We’ve all stepped in it. Some of us have shoveled it. A few of us have made coffee over slow, hot campfires built with it. And perhaps one or two of us have contest-tossed it (dry, of course) for distance.

But for my friend Susan, any further encounter with cow poop will carry a much more intimate association. In fact, her story would have made a “Funniest Home Video” had it not been so deadly.

Susan, her husband Bo and daughter Whitney live in semi-rural southwestern Virginia in a fine old two-story Bo inherited from his grandmother. Whitney was a senior in high school this year, and her date for the prom was Patrick, who is from out of town and stayed with them for the weekend.

Behind their house is a hilly pasture that used to be part of the family’s dairy business. Bo’s father still keeps a few head of cattle there and uses a gator - a sort of four-wheel-drive dune buggy - to check on them. On prom afternoon, Bo, Patrick and Whitney took a playful gator ride through the field past the old dairy barns.

The barns sit on opposites sides of a feeding/milking shed and a small holding pen. In passing, they noticed that the pen gate had sprung open and a steer had wandered in from the pasture. Quite responsibly, they decided to remove the steer and reclose the gate.

Though this was a relatively routine operation, there were two problems: First, a tractor was parked in the center of the pen, making it difficult to maneuver the steer to the gate. And second, the steer had no intention of leaving.

One of the reasons for turning young bulls into steers is to make them easier to handle. Except for occasionally play-fighting with each other, steers are generally nonaggressive and will usually run from humans. You can herd them simply by approaching from the direction you don’t want them to go.

Not this one.

For several minutes, they tried to expel the steer. But regardless of how the three positioned themselves, he was able to double back or slip between them.

They needed one more person, so Whitney went to the house to get Susan.

Susan is short - about 5’2” - so she stood roughly eyeball to nose with the steer. But she’s no stranger to cattle, so nobody expected that she (or anyone else) would be in danger.

With Bo and Patrick on opposite sides of the gate, and Whitney and Susan as “pushers” on opposite sides of the tractor, they herded the steer nearly to the exit. But this fellow was not to be so easily managed. His handlers were to learn that not only, despite his operation, was he not a wimp, but this fellow had paid close attention to the bullfight films in his History of Cattle Exploitation class.

The 700-pound bovine turned, lowered his head and charged at Susan.

Caught between the tractor and the old feeding shed, she was unable to get out of the way, and like a surprised matador, was flung quite ungracefully into the air.

The steer passed under her, continued to the end of the pen, then turned for another attack. No sooner had Susan landed - on her back with her head toward the steer - than he was on her again. His hooves missed flesh but somehow caught her knit shirt and, copy-catting a classic sexual attack, ripped it from her shoulder.

Before reaching the gate, he turned and struck again.

“Roll! Roll!” cried Patrick.

At this point, Susan thought she was about to die, but rolled the best she could toward the only shelter available: the foot or so of overhang from the feeding bins. She again escaped the hooves, but this time in passing, he passed.

That is, in an act of ultimate derision and with the accuracy of a bombardier, he raised his tail and napalmed her from head to toe.

As the steer turned for a final assault on his now poop-slathered victim, Susan performed one of those adrenaline-powered feats of otherwise-impossible strength and agility: She struggled to her feet, ran around the tractor and in a single leap cleared a fence of at least her own height, landing in a patch of overgrown weeds and thistles.

Abandoning the steer, everyone concentrated on her.

I did not speak to Patrick, but can imagine his dilemma: His girlfriend’s mother had just narrowly escaped with her life, might indeed be injured and certainly needed attention. But he also no doubt recognized her embarrassment, with undergarments exposed and dripping with steamy-wet cow poop.

Though Susan is quite practical about these things and would have appreciated Patrick’s concern for her well-being, it was probably merciful for both of them that Bo and Whitney were at hand.

Whitney suggested they take her visibly shaken but otherwise uninjured mother back to the house on the gator. But after a quick family discussion about soiling the equipment, they opted for her to walk.
After all, it wasn’t far.

Making her way to the back door, Susan stood where she could disrobe in the shelter of hedges and shrubbery. Whitney brought two garbage bags and a towel. Standing on one bag, Susan toweled what poop she could from her hair, removed her clothes and put them — with the towel — in the second bag, then ran naked to the shower.

Although I doubt this particular event was anticipated when remodeling the house, it’s a good thing Bo installed a large water heater. Excluding the local car wash, I think Susan set a single-cleansing record for steam, duration and repeated soapings.

And though my friends haven’t taken the attack personally - the steer was only an animal resisting human domination - the next time they invite me to a cookout, I’ve got a good idea where the hamburger will have come from.

(Lewis Garnett lives in Maggie Valley. He can be reached at lgar@brinet.com)

 

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