Jody Too

Jody was nine, her namesake calf but newly-born, soon shorn of his vitality, to be a steer and hers alone, for just a year; it was for both of them to grow, and know of love. Thus with her brush and comb and her aplomb above the skin; she rushed the hours on until the day the Four-H show crowned Jody Too in blue. It was the day that Jody learned to weep, for champions are made not just of love alone, but masterly caress of shank and bone, organic marbling, and charts and sleeplessness; there were dark forshadowings, insistent silent taunts forced back upon the trip home from the fair... yet there were weeks beyond, to dare. She knew she could not dwell upon the end that she must not ignore. There was no store of stoicism in her heart, no lust for sacrifice, no practiced separation might be there to strengthen her, prepare her for the market day when she could see her father readying the truck for those magnificent black steers, (nine hundred pounds enhanced each frame) and watch them on the ramp. From her bedroom window all of them were seen on board, then Jody Too, when eyes still dry, she turned her face away, her own tear-drenched goodbye an hour before. Her father had not known, came in, and in bucolic wisdom, thus invited her to watch them go. She shook her head, there was no consolation for her dread. "Dad, Jody knew!" ~