Jersey.
Seven or eight years old.
Small-framed.
Thin through the hips.
Her coat had lost shine.
There was patchiness on one side.
She looked tired.
Three men walked past.
One said:
“She’s done.”
Another answered:
“Processing buyer might take her.”
Silas watched.
The cow shifted.
Not dramatically.
Front left.
Then right.
Back again.
She lowered her head toward hay.
Took some.
Chewed.
Stopped.
Chewed again.
The rhythm was wrong.
Silas climbed onto the second rail.
Slowly.
No sudden movement.
The cow looked at him.
He looked at her udder first.
Not swollen.
Not misshapen.
No obvious sign of severe mastitis.
He looked at her ribs.
Thin.
But not collapsed.
Skin.
Coat dull.
Eyes.
Tight.
Not empty.
That distinction mattered.
A truly sick cow sometimes had a distance in the eyes.
This one looked annoyed.
Pain made animals annoyed too.
Silas pulled out the index card.
CHECK THE MOUTH.
He could not inspect inside her mouth from outside the pen.
But he watched jaw movement.
Wrong.
CHECK HOW SHE STANDS ON ALL FOUR FEET.
He climbed down.
Walked around the pen.
Crouched.
The front left hoof looked slightly longer.
Toe curling.
Weight shifted.
The cow corrected position again.
Silas leaned closer.
A man nearby watched him.
Older.
Weathered face.
Brown coat.
Dean Aldis.
Dean had bought and sold dairy cows longer than Silas had been alive several times over.
At first he assumed the child was playing.
Then he saw the notebook.
Silas wrote:
LEFT FRONT LONG.
Then:
NOT STANDING EVEN.
Then:
CHEWING WRONG.
He stopped.
Otto’s voice came back.
Not from after the stroke.
Before.
One summer afternoon.
Clover had been favoring one hoof.
Silas remembered asking why the cow had stopped chewing.
Otto had said:
“Everything talks to everything.”
Silas did not understand.
Otto pointed toward Clover’s hoof.
“Hurts to stand.”
Then jaw.
“Hurts to stand, doesn’t settle.”
Then stomach.
“Doesn’t settle, doesn’t eat.”
Everything talks to everything.
Silas looked at pen fourteen.
Maybe.
He wrote one more line.
NOT SICK? HURTING.
Dean Aldis stepped closer.
“What you writing?”
Silas closed the notebook slightly.
“Stuff.”
Dean smiled.
“You buying?”
“Yes.”
Dean looked toward the Jersey.
“That one?”
“Maybe.”