The Bovine of the Vanities

I stand at the entrance to the chicken coop, pressing my muzzle to a spot of hens’ blood on the door frame. My salivating becomes uncontrollable. When Kenny appears, I pretend to study the latch. “Didn’t master lock up?” I ask him.

Kenny struts over to me, his wattles jiggling with each step. He watches me, wings akimbo. His eyes track down to my salivating mouth and he jerks his head to one side in distaste.

He’s just lost two hens, I remind myself.

Pressing my nose to the ground I confirm my initial inkling: “Coyotes. But they couldn’t have gotten in unless it was unlocked. And Master always locks up.”

“We bocked and shrieked when they attacked. Why didn’t you come, Louie?”

I turn to face Kenny. He stands tall, proud—you would never guess that he just lost two hens. By his odor-profile I know that he evacuated himself when the coyotes came. But now he is once again the cock-of-the-walk, peering down his beak at me, imperious as a cougar.

“They came just before dawn. Out of the night. But you… what? Slept in? You let us down, Louie.”

My tail dips and my ears droop at this. I suspect I should keep my mouth shut, but it feels wrong to deny Kenny an explanation when he has lost so much today.

“I don’t know what happened,” I confess. “I should have awakened—something’s amiss. My sleep last night was… unnatural.” Dimly I begin to remember something. “It was late, I returned to my doghouse, there were two strips of deer meat—”

“Bad sleep! Trouble waking! You’re talking like old Peaches used to talk… at the end.”

Stifling a growl, I reply, “It isn’t that.”

“Would you know if it was? You are not young anymore, Louie. Can you still protect us?”

* * *

Outside the chicken coop, a light, misting rain shrouds the farm, darkening the soil and casting everything in a dull, waxy gleam. I observe the untrimmed hedges where the coyotes must have made their ingress. I pause:

Coyotes just happen to come on the one night Master forgets to lock the coop? It beggars belief. I can’t buy something like that.

Next I observe the taste of dried deer meat in my mouth. Deer meat... the last thing I ate. I pause again: a rare treat left inexplicably for me outside my doghouse in the last moments of my workday?

It clicks: someone drugged me, and I’ve got to find out who. I belong to this farm—and I must get to the bottom of things.

A few minutes later, I observe Kenny strutting into the barn with his remaining hens in tow.

What do they want in the barn? Curious.

Happy to step out of the rain, I slip through the sliding door and observe an unusual hush over the place. I had meant to enter undetected, but the animals cluster and murmur and glance about—the moment I step through the door, a gradual silence befalls them. So much for discretion.

The only one who does not glance my way is Bo. Bo stands at the far end of the barn surrounded by a couple of his cows, who whisper to him that I have come. Bo lifts his head, his mottled, white horns pointing skyward and his broad, thick-veined chest puffing forward and out. My hackles shoot straight up as Bo stamps the hay and sawdust on the barn floor. We were never friendly. I don’t expect him to lower his head to me. But for him to snort and stamp at my arrival without so much as meeting my eye is an overt insult. I start toward him.

But when I am halfway across the barn, a great disturbance comes from overhead: a rush of air followed by the flapping of wings. Madrigal has come. Soft shadows flicker over me as she swoops down to land on a stack of hay bales.

Countless odors emanate from Madrigal’s feathers and talons and face—some familiar, some not—but one particular scent that I can’t pinpoint draws my attention. I peer at her: a waxy, mustard-colored substance gleams on her beak. Thrusting my nose forward, I try to home in on the familiar smell, but Madrigal beats her wings toward me, kicking up dust and straw-smell until I sneeze and lose the thread.

“You should leave, dog.”

“I haven’t finished my investigation, owl.”

For a moment, Madrigal stares at me without moving, her gaze intense and predatory. “Louie, the other animals like you, so I’m giving you this one chance. Walk away. Leave this farm with your honor intact. If you do not, I will expose you before everyone here and you will be forced to leave in shame, forever known as a bad dog.”

I lower my head almost to the ground and my tail sinks between my legs.

But… something is amiss, and I must get to the bottom of it. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re up to something. I know you’re the reason I slept through the attack.”

“Prove it.”

After a tense silence, Madrigal unfurls her wings to full span, making a noise like a whip and causing the hair on my neck and spine to stand on end. She pivots away from me to address the other animals.

“Friends! My condolences for our loss last night.”

I snort at her. Our loss?

“Many dangers lurk outside these walls. There is much to fear—for all of us. So we rely on the bravery and dedication of those entrusted with our protection. When that bravery falters—” here, Madrigal pauses and I feel the ewes and cows and hogs and hens watching me— “we pay for those failures with our lives.”

Lowing, clucking, bleating, snorting follows. A whimper escapes my throat.

“And yet friends, once in a while, an unlikely hero will arise in a moment of need.”

My hackles raise again. Something’s afoot—but what?

Swooping her wing along her body, Madrigal points at Bo, who snorts loudly and turns to face her now. “In our moment of great need, Bo, noble and courageous bull, rushed forward to confront last night’s attackers who, though they stole two of our precious hens, did not return for more, as they might have.”

Lowing, clucking, bleating, snorting again.

“He should be rewarded!” says Madrigal, beating her wings a few times to lift off from her perch.

“Reward, reward,” snorts the hog.

“More than that, everyone—Let us rely on him now for our protection.”

Once again I feel the other animals’ eyes settle on me.

Glancing over her shoulder at me, the owl continues: “This one served us, for a time. But he has aged, his senses dulled without his knowing, and now he has let us down, costing us dearly.”

At last I speak in my defense. “Not true! Fellow creatures, do not trust this bird of prey. She doesn’t care about you. Listen to me. Something is afoot, and I intend to get to the bottom of it. This farm is my home! I will protect it. I am not some aging cur with smoky cataracts and a fading sense of smell. I am Louie: your trusted hound, every bit as sharp—”

“Louie,” says Madrigal, shrill and sharp. “I couldn’t help but overhear you with Kenny outside.”

A cold feeling steals over me. I swallow. I missed her at the coop. With all the swirling smells and especially the sweet, sweet chicken blood, I missed her presence, probably perched just above me.

“Kenny, what was it he said to you?” asks Madrigal, looking past me.

From behind, Kenny speaks. “He said he had bad sleep, Madrigal. He said he had trouble waking up.”

Lowing, clucking, bleating, snorting.

“And there you have it: an aging cur, after all.”

I growl, but Madrigal simply turns away.

“Let us lend our support to one more vital, and more reliable… Bo!”

The animals stamp the barn floor and cheer.

“Bring forth the floral wreath!”

From behind me, Kenny and his hens waddle past without looking at me, holding a garland held aloft between them.

As they pass, their scent strikes me like cold water. My nose twitches. Something clicks, and I wheel on Madrigal, her wings still spread in exultation. “You!”

Without disturbing a single feather on her body, Madrigal rotates her head to face me. I lean in close and peer at her, trying to gather her scent, trying to connect the odors swirling all around. And there again is that mustard-colored waxy substance on her beak. The chicken coop… Kenny’s hens… Madrigal’s beak…

The answer comes to me: “You have egg on your face, owl! That was your price. You unlocked the coop and exchanged our precious hens for a few eggs!”

Again Madrigal replies, “Prove it.”

I lift my paw and point at her. “Snake, snake,” I say, trying to be heard. “Look at her beak!” But the others are exulting in presenting the wreath to Bo.

Madrigal’s tongue darts out to clean her beak. “You are dismissed, Lou. Now, shoo.”

Snarling, I gather my feet under me and flex my haunches, preparing to leap on her.

“Bo,” she hoots, the sound piercing and shrill.

And in the very instant that I launch forward, Bo appears in front of me, his horned head absorbing my initial pounce and sending shafts of pain through my head and neck. Staggering back, I take in the sight of him, garlanded, smeared about the mouth with apple and carrot, poised to charge. Pampered, fed, flattered, inflated, Bo stares me down, his horn tips quivering.

“So that’s why she needs you. Protection.”

“Away, dog. Don’t make me break you.”

“Don’t you see she’s using you, playing to your vanity?”

“Away,” says Bo again, his voice lower and more forceful.

* * *

Outside my doghouse, I find a scrap of leather. Enfolded within are two pairs of fresh chicken legs, pulled and hacked from the carcasses by means of what could only be a curved beak.

Madrigal—the fool! She has taken a huge gamble. Right here is the damning evidence I need to prove that she struck a deal with the coyotes.

I will show the chicken legs to the others. They will see the cuts. The hens will vouch that their eggs were stolen too; maybe I can find them stashed nearby. Excitement grips me. I feel the rush of discovery and hope and victory. But even as I wag my tail in anticipation, the scent of the chicken legs wafts up to my nose—the warm salty heady bloody scent fills my nostrils and I begin to quiver, and a great sorrow comes into my heart because as the smell overpowers me I observe my snout lowering to the salty legs and observe my saliva dripping down over them and observe my jaws closing over the delectable chicken legs—my only evidence.

Mid-ecstatic-bite I feel a presence, two presences in fact that I did not notice approaching: Kenny, his eyes wide and shining like a pair of huckleberries, his wattles wiggling in righteous anger, and just behind him, Madrigal, shaking her head and pointing her wing at me.

And I cannot stop chewing the feet, they are too too delicious and I whimper even as I chew because Madrigal wraps her wing around Kenny and leads him away, building even more trust in the very raptor that sold his hens to the coyotes—and surely will again. As they walk away I swallow the last fragments of the delectable chicken legs, and Madrigal rotates her head like a swivel to cast a single, snake-like backward glance—and I know that I can no longer call this farm my home.