Their journey

Bubba doesn’t like the blow-dryer.

Immobilized in a halter, he can only let out a deep, mournful bellow.

“Shh!” says Ashley Bullock, 16, as she finishes cleaning the coat of her black Angus steer.

She kneels and spray-paints his hoofs to a glossy dark sheen.

She trims his tail, applying product for extra poof.

She considers spraying Bubba with something called “Pink Oil,” which comes in a hot pink can reading, “Unlike Any Other: For Extreme Fluff”; but she’s concerned about drying time and decides against it.

It’s early Thursday and Bubba is about to enter a long day of scrutiny. He’s competing for “best market beef” at the El Paso County Fair in Calhan.

This is to be Bubba’s last show. Two days later he’ll parade before an auctioneer and then head to the slaughterhouse. His carcass will be judged in one final competition.

Bullock and Bubba’s parting is a story that plays out at fair after fair. It’s a moment when young 4-H members — who have devoted countless hours to caring for their pigs and sheep and heifers — are forced to recall the true purpose of husbandry.

But in this case, the emotions surrounding Bubba’s departure stand in for a much deeper grief. The steer was responsible for a bond between two people. And the tragedy that broke that bond would reverberate through the small plains towns east of Colorado Springs.

For the moment, however, Bullock tries to focus only on the struggle to keep Bubba mud-free and presentable.

She won him last year in the fair’s Catch-It-Calf contest, in which 4-Hers scramble to harness young calves. When he arrived at the small farm in Ellicott where Bullock lives with her grandparents, he was 670 pounds.

Now he weighs in at 1,368 pounds — appearing ever so slightly larger with his freshly blown fur. Even at this size, Bubba acts more like a dog than a steer, Bullock says. He follows people around. He likes to nuzzle.

“He’s a big, chunky baby,” she says, wiping his running nose.

A MENTOR LOST

Five Sundays ago on July 1, Bullock went to church alone. Her grandparents, Les and Jan Bullock, had to work that morning.

During weekly prayer requests, Bullock heard a familiar name: Sharon Anderson of Calhan had died that Friday.

Bullock’s 4-H mentor was a woman by the same name who worked at the Pikes Peak Cooperative, a livestock feed store in Calhan.

If Bubba stopped eating or looked bloated, Bullock called Anderson to find out what to do. When he developed an infection and needed antibiotics, Anderson showed Bullock how to give him a shot in the neck rather than the rump, so as not to spoil the best cut of meat.

At first, Bullock thought the preacher’s announcement could not refer to the same woman. She had only known one person who had died: her 85-year-old great-grandfather, who had been blind and immobile by the time the end came.

Anderson was only 54. She had a son and a daughter in their early 30s and six grandchildren who vied for space on her lap.

Yet through the murmurings of the congregation, Bullock came to realize that her vibrant mentor was dead.

Though the service wasn’t over, she walked out of the church and into the parking lot. By the time her grandmother arrived to pick her up, she was sobbing.

Bullock decided then that she would sell Bubba to help sponsor another Catch-It-Calf in Anderson’s memory. It comforted her to think that another young person would have Anderson’s support, if indirectly.

Bullock has been in 4-H for five years, moving up from rabbits to goats and finally steers. She’s home-schooled and says she likes the social aspect of the program, as well as the daily routine of caring for the animals.

In many ways, Bullock had much in common with Anderson, who lived on farms in Yoder and Rush before moving to Calhan in 1982. The older woman had worked at the Pikes Peak Cooperative for 18 years and been involved with 4-H, off and on, since she was a child.

A VETERAN OF THE CO-OP

The Friday she died, Anderson woke early to find that her 10-year-old cocker spaniel, Roxey, was having a seizure. The dog had suffered such spells since being kicked by a horse three years ago — more often, it seemed, when Anderson herself wasn’t well.

But Anderson never considered euthanizing Roxey.

She spoke to her daughter on the phone, as she did every morning, mentioning a doctor’s appointment she had to hurry to in Colorado Springs.

Later, a little before noon, she called Bob Crowel, her longtime beau, on her way back from the city. Crowel was heading home, too, after working the late shift at his security job. She told him not to worry about picking up milk.

Crowel had known Anderson in passing for many years at the Pikes Peak Cooperative. Four years ago, a letter arrived in his mailbox with her name on the return address.

It was an an invitation for a date.

“She just said she thought I was a really sweet guy,” recalled Crowel. “That she’d never done this before, but she’d like to ask me out. And that it would be no big deal, life would go on, if I said no.”

But Crowel said yes.

“She was special,” said Crowel, 60. “It was one of those things where we were totally compatible.”

Anderson’s six grandchildren called her “Nanners.” Now it was “Nanners and Bob.”

LAST-MINUTE ADVICE

Inside the arena Thursday morning, the “Class 7” market beef competition is finishing up. Bubba is in “Class 8.”

Bullock changes into clean black jeans and a collared white shirt. Her grandmother pulls a comb through her hair. There’s talk of doing a French braid, but a regular braid wins out.

Bubba lows a few feet away. He’s had a drink but isn’t used to chlorinated water and is foaming at the mouth.

“Remember to keep your eyes on the judge. And watch your feet. You don’t want to get stepped on by a Volkswagen,” says Bullock’s grandmother, a blond woman in a cowboy hat, her eyes damp with emotion.

“Do your best. It’s not winning that matters. It’s one person’s opinion,” says her grandfather, who is tall and thin with a thick mustache, also wearing a cowboy hat.

Bullock is tired. She’s been up since 7 a.m. cleaning and prettying Bubba. She only half attends to her grandparents’ advice, oscillating between an earnest enthusiasm for the fair and a sort of teenaged ennui.

She just celebrated her 16th birthday and has begun a driver’s ed correspondence course. She’s thinking of becoming a mechanic and likes to guess the makes of cars. Next year, she’ll face a choice between buying another steer or her own truck.

BIRTHDAY AFGHAN

Anderson had mentored a lot of 4-H kids, but she felt especially bonded to Bullock, her family said.

A few months before Bullock’s birthday, Anderson called her grandfather to find out her favorite color. She began staying up late to finish Bullock’s birthday present: an intricate red afghan blanket.

“There wasn’t a stitch out of place,” said Crowel.

Crowel had planned to propose to Anderson in Las Vegas in December. He hoped they would get married on the spot and had already booked tickets and invited family.

“She was special,” he said. “I guess they say love is having someone to nudge when you see something and want to share it. She was my person to nudge.”

Before moving West, Crowel had worked as a medic for nearly three decades in Miami. So when he was driving home that Friday morning and saw the flashing lights of an accident scene on Highway 24 just beyond Judge Orr Road, his first instinct was to pull over and help.

Then he recognized the blue Chevrolet Caprice.

Minutes earlier, a concretepumper trailer had broken loose from a westbound truck. Anderson, in the eastbound lane, was unable to avoid it. She died instantly, according to state trooper Eric Zachareas.

“I saw her lying there and there was nothing I could do,” said Crowel, his voice cracking. “Even with my training, there was nothing I could do.”

He called Anderson’s two children. He met with her 82-year-old mother, who still lives on the farm in Yoder. A few days later, he wrapped up the red afghan and took it to the Pikes Peak Cooperative, asking that it be given to Bullock.

SPECTATORS IN HER PLACE

Anderson’s family has come in her place to watch Bullock in the final round of the competition Thursday afternoon.

Her son, Chad Anderson, 31, sits quietly in the bleachers. He works for a ranch near Denver and used to deliver bulls at night; his mother would stay on the phone with him even at 3 a.m. to keep him from falling asleep at the wheel, he says.

Amber Marsh, 33, sits next to her brother, laughing with her two small sons.

Crowel is there too.

Marsh is worried about being a mom without a mom, she says. Her children are so little, they’re not sure what to make of what happened to their grandmother.

“The other day, my eldest one started to say, ‘Nanners is going to be...’ And he kind of stopped,” she says. “I told him it’s all right to talk about Nanners even though she isn’t here.”

Most of the people Amber Marsh sees on a daily basis knew her mother, she says.

Sharon Anderson’s memorial service was held at Calhan High School, because it was the only local venue large enough. The registry bears 631 signatures, though the family estimates that nearly a thousand people attended.

In the 2000 census, the population of Calhan was 896.

Anderson’s grandchildren clap their hands and stomp their miniature cowboy boots, when Bullock enters the ring with Bubba.

They don’t win.

“It doesn’t matter,” says Bullock’s grandfather. “He’ll sell just as well as the others. He’ll make good steak.”

Indeed, at the auction the following day, Sharon Anderson’s son and daughter will buy Bubba with a high bid of $2,700. The steer will be delivered as a collection of parts.

But for now, Bullock cries ever so softly. It’s not because she didn’t win. (She is, after all, the fair’s Reserve Grand Champion for chocolate chip cookies.)

She’s crying because she’s remembering Sharon Anderson and the red afghan that’s too warm for these hot summer nights.

SCHOLARSHIP FUND

The Catch-It-Calf committee — of which Sharon Anderson was a member — has started a scholarship fund in her memory. Donations may be made through the Farmers State Bank of Calhan, at the Calhan, Falcon, or Ellicott branches. For more information, call Rolla Miller at 659-4719.