Gertie weathered the donkeys’ endless braying — sharp and grating across the pasture:
A HORSE’S PLOW WE WON’T ALLOW
Their voices cracked hollow, like imaginary whips against which they rebelled.
“Ignorant jackasses,” Gertie muttered. “The field’s been fallow for weeks.”
The other cows barely twitched their ears. Gertie dropped hers down, retreating from the mulish boycott toward a shade tree at the pasture’s edge. With a grunt, she sank into the cool turf, sweet cud rising in her throat, drowning out the donkeys’ clamor beneath the steady churn of her own chewing.
“Excuse me.”
Gertie’s eyes snapped open, her ears pinned back. An orange-and-cream tabby perched on a branch above her, eyes amber-bright in the shade, head tilted, grinning.
“Trouble with the rabble-rousers out there?” it purred.
“I’m a cow,” Gertie replied flatly. “Dissatisfaction isn’t the brand.”
“That’s right,” said the cat, its voice sliding into that of a radio announcer:
Our milk comes from contented cows!
It leaned closer. “Until your teats are dry and they grind you into hamburger.”
Gertie lurched upright. “How rude!”
“Am I wrong?”
Her jaw stilled, the cud caught mid-chew. A long moment passed. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
A shiver rippled across her hide. She glanced at the empty stall next to the barn where the old bull once bellowed. She remembered Molly’s calf — its panicked bleat fading as the trailer disappeared into the horizon at dawn.
Molly never recovered. She hadn’t made a sound since.
“I don’t like the thought,” Gertie said, her eyelids clamped down, blocking out the empty stall. “But I’ve made peace with my purpose.”
“Yes, purpose,” said the cat, “a word used to keep the simple in line.” It waved its paw toward the herd. “Like those bovine buffoons out there.”
Gertie pursed her lips, gazing past the herd toward the pasture’s edge, where the fencing gave way to scrub and thistle. Her muscles tensed.
A sudden bellow sounded. Gertie turned to see Molly’s head wedged between two rungs of the fence, tongue lashing wildly at a thistle mere inches beyond reach.
Gertie rose. She lifted her front hoof — one step, then another. She froze, leg suspended. Molly’s panicked eyes rolled white.
The cat slithered lower, claws flexed, until it dangled inches from Gertie’s ear. “That’s it,” it whispered, whiskers brushing her side. “Just a few steps further.” Its breath was cloying and sweet — the words oozed into Gertie’s ear like spoiled honey.
Bootsteps thudded across the pasture. The farmer’s whistle split the air — two sharp notes.
The cat froze. Gertie’s ears swiveled, her body remembering: stand, walk, eat. The other cows were already moving toward the gate. The farmer’s silhouette disappeared behind the barn.
“What are you waiting for?” the cat hissed. “Before the butcher comes for you!”
Molly, convulsing, finally wrenched her head free and lumbered into line with the others.
Gertie swung her head back toward the cat — its eyes wide, its grin slick and greedy. Its stomach growled, a string of saliva glistening at the corner of its mouth.
Gertie’s pulse drummed in her throat. The fence line blurred in her peripheral vision. She drew a long breath, pressing her hooves into the turf. “You don’t want me free,” she said. “You want me lost — picked apart when the coyotes are through.”
The cat’s eyes shuttered, its grin twitching.
“Maybe I am just someone else’s hamburger,” she continued, “But I’d rather be a purposeful meal than carrion for a scavenger.”
The cat hissed, ears flat. It spat, twisting away — tail lashing like a tattered flag — and vanished into the tall grass.
Gertie’s breath left her in one long stream, stirring the grass at her hooves. Somewhere in the distance, the donkeys resumed picketing:
A FARMER’S GREED WILL MEET STAMPEDE!
Gertie eased herself once more into the worn patch of turf beneath the tree, warm and familiar. She felt the cud rising again, though the sweetness sat strangely on her tongue this time.
She drifted toward sleep, dreaming of a cat’s hollow trill echoing across a barren horizon as witless donkeys gave chase, convinced it was leading them to paradise.
The pasture stretched endlessly around her.
Joshua Nash is a husband and father in Lockhart, Texas, whose other reveries have appeared in 101 Words and Nail Polish Stories.
Help us keep the daily stories coming with Patreon.
