On the fourth day after the heifer went missing, Billy and I, twelve, ran the length of the grazing field in the snow and at the far end before the woods, found the gate bent enough the yearling might struggle through.
We picked up a trail of hoofprints, of a low belly dragging through the deepest snow, determined swipes at a sluggish pace that showed the heifer desired freedom from head to hoof.
The clouds were monochrome but after ten broke and sunlight shone on southern facing slopes.
The day’s dusting melted as we approached fearing an animal raised to be beef would be prematurely turned to hide and woodland feast for coyote, crow, and all the crawling crowd of underground microscopic feeders.
We never found her. We traipsed fence lines and woods and not a sign. In spring we took a tractor and looked for femurs and vertebrae but nary a bone poked up in the fertile earth.
Years later I woke in the early morning to find new snow fallen on my deck and that heifer came to mind, that child’s delight we had that one heifer had defied the fatal stockyard zap in the head, had defied butcher, farmer, the walking dead. It gave us hope for surviving school.
Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, California, and has contributed to Williwaw Journal, Willows Wept Review, Rabid Oak, and others. He has a digital chapbook available at Red Wolf Editions and another forthcoming from Red Bird Chapbooks.
