My Million-Dollar Donkey (25 page)

The possibility of the coyotes returning to pick off my pregnant llama haunted my thoughts. Pulani might be safe enough in the pasture now that Donkey was close by, but her soon-to-be born fragile baby would make a perfect appetizer for hungry predators. Unless I wanted to spend my nights standing guard like a sentry, I had to put her in the barn, at least until she gave birth.

For all that Dalai had been a dear and lovely creature, his female companion, Pulani, was a very evasive, impersonal bitch. Pulani spit great wads of slimy grain at Donkey. Every time I picked projectile goo from my darling donkey’s face, I vowed I’d sell that nasty llama someday. I just hadn’t gotten around to doing so because she was Dalai’s only company, and now that he was gone I was enamored with the idea of watching a baby llama come into the world.

In all fairness, I hadn’t bothered with the female llama for a full year, so I was guilty of indulging her bad habits and perpetuating them. Ignoring an animal won’t make her any less ornery, just harder to catch...which happened to be my current challenge.

Kent and I had a system for llama entrapment that involved holding a long rope between us. We would maneuver the animal into a corner and in trying to escape, she would run into the rope. We would hightail it to opposite sides to wrap the rope around the animal’s neck. The force usually caused burns on our sweating palms, but lassoing served up a great cowboy high as we moved in to get a halter on. A llama will follow your lead, docile as a lamb, once the halter is on.

For an hour and a half, Kent and I chased Pulani. We had the rope around her neck a few times, but she went wild, flinging her head in circles, ducking and escaping with Houdini-like efficiency. Exhausted and frustrated, we eventually admitted that we needed a third party to chase this llama into the rope.

“I’ll call Dad and ask him to come home early to help,” I said. “Let’s just try one more time,” Kent said.

So, we quietly stepped into the woods again, a few feet away from the llama. “I’ll sneak up from the back,” he said, “You distract her here.” But before we could implement our diabolical plan, Kent started screaming. He ran out into the open pasture, flapping his arms and dancing about.

Now, my son has a propensity for physical humor, so at first I thought he was just being his crazy self, trying to make me laugh. But then, I realized he was under attack from an underground wasp nest he’d stepped on.

I charged after him, brushing off the violent insects, all the while cursing the llama rather than the wasps. My son was stung 15 times, on the face, legs, and arms. Pulani watched from the woods, smug as always.

I took Kent to the house to attend to his stings.

“I’m so sorry,” I kept saying, feeling guilty that my kids had to deal with things like wasps and mean llamas in this stupid life we had thrust them into.

He shrugged. “These kinds of things are bound to happen once in a while. It’s OK.”

When Mark came home we went out to catch the llama again. We chased her for another hour, all humor from the situation long since replaced with resentful complaining. No luck. Eventually a car came sputtering down the road with our neighbor’s kid at the wheel.

“Hey, want to help us catch this llama?” I asked.

How many sixteen-year-olds do you know who would say no to a question like that? None, in the country, I assure you. We now had two more hands joining in the pursuit. Nevertheless, with three hundred pounds of bad disposition fueling her, Pulani proved impossible to catch as she continued pulling the rope out of the hands of whoever was holding it.

“Maybe you should just leave her out here for the coyote’s next meal.” Kent said.

Giving up was tempting, but I was determined to save the baby, if not her. “Give me that rope. I’m getting her. This time I WON’T LET GO UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!”

Mark handed me the rope. “Go for it, cowgirl.”

The next time I caught Pulani, I didn’t let go. Unfortunately, this meant she dragged me about 15 feet over rocks and weeds like I was a stuntman in a western movie. When I stood, the skin was scraped off of the entire right side of my body. I had a bruise the size of an open hand on my right hip and my knuckles were bleeding. There was a scrape on my chin and another under my eye. Worst of all, I had dropped the rope in the end, so the llama was still at large.

The boys laughed nervously. Who could blame them? Here I was, a middle-aged woman cussing at llamas, letting myself get dragged in the dirt to prove I was master of the beast after bragging about how I wouldn’t let go. Boy, didn’t I show everybody how tough I was?

I sat in the dirt, dabbed at the blood and said, “Well, I didn’t let go.”

“And we admire you for that,” Mark said.

“Stop smiling.” I marched after the llama with bloodthirsty determination, ready to punch her lights out, a la
Blazing Saddles
.

By now, a horrible growl-like gurgling was coming out of the llama’s throat. She stood her ground as we closed in, too tired to run one more time. This made possible our winding the rope around her neck to put the halter on, all the while dodging spit and a few lackluster kicks.

“Your days are numbered,” I snapped, yanking on the lead rope as I led her to the barn. But once inside the stall, she behaved sweet as pie, peering over the gate and begging for food. Fool that I am, I gave a treat to her.

Each day thereafter, I went down to the barn to visit my nasty llama, hoping to desensitize her with handling to avoid ever having to go through such an ordeal again. My scars were healing, but the distrust on both of our parts was still raw.

Our interaction typically went something like this:

I’d enter the stall. We’d stare at each other. She’d pin her ears back. I’d squint like Clint Eastwood and say, “Go ahead, make my day.”

She would then lift her head as high as she could, her nose straight up in the air to establish her superiority. I’d hold my eyes downcast in hopes of alleviating her aggression even though I felt in no way contrite.

I’d slowly walk around the stall. She’d side step away. I’d corner her and pat her back, feeling her skin nervously shake under my fingers. When I could, I let my hand slide down to her belly, hoping to feel the baby, but this always made her kick so I’d pull away. Pulani’s due date came and went. She didn’t even look all that pregnant. Was it possible to keep two llamas together for a year and not have the female end up pregnant? I recruited the vet for a house call, and he confirmed that she was indeed pregnant, but she had another two months to go. Since catching her was almost impossible, Pulani would have to stay in the barn for some time.

The vet gave me some nasty paste to squirt into her mouth to help her produce milk when the time came, but left me no clue how to actually accomplish that. I decided to hook a lead to her halter and tie her head up against the wood fence so I could force the applicator between her pressed lips. One more lovely bonding experience for me and my barbaric pet...

The poor animal grew bored, hormonal, and lonely locked up in the barn so long. Each day, we did our love-hate dance. I forced the medicine in her mouth, then followed the unwanted cream with a carrot treat. Eventually, she acted glad to see me, moaning whenever I showed up and following me with her eyes as I did my barn chores. She still wouldn’t take a cookie out of my hand, but I’d drop a treat into her bin or hold her grain in a scoop over the fence and she would take the first few bites despite how close I was.

One day, she tentatively took a piece of carrot from my fingers. Within a week, she was leaning her head over the fence begging for cookies or carrots every time she saw me. In time, she started sticking her nose into my empty hands too, as if I were a magician who could make cookies appear with a mere flick of my fingers. Over time, we had come to terms with each other and developed an odd relationship built on respect, curiosity, and cookies.

One morning I arrived at the barn to find Pulani humming frantically and pacing the stall. I noticed her stomach quivering.
This is it! She’s finally in labor!
I thought.

I turned to run up to the house to get Neva so together we could watch a baby llama come into the world, but as I stepped around the corner into the outer corral, I stopped short. Staring at me with wide curious eyes, wobbly legs, and a sweet shyness was a baby llama with a bit of membrane hanging from its head. My baby llama had arrived and just as with the baby horse, I had missed the delivery by moments. Life can be cruel.

“Hello,” I said softly, marveling at the newborn’s tiny size and independence. “What are you doing out here? I think your mommy is missing you.”

I picked him up and carried him back to his mother. His head was the size of my fist, his ears perky, and his lashes as long as a showgirl’s.

I closed the door to the outer corral and watched mother and baby snuggle.

Mark joined me and we both noticed Pulani didn’t seem interested in feeding her baby.

I was told Pulani hadn’t cared for her last baby, which was one of the reasons the previous owner sold her, so I had done enough research to know what I was supposed to do if such a thing happened again.

“Here I go,” I whispered as I slowly climbed into the stall to intervene. Pulani folded her ears back and lifted her chin in warning. I gulped, my mind spinning with thoughts of motherhood turning my new friend back into a raging protector. Slowly I tied a lead rope to her halter and handed one end to Mark so he could pull her face to the wall like we’d done so many times when I fed her medicine. Once she was secure, I caught the baby, turned him onto his back (no easy feat) to lay him down on a towel to cauterize the umbilical cord by dipping the gooey string hanging off his belly button into a cup of iodine. This was one of those “you’ve come a long way, baby” moments for me, let me tell you.

“I think we have a boy, don’tcha agree? Doesn’t that little thing look like a baby llama penis?” I said, pointing between the little llama’s legs.

Mark peered over the fence. “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. Could be. It’s small.”

I stared at the little nugget, the size of a marble. “What else could that thing be? This baby has gotta be a boy. Llamas don’t have balls, ya know.”

“Pulani sure seems to have balls some days.”

“I’m convinced this is a boy.”

Mark pulled on the lead rope to wedge Pulani closer up to the wall. “Careful. She’s getting antsy.”

“She needs to feed him. I’m going to try to move things along,” I said. I started massaging her udders. She kicked a bit and made a mean growling sound so ominous Mark and I both laughed, albeit nervously. I pulled, massaged, and tweaked under her belly, but nothing like milk came out.

“She’s totally dry,” I said, worried.

“Are you milking her right?”

“How would I know? I’ve never even milked a cow, let alone a llama. You want to try?”

Mark’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, “Not on your life.”

I grabbed the baby and tried to force his head under the mother’s belly, but Pulani kept moving away, kicking and growling.

Since all the speculating in the world wasn’t going to make me a llama midwife, I went back to the house and called the only person I knew who might give me answers, a woman I heard about who owned a llama breeding farm. She was generous with her advice, giving me encouragement and urging me to buy a baby bottle and give the baby cow’s milk.

“That is, as long as the baby isn’t a boy,” she said. “You can’t bottle-feed males. They develop what’s called
crazy llama syndrome
. Too much handling will make a young male imprint on humans, and when they grow, they get aggressive. Sometimes they have such behavior problems they need to be put down,” she said.

I got off the phone to return to my llama trauma, feeling damned if I did, damned if I didn’t.

The baby was licking the walls and acting hungry. No time to waste. I drove to the feed store and bought a lamb nipple and some starter colostrum for newborn livestock. I also picked up a tub of dry goat’s milk, just in case.

When I got home, I prepared a bottle. I was alone this time, and far more worried about the baby dying than Pulani kicking my brains in. She stomped and put her nose on my head, but she didn’t spit or act more aggressively than that. Deep down, after all our months of togetherness, I think she knew I had good intentions.

I pried the baby’s mouth open and forced the bottle on his tongue. He didn’t know how to suck, so he just chewed the tip, his tongue darting out as he tried to figure out what this eating thing was all about.

The taste of that milk seemed to trigger the baby’s instincts. Suddenly, he broke away from me and poked his nose into his mother’s neck and thighs like someone groping in the dark to find a light switch. Pulani understood what he was trying to do and pushed his head with her neck towards her hindquarters. After about five minutes the baby finally found his way under her belly, and soon began suckling. I quietly crept out to give them time alone.

Throughout the day, I continued to visit the baby, delighted to find him eating every hour or so, just as he was supposed to. I named him Pauli, a combination of both his mother and father’s name.

I stapled mesh around the outer corral so his willowy body wouldn’t slip out again, and the barn was given over completely to the llamas. Each day I mucked their manure and kept the water fresh and the hay trough filled. More work, but with a tiny llama shyly greeting me and giving me kisses every day, I couldn’t complain.

Pulani’s prolonged confinement and my determination to make her more civil made me feel more connected now. We’d been through an ordeal together, and come out with mutual respect and trust. Things began working the moment she surrendered her pride and allowed me to help.

Contemplating it all, I thought that if Mark and I were to survive our own threatening problems, we would have to do the same.