walked over to me and fit himself right up under my hand. I think I leaned on him a little. I was thankful to have him there, taking on a little bit of my weight, lightening my load.
WHAT I SAID: Why don’t you like him, Marie?
WHAT MARIE SAID: Just a feeling I have. He didn’t help with that kid. That mother would still be alive if he hadn’t ripped her. I walked over to the window and watched the farmhand drop the goat onto the ground. He dropped it from a height higher than I would have dropped it, even though it probably didn’t matter because it was dead. The goat slightly bounced after it was dropped so hard. Marie turned away. I guess I can’t begrudge him too much. He bagged a buck this year and gave me all the meat.
WHAT I SAID: What’s his name?
WHAT MARIE SAID: Jim Bushway. He’s from up north. He doesn’t have any friends here, I don’t think. When he’s not working for me, he’s hunting, but he doesn’t keep the meat. He’ll shoot rock tiger and just leave ’em dead where he shot ’em.
WHAT I SAID: Rock tiger?
WHAT SHE SAID: You know, chipmunks. They always run across the rock walls here. He shoots ’em and leaves ’em there on the rock wall and says the coyotes will come get them. I know he’s right, but still, she said.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: It was a good thing I didn’t take Mia and Sarah with me. I don’t want the veal. I don’t want to eat something killed before it has had a chance to mature. I will take the slaughtered sheep.
WHAT WE SEE IN THE SKY AS WE STAND OUTSIDE OUR HOUSE LOOKING AT STARS: The bright lights again, the object moving in the sky.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Funny, I didn’t get a transmission.
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY: Come inside, quick. We’re scared!
WHAT THE WIFE AND I DO: Watch the object moving low in the sky.
WHAT THE CHILDREN DO: Rap on the windows, and beckon us to come inside. I look at Jen and she looks at me. Is there a moment we think that if it landed we could go up inside it? Make our children come with us, guiding them on board, then take off into the night sky? We would look out small windows, try to see down below, the frosted land, the still north, the cloven tracks of deer dark like leaves that floated down side by side on the snowy land. The bright lights sail away, and I hold out my hand for Jen to take. I call her name. She comes and we walk into the house, stepping on the wooden porch, opening the doors and going inside. But I don’t stay inside with her. I go back out, telling Jen I will take the dogs for a walk. I run down to the field. Maybe the pilot can tell me what he saw the day my son was shot. Maybe there are pictures he takes, a camera made of indestructible metal soldered to the spacecraft’s sleek underbelly. The spacecraft is low now, but not low enough for me to see a window, to see the face of the pilot. I flail my arms. Bruce and Nelly think this is a game. They jump on top of me. They try to catch my large gloved hands in their mouths. Get down! I say. I hear their nails ripping down the shell of my coat. Then I yell up to the spacecraft, “Tell me!” I say, but there is no possible way for the spacecraft to hear me, the dogs are barking loudly now. This is such a fun game. Their curved long-haired tails having brushed on the ground are frosted with snow now and sparkle the same way the stars up above are sparkling.
WHAT THE WIFE COOKED FOR DINNER: Gypsy soup.
WHAT MIA SAID: I do not like Gispy soup.
WHAT I TELL THE WIFE ABOUT: Jim Bushway, the rock tiger killer.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Rock tiger?
WHAT I SAY: Maybe Jim Bushway is our man. Marie doesn’t like him.
WHAT THE NIGHT SAID: You cannot even see out of your windows for all the fly shit that’s stuck to the glass. How do you expect to tell if what you are seeing is really stars?
WHAT THE WIFE SAID: I can’t stand these flies falling on my head at night and getting caught in my hair and buzzing all around. I will sleep with the mosquito netting over me, even though it is the middle of winter, so that the flies don’t land on me. Jen let the netting settle over her and she was hazy behind it, reading a book.
WHAT THE KIDS SAID THE NEXT EVENING: Pop, where is my mouth guard? Sarah and Mia had a basketball game. We drove to the game taking the back roads that looked so different in the dark than in the daytime. The kids sat in the back and when they spoke to us it was hard to understand them, because they were wearing their mouth guards and chewing on them the whole way there.
WHAT STRUCK ME ABOUT THE BASKETBALL GAME: They played really good music at halftime. And who would have thought that in a small gym of a small school in a small town the music would be so good?
WHAT WE SAW WHEN WE DROVE HOME UP OUR DRIVEWAY: The spacecraft again.
WHAT THE WIFE SAID: Stop the car. She got out. She watched it for a while. Maybe it would tell her, I thought. Maybe a loud voice would cut through the night saying the hunter’s name. Could it be Venus? Sarah asked. I shook my head. It was moving closer to us. Get back in the car, Mommy! Sarah yelled. It’s just a spaceship, Mia said. It was a cold night. My wife dug her fists into her coat pockets, then she opened up the door and got back in for the rest of the drive down our driveway to the front of our house. The spacecraft was still flying in the sky.
WHAT SARAH ASKED: Who do we tell? Do we tell the police? My wife and I shook our heads. No, I said, remembering how helpful the police were in finding the hunter who shot Sam. It’s probably just one of the drones the air force practices flying at night. Don’t tell anyone, I said. I wanted the spacecraft for ourselves. I felt good about telling the kids that no one else needed to know about it. I also liked the idea of having our own spacecraft because it seemed like a rite of passage, a natural course of events for an adult-first you get married, then you have the house and then the kids and the dogs and the rabbit and now the spacecraft.
CALL: Arlo has a cow with diarrhea.
ACTION: Drove to Arlo’s in the snow that was slippery. Stopped first to get the mail at the post office. A man came up to me. Is that your truck? he asked. I smiled, and told him it was. You could be arrested for that, he said. I was still smiling. I could not imagine what I could be arrested for. It’s illegal to drive with snow on your roof. What if that snow blew back onto the windshield of another car? What if it slid off onto your windshield and you crashed into someone? the man said. The man was not smiling back when I smiled. I nodded. All right, I said. Are you high? the man said. High? I said. No, I’m not high, I said, still smiling because I did not want to have words with the man. I got back into my truck and drove off without removing the snow from the roof of my truck. When I turned into Arlo’s driveway, I sped up and then stopped short, to see if the snow would come cascading down the roof and onto the windshield. The snow did not slide off. It stayed on the roof of my truck.
RESULT: At Arlo’s I took a blood on the cow. What do you think it is? Arlo asked. I looked at the cow. Her heart rate was down. She had a slight fever. It may not be good, I said to Arlo. Arlo shook his head. You should have decked that guy who told you about the snow on your roof.
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: Will the snow fall off now? Will the snow fall off now? Will the snow fall off now?
WHAT I TOLD ARLO WHEN THE BLOOD RESULT CAME BACK POSITIVE: Arlo, you’ve got to put her down or else she’ll give it to the rest of the herd. Arlo did not want to do it. He liked his Chianina cow. He toyed with the idea of keeping her separate from the herd, but it might be impossible to do. She might still infect the others and he could not afford that. As it was, he would not be able to slaughter her and sell the meat. The meat would be considered tainted and unfit for humans. He sent the white cow off to be slaughtered. Days later he got a call from a man who sells cows. Arlo, have I got a cow for you. It’s the kind you like. It’s a Chianina, the man said. Arlo made the man describe the cow and then he had the man read the number on the tag in the cow’s ear. It was the same number as the number of the cow he had sent off to slaughter. A mistake had been made along the way. Instead of it being slaughtered, it was auctioned off. There would be the risk of it infecting other cows now, and the risk of it infecting humans if the humans ate the beef. I could punch you, Arlo said he said to the man who wanted to sell him back his own cow. The guy sounds like bad news, I said. He’s a crook, Arlo said. Who knows what else he’s done in his lifetime. I’ll call the CDC for you. I’ll report him, I told Arlo. You don’t have to do that, Arlo said. That’s not your job. You’re not a cop, he said. No, please tell me his name, I said. Maybe I’m all wrong about this, Arlo said, maybe what he did is not so wrong. Come on, tell me his name, I said. Arlo looked at me,
