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‘The Ride’ by Shane Brown

the ride

I got off work this afternoon and headed out to my home in Tula.

I had no plans other than waiting on a friend to meet me to cook out. I got to Yocona and decided to stay straight on the county road that led past my brother’s house instead of taking the exit that usually carries me home. I like to drive by his house and see the two houses I grew up in and all the work and play that’s going on from what I can catch through my truck’s window at fifty miles per hour.

I see trucks parked all around. I glance at work trucks, a milk truck, and Paula’s suburban. I notice they are home from my brother, Billy Ray, moving from the back end of his truck loading feed sacks. I decide to stop by and visit for a few minutes. He is steady at loading the feed and also milk bottles that are needed for tomorrow’s trip to Hernando. Paula is pacing back and forth from the milking house to the bottling room. Their work is constant and consistent. I follow Billy Ray back and forth and tell him a few stories that happened to me today. He talks back and laughs, but I can tell he is in a hurry to do something else. He looks over at me after he loads a cooler in his truck and ask me if I wanted to go feed some of his cows with him. I tell him I have nothing to do and would tag along. We slam truck doors and ease our way out the drive.

Shane Brown

Billy Ray turns east out of the driveway and I know where we are headed without him telling me. We cut through the two lane roads and we wave at passing cars, neighbors, and the two brothers my Dad grew up with taking a late afternoon ride. They wave a great big hand and smile to us and we do the same. We tell stories of tales we have heard from the two brothers or about them that makes us smile. Our Dad was real close to both of the brothers and has shared many funny stories about them. They are like uncles to us! We agree we will drive over to “The Shop” to see them after we feed the cattle.

As Billy Ray drives down the road we look out the windows and point at different things. Deer are coming out of the woods, black Angus cattle are grazing in neighboring pastures, a bulldozer is grading a pond, and a hawk is spying its prey from a light pole. These are normal things you see out in the country where we were raised. But it’s also something we want to see every time we get the opportunity. We hope another opportunity like this happens again, but we don’t take it for granted. You never know when it’s your last ride.

Cows start running to his truck the second they see it. Most are actually at the feeding troughs already because they know the sound of his truck’s tail pipes roaring. Young calves are bucking up the hill. They are learning that he is the hand that feeds them. He backs the pickup truck into the barn and opens his door. I sit tight in the cab and grab a cigarette from my front pocket and light the end as I feel the tailgate drop. I stare through my side mirror to watch him work. Two fifty pound sacks of feed are tossed over his stocky shoulders as he yelps and hollers for his cattle to gather. He tears open the sacks with his hands and pours their food in wooden troughs he has made. Billy Ray goes back for two more bags and repeats the process with a different trough. I watch him smile through my smoke and the mirror as he is singing some song. At first I think he is smiling about the song, but then I know better because he is smiling because he loves his job.

We drive across the road to where he has some mama cows and calves. The truck bounces up and down from a small ditch that splashes mud and water from under the tires, landing on the side walls of the dents and scrapes that have been worn into his steel horse. I offer to open up the gate before he could put it in park. I swing the gate open as he rides by and he tells me not to close it. We ride to the bottom of the hill and travel along the creek until we get to its bend and we turn up another hill to see his stud bull standing in our path. Billy Ray prides himself of what a fine job his young bull has done. You look up the hill and watch tall and thick baby calves dance around each other and their mother and you believe what he has said is true. We circle through them to check hay and top the highest point of the pasture that leads us back out. The truck rides along the fence line and I look below. I glance over the field and see the sun reflecting from the pond and a forest of black trees standing behind the creek’s tree line. Billy Ray pulls back through the cattle gate and lets me out. I climb out of the truck and find the head post laying in the grass attached with barb wire. I pull the gate tight and loop a chain around the head post neck and make my way back into the pickup truck.

We cruise past the two fields that we have been to as we notice deer in the bottom of the first pasture we went to. I try to count how many I see and he has already told me the correct answer of six. I finally agree to him as he is pulling into a driveway and turning around. I ask him what he was doing. He said he had to go back to the pasture we just came from. He asked me if I did not see the cow standing over the creek’s edge looking down. I had been too busy trying to count deer as he was busy counting deer in one pasture and still checking his cows in the other. Billy Ray said that the number one sign for a cow to be looking down in a creek is because her calf is in it.

Shane Brown

He punched the gas pedal hard and my head shifts back. He slides into the ditch and I jump out again. He spins and crosses over the muck and I quickly hop in the truck. Field holes and small bumps jar our bodies and scatter paperwork and empty cigarette packs all over the dash as we rush to the creek. We get closer to the cow and she starts backing up slowly. Billy Ray gets out and trots over to where the cow was looking down. I walk slowly behind keeping my eye on the eight-hundred pounds walking towards us at the creek. I glance away from the cow and look down to see Billy Ray lifting a black and white face baby heifer out of the creek. I smile as it greets her mama and tries to feed from her utter. She walks away from it almost ignoring it. Maybe this was a way she was teaching the young calf to stay closer to her side and not in a creek. I hear Billy Ray yell from the creek and I can barely see him. I walk over to him and he tells me to help him out. Briars thickly cover the area he went down and now trying to get up. I laugh as he tells me to pull him out. He fusses and yells through the scratching and cutting of the briars to his face and neck. I laugh more and pull harder. He gets to his knees and stands up. Blood is coming out from the top of his head as he rubs the wounds and puts his hat back on. We gather back in the truck and head back home to Yocona.

Lafayette County’s daylight is sneaking below the tree tops as orange fades to black. We talk and point on our slow drive. Jokes are heckled at, lies are told and cars pass back by as we loop to Billy Ray’s house. We stop by “The Shop” but were not able to be entertained by the two brothers. Maybe next time, we hope. I imagine one day soon we will have people stop by our shop too.


Shane Brown

Shane Brown is a HottyToddy.com contributor and the son of noted author Larry Brown. Shane is an Oxford native with Yocona and Tula roots. He is a graduate of Mississippi State University and works as a salesman for Best Chance. He has two children — Maddux, age 9, and Rilee, age 7 — and makes his home at “A Place Called Tula.” He can be reached at msushanebrown@yahoo.com.

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