As soon as the first cow was close to the tank itself Louie reached across and grabbed her tail and twisted it over, hard, and the cow made a jump forward that carried her over the center of the dip tank.
She hit with a splash like depth charges going off. Creosote dip flew ten feet in the air and came down on all of us, and I immediately felt a burning sensation where it hit bare skin.
There was no time to worry about the creosote because while we were getting the first cow going Clair and Glennis yelled from the outside of the pen and got the rest moving to follow the first one.
It was fast work for ten or fifteen minutes. Cow after cow jumped in the tank, nudged by Louie’s tail-twisting trick, and Knute pulled a mop out of the back of the truck and mopped creosote over the top of each cow as it hit the tank.
Finally there was only one left—the bull. He followed meekly enough, was almost in the position where Louie would grab his tail when he hesitated.
I was standing off to the side in the pen, halfway through the wire to climb out. I happened to be looking at Knute and when the bull stopped, seemed to wait just half a second, Knute dropped the mop and started to move.
I thought I had never seen a person move so fast but the bull was faster. He wheeled around, turning on himself inside the chute, and headed back out with a low bellow that made the ground shake.
And there was Harris.
He had been bringing up the rear, pushing the rest of the cows into the chute, and had actually come a slight way into the chute himself. He might have had time to do something, climb out of the chute, run. But he was looking down to step forward over the fresh cow manure that filled the chute and the bull was so fast, faster than even Knute, that Harris didn’t have a chance.
The bull hit him like a train, driving him back into the pen and down. It was all so powerful and sudden that I didn’t have time to yell, to do anything but stand with my mouth open.
Knute was over the fence and on the bull in not more than a second. I saw it, saw it all as if it were in slow motion, but I still didn’t believe it.
He grabbed for Harris, snatched him somehow from beneath the bull’s head, pulled him out and up and threw him over the fence toward Clair and Glennis, where he landed like rags.
Then Knute hit the bull. I’m not sure where, somewhere on the head or nose. He raised his right hand and brought his left up and clasped the two hands together in one fist and brought them down on the bull, brought them down like a mountain falling, hit him with a sound like an ax chopping a watermelon.
And the bull went down—bellowed and goobered snot and spit and dropped on his front knees—and Knute stood with his left arm hanging at his side, bent funny just above the wrist.
He took two steps past the bull to the fence near Clair and Glennis and threw a leg over the wire.
“Is he all right?”
“I don’t know.” Clair was rubbing Harris’s chest, her forehead wrinkled with worry. “That damn bull. I told you to get rid of that thing...”
Harris looked dead. I had seen dead people and Harris looked dead to me and I still hadn’t moved, still stood in the pen by the fence, and I wasn’t sure if I was shocked by what the bull did to Harris or from hearing Clair swear.
But it was Glennis who surprised me. She stood looking down at Harris for a moment, her hand halfway to her mouth, then she fell forward onto her knees across from Clair and held Harris’s head and made quiet crying sounds and spoke to him.
“You come back, Harris. You come back now. We don’t want you gone. You come right back and I’ll never whup you again so help me God...”
Whether it was Clair rubbing his chest or Glennis holding him or just that he couldn’t be killed—which I thought—Harris’s legs moved and he raised his arms and his eyes opened and he looked up at Glennis.
“What the hell happened?”
Her hand came up but true to her word she didn’t smack him and in fact her vow lasted a whole day, until late the next afternoon when Harris tripped on the edge of the porch and ripped a strip of blue words that almost peeled paint.
As soon as he was all right Clair left him with Glennis and turned to Knute.
“Your arm,” she said. “You hit him too hard.”
Knute nodded. “I wasn’t thinking. The thing broke—worst time of the year for it.” He turned and looked at the bull, which was still down on the front end and making spittle sounds. “I hope I didn’t kill him. He’s a good bull.”
Clair turned to Louie. I had never seen her say anything about work to anybody except for when she talked to the cows when we were milking, but she had a hard part in her voice now that made it clear things would happen just as she said.
“Find me some boards and cord to make a splint. Right away. Then you start the truck. We’ve got to fetch Knute to the doctor in Pinewood to straighten his arm. I’ll be driving. You stay here and get chores done and we’ll be back tonight.” She turned to me. “You’re going to have to help Glennis until Harris can work...”
I nodded. The look on Harris’s face—which I suspected wasn’t real—indicated that he probably wouldn’t be able to work for a while.
Louie came with some pieces of lath, which he broke in two-foot lengths, and he and Clair made a splint around
