The Boy Milk Cow

I was grilling out last week and my brother and his family were over to eat and enjoy the weather. While we were waiting for the steaks to be grilled to perfection, mooing in his case, medium in mine, he mentioned that he got a call that morning from his Jamaican neighbors.

He was asked to be on the lookout for a missing cow. His neighbor’s exact words were, “I bought a boy milk cow to eat, when I got up this morning I had no cow.”

There’s a couple of things wrong with that statement. Ya generally don’t buy milk cows to butcher, and there’s no such thing as a boy milk cow. Assuming his Jamaican neighbors had some difficulties with the language, and a lack of knowledge about cows, my brother just told him to look for his steer over at the neighbor’s place. A single cow will walk right through a barbed wire fence to get to a herd and the farm next door was well stocked with black and white face cows.

The steaks had reached perfection and the story of the solitary boy milk cow was forgotten. Right up until I pulled into Bubba’s driveway yesterday to be greeted by, what else, an Angus bull. Not a steer, not a heifer and it definitely wasn’t a milk cow. Munching away on a mineral block in my brother’s yard was a 2-year old Black Angus bull. My brother was out by the chicken coop filling up a water bucket and waiting for the Jamaicans to arrive. Sure ’nuff, about that time a white mini-van and a Chrysler LeBaron convertible pulled into his driveway.

Five Jamaicans got out, one carrying about a hundred feet of nylon rope, one with a machete and all of them with cell phones.

My immediate thought was, “What in the hell do they think they’re going to do with that rope?”

My brother wondered aloud, “What in the hell do they think they’re going to do with that machete”?

My son spoke last and loudest, “Where in the hell are they going to put the bull if they catch it?”

While we thought about all those questions, the Jamaicans spread out and started walking toward the bull, rope and machete in hand. All but one. He turned to my brother and asked if it was okay if he got a shotgun out of his car to shoot the bull with.

Now the bull was over a hundred yards away, happily munching on a mineral block left out for the deer, and the image of a wounded, buckshot bull ran through my mind. I just couldn’t comprehend the image of the machete and the bull, but I could imagine some seriously hurt Jamaicans.

Trying to minimize the risk to everyone involved, I shouted to my brother,”Get a rifle Bubba, all they brought was that rope, a machete and a shotgun”. Ignoring the look of astonishment on my brother’s face, I turned to watch them slowly walk toward the bull like the bull was blind. When they got about oh, say, 75 yards, the bull turned around and walked back into the woods. All five Jamaicans followed the bull into the woods.

My brother just sat down on the back step, laid the rifle in his lap and the rest of us pulled up chairs.  First we heard a bunch of hollerin’ and the trees tops would shake a little. Then we’d hear a bunch of screamin’ fifty yards away and the tree tops would shake a little where the shouts were comin’ from. Then more shouts and more trees would shake another thirty yards away. This went on for quite some time.

After an hour or so, five sweaty, scratched up, shakin Jamaicans came out of the woods, covered up in ticks, burrs and bites. None of ‘em said a word while they piled into their vehicles. Finally, the guy in the convertible turned around in his seat and shouted, “If you see de damn boy milk cow, you shoot de damn cow, he’s your milk cow now”.