by John Connell
Darkness into Light
Red is alive. It has been three days and I am hopeful. I watch him every time I come out here. I have taken the blame upon myself and think perhaps Da was right to be angry. I had let my focus slip with the calves. I was so busy with the sheep that I walked by the calves and not really looked, but I must watch for the signs. Another calf has come down with scour, so I treat him quickly and re-bed the creep area with fresh straw. I will never let this happen again. The lives of these beasts depend on us.
I spend the morning cleaning out the houses. I muck and pull and clean. I lime them to kill any infection and then throw fresh straw upon them. I muck out the hens too, for good measure. They have not been cleaned out for some time, and cooped up as they are, they crave fresh bedding.
In my acts of work and cleaning, I find solace and peace and some perspective on my thoughts. I know that this struggle between father and son is playing out an age-old rural drama—these rows have been had by men like us for generations; we are the two bulls in the field sizing each other up. This is the way things are for now, but it will not always be such. The good days will come again and we shall talk of Charles Bronson and his harmonica.
I think at times I deserve this life, this hardship. For here, in this winter that does not seem to end, it is hardship. The work is so relentless that I have forgotten I have lived other lives or that other lives exist. There is only the yard and cows and the mountain of chores before me. On the good days, I fancy myself the gentleman farmer, Siegfried Sassoon reborn, the squire who will run an organic farm and make a difference in the world. On the bad, such as today, I think only of escape and leaving. But I cannot leave, for Ma has asked me to help them and I will not let her down. There will be deaths if I leave now; there are too many lives at stake. Mam and Da have supported me for six months as I try to make it in this undefined world of literature. I must return that favor now and support them in the very real world of farming.
At midday I finish my chores. In the distance I hear the church bells call out across the fields from the village. I pause and reflect. Nothing has died, nothing has been broken that cannot be mended. The sun too will return. I have learned to calm my thoughts, to calm negativity.
There was a time when that darkness had a powerful hold on me, but that was long ago, in another calving season. I do not think of that time anymore; it is better not to. We do not talk of it either, save only in passing. I have come to love health and life and work, to think of each day as a gift, tomorrow a bounty, a land of unknown triumph and tragedy, and for all of it I am ready.
Fighting
The first record we have of man fighting the cow appears in the Mesopotamian epic Gilgamesh. In this poem, Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven, and the description sounds eerily like the bullfights of today: “They fought for hours, until Gilgamesh lured the animal with his bright tunic and weapons and Enkidu thrust his sword deep into the bull’s neck, and killed it.”
We know that the Romans fought against the aurochs, but it was the Spanish who really turned bullfighting into an art form during the time of the Moorish occupation in AD 711.
It was said that in the ring the Moorish and Christian knights could fight the bull rather than one another. This early bullfighting was associated with religious feast days. It was done from horseback with long spears or javelins, and thus was the picador born. The bull, above all other animals, fought the longest and bravest. It fought to the death.
It is interesting to note that, despite their Muslim faith, the Moors did not seem to mind the ritual slaughter of the bull, even though the method of killing was never in halal fashion. It is perhaps an example of how naturalized the conquerors became.
In medieval times, bullfighting was the preserve of the wealthy, but by the sixteenth century the nobility had released its stranglehold on the practice, and modern bullfighting, the corrida, began. Men now faced the bull on foot, and with that came the figure of the matador.
From Hemingway to Picasso, many artists have been drawn to the fight and sacrifice of the bull and the man. In them we see our struggle with nature, our desire to conquer it, and its resistance to that will.
Today’s Spanish fighting bull is said to bear a very close resemblance to the auroch: tall, muscular and strong, its temper fearsome, its bravery renowned. I have seen the fight with my own eyes, in the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas in Madrid. Locked in their dance, the matador and bull are a symbol of Spain—its machismo and pomp, its love of drama and, like its empire of old, its demise too.
I remember meeting José Manuel Mas, a young matador who had trained in this craft since the age of sixteen, who hoped one day to be a fighter of note, for there are fortunes to made at the sport.
I also remember the sounds of the band’s paso doble and the entrance of the bull and the picadors. And when they had struck and injured the bull with their spears, I remember the arrival of the toreador.
The fighter stood forward and signaled to the picadors that he was ready. The crimson blood was flowing down the bull’s neck, his head rolled and bowed, but there was much fight left in him. It was a Miura bull, the most fearsome breed.
The banderilleros next came and stabbed the bull with their harpoon-shaped spears. Six harpoons were placed and the beast was weakened more.
The fighter stepped forward again and fought the beast himself now, armed only with his muleta, the cape, and his sword. The bull rushed towards him.
It passed once, then twice, and the man’s turns were true and brave. He did not move from where he stood; his legs were taut and strong. The cape fluttered in the breeze and sailed up and over the bull’s head each time he passed, the red of its blood invisible against the red of the cloth.
The toreador performed a rebolera, a decorative pass, and the creature began to tire. I had heard that bullfighting was a ballet, and I saw then that it was not a dance of death, but rather a dance for and with it. In the end the fighter ran with his sword outstretched, and the bull, as if complicit, dropped its head and exposed the nape of its neck to the man. The act was clean and quick and the beast fell instantly. There was tragedy in the act, for I had never seen a cow so treated, to be raised so high and cheered by thousands, and then lowered to its death, dragged from the arena by a team of horses. It was a moment from history. And a moment of history.
Across the road from Las Ventas was a restaurant that served the butchered meat of fighting bulls. I went there with my Toronto partner, but she would not eat the meat, and so we drank and smoked cigarettes like the tourists we were.
The fighting of the bull marked an important note in the history of the cow, for in this celebration of death was the celebration of the animal as life itself.
Texting
It has been five days, and the red calf seems to be back to normal. We have survived through the bad week and Da has cooled and calmed again. On Friday evening, Mam and he go for their supper in town. They put on clean clothes and smile and joke.
“Have a good time,” I say, and wave them off.
We have had a lamb born today and that has lifted all our spirits, for he is a triumph: he is big and powerful and will mature quickly. I will take the evening shift and watch the animals. It will be a quiet night, I think, so I can relax and watch a film or chat show. The grocery shopping has been done and the house is full of food. I snack on some peanut butter and lazily channel-hop. I rarely watch TV anymore, but tonight I find an old action movie and allow myself this treat. It is a Sylvester Stallone flick.
At eight there is a commercial break and I walk out to the yard. A cow has been roaring on and off for an hour and something is wrong. A few days ago, a calf got stuck between the round bales of straw in the big shed. He was there for several hours before we noticed him gone. He was distressed and somewhat dehydrated but soon recovered. I do not need a repeat of this, especially not after the row earlier this week.
I walk first to the bales at the top of
the shed but find no calf. I return then to the roaring cow and trace her calls. Something is amiss. It is pitch-dark outside and the lights of the shed are dim, and so I begin my search. She walks towards the creep and roars to the calves clearly now.
It’s then that I find him. Stretched out, already cold, the life long gone from him. Red is dead. It is his mother roaring—no, not roaring, I tell myself, but crying, for she has lost her calf.
I make to curse but cannot find the words to express such disappointment.
The vet said you would live is all I can think as I drag his lifeless corpse through the shed. He was big and strong in life, and so he is in death; my steps are labored and slow, for I carry some four months of growth and life. We reach the outside and I release him to the concrete. I cover him in black silage wrap. It is so dark now that I cannot tell the plastic from the night. Tomorrow we will dump his body at the knackery.
I do not call Da, for I do not want to break his night off with Mam. They have both of them earned it. Instead, I write a text.
“Red calf is dead, passed an hour ago.”
Da cannot text, though he can read them. There is no reply nor call back. He says nothing when he returns. There is no fight or row. But the calf is gone.
Days later, Mam tells me it was a bitter blow to him, but there is no one to blame. Death has taken its first victory on us. We will decide what to do with Red’s mother in the days to come. She might raise another calf, but we have not the heart to think of that tonight.
Farmers will tell you that the loss of a calf does not bother them. That is a quite simply a lie.
Aftermath
It takes a few days to overcome the loss.
“Better outside the house than in,” Mam says as we break for dinner.
She is right—it could have been Da, or herself, or indeed me, in some accident. I do fear the day when there will be a call to say they are gone, and what then? What of all the said and unsaid things? It has happened twice already, with Uncle John and Uncle Mick. We thought it had happened when my brother got his arm caught in a machine at the factory and we feared for the worst, or that he might lose the arm, that he might never regain its use. But the surgeons were quick and saved him. He has metal rods keeping the arm together, but he is alive and able-bodied. Mam says it was the best thing that happened to him, for it made him slow down at work and settle down with his girlfriend and get married. He has built his house nearby and they have a child together. We are not so close as we had been in childhood, and yet when his accident came I knew I had but one brother in this whole world.
I am aware now more than ever of mortality, for there is nothing like darkness to show one the light. It has come too in growing older and seeing death on the farm. We must be thankful that we have been spared.
The cow cried all night for Red, but come the morning she had stopped. Da disposed of his body. I offered to help, but he wanted to do it himself. I read of Saint Luke recently: he has often been depicted as an ox with wings, and I think that perhaps Red is something like that now, in bovine heaven. I do not know where the spirit of life goes from a departed beast. I must ask Father Seán.
Da and I said nothing of the vet. Perhaps Gormley had missed something. Or perhaps medicine can only do so much, and that is what he would tell us now if he were here.
Before the Department of Agriculture imposed stricter laws that required the removal of carcasses, we used to bury the smaller calves who did not make it in the fields. I remember their graves, if that is what they could or should be called. By the corner of the Garden field there are two, another in the yard where we keep the bales and one in Mick’s old potato ground. I was a teenager when we last buried a calf on the farm, and the grave was big enough to hold me. I would carry the body out in the wheelbarrow and turn the sod with my spade. The ground in these parts can be wet, and though they are animals, I did not like to bury them in a watery grave. I always chose a dry patch of ground. The graves would be a few feet deep, not out of reverence but of necessity, for I did not want foxes or dogs to disturb the remains and so bring up disease.
Once the grave was dug, I would place the body into the ground, atop of which I placed a layer of plastic. I did not know why we did this, but it was something I saw Da do years ago, so I always did it too. I suppose it keeps the scent down, trapped in the ground. As a younger boy, sometimes I spoke to the calf and said a word or two, but as the years passed the words grew fewer. I lamented the loss, but I knew then that that was life: things died and you got on with the business in hand. There would be next season and the cow would hopefully breed again. As farmers, we must always look to the future, for the past holds nothing, neither feed nor money nor living.
There is but one fully grown cow buried in our fields. It was done out of respect, or meas, the older Irish word. The little Blue cow earned that grave. She was our first great cow, back twenty years ago now, when the farm was much smaller and we much poorer. She was a crossbred Black Polly and Belgian Blue. She had no horns, but a temper second to none. She was wild and unruly, but every year she gave us the greatest calf of the season. She was a thief too, and often led the cows on raiding missions through the parish for fresh grass. I remember once when the herd went missing and we spent two days looking for them. Their disappearance was broadcast on the local radio and neighbors came to help. We found them that weekend in Cullyfad Forest, several miles to the south. The Blue had led them all the way there—in search of what, I do not know.
The Blue died years later, peacefully, as an old cow. We had bought land beside the house from an elderly neighbor who was retiring. We found the Blue in that field as if resting, her body stiff, death upon her. We were not sad, for she had enjoyed a good life. She had done so much for us, as her calves had helped us buy this land. A family friend who was a vet said she had died of cancer. We buried her there, to rest in the field forever. We talk of her sometimes still, fondly remembering her temper, her independent streak and her breakouts to fresh grass.
Cows are herd animals, and in those herds there are hierarchies. The world of cattle is a female-driven one, for, as with elephants, there are dominant matriarchs who lead the pack. The bull is but an ornament, given to the females for copulation and protection from other bulls. They are said to be his herd, but I have seen cows more fearsome than bulls. I do not know who took over when the Blue died, but a red Limousin is in charge now. She is neither the biggest nor the strongest, but she is the most fearsome. We have had to separate some cows from her, for she has bullied and beaten them. She is enjoying her throne now, but it will not last forever; there will always be another rival, another to take her place. Sometimes I smile at this game they play and think it is like a bovine Game of Thrones out there in the fields. We even have our own dwarf in Napoleon the calf!
On Wednesday, unknown to us, a cow gave birth. The new calf is grey and his face is a little like Red’s, though he is more muscular. He is sucking by himself and does not need me. Such is life and luck.
Film
Father Seán and I sometimes go to the cinema together. A few weeks back, we went to see The Revenant, which had taken some time to come to our local movie house. It was a powerful and epic story. Father Seán covered his eyes at the gore. It was strange to behold, for he sees death—real death—every day in his parishioners. I know of no one else, save a doctor or nurse, who has been surrounded by death and illness so long. He does not fear it, but he does not like the gore.
We share our popcorn, and when the movie is done we agree that it was profound and moving. We talked then for a long time of the Native Americans. Father Seán has a great affinity with those people and the frontier of America. He has read many books on those times and can tell me of the Apache and the Sioux, of Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee, of Chief Joseph, whom he calls a great man, a visionary.
On taking the leadership of his tribe, the Wallowa band of the Nez Perce, Chief Joseph, or Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (Thunder Rolling fr
om the Mountain), never expected that he would do battle with the very United States itself. But then, as was their wont, the federal troops forced the tribe off their lands, which Joseph had sworn to his father he would not abandon. The resulting war occurred soon after the defeat of General Custer and made headlines across the world.
Chief Joseph was a deeply religious man, and I think it is the spiritual aspect of him which appeals to Father Seán.
In a speech at Lincoln Hall, in Washington, DC, in 1879, Chief Joseph said: “Our fathers gave us many laws, which they have learned from their fathers . . . They told us to treat all men as they treated us; that we should never be the first to break a bargain; that it was a disgrace to tell a lie; that we should speak only the truth . . . We were taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets . . . This I believe and all my people believe the same.”
It is an old story and an old war, but Father Seán denigrates neither the man nor his cause. He has too much respect for those great peoples. Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce lived out their days in exile, and by 1877, for every Native American in the West there were nearly forty whites.
Father Seán reminds me that Ireland cannot forget the Native American people, for they sent us aid in the Great Famine.
The film and talk over, we make our way home. Father Seán jokes to me as we leave the cinema that perhaps people will think us a gay couple, for we have been to see two movies together in the last few weeks.
“Let them talk,” I say. “They have little to be at.”
He relaxes at my ease and agrees that I am right. We are unlikely friends, for he is seventy and I not quite thirty. He too is from a farm and knows cattle. I think my farming sojourn has reminded him of his own youth, for between our talk of books and the Apache, he has unfurled the stories of his past, of the triumphs and losses of calving seasons in the long ago. Once he delivered a calf while in his priest’s outfit, and someone joked later that it must surely be God’s own work.