Brassard went inside to call the buyers. Will and I leaned on the wooden fence, looking at the culls in the paddock. We had put in a feeding trough and filled it with good silage, a last meal for the condemned, and they went to it and did what they did best: ate.
“So,” Will said, “where are you at?”
“In an urban, stupid, naive place. A hypocritical place.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’re looking at death row. I can see how it wouldn’t be easy, especially first time around.”
“Thanks.”
Trying to cheer me up, Will told me about Robert E. Lee, the fierce devotion his soldiers had for him, his love for them, and his agony over the fact that “to be a good commander, you must order the death of the thing you love.”
“I’m not a commander. I’m a farmhand,” I told him bitterly.
He nodded equivocally at that. “Lynn and Theo, down at their place?”
“What about them?”
“Lynn raises goats.”
“Yes, she makes soap from their milk,” I snapped, impatient with him.
Will seemed oblivious. “Great soap, too. So … she has to breed her does every year, right, to get the milk? And can’t keep growing the herd forever, same as here. What happens to the male kids, or the extra does?”
“Sells them, I suppose.” I’d never thought about it.
Will kept on, breezily: “Well, she does sell a couple. But she and Theo butcher three kids every year and put the meat up in their freezer. They had an outdoor roast a couple of years ago, people came from farms all around, one of the kids spitted and slow cooking over a wood fire. I helped baste. The meat was delicious.”
I knew that Lynn named every one of her goats, even the new kids. I tried to picture her—her fine white-blond hair, delicate intelligent face, gentle presence—conducting that murderous ritual every year. And I couldn’t. I decided I had to ask her how she did this.
Will watched me process this. “I’m not doing a great job of making this easier, am I?”
“It isn’t your job,” I told him.
He got quiet. We waited for the buyer. I reminded myself that Brassard’s cows had lived very comfortable lives, about the best possible for a dairy cow: They’d never gone hungry or been subjected to pain or lived in filthy or cramped conditions. They had enjoyed many sunny days on grassy slopes, had received veterinary care at the slightest sign of ill health. They ate a better diet than they would have in the wild and they didn’t endure harsh cold. I reminded myself that in the wild, hunger or predation or disease would have killed these cows at a much younger age.
It didn’t help much.
“Maybe I’m not cut out for this line of work,” I told Will.
He grunted. “Tell me about it.”
Eventually, a huge pickup truck turned off the road, pulling a cattle trailer with slatted vent windows. I realized I had seen that truck often over the past two years, sometimes coming to Brassard’s, sometimes rolling past to another farm on the meat dealer’s route. The cows got anxious when the rig backed toward the paddock, and they wheeled and flinched at the harsh metallic scrape made by the aluminum ramp when the men pulled it out.
That was the hardest part: seeing their confusion and fear as the crew goaded them into the trailer. I didn’t let myself think of Bertha or Savannah by name as I said goodbye to them.
Then it was done and the tailgate closed and the cows were no longer visible except as abstract black and white forms moving uneasily behind the ventilation slats. Will took a receipt from one of the men. The trailer pulled away and up the hill. We walked back to the house.
Brassard was in his office, pecking at a calculator, reading glasses on his nose, somber but businesslike. Culling was part of his job and he’d done it hundreds of times, and he was glad to have this round done.
He glanced up at my face, which must have been drawn and grim. “I know what you mean,” he said as if I’d spoken. “Damn thing is, the culls are often the ones been around the longest, so you know em better. Not my favorite part of the job. Don’t know I could ever raise beef.”
He turned to Will: “How’s about we get a fresh pot of coffee goin? I’m thinkin Annie could use some refreshment.”
Chapter 50
May 18
Deep in the woods today, I experienced a moment of heart-kicking fright, an electrical sense of alarm that I haven’t felt since that first day I walked my land, when some big animal startled and crashed through the brush near me. I think it was worse this time because it brought me abruptly out of a serene and contemplative state of mind.
I’ve been trying to rehabilitate myself after the murky discomfort the culling instilled in me. I know there’s nothing I can do about the world’s appetite for cow’s meat or milk, but of course that doesn’t mean I can’t make choices for myself. Walking up here after giving death sentences to seven cows, I knew I could elect to become vegan: eat no milk, cheese, or meat, wear no leather.
What does it say that my first act upon returning to my hill that night was to make a dinner consisting of a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches, sizzled in butter in my iron skillet?
One way I’ve been trying to steady out and recharge has been to spend more time up here alone. As always, it’s working. Also, I’ve embarked on a project. Maybe it’s a half-assed way to retreat from my animal-kingdom consternations by concerning myself instead with the world of plants, but a few days ago, after a conversation with Earnest, I realized that I know nothing about my woods.
I know my trees emotionally, I suppose. I
