Little Joe (17 page)

“But I can’t shave left. It’ll only take a few minutes,” Keller pleaded.

“Can’t you get your pa to help you?” Eli’d seen enough of Keller yesterday. Today was supposed to be just him and Little Joe.

“He dropped me off,” Keller began, “but he don’t like pigs.”

The hog barn was even noisier than the beef barn. Most of the kids ran around chasing their squealing pigs as the animals tried to avoid getting bathed.

“Where’s Watermelon?” Eli asked. He stared down at the empty hog pen Keller had led him to.

“Five pounds over. Didn’t make it.” Keller hopped into another pen with a pink pig in it. “I still got Strawberry,” he said, handing Eli a plastic blue shaver. “She needs a shave round her snout. I got this side done.” Keller slapped Strawberry on the backside. “I’m just waitin’ for her to shift over.”

Strawberry peered up at Eli with her round, rubbery snout and grunted. Eli’d never shaved anything before, but the pig looked pretty cut up already. He aimed the shaver at a bristly white hair sprouting out of her chin and stroked it with the blade. Strawberry fluttered her white eyelashes.
Pigs aren’t so different from cows
, Eli thought. Just smaller and quicker, but they still liked being stroked and fussed over. “You practice much?” he asked Keller.

“Who,
me?”

“That’s how you win,” Eli said.

“I don’t win anything.” Keller sprinkled the bottle of talcum powder over Strawberry’s back and rubbed.

“You never know,” Eli said. “Strawberry likes you a lot. You raised her. She’ll follow you around.”

“They let them loose in the ring and we gotta go find ’em, you know.”

“I know.”

“I got enough candy in my pocket to keep her close by, though.” Keller dug deep into one and brought up a handful of sugar-coated pieces. “Even put some in my boot. That way if I trip, she still won’t leave me.” Keller smiled. He took the spray bottle and squirted Strawberry’s neck with it. “Keep her cool,” he told Eli. “She can’t sweat.”

Keller got out his show cane. “Wish me luck!”

“Luck!” Eli wished back. He started making his way to the beef barn.

“Hey!” Keller shouted. “Know why you never got DQ’d?”

“Why?” Eli hollered back.

“’Cause you got the best-lookin’ calf in the barn.”

Pa’d already given Little Joe a bath and set him up in the grooming chute when Eli got back. “Get out the blower,” he said.

Eli began blowing Little Joe’s feet dry, then his tail, working his way up to the neck. When he got to the calf’s face, Little Joe licked Eli’s nose.

“It’s the salt they’re after,” Pa said, spraying the hairs on Little Joe’s topline in place. “Better get your show shirt on.” Pa swept up the hairs near the calf’s tailhead with a comb, making them stand on end.

Eli rushed to get his checked shirt all buttoned, but his fingers seized up around the last hole. He wondered how he’d be able to work the show stick with his right hand being so shaky.

“Comb out the tail yet?” Pa asked.

Eli took the comb from Pa and stroked Little Joe’s tail.

“That’s about it,” Pa said. He handed Eli the lead strap. “Take him to the gate and wait till they call you in.”

Eli couldn’t move. The links of metal chain on the lead strap ran cold through his fingers. Anxious show animals sidestepped around him. But he couldn’t recall what to do. The lather of sweaty flesh nipped Eli’s nostrils. Blowers roared in his ears like tiller mowers. But when he saw Little Joe standing square in front of him, all Eli could remember was how his bull calf looked coming out as a baby, lying small and helpless in a clump on the straw.

Little Joe butted the top of Eli’s head with his chin, forcing Eli to do something. Eli gripped the lead strap and guided Little Joe out of the chute and in line by the gate.
He buried his fingers beneath Little Joe’s hair and took in the warmth. “I wish I was as calm as you,” he murmured, clutching the show stick tighter.

Keep the stick in the left hand when leading
, Eli recalled,
and in the right hand to use it
. What else had Grandpa told him?
Turn away from the judge. Or was it turn around for the judge?
Eli was a bucket of nerves. He blinked and eyed the rest of the bulls. The other seven in the class all looked like they could win.

The gate opened. Eli froze. Little Joe led him into the ring.

The bull calf in front of them took a stutter step, pulled back his ears and mooed. The judge’s face turned sour.

Eli held his breath, hoping Little Joe wouldn’t moo, too. “No mooing,” he whispered in Little Joe’s ear. But all Little Joe did was kick up some wood shavings and lick his shiny gray nose.

“Line ’em up!” the judge shouted.

Eli watched the girl in front lead her mooing calf.
Keep half a cow’s length behind
. Eli’d remembered. He broke away and took Little Joe into the center of the ring, tugging on the chain once the calf’s legs were square. Then he switched the show stick to his right hand and rubbed Little Joe’s belly with it.

“Your first calf, right, son?” The judge ran a hand across Little Joe’s back.

Eli was a bucket of nerves. He blinked and eyed the rest of the bulls
.

Eli nodded and kept stroking Little Joe with the show cane. He could hardly swallow, his mouth was so dry, and his stomach was fisting up, too.

“He’s big, boy. What do you feed him?”

“The whole orchard.” Eli couldn’t help but smile now. “It’s where he goes to kick and run.” As soon as he’d said it, Eli wished he could take it back—the kicking part. Blue ribbons didn’t go to kickers.

“Around the ring once more.” The judge made a circular motion in the air with a finger, then scratched his double chin.

Little Joe kept leading, calm as toast. All Eli had to do was follow. The mooing calf jerked up suddenly. Eli and Little Joe were just a few inches back. The crowd rose to their feet and gasped.
Don’t do it
, Eli pleaded in his head.
Don’t rear back on us
. Quickly, Eli turned Little Joe away, hoping it wasn’t too late.

Eli could hear the ring man running, his footsteps grinding down the sawdust, and the girl yanking the lead strap too hard, then crying. But he didn’t dare look.
It don’t concern you
. Grandpa’s voice came back to him.
It’s just the judge, you and Little Joe
. Eli rubbed the bottom of Little Joe’s cheek with his free thumb. He lined the calf up in the center of the ring, next to an Angus cross with white markings up to both knees. The ring man,
half a yard away, twisted up the mooing calf’s tail and led him out.

The judge stepped toward Little Joe and pointed to his topline. “Folks, the Angus is a high-carcass breed as you can see.”

Did the judge go to third place first or first place first?
Eli stood still as a statue, wishing he knew.

“There’s plenty of cuttability here in the rib, too.” The judge ran his hand down Little Joe’s back toward the loin, then below it. “And his hindquarters are longer than most. It may be his first entry, but this young boy and his bull calf are the best in the class.”

The judge handed Eli the blue ribbon. Eli felt the silky softness of the prize before sticking it in his back pocket, just like he’d seen others do. Then he led Little Joe out of the ring and tried not to smile too big. Everyone Eli’d competed against patted him on the back and even the ones who didn’t.

“You fattened him up just right, son,” Pa said. “He’s sure to get top dollar at the sale.” Pa put a hand on Eli’s shoulder, drew him closer and smiled proudly.

It was the first time Eli’d seen Pa smile that way. A well of happiness Eli had never known gushed up and made his ears tingle. He’d pleased Pa that much.

Eli guided Little Joe down the shed row, noticing things he hadn’t before. The steady hum of a ceiling fan,
cooling a dozing steer. The speckled coat of a tiny calf all glowy from getting a bath. And the smell of manure. He liked the smell of manure. “Told you we’d win the blue ribbon,” he whispered to Little Joe, keeping his lips near the calf’s ear a bit longer.

When Eli and Little Joe reached their tiny stall, Keller was there.

“Got a spot to hang your ribbon,” Keller said, pulling the blue ribbon out of Eli’s back pocket. “Right here.” Keller had hammered in a nail. He hooked the blue ribbon around it.

“How’d you do?” Eli asked.

“Dropped some candy in the ring by mistake,” Keller said. “Strawberry wouldn’t stop eating. The judge didn’t even get a look at her.” He took his show cane by the butt end and tried balancing it in his left palm. It toppled into the straw. “I’m selling her in fifteen minutes at the hog sale,” he said. “That’s the best part. Getting all that money. Sleeping in tomorrow morning. You’ll see.”

Keller picked up his cane and walked away. “As soon as she’s sold,” he yelled back, “I’m getting me a double order of curly fries with gravy.”

Eli rummaged through the straw to find Little Joe an apple slice. A sparrow dived down to peck at a chunk but quickly darted up to its nest as soon as Eli stooped over.

“It’s a good hour till the sale,” Pa said, bringing over a tub of water for Little Joe. “We can walk around the fair for a bit.”

Eli waited until he couldn’t feel the warmth of Little Joe’s breath between his fingers anymore and the calf had dipped down for a drink of water.

He didn’t know the sun had been shining. It caught the edges of the Ferris wheel whenever the wind gusted beneath a car and rattled it slightly.

“What do you feel like eating?” Pa kept looking over at Eli and grinning. “I know Ma packed lunch, but you can have whatever you want. You earned it.”

Eli eyed a row of candy apples glistening cherry red behind a glass counter and caught a whiff from the fryer at the Bloomin’ Onion. He’d imagined for months what it might be like to win the blue ribbon and what he’d do right after. He’d planned on riding the Cliff Hanger. Eli’d figured he might be tall enough to make it through this time. He’d do that first on an empty stomach, then he’d ask Pa about getting an order of elephant ears with cinnamon sugar. Or a waffle ice cream sandwich. Not the skinny ones at the Methodist booth that only cost a dollar—the ones with thick slabs of vanilla ice cream dripping out the middle that cost more.

But now that Eli had won the blue ribbon for real, he
didn’t want either. This wasn’t supposed to be how it turned out at all. He was supposed to be happy. He’d finally made Pa proud. Pleasing Pa was just about the best thing Eli figured he could ever do. And he’d won the blue ribbon. He’d
really
won it! But he hadn’t won it by himself. He’d won it with Little Joe.
His calf
. And in an hour Little Joe wouldn’t be his anymore. He’d belong to someone else.

“That’s what Hannah likes, ain’t it?” Pa pointed to a little glass animal gleaming in the sun at a booth by the grandstand.

“I think so.” Eli watched the curly-tipped mane sparkle blue and then pink in the light.
Pa knows about unicorns? He actually noticed one in a line of cluttered glass?

“How much for that unicorn?” Pa asked the vendor. The glassmaker was snoozing behind the booth and came to, following Pa’s fingers to the top row.

“That’s a gladiator on a horse,” the man grumbled.

“Got any unicorns?” Pa asked.

“You like make-believe creatures, do you? How about a dragon with a long, pointy tail?” The man reached for a dragon by its jagged end.

“It’s got a horn coming out of its forehead,” Pa explained.

“I know what a unicorn looks like,” the man scoffed. “I can make this horse into one,” he said, showing Pa a
steed rearing up on his hind legs. “But it’ll cost you twenty bucks. Horns that long aren’t easy to fire. It’ll take me two minutes.”

“We’ll wait,” Pa said, handing the man some money.

Maybe Pa noticed more than Eli’d given him credit for. He’d found a tiny stem of lobelia in a fifty-acre field. And he was getting Hannah a gift for no reason. Maybe Pa hadn’t forgotten what it was like to raise a calf.

The man put the unicorn on a bed of fluffy cotton and handed the box to Pa.

“I know about Shamrock.” There. Eli’d finally said it.

Pa looked as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. “That was a long time ago,” he said. He tucked the box with the unicorn into his breast pocket.

“Not too long,” Eli told him. “Grandpa says you never forget your first show animal.”

Pa scratched behind his shirt collar.

“So you still remember, Pa? About Shamrock?”

“Some.”

“But the hurt’s all gone?” Eli stopped and looked up at Pa’s face, searching for something they had in common. Searching for any sign of the feelings he had in himself.

Pa reached down, took Eli’s hand and squeezed. “Better get back to the show barn,” he said. “We don’t want to be late for the sale.”

Sold!