It was true, the cow didn’t look like she wanted to get up. She looked like she wanted to take a long nap instead. Come on, old girl, I said, and I pulled on her rope halter, but she just opened her eyes and looked at me. I hope she won’t be a downer, the farmer said. She’s my best milker, he said.
Let’s give her a few more minutes, I said. There was not much to do but look at the cow and then look out across the farmer’s snow-covered hills. On the closest hill there was a sugar shack.
How many trees do you tap? I asked.
Oh, about fifteen hundred, the farmer said.
That must keep you busy in the spring, I said.
The farmer nodded. We sell the syrup here. Between that and the cows, we stay alive.
Then the farmer’s wife came out of the barn. She held the empty bottle of colostrum. She didn’t wear any gloves, and I could see how red her fingers were from the cold.
How’s it doing? the farmer said.
Okay, for now. It needs its mother, though, she said.
The farmer nodded. We’re working on that, he said.
I hope she ain’t a downer, the farmer’s wife said. She’s our best milker, she said.
The doc already heard all that, the son said, shaking his head and then spitting on the icy mud. I didn’t want to hear the family squabble. I interrupted with a little conversation.
You have a nice place here. Nicer than I’ve seen in a while. I recently heard of a guy named Greg Springer. I heard he keeps his cows in his basement. Can you believe that? I said.
The farmer nodded.
You know Greg Springer? I said. The farmer spat. I looked at the wife and she turned away. I looked at the son and he spat then, too, right on top of where his father had spat. It was enough of a clue for me. I would head to Greg Springer’s. I would see if he was the man who shot my son.
I’ll get her up, I said. I went to my truck. From the back I pulled out my bullwhip. I had ordered it from Australia. It was made of braided kangaroo hide. I knew how to crack the whip so that it sounded like a gunshot. When the farmer saw me walk back to the cow with the bullwhip, he didn’t say anything. He just put his hand on his chin and felt some gray stubble that was growing there. The farmer’s wife stuck the empty bottle of colostrum in her back pocket, and then she folded her arms in front of herself and watched.
RESULT: I pulled the whip back and laid it right next to the cow, so that the tassel end struck by her ear. When the whip made the crack, the cow jumped to her feet. The minute she was up, I pulled her off the composite board. I didn’t want her getting comfortable again on it. Put the board away, I said to the son, and he did, quickly. I wished that my whip could wake Sam up the same way and I pictured myself cracking it in his yellow pastel hospital room beside his ear on the stiff white pillowcase and him rising from his bed and holding out his arms to me.
When she was up the farmer said to her, Come on and take care of your youngun’, and then he walked in front of her and she followed him into the barn. The calf was mooing for her and she mooed back and when she was close enough, the calf came up under her and started nursing. She turned to it and started licking it, turning the hairs on its backside into a wet swirl.
The farmer’s wife called to me from the porch of their house. “Come inside so I can write you a check,” she said.
We stood in the kitchen. The only stove in there was a wood cookstove. The floors were beautiful old wide planks that had begun to slant with age and time and made me feel as if I could lose my balance any second and fall over. This is a nice house, I said. The farmer’s wife nodded. It’s been in the family for four generations. My son was born in the room above our heads, and Michael was born there, too, and his father before him and his father before that.
I looked up at the ceiling. It was tin. The pressed shapes in it had a leaf pattern.
When I walked back to my truck to head home, there was a large jug of maple syrup on the driver’s seat.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: Is it true what they now say about the Big Bang, that they believe the universe really isn’t expanding, but that it’s all really heading for one place? What is that place?
WHAT SARAH AND MIA SAID WHEN I GOT HOME: The place is a magnet. The place is warm. Mom’s spacecraft can take us to the place. When everything gets to the place, it will collide again. The Big Bang will have a sequel.
WHAT I TELL THE CHILDREN: Did you know that gravity is not a constant? Did you know that gravity bends light?
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: What is this mess? This room is not the laundry room. This room is the living room. Whose coat is this? Whose hat? Whose dirty socks?
WHAT MIA SAYS: Don’t worry, Mommy, everything you’re seeing is in the past, because light takes time to travel.
WHAT THE FLIES SAY AT NIGHT: Thank you for this warmth. We are happy here in your home. We like sharing it with you. We will try not to buzz in your face. We will keep our distance. When, in death, we do fall from your beams above your heads and onto your beds while you’re sleeping, please forgive us. Forgive us for sometimes clinging to the television screen. We like the extra warmth. It soothes us.
WHAT I CHECKED FOR OUT THE WINDOW: The spacecraft, but it wasn’t there, just a clear night with so many stars they seemed to make the sky white. I left the house then. I didn’t even need to turn my lights on, the sky was so bright. Where are you going? asked Jen. I’ll be back, I said. It’s just a horse, I said. It wasn’t a horse. I drove to the hospital. The night nurse was reading Ulysses. It’s like I’m in this guy’s head, but the problem is I don’t always want to be there, she said when I asked her how the book was. I brought Sam the maple syrup. I opened the bottle and took a sip out of it as if it were a whiskey jug, and it was cold from having been in my truck and I thought how I could almost drink the whole thing like it was water. I threw back the cover and checked his foot. It was still and seemed to glow in the light that the hospital used at night. Then I read a book I had brought. It was about B-24 bombers during World War II. My father was a pilot on a bomber then. I read Sam the part about how in training men had to fly in formation and another pilot had to come at them head-on and be able to lift up just in time to miss flying into the formation, but in training there were many accidents and one man missed, crashing his plane as well as four others and all the men on board died. I told Sam I had figured out what had happened. That the pilot going three hundred miles an hour did not take into consideration that the formation was also flying at him at three hundred miles an hour. When he did pull up, it was already too late. There was no way to judge, I said, and then I cried, thinking of those men, thinking of Sam, the tears falling into the binding of the open pages of the book, magnifying letters.
CALL: A Morgan foundering. I had to go, even though I wanted to check out Greg Springer and drive to his place.
ACTION: Drove to farm, was greeted by a woman with a British accent named Lillian and her King Charles dog and her springer spaniel dog. Lillian was bundled in two sweaters and a scarf and a hat and a down coat. She had just been in the ICU with a lung infection. She was not about to land in there again. Good heavens no, she said. Lillian showed me to the barn. In a stall was the Morgan lying down, his front legs tucked under him. The first thing I noticed about him was that he had a very thick neck. The horse was fat. When I lifted up his blanket, I checked his hind end and there were thick pads of fat there, too. Have you been feeding him extra grain? I asked Lillian. Lillian coughed. Well, yes, with this cold weather, I thought he’d need it.