Ah, the confidence of youth.

HOLLER TAIL

There she lay. Uncomfortable but chewing her cud. She hadn’t gotten up for a couple days. “Milk fever,” I confidently diagnosed to myself. Treated simply, and often miraculously, with intravenous calcium.

Uncle Leonard looked over at me, his nephew who had finally made it into veterinary college. “Whattaya think it is, Bax?”

“I suspect it is a case of hypocalcemia caused by a depletion of calcium as a direct result of recent heavy lactation,” I replied knowledgeably.

He looked at me like you’d look at a feebleminded dog who had just messed on the carpet.

“It’s holler tail, son.”

“Hollow tail?”

“Yup. Treat it with salt and ashes.” With that, he went to the house and returned with a bowl of furnace ashes and a Morton Salt box. He cut a gash on the underside of the cow’s tail with his pocketknife. The cow’s expression went from total boredom to immediate interest.

He sprinkled a few ashes in the incision. The cow cocked an ear. Then Uncle Leonard put a handful of salt in the wound and massaged it briskly. Bossie’s eyes popped open like she’d backed into the fender of a ’58 Cadillac!

The cow rose and staggered across the pasture.

Uncle Leonard did it all as calmly as a mother leopard teaches her clumsy, big-footed kittens how to kill a gazelle and eat its liver.

My feeble excuses faded on my lips. I stopped short of suggesting that had I bent him over the kitchen table, buffed his buns with an electric sander, and liberally sprinkled him with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, he, too, might make an astonishing recovery.

The horror stories of young, mistake-prone veterinarians are legion. Mine are no different. Animals I had pronounced dead or beyond help lived for years afterward to haunt my practice. Others in obviously good health, the ones I scolded the owner for even calling me about, died before I got the bill made out.

I guess I should have known it wasn’t going to be easy my first day on the job. I walked into the vet shack on the feedlot. The cowboys were drinking coffee, warmin’ up. I had on my brand-new covies. They had a big V on the pocket, and thermometers and doodads hung all over my body.

“I’m the new veterinarian, gentlemen. I expect we’ll have no problems getting along. I’ll teach you as best I can and be glad to answer any questions concerning veterinary medicine you should have. I look forward to working with you for the betterment of the cattle, the crew, and the company.”

It was quiet as hair fallin’ on an army blanket.

Eventually, crusty ol’ Bud got up and walked by me to the door. He turned, and said, “Kid, I was punchin’ cows ’fore you could drag a halter chain.”

Then, followed single file by the other tight-lipped cowboys, they left me standing in my glory.