Buck rammed the gate with his head to show his disapproval of being locked up again.
	“You okay?” Mike brushed dirt off his jeans.
	“Yeah,” said Gaylyn, out of breath. “I hope that’s the last of Buck!” 
	Mike was so happy they had succeeded in corralling Buck, he decided to give his cousin a compliment. “You did pretty good for a girl.” 
	“Yeah? You think so?” She smiled.
	“Yeah, I do. Listen, it’s too late to look for John now, but what about in the morning? She’s got to be around here somewhere. We’ve got 750 acres for her to hide on.” 
	“Maybe Buck scared her,” said Gaylyn. “Maybe he chased her away.”
	“Naw. John would’ve kicked him if he chased her.”
	“What about a wolf? What if a wolf got her?” asked Gaylyn. “Or a lion? A lion could eat her!”
	“Don’t be stupid. This isn’t Africa. We don’t have wolves or lions around here. But I’ve seen coyotes and bobcats. One of them could’ve got her.”
	Just then, in the far off distance, Mike heard the cry of an animal. Could it have been a coyote? Mike hoped not, but it was another good reason to keep looking for John. 

Chapter Nine
	
	John slowly meandered over groundhog clumps, inching her way to a purple flowered weed, which she ate. The dragging rope stirred up little spurts of dust. She swished her tail back and forth, back and forth, shooing flies from her behind. 
***
	Saturdays were just like any other day on the farm. Cows needed milking. Animals needed to be fed. Everyone sat at the breakfast table, eating pancakes and eggs with Evelyn’s homemade buffalo jam, freshly churned butter, and milk. Evelyn was always cooking. Appetites were always good.
	“Mike,” said Evelyn. “The horses need some exercise. Why don’t you take Gaylyn out and show her how to ride?”
	They owned two horses: a white one named Silver, and a brown one named Brownie. Mike always taught others to ride bareback because Arno didn’t allow saddles. He feared someone would fall off, get a foot caught in the stirrup, and be dragged. 
	When it comes to herding or roping cattle, though, a saddle is a necessity. Horses are natural herders and without a saddle horn to tie the rope around, there is nothing for the horse to pull the rope taut against. Mike used to practice roping by throwing a rope over a fence post. He got really good at it, so once when he saw a calf, he threw the rope over it, forgetting that he was riding bareback. The calf went running and pulled Mike off the horse. He landed face down in the dirt. Not a pleasant memory. 
	“How about I teach her to ride and then we’ll go look for John?” asked Mike. He couldn’t stop thinking about coyotes and bobcats getting to his cow, but he also knew that if either one had gotten to her, it would already be too late to do anything about it.
	“Fair enough,” said Evelyn. “But exercise the horses first.”
	“Come on,” Mike said. “Times a’ wasting.”
	As soon as they got out to the barn, Mike put bridles on the two horses and showed Gaylyn how to hold the reins laced between the fingers of one hand while her other hand held the mane firmly.
	“The trick to staying on,” said Mike, “is to hold on with your knees.”
	Gaylyn sat on top of Silver. “Right. How can I hold on with my knees when the horse is so big, my feet only come halfway down its sides?” 
	Mike didn’t give her an answer. He only laughed. He experimented with different ways of pulling on Brownie’s reins. He started his horse in a trot, then to a gallop, and finally to a full run. He thought he would pull the reins up quickly so that Brownie would come to a sudden sit-down stop — like the horses on television did when the cowboy wanted to dismount in a full run. But Brownie had never seen any television horse stunts. When Mike pulled up on the reins, Brownie stopped suddenly. Instead of sitting down, Brownie kept his hind legs standing and lowered his head, putting his front legs straight out in front of him, just like he was bowing to the king and queen of England. This caused Mike to do a somersault right down over the horse’s neck and head. 
	“Wow! Did you see that?” Mike said. “I rolled right down Brownie’s neck and landed on my feet without getting hurt! I’m going to try that again!”
	Gaylyn sat on Silver, watching Mike ride Brownie and not moving an inch. Silver grazed lazily, oblivious to their actions. 
	Brownie regained his footing and shook his head. Mike hopped back on and nudged the horse’s sides. Brownie responded, repeating the cycle of trot, gallop, and full run. Again, Mike pulled the reins straight up, only this time Brownie’s two front feet were in a puddle, and instead of bowing to the king and queen of England, Brownie did a somersault right over Mike!
	Brownie regained his footing, and shook himself like a wet dog after a bath. Mike didn’t get up as quickly this time. When he finally did, he wobbled around like a drunken sailor on the deck of a heaving ship in the middle of a storm.
	“I don’t think I’ll try that again.” Mike huffed for air. “Come on. Let’s go look for John.”
	“Why is it so important for you to find John? She’s just a cow.”
	Mike looked at Gaylyn. “Just a cow? You really don’t understand, do you? All kinds of things could happen to her. She could get into fresh hay, or an oat field, and eat herself sick. They do that, you know. And if that happens, I’ll have to chase her around to help digest her overfilled stomach. But if I’m too late, she’ll die.” 
 	“Oh. I don’t want that to happen,” said Gaylyn.
	“And that’s if she’s not already been eaten by a coyote or bobcat!”
	Gaylyn looked at her cousin. “I’m sorry.” 
Mike stood with empty arms hanging by his side, muck and dirt smeared across his face. “Will you help me look for her or not?” 

Chapter Ten
	
	The sun shone brightly on John’s back. She swished her tail. She snorted. She ate more flowers, and ate more grass. She drank water from a stream. She roamed. She didn’t know how long she’d been roaming. 
***
	“Let’s go see if John is past the bridge,” Mike said to Gaylyn. 
	“Do you think John went swimming?”
	“Cows don’t go swimming. Sometimes they swish pee on you with their tails while you’re milking them, but they don’t swim.” 
	“What about the pond that’s past the creek?” said Gaylyn. “Maybe she’s over there, getting a drink of water.”
	“Okay,” said Mike. “Let’s go look there first.” 
	They walked towards the barn, turned right, walked over the wooden bridge, and kept walking east for what seemed like miles. They got hot and tired. When they arrived at the pond, they didn’t see John, but there was a little water in the pond. Actually, more mud than water, but Mike knew mud could be very cool. 
	Mike took off his shirt and shoes and got in. 
	“Ah, this feels good,” he said, rolling around and getting mud everywhere. “I feel just like a pig.”
	“You look like a pig too.” 
	“Come on. It’ll cool you off.” Suddenly, he noticed something wrong. “Leeches!” 	
	“Leeches?” said Gaylyn. “What are leeches? All I see is mud.” 
	Mike crawled from the mud pond with his blue jeans clinging to him. Chunks of mud slowly slid from his skin, revealing the leeches.
	“This is a leech,” said Mike, as he pinched off one that held fast to his arm. 
	“They look like short, fat, black worms! What do they do?”
	“They suck the blood out of you.” 
	“Eww!” said Gaylyn. “Why would you want that?” 
	Mike picked off the remaining two leeches. “I wouldn’t. But in the olden days, doctors used to put them on their patients to suck poison out.” 
	Mike scratched his leg. “Man, I got to have a bath,” he said, picking up his shoes, socks, and shirt from the embankment.
	The two cousins hurried towards the house when Mike remembered the trenches in the west field.
	“Hey, we could go swimming in the irrigation trenches,” said Mike. “I’m already muddy. If you go get your swimsuit on, you could join me. It will be fun.” 
	“Okay,” she said. 
	Mike smiled to himself. He had more than fun on his mind. I’m going to teach her about electric fences, he thought. 
	While Gaylyn ran to the farmhouse, he splashed around in a water-filled trench next to one of the farm’s many fences. When she got back, dressed in her bathing suit, she looked at the trenches and the odd yellow flags. 
The trenches were dug to about eighteen inches deep and two feet wide. A wooden stick had a square patch of yellow plastic shower curtain attached to the center, making a flag out of it. About six inches of the stick poked out each side of the flag, like arms stretched out, hanging onto the dirt. The sticks were set across sections of the trenches so that the flag draped down and created a plastic wall. When water hit the wall created by the L-shaped plastic barrier, it flowed in the opposite direction. When that section was irrigated, the flag was removed so that the water could fill up the remaining trenches.
	After a minute, Gaylyn joined him. 
“Whoa! Slipping and sliding is fun! It’s like being in one giant row of twisting mud baths.”
	Mike enjoyed her antics.
	“What’s that?” Gaylyn asked, pointing to a small round, white spool connected to the barbwire fence.
	“It keeps the cows away from the fence,” he told her.
	“How?”
	“It gives out a signal.” 
	“What kind of signal?”
	“Touch it and see,” Mike said, happy she was curious. 
	Gaylyn looked down at her mud-covered body and then back up at the white spool.
	“Go on,” encouraged Mike. 
	She looked at him, then back at the white spool. 
	“It’s okay,” he said, smiling at her.
	She reached up, took hold of the barbwire fence, and instantly let out a scream.
	Mike laughed hysterically. “It doesn’t hurt that bad. It’s only two amps of electricity running through the barbwire.”
	However, standing in the wet mud intensified the two amps so that the current became a lot stronger. She didn’t laugh. She got out of the trench and marched straight to the house. 
	Mike kept laughing and calling her name, but she never turned around. Not once. 

Chapter Eleven

	John stumbled over a larger clump of dirt, a mound really. She didn’t know that it belonged to a badger and not a groundhog. She kept munching, oblivious to the angry badger about to gnaw off her hind leg. 
***
	Donald, Arno’s youngest brother, lived in California. He was in his late twenties and still single. One typical hot July morning, he drove up to the farmhouse in his two-tone, silver-and-purple 1954 Pontiac Catalina. The whole family, including Gaylyn, stood outside to greet him. 
	Arno gave Donald some sound advice about his car. “Donald, this is a good car, and it will remain a good car if you do just one thing.”
	“What’s that?” Donald asked.
	“Keep your head out from under the hood.” 
	“Okay.” Donald laughed. “The Lord knows I love to take things apart to see how they work, but I just can’t seem to put them back together. I’ll take your advice to heart.” 
	He stuffed his hands into his pockets as if to show his big brother that he was sincere about not touching the engine.
	“Should I chain the hood down to make sure you stay out of it?” Arno teased.
	“No. No. I’ll leave it alone.” 
	As a child, Donald had suffered from polio and remained simple-minded and childlike. He too was a blue-eyed blond; he stood six feet tall and was slightly heavier than his older brother. Arno often said that Donald was just a big kid at heart. Children who knew Donald were careful not to let him get too close. They didn’t like his tricks, as he called them. He never tired of them, but he was the only person who found them amusing. 
	As soon as Mike unloaded the car and got his suitcases inside the house, Evelyn suggested that he show Uncle Donald around the farm since it was his first visit.
	“Don’t let Uncle Donald get too close to you,” Gaylyn warned her cousin. “He has all kinds of tricks. I know this because we visited him in California two years ago and I’ll never forget.”
	“What kind of tricks?”
	“He’ll want to pick you up by your hair,” she explained. 
“My hair is cut short in a flat-top. He can’t get hold of it to pick me up.” 
	Gaylyn looked to her left, then right. She whispered in his ear, “I think the reason Uncle Donald is still a bachelor is because he tries his tricks on the women he dates.”
	“Go on!” said Mike, laughing. “You’re making things up.” 
	“It’s true! Don’t you believe me?”
	“No,” said Mike, continuing to laugh. 
	Mike walked to his uncle and said, “Come on, Uncle Donald. Follow me.”
	The three walked past the barn and turned right on the dirt road towards the wooden bridge. Once they crossed the bridge, Gaylyn said, “Uncle Donald, why don’t you show Mike one of your tricks?”
	A smile as big as Texas came up on Uncle Donald’s face. 
“Well, your hair is too short for one of my tricks,” Uncle Donald said to him, “but I can lift you up by your neck. Watch, it doesn’t hurt. Just stand real straight and stiff.”
	Before he could take the instructions seriously, Uncle Donald stepped forward, put both hands around Mike’s neck, and lifted.
	Mike’s whole body seemed to stretch before it finally came up off the ground. His eyes got as big as saucers. His hands came up to grab onto Uncle Donald’s two bigger hands around his neck, trying to relieve some of the pressure.
	“Put me down!” Mike croaked, as his feet kicked at the air.
	Uncle Donald put him down and Mike moved back ten steps. Gaylyn laughed.
	Mike felt dazed. With his hands on his knees, he bent over and coughed. As soon as he recovered, he said, “Come on, I’ll take you across the highway. Gaylyn’s never been over to that side before. It will be new to both of you.”
	Mike led the way, keeping a distance from Uncle Donald. They walked down the long dirt driveway along the side of the house, across the two-lane highway, and under the barbwire fence. There didn’t seem to be much on this section of the farm. Tall grass, irrigation ditches, and shallow streams of water seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.
	Mike stayed in the lead with his cousin close behind. Uncle Donald stopped to inspect something in the water. He called for them to come and see it, but they were too smart to get closer than ten feet. 
	“Come look!” Uncle Donald said again. “I won’t hurt you.” 
	The cousins exchanged looks of doubt. Should they go closer and see? Their uncle huddled over something and looked at it. All was quiet. Mike could hear the tall grass swishing in the breeze and crickets shrilling in the surrounding grass. Birds chirped. In the distance, a calf bellowed to its mother. 
	The two shrugged their shoulders and went over to look. Suddenly, Uncle Donald dropped something down Gaylyn’s blouse. 
“Eeeek!” she screamed, jumping and dancing around.
	Mike ran in the opposite direction, quickly putting thirty feet between Uncle Donald and himself. Gaylyn continued to wiggle and squirm around as Uncle Donald held his sides in laughter.
	“It’s only a little crab,” Uncle Donald gasped through his laughter.
	Gaylyn finally reached inside her blouse, found the crab, and threw it on the ground. Mike ran over to Gaylyn for a closer look, but before he could get close enough, Uncle Donald picked it up again, stretching his open palm towards him.
	“It’s just a tiny sand crab,” said Uncle Donald. “Come here and see.” 
	But Mike kept a safe distance away. He didn’t need to see any sand crab. He already knew what a sand crab looked like. He also knew that Uncle Donald had found a new trick. 
	“Well, as fun as this has been, I need to go look for John,” said Mike. 
	“Who’s John?” Uncle Donald asked. He dropped the sand crab and dried his hands on his jeans.
	“One of our cows. She’s gone missing and I need to find her before anything happens.”
	“A cow named John? Why would you give her a boy’s name?” asked Uncle Donald. “Why not Mary or Suzie or Peggy? I like those names.”	
Mike rolled his eyes. He didn’t feel like explaining to his uncle. “I don’t know. Just because.” 
Out in the distance, Mike saw sixteen head of cattle, following each other in a single line. Directly above were rain clouds. I hope there’s no lightning in those clouds, he thought. 
Nebraska often had lightning storms. The house had a lightning rod on the roof; a wire ran to the grounding rod in the earth. Whenever lightning struck the house, it made such a noise! The clap and thunder would make one go flying right out of bed! The lightning rod was a big improvement for houses. Before they had lightning rods, lightning would kill everyone in the house when it struck. 
Mike shuddered to think of John being struck by lightning. Finding any cow bloated, with feet straight in the air, was a sad sight. And if it he found John looking that way, he’d be very sad for sure. 

Chapter Twelve

	John ate the roots that were normally the badger’s food, making the badger angry enough to hiss out a throaty warning. John looked down. The badger moved forward, startling her. She ran off and the badger stood up on its hind legs, sniffing the air that John left behind. 
***
	The next afternoon, Arno took some meat that he had butchered over to a neighboring farm to trade for some corn. The corn that Arno grew was for cattle, not human consumption. The farmers often swapped with each other for items that one produced and the other didn’t. The government paid Arno not to grow tomatoes, keeping supply and demand in check.
	When Arno left the house, he had one small paper bag of freshly butchered beef. An hour later, he returned with three large paper bags of freshly picked corn. 
	Mike and Gaylyn sat in the backyard under the shade of an elm tree and planned a search for John. They drew pictures in the dirt with a stick of each route they should take, and then erased it with their feet. Arno walked over and handed the bags to them.
	“Bring that barrel over and peel the corn,” said Arno. “If you find any that are bad, just toss them in the barrel with the husks.” 
	Mike frowned. “This is girl’s work,” he protested. “I want to go look for John.” 
	“The corn comes first,” Arno said before going into the house, leaving the two of them to do as he had instructed.
 	Mike pulled the barrel away from the side of the chicken coop and into the middle of a shady spot in the yard. Then he went inside the house and brought out two folding chairs and set them close to the barrel. Gaylyn sat in the second chair next to Mike. 
	“I’ve never done this before,” she said. She sat up straight and breathed in fresh air, ready to learn. 
	Mike reached into the bag and handed her a cob of corn and took one himself. He pulled the husk from the corn and inspected it.  
Gaylyn copied his actions – she pulled the husk from the corn and looked at it. “Eww!” she complained, throwing her cob into the barrel. “There’s a worm in this one!” 
She pulled another ear out of the bag. “Eww! There’s a worm in this one, too!” 
	Mike watched as she threw that piece into the barrel too. She’s crazy, he thought. “What are you doing?”
“This one has ants inside. Uncle Arno said to toss any bad corn into the barrel. That means if they have worms or ants, they’re bad and I should throw them out.” She shrugged her shoulders and kept tossing corn in the barrel.
	Mike smiled. He played with his corn, taking his time with it, pretending to inspect it really well. This went on for almost an hour. When they finished, they presented the remaining corn to Evelyn.
	“Is this all there is?” asked Evelyn. “Nine ears of corn?” 
	“That’s all that was any good,” Gaylyn said. 
Mike looked up at the ceiling, avoiding eye contact. 
	Just then Arno came into the kitchen. “Did you finish cleaning the corn?”
	“Yes, they did,” said Evelyn. “But it wasn’t very good. They had to throw most of it out.”
	“What?” Arno said. “I gave you three bags full of corn. It couldn’t have all been bad!”
	“Almost all of them had worms or ants in them,” said Gaylyn. 
 	Mike didn’t say anything. He looked down at his bare feet, counting his toes, trying hard not to smile. He enjoyed this! 
	“Well, that don’t make them bad!” said Arno. “Having worms and ants means that they’re the sweetest ones. Brown spots make them bad, but we can still eat around the brown spots. We just cut them off. You get all those ears of corn out of that barrel and clean them. And I want every one of them brought into this house!”
	“Yes, sir!” Gaylyn said, scrambling out of the kitchen and letting the screen door bang shut behind her. 
	“I told you girls don’t know nothing,” said Mike.
	“Well, I guess she can’t help being born in the city,” said Arno. “Remember the first time your cousin Georgie helped me rake haystacks? They looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. All the other farmers would drive by, look, and laugh. I had to tell them that a city kid made them. Nope, I guess we can’t blame her for not knowing anything, because Georgie is from the same city and he didn’t know anything either.” 

Chapter Thirteen

	Mosquitoes, gnats, and flies buzzed around John, but she didn’t mind. She was free. She swished her tail. She sniffed the air. She pulled on grass, she munched and snorted. Nibble. Munch. Nibble. Moo. 
***
	With the ordeal of cleaning corncobs behind them, Evelyn decided to cook a chicken for dinner the next day. She walked out to the barn, picked up the ax, and slowly walked to the chicken coop. Killing and cleaning chickens was not her favorite thing to do. In fact, she hated it. She said so many times.
	Evelyn eased her way through the narrow door of the chicken coop, a small building with only one small windowpane that didn’t open to the fresh air. The coop smelled and she tried to breathe as little as possible. She spied a white chicken roosting, so quietly set the ax down and lifted it by the neck. She grabbed its feet with her other hand. 
	Roosting chickens were the easiest to catch. Catching one on its feet and running around was next to impossible. 
	Evelyn let the chicken fall to her side and carried it out into the yard by its feet. Its wings franticly flapped and it squawked in protest until it became tangled in her dress. While continuing to hold onto its legs, Evelyn laid the chicken on top of a wooden stump. With her finger, she drew a figure X on the stump in front of the chicken and it calmed, lying perfectly still. She didn’t know why drawing an X worked like this, but it did. It seemed to hypnotize them. 
	Picking the ax back up, Evelyn lifted it high above her head. She turned her head, shut her eyes, and swung. 
	“Isn’t that your mom over there?” asked Gaylyn.
	Mike turned and looked. “Oh no,” he groaned. “Come on.” 
He started running towards his mother, Gaylyn following close behind.
	“Need some help?” Mike asked as he approached her.
	Gaylyn stopped and stood behind him, watching her aunt struggle with the chicken.
	“Yeah. I guess so. I’m butchering this chicken. Look, I cut off its beak and it’s still alive.”
	 “You always butcher chickens when you shut your eyes and turn your head!” said Mike. “Why don’t you just ring their necks like grandma used to do? Swinging them around by their necks until they snap is a lot easier than trying to chop off their head with your eyes closed!” 
	 “I know. I know,” said Evelyn. “It’s just that I can’t stand looking at them when I’m killing them.” 
	 “Here. Let me.” 
	Evelyn stepped aside as Mike took the ax and resumed her position at the chopping block. He drew the invisible X with his finger. Then, with one whack of the ax, it was over. 
	 “Here you go,” said Mike, handing the headless chicken over. Evenly breathed a deep sigh and wiped her face with the skirt of her dress. 
	 “Thanks. Sometimes you’re nice to have around. You killed that chicken like a pro, you know?” 
	 “Yeah, I know.” Mike liked getting praise from his mother. It made him feel good. It made him feel grown up. 
	Evelyn brushed her hair from her face. “We really should invest in some toys for you. You’re too young to be an expert chicken killer.” She rubbed the top of Mike’s head. 
	Mike smiled. “Okay. Well, we’re going to go look for John. Okay?” 
	 “Sure. You do that. I’m going to go pluck this chicken,” said Evelyn. She smiled and walked away with it hanging by her side.
	 “Is your mom okay?” Gaylyn asked.
	 “Yeah. Some things just scare her, like killing chickens and the time I walked in my sleep. I walked into their room and grabbed her feet while she was sleeping. Wow, that really scared her! She sat straight up in bed and let out a blood-curdling scream!” 
	Mike imitated Evelyn’s scream and started laughing.
	 “Another time she got scared was when me and Georgie built a tree house thirty feet up in the big cottonwood tree. We made it real strong too. We even had a metal cable connected to it, so that it wouldn’t fall,” he told her as they walked.
	 “Mom was always scared that we’d fall out of it, but we didn’t. And being that it was so high up, neither mom nor dad would dare try to climb up. Dad decided to just leave it up there until a blizzard blew it down, but that didn’t happen. After a while, Dad cut the tree down. Boy, was I sorry to see that! I guess Dad figured it was either the tree or me, and the tree lost.”
	 “I bet you could see the whole farm from up there, huh?” 
	 “Yeah. If I still had that tree house, it would be easier to look for John. The only things that high are the silos, and I know that my dad wouldn’t want me climbing up there.”
	Gaylyn looked over at the two silos. “I wouldn’t want to climb up there either.”
	Mike wasn’t surprised to hear this. 
	“We haven’t looked in the west fields yet. Come on, we’ll have to hurry before the mosquitoes come out.”
	Mosquitoes and fireflies always came out just before sundown, as if someone had opened a giant door to let them out. Fireflies didn’t hurt anyone. In fact, they were fun to catch and pretty to look at. But mosquitoes? A very different story. They spread across the sky like a big blanket, looking for prey, and striking victims without mercy. 
	“One time, when I got bit by a mosquito, my leg swelled up really big. Mom told me to rub some alcohol on it because it itched so bad. So, I rubbed alcohol on it and went outside to play. A little later, I looked down and saw that my whole leg was green! I showed my mom, and she panicked, calling my dad to take me to the doctor.
	“We got in the car and drove about three miles down the road and Mom kept looking at my green leg, when all of a sudden, she licked her thumb and rubbed my leg and the green came off. Then she asked me, ‘What did you rub your leg with?’ I told her that I used the Kleenex left over from Christmas. She said, ‘The green ones?’ And then she hit me on the head and told my dad to go back home.”
	Gaylyn laughed.
	“Heck, how was I supposed to know that the green Kleenex would turn my leg green? I was glad that nothing was wrong with my leg, but I didn’t like being hit on the head.” 
	“What did your dad say?”
	“Nothing. He just laughed. But that was the last time Mom ever bought any left over Christmas Kleenex.” 
	“I once scared my mom like that, only it was with black crepe paper,” Gaylyn said. “I sucked on it until the black ink came off on my tongue. Then I told her that I didn’t feel well. She always makes me stick my tongue out when I feel sick.”
	“What did she do?” Mike enjoyed knowing that Gaylyn wasn’t always good.
	“She asked me what I had sucked on. I told her, ‘black crepe paper’ and she told me that could poison me. She scared me instead.” Gaylyn shrugged her shoulders.
	Mike looked at her. He didn’t know what disappointed him the most: that her story was so short or that his aunt had scared her instead. He straightened his straw cowboy hat and started walking to the west field. Gaylyn followed without saying another word. 

Chapter Fourteen

	John moseyed back to the cornfield. She loved nibbling on corncobs. Butterflies resting on the flowers opened and shut their wings. Birds nested in trees. She swished her tail. She was free.
***
	Walking behind Mike, placing her footsteps in his, Gaylyn asked, “Do you think we’ll find John?” 
	“I don’t know. Hope so. She could survive out here on her own if no other animals try to eat her. The good news is that we don’t have a big problem with that. The bad news is that we sometimes have problems with rustlers. Beings she’s young, she’d be a target for them.”
	“Rustlers come on your property and steal cows?”
	Mike looked at her, trying to evaluate her knowledge of the topic. “Yes, but not like you’re thinking. They don’t ride horses onto our land like in the olden days. They come at night in a truck with their headlights turned off and take them. Sometimes it takes Dad awhile to figure this out, but he always does, and then he gets really mad.” 
	“Is that what you think happened to John?”
	“I sure hope not.” Mike looked over at Highway 30, thankful there wasn’t usually a lot of traffic. 
	The sun heat up the soil beneath their feet and the breeze sent ripples through the wheat fields. Crickets chirped in the distance and the locusts buzzed while eating the hay. Mike picked a long piece of wheat and slapped at the rest of the wheat as he passed by, pretending that the wheat was a whip. Gaylyn copied him. 
	Moo-o-o. Moo-o-o. A cow in distress! 
	Mike stopped walking and turned towards his cousin. “Did you hear that? It came from over there!” He threw down the piece of wheat and went running. 
	“Wait for me!” she said, throwing down her wheat and following him. 
	Mike reached the cow first, with Gaylyn close behind. They looked down at a cow trapped in a mud-filled ditch. 
	“Is it John?” asked Gaylyn. “I don’t see the three spots on her face, but it’s hard to tell through all the mud.”
	Mike’s shoulders slumped. “No, it’s not her.” He looked around, and seeing nothing, instructed her to stay with the cow while he went for some rope. “I’ll be right back.” 
	He ran back to the barn and took a rope hanging on a nail off the wall. He slung the rope over his right shoulder and ran back to the west field. When he arrived where he had left Gaylyn with the cow, his legs gave out and he collapsed, dropping the rope next to him. He sat, huffing, puffing, and trying to breathe. 
	When he got his breathing under control, he stood up. He picked up the rope and edged his way to the cow. He stretched as far as he could, but his arms weren’t long enough to reach her head with the rope. He inched even closer towards the cow, creeping slowly so he wouldn’t spook her, but his foot slipped. 
	“Whoa!” he said, falling into the ditch right next to the cow. The cow spooked and started trying to kick itself out of the mud. 
	“Whoa! Whoa!” repeated Mike, trying to calm the cow as he tried to regain his footing. Covered in mud, he struggled to get the rope over the cow’s head. “Sow, boss. Sh-u-u-u-s-h. Sow, boss.” Mike had to calm his own voice so that the cow would calm down. 
	Once he got the rope over the cow’s head, Mike held the end of the rope and sloshed his way through the mud to climb onto dry ground. Mike rested for a minute with his hands on his knees, waiting to catch his breath again. 
	“You did it! You did it!” Gaylyn said, cheering him on. She jumped up and down in excitement. 
	“I did, didn’t I,” Mike said, smiling. He was proud of himself. “I thought for a minute she was going to trample me! Boy, was I scared.” 
	He scraped some of the mud off his clothes and shook it to the ground. He handed Gaylyn the end of the rope, and instructed her to pull on it once he got back into the ditch behind the cow. She was to pull while he pushed. 
	“Wrap the rope around your waist, and when I tell you to pull, start winding yourself into it so that it won’t slip. This way, it won’t burn your hands either.” 
	She nodded, and he eased himself into the ditch behind the cow, repeating “Sow boss” over and over. 
	“Okay, now pull!” 
	Mike started pushing and Gaylyn took small steps backwards and wound herself in the rope. As soon as the cow’s feet touched dry dirt, it found its footing and struggled out of the mud with Mike pushing as hard as he could. When the cow took one final leap out of the mud, his hands slipped off and he landed face down in the mud. 
	Splat! 
	Gaylyn stood speechless. Then he started to move and she started laughing. “You look like a tar bear!” 
	Mike started spitting mud. He blew mud out of his nose and wiped it out of his eyes. Once he could see where he was going, he climbed out of the muddy ditch and fell to the ground to rest. Gaylyn stopped laughing. Mike let his body relax in the warm, soft dirt. He was tired and the warmth of the earth felt good. Then, in a tiny voice, she said, “We did it.”
	Mike got up and took the rope. He smiled at her and she smiled back. Knowing he didn’t have to say anything, he started walking back to the barn, leading one muddy cow to safety. 
Gaylyn followed. 
	As they walked to the barn, he scraped off as much of the mud as he could reach. Globs of mud slid off the cow, making plopping sounds. Plop. Plop. Plop. 
	Gaylyn laughed at the noise and said, “It sounds like the cow is pooping!” 
	He ignored her. He felt itchy from the mud drying on his skin. 
	The three reached the barn and Mike handed her the rope.
	“Your job is to hold the cow in place,” he told her. 
	He got the garden hose from the front yard and hooked it up next to the barn. Then he turned the water on the cow. 
	“There you go. Good as new,” Mike said as he finished squirting the cow. The cow took a stance and shook the excess water off before running into the barn. 
	Mike turned the hose on himself. “Ah, this feels good!”
	When he’d washed off the mud, he turned it on Gaylyn and sprayed her with water. She screamed and ran in circles, trying to get away from the cold well water. “Not fair! Not fair!” 
	Mike laughed. “Why not? YOU helped me rescue the cow and now YOU can get wet like me. We’re a team now. Partners. What happens to me happens to you.”
	Gaylyn stopped running in circles. “Really? You mean it?”
	“Yep, really,” said Mike.
	“Well— Okay!” 
 	“Come on, partner, let’s go put this hose away and get some grub. I’m hungry.” 

Chapter Fifteen

	A black sky loomed over Brady, Nebraska, with an ill intent that John ignored. Ignored like everything else on the farm. Ignored the gnats and mosquitoes. Ignored the snake. Ignored the badger. She kept on munching. Snorting and munching. 
***
	Doris knocked at the door. “Anyone home?”
	“Yes. Come on in,” Evelyn said. They all sat around the kitchen table, eating dinner. “Gaylyn, look who’s here.”
	“Mommy!” Gaylyn ran over and gave her mother a hug. “Are you all better?”
	“Yes, I’m all better.”
	“Uncle Donald’s here.”
	“I know. I saw his car and its California plates. Were you a good girl?” 
	“Yes,” Gaylyn said. “Mike and I went fishing!” 
	“You did? Well, that must have been fun.” 
	Donald came out of the bathroom, drying his hands, and into the kitchen. Doris greeted him with a hug. 
	“Dad,” Mike said. “Look at the sky. It looks awful dark over there.” 
	The window above the kitchen sink gave a view of the eastern sky. Arno walked over and looked out. “It looks like a storm’s a coming.”
	“I hope it’s not a tornado,” his sister said.
	“Nah.” Arno took another look. “We never get tornados from the east.”
	“Are you sure?” asked Doris. “It looks pretty dark over there.”
	“Oh, Dodo, stop your worrying,” said Arno, using the nickname he’d given his sister. “I told you, we never get tornados from the east.”
	“It sure looks like it could be a tornado to me,” Mike said. “And I haven’t found John yet! What if a tornado picks her up? I’ll never get her back!”
	“Calm down!” said Arno. “If it will make you all feel any better, I’ll put the weather station on to see if there are any tornado warnings.”
	Arno went into the living room and turned on the television. Everyone gathered around to watch. It said the storm was heading right towards them!	 
	Evelyn walked back into the kitchen and looked out of the window. “Arno!” she said, “Look!” There, in all its glory, was the biggest, blackest tornado they had ever seen. “Better turn off that television before lightning strikes!”
	“Good idea,” agreed Arno. But seconds before he could, they heard a crackle and saw sparks break through the electrical cord, and then the lightning traveled from the wall socket to the television. The television made a POP sound when the sparks reached it, and smoke burst from the wooden case. Arno was too shocked to cuss. 
	“You kids move away from there!” he said.
	“Quick! Open all the windows!” Evelyn added. 
	“Why?” asked Gaylyn, as everyone scrambling to open them.
	“It takes the pressure off the house and hopefully will leave it intact.”
	By the time the windows were all opened, the wind blew so hard that they had to create a human chain to walk to the basement under the bunkhouse.
	First went Arno, who opened the basement door, followed by Evelyn holding on to Mike, who held on to Doris. She held Gaylyn, followed by Donald, who closed and locked the basement door. As soon as they were all safe in the basement, Doris asked, “Do you think I should have chained my car to the tree?
 	“A tree?” said Arno. “It’ll probably take your car AND the tree.” He let out a nervous chuckle.
	No one else laughed.
	The basement smelled like old dust rags and was pitch black. Everyone felt their way to a place and sat down, either on an empty crate or on the floor. It sounded like a train ran over them and the whole basement vibrated.
	“Remind me to move some chairs in here before the next time,” said Arno.
 	Doris and Gaylyn coughed from the dust in the air that was being shaken out of the walls. Evelyn sneezed. Mike smacked his arm; it felt like a spider crawled on him. No one liked being in the cellar. It was a dark and dirty place. 
	They didn’t stay in the basement for more than twenty minutes, but it seemed longer. As soon as it became quiet, Arno said, “Are you ready to go out and see what’s left?”
	Arno led the sober group out of the cellar. They all sighed with relief when Arno announced that the house was still there.
	“And so is your car,” he told his sister. “Good thing you didn’t chain it to the tree.”
	“Why?” asked Doris.
	“Because the tree is gone,” said Arno, stepping away so Doris could see for herself.
	The tornado had snapped the trunk of that old tree right in half and taken the top half, along with all the fences and the two twenty-five-foot metal silos full of corn. By some miracle, the bunkhouse and the farmhouse were left intact without so much as a broken window.
	“You kids go round up the cows and pigs while Donald and I work on mending the fences,” Arno said. “Dodo, go inside with Evelyn. You can keep her company while she gets supper ready. I don’t want you hurting yourself just after your surgery.”
	Uncle Donald repaired the pigpen while Mike and Gaylyn spent most of the afternoon finding the piglets. They squealed in protest at being picked up. 
	“I think this is all of them,” Mike finally said, as he placed the last piglet in the pen. “Now for the cows. Let’s go out to the north pasture. That’s where they were last.”
	They walked for a long time. Neither one spoke. They were tired. They had found two dead cows and neither one was John. 
	All of a sudden, sadness came over Mike. He realized that Gaylyn’s time at the farm was over. He kind of liked having someone younger around who didn’t know as much as he did. 
	Mike looked at the wheat, how it flowed in the breeze. He could see the path the tornado had taken through it. 
	“You know,” Gaylyn said, “I had fun this week.”
	“Yeah. It was kind of fun. And you’re not so bad, for a girl. There’s a lot you don’t know, but you’re a pretty good sport.”
	Gaylyn smiled. 
	“Listen!” he said, suddenly standing still. 
	“What?”
	“Did you hear that?”
	Both children strained their ears to hear.
	“Over there!” said Mike. He took off running, with Gaylyn close behind.
	They ran to a ditch full of water, twigs, and a cow with three white spots down the front of her face. 
	“John!” Mike said. “Boy, am I glad to see you! Where have you been? Have you been out here this whole time?”
	The cow stood with mud and twigs stuck to her. She stretched her neck and bellowed, “Moo!”
	“So, this is John,” Gaylyn said. “Nice to meet you.” She held out her hand and then laughed. 
	“Moo,” John repeated, shaking her head in protest.
	Mike slipped a rope around her neck and pulled until John staggered out. Once she was out of the watery ditch, she shook off the excess mud. Mike was happy that they’d found John.
	The three went back to the barn, and Mike rubbed all the mud off John with a piece of sackcloth that had been hanging on a nail. He checked her legs. No broken bones. She was fine.
	“There you go, John,” said Mike. “You’re home now and you didn’t get eaten by a coyote or bobcat. And best of all, you didn’t get picked up by the tornado. Am I glad to have you back. And I hope you don’t run away ever again.”
	John nudged Mike as if to say, “Thank you.” And then she went over to a corner to lie down. 
	Gaylyn looked at Mike. “Can I?” she asked.
	Mike smiled. “Sure. Go ahead.”
	She climbed up on the cow, and snuggled in the crook of John’s hind leg. “Cough, John! Cough!”
	John coughed and Gaylyn went flying. 

About the Author

	Gail Picado was born in 1949. Every summer, as a child, her parents would take her and her siblings to her aunt and uncle’s farm in Brady, Nebraska, to spend time with their cousins. She spent many hours learning chores that seemed more like play, and each chore created a good memory. They didn’t have any toys, but the animals were all the toys any child would need. A Cow Named John was inspired by these experiences.
	In high school, Gail loved to draw and write, but her father discouraged her, saying that there were too many starving artists. Instead, she took typing and bookkeeping and always worked in an office. But she never gave up on her dream of writing. Her first novel, No One’s Son (1991), is based on her father’s life. 
	Gail and her husband reside in California and have three daughters. 

Acknowledgements

	This book is based on actual events that happened to numerous cousins but were distributed between two characters in order to simplify the story for young readers. 
	I would like to thank the following:
	My cousin, Glenda (Drinkman) Brady, for giving me the idea for the title of this book and telling me about cow skiing from when she lived on a farm in Wisconsin.
	My cousin, George Gugler, retold the stories of his experiences visiting the farm with so much enthusiasm and humor. I don’t think that I could have finished this book without your recall. 
	Even though Uncle Arno Elsasser has passed on, Evelyn remains on the farm in Brady, Nebraska. They were always so generous in letting our family spend the summers with them. I don’t believe there were any harder working people than you two. Thank you for a treasure chest of memories. 
	My cousin, Mike Elsasser, for being a good sport. And regrettably to Geraldine and Kay, his two sisters, who were left out of this story due to the limit in characters, but who are so dear to my heart. 
	My cousin, Fred Drinkman and his wife, Barbara, who are dairy farmers in Downing, Wisconsin, for explaining what milk fever is. 
	My dear friend, Pam Martin, for proofreading the original draft before being resubmitted to Solstice Publishing.
	I love you all. 
	And finally, my editor, Debbie S. George-Jones, who did a great job. She was tireless with her creative suggestions that were easy to follow, and I feel honored to have had her as my editor.