Holy Cow

By Bill Vernon

It was like we'd been buried and I was looking up at the lid of my box. Black ain't near dark enough to describe it. Wasn't a thing to see overhead even though stars and the moon had been bright when I was last awake. And the whole earth was still. Not a breath of air moving or a sidewinder slithering by.

I muttered, "What in the world?"

Right overhead the darkness splitand four beams of light shot down at us like lightning without any thunder.

"Oh Lord!" I laid myself full onto Buster's neck and gave a good squeeze. I'd seen all kinds of bad weather, but nothing like this.

When Id my eyes again, the lights were beside us, glaring so bright they made me squint and look away. It was still dark in the distance and up above again. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if I was truly awake, but of course I was, what with these four pillars of brightness, one on every side of me, like the four brightest campfires I'd ever seen except they weren't hot nor exactly stuck on the ground since they rose up as high as my head. Like burning bushes!

"Four burning pillars of God!" I said, remembering the Bible Mama used to make me read. "The Lord God has come to visit me."

"We ain't no God," came the answer--except I didn't hear any voice. The words just sounded in my head, and that's how we always did talk after that, with me not speaking out loud neither, just thinking, and them doing the same.

They're angels, I figured, but no, they said, beings from somewhere I couldn't pronounce. Spirits, I said, and they said okay, they were spirits, and asked what I was 'cause they never had seen anything like me. I ain't nothing special, I told them, just an old cowpoke getting to town the best way he can.

Come to find out they'd been arguing. Two of them thought me and the horse were one thing, with two heads and two different skeletal structures joined together, and the other two thought we were separate things with me attached onto Buster like a parasite. First idea made me proud but the second made me mad. So I explained how it worked.

They said they was gonna take inventory, and they did, entering my head, rummaging around in my mind, looking in every nook and cranny until they knew everything in there. It didn't take them long.

"Interesting," they all kind of murmured, coming back out.

"That really ain't fair," I told them. "I ought to get a chance to look inside you too."

"You're right," they said. "Go ahead."

But they was just there, like wavering flames or burning tree trunks, never helping a bit, so I didn't learn nothing about them.

The upshot was they went with me into Dry Rot. They wanted to see other human beings and spy on our way of life unbeknownst. So there we were a few hours later at daybreak, coming over the last rise above town, four cattle, which is what they'd decided to disguise themselves as, with one ahead, one behind, and one on each side of me and Buster.

What you doing, Jake? the cows asked when I stopped and slid off onto the ground.

Got to stretch a leg and rest, I said. Me and Buster are dog-tired. We been going so long without vittles or water, we have to rest up a bit. Them buildings you see ahead of us ain't near as close as they look. That's a trick of the morning air and sun.

The town's only a little over six miles away, one of them said. Come on. We want to keep going.

Can't, I said. Too tired to go another step. I ain't so young anymore.

Get on top of us then, they said.

Next thing I knew, I was astride the cow on my left and Buster was riding the big old bull on the right, stretched out in fact like he was right at home. Somehow we'd been lifted right up into place on their backs.

I told the cows it wouldn't look right, us coming into town like that. The cows said we could get off before people saw us. So we kept on like that, and frankly I was glad not to walk and too tired to argue.

But I did tell them from inside my head, You know, before any people see us, another thing you better do is to get yourselves straightened up. I don't know where you got the ideas for them antlers from, but they have to go.

We got 'em from your mind, they told me like an accusation or something, and we like these head ornaments the best of all that you showed us.

Them things are for moose and elk and deer! I thought, kind of hot-like. They ain't the same thing as cow horns. Not one of you got it right. Here's what longhorn cattle look like.

So they looked at what I imagined and changed their horns to the right kind--except for the one in the lead who made his horns come out twenty feet on each side. I had a hard time talking him down to three feet, which was still bigger than I'd ever seen.

You all got to make some cow noise too, I said, and imagined what that was like. So the four practiced mooing and snorting and stomping their hooves. Purty quick, I was sorry I'd told them. The dust billowed up from the one in front and I almost choked.

When we reached a half-mile out from Dry Rot, they said a crowd was gathered and watching us come. Me and Buster were put on the ground and had to trudge into town on our own legs.

Even so, we must've been an odd sight, flanked on all sides by the cattle. Yet not one of the twelve men gathered there said a thing. I might've wondered more about those men and the empty looking street of the town, but as we got close, the men started clapping and giving out Yahoos and Yippees. Then a man in a bowler hat rushed over and shook my hand.

The cattle said in my head, Mighty friendly, ain't they?

Strange, I answered. People don't normally welcome strangers like this. I don't know a one of these here fellows from when I was here four years ago.

I kind of croaked, saying out loud to the man who was pumping my hand, "Water! Me and my horse gotta get water."

"Sure, Mister. A man like you and your mount can have all the water we got."

Somebody said, "These cattle sure are tame. And look how fat and healthy they are."

"Where you had these animals pastured, Mister?"

The men had closed in and were stroking the backs of the cattle, patting their heads and generally carrying on like they never had seen a bovine before.

Bone-tired and dying of thirst, I never answered, leading Buster to the well, which was over between the blacksmith shop and the livery stable. I let out all thirty feet of rope before the pail hit water, and then all I could bring up was a half-bucketful at a time. The well was almost empty. I managed to get Buster a few inches of liquid in the trough, and I got two half-bucketfuls myself before the pail came up as dry as it went down. Buster sucked his water down as fast as he could and was soon licking the bottom of the trough.

Before he got splinters, I led him into a stall in the stable, took my gear off him, and told him to rest. Which is exactly what I wanted to do: sleep as long as I could and then some.

Outside again, I couldn't see the cows or the men, but there was a hullabaloo rising up behind the buildings. Back there, I found the people standing around the cattle.

"Hurry it up, Clem," a man said.

The man in the derby had a pistol pointed into the bull's left ear. The other three cows stood as calm as you please, facing in, watching the goings on.

"Hold on there!" I yelled, running up, busting through the people, edging between the bull and Clem, pushing the gun aside. I looked Clem in the eye and said, "You can't kill these critters. They're special. Besides, they ain't even yours."

"Ain't the meat fer us?" Clem's eyes flashed.

"Don't matter a damn bit if it ain't," a man behind him said.

Clem said, "We thought you brung the meat for us. My God, every man, woman and child that left here said they was gonna send help. We can't go on without eating something, and you're the first one to show up in two years."

"We got to have the beef," the man behind him said. "We ain't et nothing but weeds in a month."

"We'll pay for them," Clem said, "but we got to butcher these cows."

The bull nudged my back with his nose. The other three cows watched me with big sad eyes. In my head came the words, What is wrong with these people? We don't aim to harm them.

They're hungry, I thought. Appears they ain't had food in ages, and they're out of water too. Me and Buster just drank all they had in the well. They're starving to death.

The men crowded in closer around us. Their faces were hollowed out with gleaming eyes sunk back beneath their foreheads. Their teeth were shining as if the idea of eating meat had already got their mouth juices flowing. How could I stop them? Heck, instead of humans, they were more like wolves and coyotes and buzzards I'd seen, tearing into a body before it was even dead. How could they be stopped?

The cows said nothing in my head, but I knew they were powerful enough to destroy every one of us humans.

"Praise God!" I shouted without thinking any more, and threw my hands up toward the sky. "Praise the Lord God!"

Clem was so startled, he leaned back away from me, leveled his pistol onto my chest and pushed me back against the bull.

"Praise the Lord!" I said again.

The men stared at me and one of them said, "He's as loony as we are. Look at him. Covered with dust. Raggedy clothes. Burnt by the sun to a crisp."

"Go ahead, Clem. This mad man gets in the way, then shoot him too."

"No brothers! NO!" I shouted so loud the word echoed back from the buildings. "These here are sacred cows. They come down from heaven last night out on the high mesa. Four spirits. I seen 'em shoot down from the heavens like lightning bolts."

Several men laughed. Clem said, "I'm sorry, Mister. You're crazy, and we're hungry. By the power vested in me as the Mayor of Dry Rot, I hereby confiscate your animals for the welfare of our people."

"You can't do it. It ain't right. I tell you they are holy critters!" I reached for the gun.

Two men pulled me away.

Clem put the muzzle inside the bull's ear again and thumbed the hammer back until it clicked.

I held my breath. There's nothing I can do, I thought, trying to warn the cows. God almighty! I shouted in my head. Look out! He's gonna kill all of you!

There was a deafening boom that shook the earth, and I fell loose of the men down onto my hands and knees, knowing that had not been no pistol going off or exploding. It was something else, something I hadn't heard in a long time.

All the other men were knocked flat too, but the cattle still stood. Above us, I noticed, the sky had gone dark. Clouds were billowing around. That noise had been thunder.

And right in amongst the clouds was something solid, something huge and steel-looking. The clouds swirled around so thick, it was usually hidden, but I glimpsed it every now and then. It seemed to be spinning and made a faint purring sound, like what a greased wagon wheel turning on an axle makes. That had to be some kind of machine up there, floating on air under the clouds.

All four cows looked toward me and mooed, then turned back into the pillars of fire I'd seen last night. They weren't so bright now in daytime, and I could see there weren't any flames, just a kind of wavering but very strong glow that I could almost see through.

The townsmen started crying and praying and oohing and aahing. When all twelve of them went silent and just stared straight ahead with their mouths gaping I guessed the spirits were inside their heads, rummaging around like they'd done in mine.

Then the four bright spirits shot up into the clouds and disappeared, entering the machine up there, I suspect. The clouds thickened up some more, the thunder roared again, and it commenced raining like it hadn't rained in memory.

For three days and nights it poured. So much came down I warned everyone it might be a second deluge. But I said that on the second day because on the first day of rain we all shed our clothes and washed up and rinsed off and rejoiced in the downpour without one worry among us.

On the second day, we got so scared, what with the pounding rain and the thunder and lightning, that we prayed for it to stop and not sweep us away. Soon after that, we found already butchered and salted twelve whole sides of beef hanging in the stable. The grain bin was full of corn, and the mows were filled with hay. The grocer found his shelves full of flour and sugar and salt and whatever else he'd been out of for years. The well filled up so full, the water overflowed the rocks that were piled up around its top.

"Manna from heaven," I told everyone. "It's manna. Praise God!"

"Hallelujah!" all the men shouted time after time.

On the third day, we built a spire for the saloon, which we had decided to consecrate and rename the Church Of The Four Holy Cows. One year later, when the first women returned, they insisted that we rename the town too. So we took our time searching through the Bible, and Dry Rot became Zion.

Me and my flock came to believe that everyday ought to be the Sabbath, the Lord's day, Amen! God never took a day off, so we didn't neither.

I preached the word of the good book whenever the spirit struck me, and I related our story of the Four Angels of God appearing as cattle to everyone who'd listen. My twelve church elders spread far and wide throughout the territory, and they brung back the lost and the weary, who sure enough we tried to make into converts.

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