Zero Practice in Running Away

By Sarah Day

We were about fifty cars behind the accident. Traffic stopped and police rushed past. Smoke clouds billowed ahead but we couldn’t tell what had happened. My husband James and I had left the family cabin in Island Park after our Christmas celebration last December and were on our way home to Nampa when we came upon the scene on Interstate 15 near Shelley. 

A black pickup in front of us pulled off the road and a middle-aged man got out. He walked into the borrow pit and picked up a piece of debris that looked like a long board or pipe. He then approached a small herd of cows and it dawned on me the cows were loose because of the wreck.

One cow ran away from the group in our direction and toward Debris Man, as I’ll call him. He tried to cut her off and turn her around, but she got by him and continued running.

I know from experience that cow wrangling takes more than one person on the best of days (and this wasn’t the best of days). I told James if he didn’t mind, I’d go help. He said that was OK and pulled our SUV onto the shoulder behind the pickup. I changed into my snow boots, zipped up my coat, grabbed my gloves and donned my black stocking hat. Lamenting that neither of the dogs in our car would be of any help, I stepped into the drizzling rain. 

By that time, the stray cow and Debris Man were a couple football fields behind us. As I jogged through the median to catch up, I spotted a small tangled pile of twine in the ditch. It wasn’t nearly as threatening as a large piece of debris but I figured waving it might help me look bigger, so I picked it up.

When I got closer, the cow charged Debris Man. He evidently saw it as an opportunity to get her to follow him back to the herd, so he ran in that direction. I figured she had chased him because he had run, but in any case, she was obviously in a foul mood, which was understandable. She gave up the chase fairly quickly.