It was a typical late-summer day on our farm. We four older kids had finished our Cheerios, so it was time for morning chores. After letting the milk cows and stock cows into the pasture, it was time to separate the cream, feed the pail calves, feed the pigs and feed the chickens. Today, we also had the odorous task of cleaning the alleyway behind the milk cows. This meant pitching manure into a wheelbarrow and sprinting off while balancing the full load. At the end of the barn, was a wide board placed out onto the manure pile. We had to make it up the incline to the top of the manure pile and stop just before the end of the board. Then, you pulled up the handles with all your might, hoping the manure slid out before you lost your balance and fell into the stinky pile yourself.
Per Dad, we also were to dig fence postholes. The dirt was usually packed clay, seasoned with rocks throughout. Mom paid this grueling task at 10 cents per hole. This part was looked forward to, as this was the way we kids earned money for the upcoming fair rides. Dad would measure the holes before payment, though. They were to be three feet deep and a foot across. If the hole was crooked, it didn’t count, even if there was a rock in the way. As late afternoon approached, it came time to find the milk cows for nightly milking. One of the older kids climbed to the top of the windmill to catch a glimpse of the herd. At lucky times the cows were all bunched together on top of a coulee. Then, there were the dreaded times when there wasn’t a cow to be seen. The one on the windmill would wail out the discouraging words, “I can’t see a cow anywhere.” With heavy hearts we all knew the uncertainty ahead. We knew better than to come home without the milk cows and report to Dad that chores hadn’t been done.
My older sister Chris had the Troxel coulee, my younger sister, Sharon, and younger brother, Fred, had the sheep pasture and I got the north coulee. My dog, Silver, and I stopped at the stock tank and drank from the well pipe. It was awesomely cold water from deep within the ground. I started walking on the far edge of the coulee, hoping to see the cows on top or maybe hear them making noises in the deep coulee below. I watched for fresh cow manure and listened for mooing or the cracking of branches when they walked through the deep brush.
I was standing still listening on the side of a draw, when very close to me I could hear loud snorting and the sound of big branches snapping. It was getting louder and closer! I froze in fear, too scared to move. I was standing in tall brush and trees and had no idea which way to run. In a matter of seconds, a majestic buck ran right in front of me. I could feel his breeze as he whizzed past me. He bounded up the side of the steep grassy hill and jumped easily over the top of a four-strand barbed wire fence. With antlers held high, he flipped his long white tail at me as he bounded over the hill toward Dad’s ripening wheat field. In the golden afternoon sun, he was so majestic and wild looking. I was in awe of his freedom and unlimited strength. I smiled and patted Silver’s head, “What a show-off huh?” Silver had been pressing on my leg in fear; he had almost tipped me over sideways. I ruffled his soft back and white furry ear. “Whew, that was too close for comfort!” Silver regained his courage and tried to run circles around me as I trounced through the brush again. He then ran ahead and panted his happy dog smile at me. “Nah, I wasn’t scared a bit!”
We made our way down to the bottom of the deep coulee. By then, it was getting quite dark under the green canopy of oak and ash leaves. We eventually came to our neighbor’s fence line. “Huh, no cows, Silver. Where do you suppose they are hiding?” Silver and I stumbled through the thick underbrush and up another long draw, eventually coming out of the dark, unyielding coulee. We walked the dusty cow path along the fence line toward home. When we got to the cattle pen, there were no cows and none were in the barn. It looked like the others didn’t have any luck either. I groaned out loud as we wearily trudged toward the house. Maybe Mom had good news, any news.
Mom met us at the door wiping her chapped hands with her overall apron. Her face had an unusual pale color to it and her lips were pressed together in a thin white line. Her voice was quivering and high pitched. “Laurie and Rusty are missing. They must have followed one of you kids. Chris, Sharon and Fred are already out looking for them. Don’t worry about the cows. I can’t leave the baby and someone has to be here just in case they find their way home again.” She then leaned up close to my face and waved her finger at me, “You don’t come home until you have those kids!”
At first I was afraid of her anger. This wasn’t at all like Mom! But as I walked away with a lump in my throat, I realized that under her anger was suffocating fear. I mentally realized the possible hazards. There were three cattle dams and deep ponds of water in the two creeks that ran through the two long coulees. Silver and I stopped for another long drink at the stock tank and prepared for the frightening task at hand.
It was dusk out, with just a shadowy hint of sunlight streaked on the hilltops here and there. I had a feeling the little stinkers probably were following the deep cow trail in the bottom of the north coulee. This was the path they took with the older kids to throw rocks and sticks into the ponds and catch frogs at the water’s edge.
As Silver and I descended into the deep, forbidding darkness of the coulee, the hair on my arms stood up. Silver was panting but made no sound, as if not to scare me anymore. There were no flashlights on the farm, so there wasn’t even the option of having one with me. Each cracking branch and groaning tree made me shudder. Was that an animal sound, a child crying? My heart skipped a beat. My mouth was dry as cotton. I couldn’t have screamed if I wanted to. My feet and hands felt their way along the deep cow trail. When I veered off to the side, the edge of the path would hit my legs and I would stumble and fall. This seemed to go on forever and ever. Walking, stumbling, falling; calling, calling, calling. I was getting hoarse, I ached all over, and I wanted to quit and climb out of this never-ending musty tomb of fear. As I would fall and get back up, I began to feel and understand the depth of Mom’s fear for her two little innocent children.
Wait! A high pitched screech on the distant wind. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Mom talked about mountain lions traveling through the coulees in the late summer and fall when she was a girl on the farm. Wait, a screech, a little closer? I froze. I was sure I was dead. I could hear the sound of an animal crashing through the leaves when I realized it was the sound of my heart beating in my ears. Well, I hadn’t been attacked so far.
A whining cry, maybe, maybe? Silver started his happy panting and ran ahead of me. In the darkness, I could see the white glow of his fur as I stumbled after him. “Ruff, ruff, I found them!” he happily barked back to me! Now I heard the sounds of children crying and talking to him. I could barely make out their small outlines ahead of me. They were sitting at the base of an oak tree, with their arms wrapped around the trunk, holding onto each other’s small hands. My little sister told me excitedly, “We knew the tree wouldn’t move, so we knew we couldn’t get lost!” I laughed, “Right, if you say so.”
I had my brother ride on my back. His sweaty arms wrapped around my neck and grubby little feet wrapped around my waist. I told him not to let go no matter how tired he got, and he whimpered. I had to carry my sister in my arms. The trip out of the long draw was sheer torture for me. I had to feel for the cow path in front of me. My eyes no longer had function. My hands were now my eyes if we were to ever get out of there. Then I got the idea for Laurie to cling to my chest like a baby monkey so I could feel with both hands. Unfortunately, I wasn’t making progress even with both hands free. I felt like I was turning in circles. I was starting to lose hope of getting out of that nightmare, but the thought of sleeping in the coulee with mosquitoes and breaking branches revived my waning determination.
Silver seemed to sense my growing despair and I clung to his familiar soft fur. I was petting him when he started to slowly walk in front of me. I petted all the way to the end of his tail and wouldn’t let go. I held on, as he was my last and only comfort. He pulled me forward by his tail. I knew he instinctively would only walk in the center of the cow path. I held on to his tail, a source of direction and hope.
Walking seemed to go on forever as we stumbled in the blackness. My hand was growing sweaty and cramped holding onto his tail, but I knew he was our only way out and refused to let go. Faintly, I could see a slight light ahead of us. I knew we were walking uphill by the grade of the path. Just like that, Silver led us out of the darkness onto a prairie bathed in pale yellow moonlight. It was a huge late-summer moon. A covering-the-whole-night-sky kind of moon, one you could almost reach out and touch.
I removed my brother’s sweaty arms from my aching neck. He had been holding on so tight that I couldn’t even speak. I carefully peeled away my little sister’s vise-like grip from my chest and set her down on the waving prairie grass. I flopped down on the warm earth. I couldn’t believe we were finally out of the black musty pit and let the gentle night breeze dry the sweat on my face. My little sister and brother sat by me talking to the man in the moon and asking if he was really made of cheese? Their silliness and the brief rest revived my spirit. I slowly stood up, grabbed each little sweaty hand, and followed the cow path toward a distant fence edging a wheat field. My legs and arms were really stinging from all the scrapes thus far, as my usual summer attire was shorts, a T-shirt and barefoot.
We walked across the ripening field to a dirt road leading to a tiny yellow glow of home ahead of us. As we walked, it seemed as if the moon was shining right down the center of the road, smiling, leading his lost children home. The hot sand on the road felt good on our scratched up feet. As we neared the porch of the farm house, the two kids ran ahead giggling, calling, “Mom, Mom, we’re home!”
Mom was standing over the dishpan washing dishes when we opened the door. She ran to them, knelt down and scooped them together and hugged them close. Her rubber gloves were full of soap bubbles. The kids giggled as the bubbles tickled their faces.
I trudged past them and fell onto a wooden dining room chair. I was home and the enormity of the night descended upon me. I lay my head on the table and just breathed. “So tired, so tired, so tired, so tired.” I finally lifted my head and looked about. Dad was home from the field and was washing up. Chris, Sharon and Fred had found the cows, were done milking and were sitting in front of the TV eating popcorn. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 11:30 at night. I had been out seven hours tonight looking, looking, but eventually finding. I heard a clunk on the table in front of me. There was a heaping plate of hot macaroni-hamburger hotdish and whole kernel corn. Mom handed me a tall glass of cold milk. I drank and drank and drank. I felt life returning all the way to the bottom of my toes. Mom didn’t say a word to me but her eyes were smiling. My eyes smiled back and I felt her gratitude. No words were needed.
This Christmas I ponder a different moonlit night of days of old. Of a star that guided three wise men. Of a host of angels who lit up the night sky singing to the newborn King their songs of great joy. Of a time when the world was lost and a Child came to show the way home. He is the way, the truth and the life. He comes and searches, so that none would be lost. He guides our stumbling feet through the darkest of paths when our eyes can’t see the way. He carries us when we cannot continue on our own strength. He patiently knocks and wills that all His children come safely home.
Merry Christmas — Westlie and Martha Carlson 2007