The Summer of the Eight-Legged Calf

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Nicole Hebdon

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It was day two of the county fair, and we were already settled in to our routines. Having attended the fair all ten days every summer of our lives (we being me, my siblings, my cousins, and almost every member of the school’s Future Farmers Club), we were already bored. We had already played all the carnie games, the same ones they had year after year. We had already eaten the “new” flavor of taffy, apple pie, which tasted suspiciously like the prior year’s apple cobbler. We had already stalked the fair queen contestants and deemed them all predictably pretty and equally worthy of winning. And we had already watched all the sideshows, even the little kiddish ones with puppets. 

That’s how we, farmers who saw animals born every spring in our own barns, ended up in the Agriculture Education Pavilion, watching a live birth of a calf with the rest of the visitors. We were bored. The city people, always easily identifiable by their impractical summer shoes now speckled in manure, were enthralled. Even the adults, a percent of which had presumably given birth themselves, were gasping and gagging, like they had no idea what labor looked like. It was funny when they looked away and it made me feel smarter and stronger than them. 

But the cow was taking a long time, so we got bored again. Mikey started making faces at the carnie kids, who were sitting opposite us on the other side of the arena. This was appropriate, because we considered them opposites of us in every way. We came to the fair to work, to take care of our show animals, and to keep the grounds clean for guests, while they came to the fair to smoke cigarettes under bleachers as their parents scammed the stupider city people. Soon we were all making faces and lewd gestures at the carnies. And they were doing it back, adding in the finger here and there. It kept us busy. 

When the crowd exhaled, I thought it was because of us. I thought the adults had seen and were judging us, but no, it was because Esther had been born. Silently. She was mostly white, with small, dalmatian-like spots. She shook on her new legs, as her mother licked at her head. Then she tumbled to the ground, tucking her legs beneath her body.  

Well, almost all her legs. In addition to the four regular ones, there were four extra growing from her spine. They were small, and folded down her back like wings. From a distance, they looked bumpy and weak. They reminded me of uncooked chicken. The man in the pen with her cursed, despite there being guests around. The mother cow plopped down in the bloody sawdust and heaved, seeming disappointed.  

There was a new air of excitement between us farmer kids. Just like everyone else, we were on the edge of our seats. We had never seen a calf like this before, and just like everybody else, we wanted to get closer. We wanted to unfold the extra legs and feel the extra hooves. I had the sense that if I gripped them, they would deteriorate in my hand like dried playdough. I looked across the arena. The Carnie kids felt it too.  

The cow’s owner pulled the privacy curtain across the pen, ignoring the crowd’s boos. A few minutes later he put out the fair-provided sign that said Mama and ____ need to rest. There was a space where he could write in the baby’s name with a dry erase marker, but he hadn’t. The guests slowly got up from their seats, moving on to other pens, featuring newborn piglets that you could pet if your arms were small enough to fit through the bars, and frantic pregnant rabbits pulling out their hair to make nests. We stayed. So did the carnies.  

The farmer left the pen, but he kept the curtain up. “Well kids,” he said as he latched the pen behind him, looking up at us in the bleacher seating, “that wasn’t good.” 

“Can I name her?” Amy asked. She had just finished fourth grade, but looked and sounded younger, so she was used to adults giving her what she wanted. 

“Sure,” the farmer said. He took the marker from his jean pocket and threw it toward her. It landed in the sawdust and she went scrambling after it, kicking up a cloud of chicken feed and bedding around her.  

“You should probably take that calf home tonight,” Hayden said, in that voice he only used around adults. “For extra medical attention.” 

“Ugly little thing,” the farmer said. By then Amy had found the marker and was climbing over the gate to the sign. The cloud was clinging to her, and even though I knew it was made up of dirt, it looked a little angelic with the overhead lights shining through it.  The farmer sighed. “I’m just going to have to put it down tomorrow when I have my truck. Who can say what else is wrong with her, you know, on the inside?”  

Hayden nodded, as if he understood this.  

The carnie kids exchanged glances and then unsuccessfully slunk away, their wallet chains and excessive jewelry clacking. The farmer glanced at them and shook his head. We mimicked his gesture. The only person who didn’t was Amy, who looked like she was about to cry. Her chin was all crumbly. “Leave the marker,” the farmer said to her. She unclenched her hand and let it fall to the ground. She had written Esther on the board, complete with a little heart at the end of her name. Before we left the barn, she was crying. 

“Come on, Amy,” her brother Randy said. “It’s not like you’ve never had an animal die before.” I agreed with Randy. Just the day before, Amy had helped label all the chicken coops that held birds designated for the butcher after the fair.  

“Yeah, but I named her,” Amy said. 

“So?” I asked. 

“She’s special. Wasn’t she special?” Amy spun around facing the group. “It’s not fair to kill an animal just because she’s ugly.”  

It took us about thirty minutes to lap around the entire fairground and the whole time Amy talked about Esther. She’s like one of those stuffed animals from a freak show, but alive. He could sell her to a freak show. Maybe the legs can be cut off, like they do to human babies born with extra toes and stuff. Maybe the legs will grow and she’ll walk around like a spider. Maybe this is a new species. We’ve discovered a new species. We could rich if we play our cards right. By the time we were back at the Agriculture Education Pavilion, we agreed that the calf needed to be saved. We all had our reasons. Animal rights. Fame. Whatever. But mostly we were just bored. 

For me, I just wanted to touch her. I wanted to feel those extra legs.  

The plan was, the ones who could were going to stay at the fair past closing. Then we would steal her. It would be Amy and Randy, who slept in 4H dorms and would be on the grounds anyway, and Mikey, who lived just down the street, and whose parents we had never seen and who genuinely let him do whatever he wanted, me, who told my parents Mikey’s parents were keeping an eye on me, and my cousin Betty, who usually stayed past closing anyway because she couldn’t stand to be away from her horse.  

“What about the monster?” Amy asked. 

The Goldcreek Monster was not really a monster, we knew, but it was someone or something that year after year slipped into the fairgrounds at night and stole livestock. One year Mikey’s turkey was a victim. One year a whole cow vanished.  

“You mean those carnie shitheads?” Randy asked. “Maybe we’ll finally catch them in the act. We’ll be heroes.”  

Amy seemed unconvinced. Maybe she still believed the monster was an actual monster. I was going into seventh grade and it was hard for me to remember exactly how stupid and scared I had been in the summer between fourth and fifth grade. I remember that at one point I too was afraid to feed the animals in the early, dark mornings.  

When you are at the top of the Ferris wheel, you can see hills and fields for miles in any direction. While it was unlikely the monster was of the horror movie variety, it was possible for a bear or a coyote to live there. 

“The monster never takes people,” I reminded Amy. 

I wasn’t afraid of quiet or darkness, usually. I lived a mile from any other house, so was used to it. But it was different at the fair. It was different because it was so loud. There was music playing in the barns, engines revving on the racetrack, horses whining in the showpens, and the mechanical clanking of all the rides. And then it all stops, quiet starting at one end of the fair and traveling across the grounds like a plague. Even the animals, who at home stayed up chewing and crowing until after I’d fallen asleep, quieted. I think maybe they were scared too, or maybe tired from all the hands. 

Goldcreek Fairground was in a valley, in a spot where cell phone reception was nonexistent. On either side of the grounds were badly attended fields of corn. Probably the fair planted it solely to look nice when you are on the top of the Ferris wheel looking down, but at night, it looked like a shifting field of blackness. It was the only constant source of sound. The stalks knocked together as air and wild animals moved through it, sounding a lot like pages turning in a book, or if it was windy, like a woman shaking out a sheet.  

We stayed in the grandstand until after closing because there was no door, so we knew we couldn’t be locked in. We thought maybe there would be security guards or cleaners to outsmart, but other than a couple of moms who spent no more than fifteen minutes picking up left behind beer bottles, we were alone.  

The grandstand spat us out into an alley behind the midway, which was used to store dumpsters and buckets of grease, and other things the fair owners didn’t want guests to see.  

“I’m hungry,” Betty complained. She smelled like horse. I’m sure we all smelled like a barn, which is a respectable smell, but wet horse, it’s just nauseating. It’s like she wanted to rub it in our faces that her parents can afford riding lessons, and show clothes, and all those cool leather things horses wear. “Maybe we can steal some pizza from one of these stands.” 

“Who do you think we are?” Randy asked. “We’re not criminals. We’re not carnies.” 

“What does that mean?” A voice came from the right of us. Sitting in the I Got It Stand were three of the carnie kids, two girls and a guy. It was the guy who spoke. He looked older than us, but his voice gave his youth away. 

“It means you are dishonest scam artists,” Randy said without missing a beat. “And you dress like Satanists.” 

It’s true that the carnies all dressed alike. In all black, with lots of jewelry, or in trendy T-shirts featuring cartoon characters from shows my parents wouldn’t let me watch.  

The carnie boy laughed. “You’re such babies. You don’t know anything.” 

“I know you’ll all have face tattoos by the time you’re twenty,” Randy shot back. “Just like your parents.” 

“Ew,” one of the girls said. She was wearing about ten different necklaces on her long, dropping neck. “Well, at least our parents have all their teeth.” 

“Go drink some moonshine,” the other girl said. This one has glitter dragged across her eyelids. It made her look like she had a hundred tiny blinking eyes on top of her real, true eyes.  

“Go make some meth,” Randy shot back.  

“Randy, stop,” Betty said. 

“Yeah, stop,” Amy said so loudly that both groups paused for a moment. 

When the carnie boy spoke again, his voice was kinder. “What are you doing away from your barn?”  

“We’re on a mission,” Amy said. 

“A mission?” the glitter girl asked.  

“You know that cow that was born earlier?” I asked, too quickly for anyone to understand, but I wanted to be the first person to talk to her. I tried again, slower, “That cow that was born earlier with the extra legs. We’re going to take it so the owner doesn’t put it down.”  

“And where are you going to put it?” the necklace girl asked 

“In my barn,” Mikey offered. This wasn’t part of the plan, but it made sense. To be honest, we hadn’t discussed what we’d do with Esther. “I live just down the road. I can carry her.” 

The carnie kids exchanged a look. “You know,” the boy says. “That’s a better idea than we had. We were going to take her to sideshow, but we weren’t sure how we were going to explain her sudden appearance.”  

“I didn’t think you guys were like that,” the necklace girl said. “I thought you were all hunting meat eaters that couldn’t care less about what happens to animals.” 

“There is nothing wrong with hunting or eating meat,” Randy said. He actually stamped his foot a little as he said this and I was embarrassed for him. 

“What he means,” I interjected, “is that hunting and raising animals on small farms is both more humane and more sustainable than buying meat from stores, where it is all from overcrowded factory farms.”  

“She ate a corndog an hour ago,” the boy said with a smile. The girl looked betrayed, but did not deny it. “We’ll help,” the carnie boy said.  

“The more the merrier,” I replied. 

Randy stamped his foot again, but like the chastened necklace girl, he said nothing.  

We squeezed between the dumpster and stepped onto the midway. Here, there were lights we didn’t notice from the grandstand. An animatronic clown’s nose blinked. Glow-in-the-dark stars painted across a game stall shone neon. Fairy lights strung up between the trees and electrical poles twinkled. Some of the bigger buildings, the ones that got locked up at night, seethed red. I knew this was from the heat lamps on the baby animals, but it still looked creepy.  

“Here,” the necklace girl said, digging into her purse and pulling out a bag of chips. She handed them to Betty. “You said you were hungry.” 

“Thanks,” Betty said. “Do you like horses?” 

“They kind of scare me, really,” the necklace girl responded. “They seem kind of moody.” 

“Not my Chestnut,” Betty said. “You should come visit the horse barn. I’ll let you pet and feed her.”  

I clenched with envy. Betty never let me feed her horse. She said I was not careful enough, and that I would get my fingers bit off.  

We walked in quiet until we got to the youth building. “This building is never locked,” I said, proud of my insider knowledge. “We can walk right through it.” I didn’t mention that the door couldn’t lock because one of the club leaders had broken the latch during cleaning day, and we were all supposed to keep this a secret to keep the “vagabonds” out, a category the carnies surely fell into.  

“Yeah, we know,” the carnie boy said. “We cut through here all the time.” 

Randy held the door open for everyone. Inside, the lights were still on. I could see my cookie exhibits, and my wood working exhibit, both in the blue-ribbon section. I wondered if the carnies ever stopped to look at the winner table and I was torn between wanting to point out my ribbons and ignoring them completely. 

I remembered just a few days earlier, waiting to get judged. I held my breath as the judges tasted the cookies, praying for a blue. I used to pray for a lot of stupid things back then, but understand, at the time I was convinced that a first place would actually change my life. I thought that if I won big enough, everyone who I ever wanted to like me would have no choice but to be impressed, and everyone who was mad at me would instantly forgive me. I actually thought a blue ribbon was something I could put on a resume. Back then, I did a lot of things because I thought they would help get me places I would never go.  

“I made that,” Amy said behind me, and one of the carnie girls responded with a patronizing “wow.” 

“So what do your parents do?” I asked the boy, who ended up to my right. 

“Hush,” the glitter girl said, rushing up, so she was in front of us all. “Up here is the Eastern Star Booth,” she said quietly. 

“Yeah, we know,” I said. “We buy chili from them all the time.” 

“Yeah, but did you know they’re part of an ancient secret society?” she asked. 

“My mom says they’re part of a cult,” Randy offered. 

“I just assumed they were witches,” Betty said. Her stupidity wounded me. Even though hours before I would have entertained this theory. “Because of their pentagram logo.” 

“No, listen,” the glitter girl said, coming to a stop. We all did the same. “They’re part of the Free Masons, which have been around since the medieval times. They have secret handshakes and everything. And most of the founding fathers were part of the group. It’s one of the oldest secret societies in the world, with some of the richest members.” 

“How can it be a secret if we all know about it?” Randy asked. 

“They don’t seem very wealthy to me,” I said. “They’re trying to raise money at a county fair.” 

“Or maybe they’re recruiting,” the glitter girl suggested, winking at Randy before she turned and resumed walking.  

“Maybe they’re the ones taking he animals,” Betty said. “For sacrifices.”  

“Maybe,” glitter girl said, bouncing ahead of us. I realized she had also rubbed glitter into her hair, and it was shooting from her as she moved. 

“My parents are artists,” the carnie boy said to me as soon as glitter girl was out of earshot. There were a few stray pieces of glitter on his nose, like little blinking freckles.  

“The caricature artists?” I asked. I think of the stupid drawing I paid for last summer. My face was so round, like a plate. I hated it so much I ripped it up before anyone could see it.  

“Just at fairs,” he said. “They also paint.” 

“Oh,” I said. 

“They’ve been in art shows.” 

“Cool.” 

“They’ve won awards for their art, real awards.”  

I couldn’t help but to think he was referring to my participation-ribbon-wearing drawings in this very building.  

“Girls,” a woman’s voice rang through the building. Betty shrieked, then we all laughed. Even the woman, who was leaning over the Eastern Star Booth. Her teeth were long and exaggerated, a trick of the overhead lights, I’m sure. “Girls and boys,” she corrected herself, after allowing herself a moment of laughter. “Do you want some pie?” 

“Pie?” Randy asked. 

“I was just going to throw them out,” the woman explained. “We make them fresh in the morning and toss the leftover pieces at night.” As we approached her, her teeth shrunk to a normal size and her face became kinder. Up close, she looked just like any mom, even with the evil eye and the sword emblem glittering on the wall behind her. “There should be a piece for everyone.” She raised her finger to count us.  

No one responded. 

After a few moments of us just staring at her, our eyes bouncing around the booth, looking for a spell book or some kind of secret door, she asked “Are you guys staying in the dorms?” 

“Yes,” Mikey said. “Do you have blueberry?” 

“Or raspberry?” the necklace girl asked. She made her voice sweet and younger. If I hadn’t been looking at her, I wouldn’t have known it was her that spoke.  

We fell into an orderly line, with me at the end. When she got to me all that was left was apple, which I told her was fine, then I stood there, waiting for her to chastise us for calling her a witch, but she didn’t. We must have all felt a little ashamed because we walked out of the building in silence. She didn’t give us any forks, so we picked up the pie and ate it like pizza, shoving the rolled-up plates in our pockets. 

A man yelled. 

“What was that?” the carnie boy asked.  

The sound came again. It sounded like a man yelling “ow.” Or something pretending to be a man. It’s was too deep and loud, cartoonish even.  All the men who have smashed their thumbs with a hammer around me, or even my grandpa who had cut off the tip of his finger in his bandsaw when we were working on my woodworking project two years ago, just responded to the pain by swearing. I had never heard a man say “ow.”  

“It’s the tiger,” Amy said, pointing to the big cats show ahead of us. The tiger was in a cage, surrounded by a gate, surrounded by bleachers, which had been collapsed and leaned against the gate to create an extra ring of protection, so it was hard to make out the tiger, but he was there, pacing as much as he could. He growled again, and then when he saw us he sat down. His whole body grew softer, his eyes bigger, his shoulder sunk into the roundness of his back, so that his stomach jutted out, white and fluffy, inviting.  

 I recognized that look. Our barn cat, OrangeCat, went soft moments before he clamped down on your hand. I was glad the tiger was in a cage, away from me, but at the same time I thought of the parents who walked around the fair with their toddlers on a leash and I felt sad. 

“That’s cruel,” necklace girl said. 

“Imagine if one of those cats got loose” Mikey said. “That could be the monster.” 

“What is this monster you’re talking about?” necklace girl asked. 

“Every year a few barn animals go missing,” I explained. “Usually small ones, poultry and rabbits, but occasionally, sheep and goats and even a cow once, disappear in the night.”  

“Someone is breaking in and stealing them,” the carnie boy said with a shrug. “It’s that simple. We see it all the time. Locals hope the fence to steal the midway prizes.”  

“Maybe,” I said.  

“Seems too simple,” Randy said, echoing with my doubt.  

“No, you’re right,” glitter girl said, “a vampire is breaking in and eating them.” Everybody but me laughed.  

Betty had opened her chips and was sharing them with Randy. Randy ate really loudly and it grossed me out, so I walked a little slower, letting myself fall a few steps behind everyone else. 

I thought of Esther. I had only seen her for a few minutes, but I was sure she had heavy, round eyes like a baby doll. I thought of her pink tongue. I thought of the sweetness of her body as it relaxed into sleep.  

We passed the house of mirrors. I’d only been inside it once, right after I got my caricature done. My face was like a moon, fat and plain. I couldn’t stand to look at myself, so I didn’t. I watched the teens in front of me. One of them pressed her whole body into her reflection, and then peeled herself off slowly, her lips the last thing on the glass. She left a red lipstick smudge on the mirror, and it was echoed throughout the hall, so that everyone’s reflection looked like it had a bloody bullet hole in their neck or face. 

Then I imagined Esther in the hall. She didn’t just have eight legs, she had sixteen, then twenty-four, then thirty-two, then too many to count. But her reflections weren’t monstrous, they were pretty. She was like the women in church when they all put on the same identical white robe to sing, and then stand shoulder to shoulder, forming a wall with their bodies.  

After the house of mirrors, I realized I was quite a bit behind everyone else. Not that they seemed to notice. Everyone was laughing, walking closer together, like they were friends.  

I glanced to my right, looking at the graveyard of demolished vehicles from the derbies and tractor pulls. There was a man there, standing over a yellow VW Beetle, its door torn off and laying in the gravel. He placed his hand on the top of the car and his lips moved. He was talking to the car. I watched until he rubbed his face and then turned toward the exit, toward me. 

Even though I had no reason to be scared, I ran and caught up with everyone else. For years afterwards, and still occasionally today, I remember his face whenever I passed a car accident or even see one on tv. I remembered how sad he looked saying goodbye to his car, and then how betrayed he looked when he realized someone had seen it. 

The Agriculture Education Pavilion burnt red against the black sky. We could hear the murmur of the heat lamps before we even reached the door. If I had been alone, I might have thought it was the sound of adults whispering inside. I was the one to push the door open. I was surprised when it was unlocked, and then surprised again when inside the fair queen was sitting on the bleachers, watching the calves. She was still wearing her tiara, and the red lights shot through the fake diamonds, so she looked the creepy portraits of Mary in church, haloed in jagged light.  

“Hi there,” she said, smiling at us. 

“Hi,” we all said back. The carnie kids’ voices had gone small again. We were all little kids then. The fair queen was beautiful. I couldn’t believe that just that morning I had told Hunter that all of the contestants looked the same. The queen was clearly the most beautiful. Her hair was curly and long like a doll’s. I wanted to touch it, the same way I had wanted to touch Esther’s hooves.  

“What are you guys doing here?” she asked, stretching out her legs. She was wearing sandals like the city people, but on her, it didn’t bother me.  

“We’re checking on the baby cow,” Randy said. 

“The one with all the legs,” necklace girl clarified.  

“Oh.” The queen looked sad then. She stood up, taking off her tiara, which looked so natural embedded in her hair that I was surprised it didn’t bleed when detached from her. “That one is already gone.” 

“Gone where?” Amy asked.  

“Look at this calf,” the queen said, standing up and moving toward another pen. “It’s red. They named her Candy Apple. Isn’t that cute?” 

“So cute,” glitter girl agreed. 

“Gone where?” Amy asked again. She didn’t lift her feet as she moved through the barn, and once again, a cloud of filth wrapped itself around her legs. 

The queen looked at us for help. When her eyes fell on me, I nodded. I knew where Esther was, on a truck heading back to a farm, where she would be shot and then buried in a field, or perhaps thrown on a manure pile. Or maybe she was already dead. Maybe she had died minutes after she had been born, her body stiffening all day behind the privacy curtain as her mother bleated. It wasn’t natural for a baby to be born without making any noise. She was never going to learn how to walk. I had always known this, deep down.  

“They took her,” the queen said. 

“Look at this red cow,” Betty said, putting her arm around Amy. “I would have named it red velvet, like the cake. What would you have named it?” 

Amy shrugged Betty off. “Who took her?” 

I felt bad for the queen then. She started to look like she could cry too. 

“The monster,” the carnie boy said behind me.  

“The monster?” Amy asked. 

“Yes,” the queen agreed, bowing her head solemnly. “The monster took her.” 

“So she’s dead?” Amy asked. 

“Oh no.” The queen approached Amy. “She’s not dead. See, the monster only takes special animals, ones like Esther with extra legs or wings or heads, or sometimes the sick or mean ones. You see, the monster was born at this very fair, a long time ago, and he too had extra parts. All of the little kids at the fair were scared of him, or called him ugly, so he went into the woods to live by himself.” 

The words came so easily for the queen that I knew she had heard them before, perhaps many times. 

She went on, “He was so lonely, but then the next summer another strange animal was born. It was a goat with only one eye. The monster came into the barn and got the goat and they went to live together. After that, every time an animal like that was born, they came together, parading into the barns to take them home. You just missed it. There were about thirty animals here, all in a line.” 

Amy turned and looked at me. “What is she talking about?” 

I can’t remember thirty animals disappearing, but I remember the rabbit that died of heat stroke, and another so stressed by judging that it jumped and broke its own back, and the chicken that was pecked to death by another, and the goat that had hung itself on a stray piece of rope caught in its cage, and the baby sheep that had been trampled by its mother. There were other animals too, the ones I hadn’t seen dead, the ones that I had believed were taken by the monster. 

All of us were quiet. We were all realizing it. There had never been a monster. It had been our parents, trying to protect us. And now it was us.  

“It’s true” I said to Amy. “Of course, it’s true. Of course it is.”  

That was the moment. That was the first time I felt like an adult, already weary from the weight of a lie so old it had become a tradition, and knowing that now I would find these lies everywhere for the rest of my life, and that I would have no choice but to go along with them. But it also felt good, creating a world, even a fake world, where Esther was still alive, in a place where her hair could grow long and green with moss, and her legs, even the extra ones, were strong and straight.

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Baby, Nicole Hebdon‘s cat, sitting in a pumpkin shaped basket.

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Nicole Hebdon‘s fiction has been published in The Kenyon Review, The New Haven Review, The New Ohio Review, and The Saranac Review among other places.

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