(no subject)
Jan. 4th, 2012 08:58 amSo, Mark and I are down at my grandparents' end of the family farm. We come down often enough now that folk in town know us. Kids from the highschool wave; folk stop in the middle of the road and roll down their windows to chat. We're not quite locals yet, but give us ten years...
Talk since we've arrived this time is strange. People say, "It's calving season," and there's this ominous tone in their voices. Not tired or workworn, like their cows are having trouble in labour. Wary and sad and helpless...and a little acquisitive. Someone on the farm has started keeping a herd this year, so I'm curious what the trouble is.
But when I ask why calving season is cause for such concern, nobody will say. They tell me instead about local girls taking up with unreliable looking boys. "How is that news?" I ask, "I remember a couple of unreliable boys of my own." These are different. They're not Ours, they're from somewhere else. We don't know their people. I shake my head, say, "You want to date somebody you're not related to, honey, you've GOT to look for folk from somewhere else. My Mark isn't from around here, nor my Da, but they're alright, aren't they?" It's different. That's all I get. It's different.
They tell me about an old string of runaways from the next couple of towns over. These girls--and they're always girls--just didn't show up at school, or didn't turn up for work, or didn't come home. Their families have been trying to find them, but... Well. Most of those girls have been gone for something like a year, some of them have been gone for two. The cops keep their eyes open, but at this point, they're looking for bones. Maybe she just skipped town, ma'am, did you notice any money missing? Stay by the phone; if she's alive, she might contact you.
Slowly it begins to dawn on me that these folk have been answering my question all along.
"Hey Trip, you got a picture of that girl of Barbara's that's been dating that boy you don't like?"
"Yeah, sure, right here."
"Mind if I make off with this long enough to make a copy? Here, come in and have a glass of tea, I won't be a minute."
The library at the county seat keeps the Tennesseean on microfiche; it takes finagling, but I manage to get copies of a few of the runaways' pictures. Our little town doesn't run a newspaper. No money in it. But it has telephone poles and shop doors. Flat surfaces. At the gas station one day, I come face to face with somebody's young wife under the heading MISSING. She looks familiar, like I knew her when she was little. I take a picture with my phone.
Every time I ask my folks who actually owns the herd in the barnlot, I get the runaround. Mom complains about Da buying livestock without consulting anyone, but she does love the milk; Da and Aunty complain of my grandfather spending money he doesn't have and they're the ones hauling feed; Uncle shakes his head and says they're nobody's but he'll eat 'em since he's fed 'em for a year. Grandda shakes his head at his kids squabbling and goes out to watch the cows mill around. "Didn't think your mother liked cows," he says, "But she sure got a good deal. You know every single one of them was pregnant when she got 'em?" He puts his hand out, and one of the cows wanders up and puts her face on it, asking to be petted like a cat. " Pity she sold the calves; they were cute little buggers. You ever seen a cow that friendly?"
All my life, the only livestock I've ever known were deer, squirrels, and dogs. I don't know if that's normal behaviour or not.
But I begin going down to commune with the cows with or without Grandda. And I take the pictures I've gathered.
Some of them are the kind of brown you'd call auburn in a human, some are black. Most of them have bone-white faces. None of them are a breed I know, and I wish I'd taken a few Ag courses back in highschool, now. I look at the girls' pictures and at the cows and I wonder whether birthmarks would turn up as spots of colour, and whether a blonde would become a white cow. None of the girls have been blonde. One day, I show the cow I'm talking to a picture of one of last year's runaways. There is nearly a stampede.
"Barbara caught that girl of hers climbing out a window the other night."
"Really? Sack on her back and everything?"
"Caught that boy waiting for her out in the woods, too. Her husband says the kid put up a hell of a fight. Stronger than he looks."
"Take him to the cops?"
"For as much good as it did them. Barbara says the cop looked right through the boy, asked Jimmy why they were wasting his time. It was like he wouldn't see the kid."
"Hunh. So the girl's under lock and key for a while, huh?"
"And a doctor's watch; word is, she's expecting."
Silence. What can you say to that?
"Say, Trip, you ever get unmarked cattle turning up in your herds, and nobody comes to claim them?"
"Couple of times this past year, why?"
I shake my head, then thank him for the coffee.
How in hell do you break this spell?
One night, I'm down by the barn listening to the world go by. I don't sleep well at Mom's, but tonight, I couldn't even stay in the house. There's a full moon; it's not quite day-bright, but it's not the galaxy-gazing-dark we usually have, either. I don't know what's wrong, but something is. Then a cow I don't recognise--solid brown light as tea with milk--wanders out to me. I open my hands to her and she walks up, puts her face in my palm. "I know you," she says, "You told me stories."
"I've told a lot of stories," I answer. "Which ones do you remember?"
"About Socrates and hemlock, and then we looked for hemlock by the roadside. About the mouse with the swords."
Oh gods.
"I know you, too, little sister," I say, rubbing the cow's neck. "What're you doing so far from home so late at night?"
"I don't know. He said we'd go somewhere and I'd never have to worry about anything or be lonely again, but then I lost him in the dark and now everything looks strange."
I hear a clatter on the barn roof and suddenly wish I'd thought to bring a gun.
Talk since we've arrived this time is strange. People say, "It's calving season," and there's this ominous tone in their voices. Not tired or workworn, like their cows are having trouble in labour. Wary and sad and helpless...and a little acquisitive. Someone on the farm has started keeping a herd this year, so I'm curious what the trouble is.
But when I ask why calving season is cause for such concern, nobody will say. They tell me instead about local girls taking up with unreliable looking boys. "How is that news?" I ask, "I remember a couple of unreliable boys of my own." These are different. They're not Ours, they're from somewhere else. We don't know their people. I shake my head, say, "You want to date somebody you're not related to, honey, you've GOT to look for folk from somewhere else. My Mark isn't from around here, nor my Da, but they're alright, aren't they?" It's different. That's all I get. It's different.
They tell me about an old string of runaways from the next couple of towns over. These girls--and they're always girls--just didn't show up at school, or didn't turn up for work, or didn't come home. Their families have been trying to find them, but... Well. Most of those girls have been gone for something like a year, some of them have been gone for two. The cops keep their eyes open, but at this point, they're looking for bones. Maybe she just skipped town, ma'am, did you notice any money missing? Stay by the phone; if she's alive, she might contact you.
Slowly it begins to dawn on me that these folk have been answering my question all along.
"Hey Trip, you got a picture of that girl of Barbara's that's been dating that boy you don't like?"
"Yeah, sure, right here."
"Mind if I make off with this long enough to make a copy? Here, come in and have a glass of tea, I won't be a minute."
The library at the county seat keeps the Tennesseean on microfiche; it takes finagling, but I manage to get copies of a few of the runaways' pictures. Our little town doesn't run a newspaper. No money in it. But it has telephone poles and shop doors. Flat surfaces. At the gas station one day, I come face to face with somebody's young wife under the heading MISSING. She looks familiar, like I knew her when she was little. I take a picture with my phone.
Every time I ask my folks who actually owns the herd in the barnlot, I get the runaround. Mom complains about Da buying livestock without consulting anyone, but she does love the milk; Da and Aunty complain of my grandfather spending money he doesn't have and they're the ones hauling feed; Uncle shakes his head and says they're nobody's but he'll eat 'em since he's fed 'em for a year. Grandda shakes his head at his kids squabbling and goes out to watch the cows mill around. "Didn't think your mother liked cows," he says, "But she sure got a good deal. You know every single one of them was pregnant when she got 'em?" He puts his hand out, and one of the cows wanders up and puts her face on it, asking to be petted like a cat. " Pity she sold the calves; they were cute little buggers. You ever seen a cow that friendly?"
All my life, the only livestock I've ever known were deer, squirrels, and dogs. I don't know if that's normal behaviour or not.
But I begin going down to commune with the cows with or without Grandda. And I take the pictures I've gathered.
Some of them are the kind of brown you'd call auburn in a human, some are black. Most of them have bone-white faces. None of them are a breed I know, and I wish I'd taken a few Ag courses back in highschool, now. I look at the girls' pictures and at the cows and I wonder whether birthmarks would turn up as spots of colour, and whether a blonde would become a white cow. None of the girls have been blonde. One day, I show the cow I'm talking to a picture of one of last year's runaways. There is nearly a stampede.
"Barbara caught that girl of hers climbing out a window the other night."
"Really? Sack on her back and everything?"
"Caught that boy waiting for her out in the woods, too. Her husband says the kid put up a hell of a fight. Stronger than he looks."
"Take him to the cops?"
"For as much good as it did them. Barbara says the cop looked right through the boy, asked Jimmy why they were wasting his time. It was like he wouldn't see the kid."
"Hunh. So the girl's under lock and key for a while, huh?"
"And a doctor's watch; word is, she's expecting."
Silence. What can you say to that?
"Say, Trip, you ever get unmarked cattle turning up in your herds, and nobody comes to claim them?"
"Couple of times this past year, why?"
I shake my head, then thank him for the coffee.
How in hell do you break this spell?
One night, I'm down by the barn listening to the world go by. I don't sleep well at Mom's, but tonight, I couldn't even stay in the house. There's a full moon; it's not quite day-bright, but it's not the galaxy-gazing-dark we usually have, either. I don't know what's wrong, but something is. Then a cow I don't recognise--solid brown light as tea with milk--wanders out to me. I open my hands to her and she walks up, puts her face in my palm. "I know you," she says, "You told me stories."
"I've told a lot of stories," I answer. "Which ones do you remember?"
"About Socrates and hemlock, and then we looked for hemlock by the roadside. About the mouse with the swords."
Oh gods.
"I know you, too, little sister," I say, rubbing the cow's neck. "What're you doing so far from home so late at night?"
"I don't know. He said we'd go somewhere and I'd never have to worry about anything or be lonely again, but then I lost him in the dark and now everything looks strange."
I hear a clatter on the barn roof and suddenly wish I'd thought to bring a gun.