The land was wore away. The land was turned into air. We breathed it in.
The land, it filled our lungs like food filled up a stomach, but those were empty, our stomachs, even as we got to eating the dirt. We were eating dirt all the time as it up and went.
Jack, he kept burying his daddy.
Jack kept to burying his daddy in the dirt as it up and went.
Nobody farmed anymore. Nobody farmed.
We’d plow and the furrows would flatten. We’d plant and the seeds, they’d be blowed away. No need to hoe since the dirt-wind and the dirt-cloud scoured the ground-up ground clean of every weed.
Jack, he kept burying his daddy.
In that dirt-wind, Jack, he kept to burying his daddy.
Jack, he’d dig him a hole and roll his daddy, in his winding, into it.
The tailings Jack tossed into the hole turned to smoke on his shovel as he tossed them, trying to fill the hole he dug.
A whole spade full of soil smoking off the blade as he aimed for the hole with his daddy, in his winding, in it.
Jack, he’d end up scooping the sandy sides of the hole over the sides of the hole to fill the hole up.
Jack, he dozed the dust with his feet, pushed the dust into the hole to get it out of the wind, get the ground below ground out of the dirt-wind even as dirt-dirt washed away in the dirt-wind.
He’d finally get a blanket of that dirt-dirt over the body of his daddy, wrapped in the rotting winding.
Jack, he’d sit on top the dust he’d swept into the hole, but not to rest so much as to see if he could hold the dust down, keep it from drifting away again.
But the dust, it drifted away again.
He watched coils of dirt-dirt snake away from right under where he sat on it.
And Jack, he’d sink into the hole he dug as the dirt-dirt washed away from right under where he sat on it, wash away in the dirt-wind.
’Fore you know it, Jack, he would be all the way in the hole, sinking into it, with his daddy in his winding cloth. ’Cept there was no hole no more.
Jack, he’d stand back up and start to digging another hole to bury his daddy, his daddy in his rotting winding, lying in a heap on the shifting ground at his feet.
This went on a spell.
About then, the brindle cow, she run dry.
The brindle cow, she up and dried up.
Jack, he was in no ways surprised by this.
Jack, he’d been feeding the brindle cow wood from the barn, the red clapboards stripped of paint and sanded smooth by the dirt-wind.
Jack, he’d be back there massaging the bag to get the brindle cow to let down. The brindle cow, she’d be chewing and chewing the old barn wood all the time Jack was there in the back trying to get her to let down.
Jack, he’d work up a spit to spit on his hands to rub the boss’s bag to get her to let down.
Before she give out, she’d give just one-half tin cup of rheumy cream.
To get that, Jack’d use all four teats for that one-half tin cup of rheumy cream the brindle cow would give after Jack’d massage her shrinking bag to get her to let down.
The brindle cow, she’d graze the sticking-out tops of the buried bob-wire fences.
The fence pickets and the bob-wire, they would knock the dirt-dust out of the wind and all get buried in the drift.
The brindle cow she would graze the fence tops, work the staples loose.
The brindle cow, she’d lick rust right off the bob-wire. Her big ol’ tongue licking the rust right off the wire.
Jack, he found himself one of them ol’ magnets. He found one of them big ol’ bar magnets and fed it to the brindle cow.
The ol’ magnet, it done lodged up in the crop.
That ol’ magnet up in the crop, it draws all the hardware the brindle cow grazed on.
That ol’ magnet, it didn’t do no good.
That ol’ magnet, it didn’t do no good at all ’cause the brindle cow went dry as a bone.
The brindle cow, she stopped altogether letting down.
The brindle cow, she stopped altogether letting down, stopped giving milk, not even giving up a stringy spit of milky milk.
Jack’s momma, she says to Jack to fetch the brindle cow into town.
Jack, Jack’s momma says, fetch that ol’ stopped-up cow into town.
She’ll fetch a price, Jack’s momma says, for her stringy meat if nothing else.
Jack’s momma says the brindle cow’s hide’s done been already tanned by the wind. Her coat, she says, done been wore away. Her horns and hoofs done been hollowed out by the same dirt-wind wore the coat clean away.
And she’s full-up with all that scrap, Jack’s mamma says.
Jack’s momma, she tells him to sell the scrap after the slaughter of the ol’ brindle cow.
Jack, he says he will.
And the bones, Jack’s momma says to Jack, fetch home them inside bones for bread.
Jack, he says he will.
And the tongue, Jack, Jack’s momma says, fetch that home too. We can ring it out, ring it dry of water, the water that got leeched from the rust she’s been licking from the bob-wire.
Jack and the brindle cow, they up and go, gone behind the big ol’ cloud wall hanging from the sky and sweeping up dirt-cloud of dust at its feet.
Right away, Jack, he sees nothing but the cloud of dirt all around him.
Jack, he can’t even see the brindle cow on the other end of that there rope.
Jack, he nickers. Jack, he says, come, boss, he says.
Jack, he hears the brindle cow say moo. Jack, he can’t see her inside the dirt-cloud all around.
This goes on for a spell.
Then Jack and the brindle cow come to the forest. Jack, the brindle cow, and the forest are all in the dirt- cloud all around.
The forest isn’t made up of no trees. It is a forest of old windmills. Hundreds of windmills. Hundreds. The windmills’ blades make an aching sound in the gloom when the snaggle-tooth blades turn in the gritty dirt- wind.
The snaggle-tooth blades turn over out of sight inside the gritty ground-up dirt-cloud there overhead Jack and the brindle cow mooing in the gloom.
The windmills, they are only milling wind.
The windmills’ screw gears, they done been wore away, been stripped clean by the gritty wind.
The windmills can’t lift no water. No water to lift.
The windmill in the windmill forest done sucked up all the water out of the ground hereabouts long ago. The windmill forest, it is sinking into the ground, into the hollow place where all the water used to be.
All them windmills, they can’t lift no more water. No water to lift. The windmills, they pump sand.
Jack and the brindle cow, they walk through the forest of the criss-crossed windmill towers, the windmill blades making their aching sound overhead.
The brindle cow, she hold up, stops to take a bite from the wood on one of them criss-crossed windmill towers. The brindle cow, she can’t be budged.
That’s when a man, he’s been there all the time, says to Jack, say, what you got there at the end of that rope.
Jack, he says back to the man that he has a brindle cow all dried up he’s taking to slaughter somewhere over there on the other side of the dirt-cloud.
The man, he says I can take her off your hands, says he’s got something here way better than a dried-up brindle cow to trade.
