My Cows
By Kenneth Brady

I drive my family along a rutted old road about forty miles out of Sisters. The Oregon high desert landscape bakes under the midday summer sun. Juniper trees fight sagebrush for water, but inside my lime-green Jeep Cherokee we're fine because we've got freezing-cold A.C. and some blocks of dry ice propped under our feet. But everyone sits still so we don't get all hot and sweaty and stink up the car.

"My cows," Tiffany says from the back seat.

Beth likes to keep the kids occupied when we take trips and I think that's a good idea. We play the same game we play every time we're on a road trip.

My cows.

Always seemed right we play that particular game, us living on a cattle ranch and all. The rules are simple. When you pass a field of cattle on your side of the car, you get the number of cows you can see. Or you can estimate, if you can't count that fast. Whoever has the most head of cattle the next time you get out of the car wins. Course, you can lose your cows if you pass a graveyard.

"Oh no," Tiffany says. "I died."

"You can't die, honey," Beth says from the front passenger seat.

"That's right," I say. "The cows die. You never die, just lose your cows is all." I sniffle. Even out here, the allergies get me.

"There was a graveyard," Tiffany says.

I adjust the rearview mirror so I can see both kids. Tiffany, ten years old just last week, stares out the rear passenger-side window.

"I didn't see a graveyard," I say.

"You did so," Tiffany says. She doesn't even look at me. "I saw it so you saw it."

"I seen it," says Lex, Tiffany's eight-year-old brother.

"Saw it, Lex," I say. I'm always correcting his English, but he never seems to learn. "Well, so what if you did?"

I don't know why Tiffany doesn't remember how to play the game. She's played it many times before, even back home, driving around the property. Every time we'd go out to check for fence breaks and runaway heifers, she always had to play the game. Now, for some reason, she gets caught up and lost in the rules. Maybe she's just tired. It's hot and that always makes everyone tired. I wipe my brow and sniff again.

"How many cows did I have?" Tiffany asks.

"Sixty-four," Beth says.

"I still have seventeen," Lex says. "I'm winning."

"You mean I have to start all over again?" Tiffany says. "No fair."

"Sorry, honey," I say. "Your luck'll change."

"No way," Lex says. "There'll be more cows on my side. Hey look! My cows!"

I look out the window on the left side of the road and see a dozen Holsteins out there in the desert.

Where did they come from? I wonder. Just out here in the desert, all alone? Maybe a big cattle ranch nearby. Unfamiliar country. My brother Bob's ranch is somewhere near, but this'll be the first time we've come to visit. I slow the Jeep and stop before a series of yellow-painted lines on the pavement. On a single post a red and white sign says Watch for Cows.

"Why are those lines crossing the road?" Tiffany asks.

"Those are cattle guards, honey," I say.

"To keep cows from crossing?"

"Yep."

"Why won't the cows cross?"

"'Cause they think they'll get their hooves caught."

"Why?"

"'Cause they think the lines are real metal cattle guards like the ones we have back home," I say.

"But they're just painted on the road. Why do they think that?"

"'Cause cows are stupid."

"Why are cows stupid, Daddy?"

"'Cause they're cows."

I sit, staring for a while at the cows. Maybe they're some of Bob's cattle. Who knows.

"Can we stop?" Beth asks. "Sometime soon?"

"I just want to make it there before dark," I say. "OK?" I put the Jeep in gear and cross the painted lines. I hear a deep, repeating sound, like the lowing of cows, but when I turn to look all I can see is the cattle guard and the sign. We move beyond, and the road turns to gravel and pinkish-red lava rock, rough and bumpy, and when I get up to twenty-five it about rattles my teeth out of my skull. I fight back a sniff.

"My cows!" Tiffany yells.

I open my eyes. I jerk the wheel of the Jeep and steer back onto the road. When did I fall asleep? It's dark now, and I don't know how long we've been driving. I thought we'd be at Bob's by now. I turn my head toward the shoulder of the road.

In the glow of the moonlight there are hundreds of cows lying in the field. Maybe thousands.

"How many are there, Dad?" she asks.

"I don't know," I say. "Maybe two thousand?"

"No way," Lex says. "Maybe like a hundred. I'll give you a hundred."

"Be fair," I say. "Let's say there's one thousand."

"OK," Tiff says. "I got a thousand sleeping cows."

"This looks like a nice place," Beth says.

We pull into the graveyard for lunch, and the bright sunshine reflects off the metal of the hood. I stop the Jeep and get out, but my family stays in the car. I look back at them.

"What's the matter?" I ask.

"I don't want to lose my cows," Tiff says.

"This doesn't count," I say. "Pretend it's a rest area."

"Dad!" Tiff says, then begins to cry. I hate that, seeing the precious liquid run down her face.

"Don't cry," I say. She doesn't stop, though, so I get back in the Jeep. I raise my voice, maybe just a bit too much. "Fine, we'll go somewhere else. Are you happy now?"

"Maybe you should leave us here if you're going to be like that," Beth says. Her eyes are distant, like she's done listening to me. Sometimes I think she was done listening to me a long time ago.

"What a stupid idea," I say. Why would I ever leave my family in a graveyard? I almost laugh, but have to sniff instead.

"Can we stay for a little while?" Lex says. "We can look around."

"I have to pee," Tiff says.

"We should rest for a while," Beth says.

"And look for cows," Lex says.

"Stop it!" I yell. "I can't sort out your voices when you're all yelling at once. Making my head hurt."

I close my eyes, start the Jeep. The cool A.C. washes over me.

"My family belongs with me," I say. "Without me they'd be all alone in the world. I sure as hell won't leave my family in the middle of the desert. Right?"

No one says anything for a moment. They just sit there, heads down. I imagine what things would be like without them. All alone out here, without my wife and my babies. Pure hell. It'd be pure hell. I could never abide that.

Then, one at a time they raise their heads and smile.

"Right, Dad," Lex says.

"Right," says Tiff.

A pause. Beth's still stiff, reserved. And though I know she'll see it my way, sometimes it takes a while to get her to move around to my side of things.

She sighs, a long-suffering sort of sound like air from a leaky tractor inner-tube.

"Right," Beth says.

"Good," I say. "Now that that's settled--" And I'm going to say let's find somewhere else to eat lunch, but there's a big truck pulling into the graveyard. And then there's a half-dozen men in what look like white spacesuits climbing out of the truck.

I roll down my window and sniff. My nose feels like it's swollen twice its size.

"Something I can help you with?" I ask.

"Look out," one of the spacemen says, pointing at my head. "He's got it."

I adjust the side mirror to see my face, and there's a trickle of blood running down from each nostril. I look back at them.

"I know what you're thinking," I say. "But I'm not on drugs or nothing. It's just allergies."

"Stay in the car, sir," the spaceman says. He levels an assault rifle at me.

Another of the spacemen goes for a radio and he's calling, talking all fast and frantic. I pop open the door and am out in an instant.

"Don't you point that thing at my family," I say.

"Exposure to cows," says the spaceman with the radio. "One barely alive, overheating, aggressive. Three dead."

I stop then, turn and look at him. What does he mean by that? I look back into the car. My family waits quietly for me to solve the problem so we can continue our journey.

"Wait a minute, now," I say.

"They're dead, sir," says the spaceman with the rifle.

I turn to the Jeep. Well, that's just ridiculous. They're fine. They're...

Beth sits in the passenger seat, unmoving, head swollen and fat.

"I'm dead," Beth says.

"I'm dead," Tiff says, and I see her blond hair where it's matted to her face.

"I'm dead," Lex says, his little boy lips curling into his mouth where the flesh has deteriorated.

"Can't die," I say, and I move toward the nearest spaceman, the one with the rifle. I want to grab him by the collar and shake him until he understands. "They can't die. Only cows can die."

"Calm down, sir," the spaceman says. "We'll take you to get some help."

"No," I say. I know the spacemen just want to take my family away and if I go with them who knows what they'll do to me. What sorts of tests they'll run on me.

"My family," I say. But they're already gone. All gone.

And it's so hot. My breath comes slower and I fall to my knees. Blood runs from my nose and over my lips.

In the dizzying heat, the world spins--

"Leave him," a spaceman says from the spin. "He won't go far, and there's nowhere to go anyway."

--spins, spins--

"Nothing but dead cows," says another spaceman.

--spins, spins--

"Dead cows everywhere," says my brother's voice over the phone.

--spins, spins--

"All your cows are dead," says the Center for Disease Control tech as he cordons off my ranch.

--spins, spins--

--and I sleep.

I wake in moonlight to the sound of lowing. From everywhere and all around me. I rise unsteadily to my knees and peer at the tracks where my Jeep once sat. No cows there. No cows anywhere, but they call me still. I gaze toward the ridge. The sound of lowing carries from over the ridge.

I make it to the top of the ridge and sit atop a rock outcropping, panting, as the clouds uncover the moon and the light reveals the basin below. My brother's ranch. Thousands and thousands of cattle, lying still in the fields. Abandoned, with no one to care for them.

Until now.

I stand and blow a handful of blood from my nose, then begin the long trek down into the basin. I'll go where I can't see the graveyard, can't see any graveyard. Down among the abandoned cows I know I'll find my family, waiting for me to lead them home. And no one will take them away from me again.

I'll always have them. Always.

My cows.

The End

Story copyright Kenneth Brady, published by the Fortean Bureau
http://www.forteanbureau.com