Half the day and all through the night, and the calf was stillborn. The sun was coming up again now. They were tired, filthy, starving.
Hoak said, “Tyler, you go on up to the house. Me and your brother will do what’s coming next.” Hoak was a short man, stooped. The brim of his hat drooped down over half his face.
“You going to shoot Bertie now?” Tyler said.
“Go on, Ty.” Billy spat a brown line into the pooled blood on the barn floor.
“Let me stay.”
Bertie lay on the floor and the blood was all around her. She bawled every few minutes and kicked out once with her huge, black hooves. Then she was still, all the way still, except for her ribs going in and out and in and out with her quick little breaths. The dead calf lay in the blood. Its eyes were white and its tongue flopped out and its legs were spindles covered in slime.
She was a fine cow, always friendly. Not all animals were, and some were more like people, who had their moods and sorrows and joys. Some were too dumb to feel anything, like the rooster who thought he knew so much. One day a coyote will grab hold of his neck, Billy once said, and shake the life out of him. Snap, just like that. I’ll laugh my fool ass off when that day comes. But good old Bertie. She let herself be scratched between the eyes and down her withers. This was her second calf. Her first calf had been sold off.
“What if she knew we was going to sell that one too and killed it off inside her?” Ty said.
“How’d you kill something inside you?” Billy smirked.
“Animals don’t know.” Hoak’s voice was quiet, smooth. “Only we know, son.”
“Git, now.” Billy was bigger than Tyler, much bigger than Hoak. He folded his arms and looked down at Tyler and Tyler met his stare and flinched. Billy’s eyes were huge, blue, freezing cold. Nobody else had blue eyes, only Billy.
Ty went then, stomping into the barnyard, pigeon-toed in little boots, and when he was out, Billy slid the huge barn door closed. It thumped home and raised a little puff of dust.
“Little shit,” Billy said.
“You was eager once,” Hoak said, “Wanting to shoot cows so bad. When you should’ve been out swinging from the trees and splashing in the creek.”
“Creek’s got leaches,” Billy said.
“You all is some sons.” Hoak’s jaw worked in circles, even though he had no tobacco plug, no sunflower seeds in his mouth.
“We’s just fine,” Billy said.
“And that’s something else,” Hoak said, “So damn sure of everything.”
“What I’m sure of is, we got—” Billy started.
“Sure of nothing.” Hoak took a step toward him, hands curled up into fists.
Billy didn’t move. Hoak took one more step and then Billy stepped back and back again until his boot heel clacked against a stack of boards.
“This here’s pathetic, you know,” Billy said, “We can’t even get a simple cow to calf around here. What kind of business are we running?”
“Farming,” Hoak said, “Good times and bad. Watch your lip.”
“What about getting rich? Is that not part of it?” Billy said.
“That ain’t no part of nothing.”
Illustration: Luikart, Paul. Untitled. 2017. Oil pastel on mat board. Chattanooga, Tennessee.