Holy Cow by David Duchovny Read Free Book Online Page B

explore, to discover new things. I wasn’t. I know I don’t have forever here on the farm before they kill me, and that they will kill my baby after that, but we all have to die sometime and I want what little time I have here to be peaceful, in the pasture, playing with my girl and her daddy. You may not think that’s a beautiful life, but I do. And just one day of that life is worth everything to me. Please don’t hate me. You can think I’m a coward, but please don’t hate me.
    ELSIE
    I don’t hate you, Mals, and I don’t think you’re a coward. In fact, you are the bravest woman I’ve ever known.
    I meant it. Maybe I was the coward for running away. Or maybe we were just different, cut out for different lives, and each of us was doing what we had to. I leaned into Mallory with all my weight, which is how cows hug. Her eyes closed and she fell back asleep leaning on me. It was nighttime now. I heard a rustling at the back of the barn and I looked up to see a pig tottering upright on its hind legs and a turkey with a cell phone, waiting for me. It was time to go. I shuffled over to them.
    Just as I was leaving the barn for the last time, I turned around and had this overwhelming urge to stay. Why is it that when we’re leaving something is the moment we most appreciate it? My heart was filled with love for all the animals, even the chickens, even the dogs, even the farmers, and I cast my mind back on all the lazy days we’d had—me and my mother in the pasture, Mallory and I talking through the night. So many memories.
    But I had to go. When I turned, the pig was looking at me. And he said, “It’s hard to leave anywhere. Even if the place sucked. It’s hard to leave anywhere at all.”

 
    24
    HEADLINE: COW JUMPS OVER MOON
    (followed by a pig and a turkey)
    It was a nice night, temperature in the sixties, cloudless sky, no chance of rain. Just the sound of my hooves on the grass and the occasional “Oy, my mouth is so dry, does anybody have a hard candy?” from Shalom. We walked in silence for a good long while; I think we must have all been in awe of the moment. “Seventy-five million people, life expectancy, 71.1 years—I’m gonna live to be 71.1!” The gobbler was googling facts about Turkey on the phone—“Did you know that Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age?” No, we did not. “For the Daily Double [ see Trebek, Alex]—does its location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia make it a country of significant geostrategic significance?” Nobody cared. “The answer is—hells yeah! Go Turkey, go Turkey, it’s your birthday!”
    Shalom held up a hoof. “Ssshhh, listen, did you hear that?”
    We listened—crickets, not much else—and then the silence was broken by the howling of a wolf in the distance. Shalom looked at me, like Oh shit. I said that that howl seemed at least a mile away and not to worry, but inside I was very concerned. It’s one thing to hear the baying of a wolf and think it’s gorgeous when you’re safe inside a locked compound protected by men and dogs, but it’s a different ball game when there’s nothing but the night air between you and that wild animal. I had always considered myself wild, but tonight I wasn’t sure. “Turkey has had a president since 1923, maybe I’ll make a run at it.” Jesus. “The waters in Turkey are the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara—isn’t that a beautiful word … Mar-mar-a  … Mar-mar —”
    Shalom had had enough. “Stop with the fun facts about Turkey already. You’re gonna use that phone so much, the battery’s gonna die and then what’ll we do, Einstein?”
    “Fine,” Tom said, but he couldn’t help himself. “Turkey’s motto is ‘The country unconditionally belongs to the nation.’ I don’t know what that means, but me likey. Okay, okay, turning it off, powering down.”
    We walked on, talking loudly about silly stuff to show one another how not scared we were, laughing a little too loudly at