Page 17 of Cattle Stop

Brad claps his hands to usher another cow toward the road. “I was just telling Drew the other day, we’ve got some equipment we’re getting rid of. Come by if you want to take a look.”

“You sold your herd,” Cooper echoes softly, and Whit looks over at him as he tries to coax a cow away from a stand of lilacs. He probably heard Cooper muttering to himself like that. “Really?”

“The equipment? Yeah, really. I’ll give you a good deal. I just want it gone at this point.” Brad catches Cooper’s eye and snaps his gum again. “It’d be good to catch up too, you know?”

Cooper doesn’t know, but Brad’s still looking at him, so he nods.

“The cows, Cooper,” Whit says. “Let’s get them back to the barn. Thanks for your help, Brad. We’re all set, though.”

“Well, we could use a hand—”

But Whit steps between Cooper and Brad, his shoulder knocking Cooper’s to steer him toward the road. “We’re good,” Whit says, shooing Cooper across the lawn like he’s another damn cow.

With Whit calling for them and Cooper following behind, the herd shuffles back up the road, past Whit’s truck, where he leaves it parked in Caroline’s driveway, and toward home. The cows would’ve probably made their way back anyway, after giving the neighborhood a good sniff and finding no grass growing. But Whit hurries them along all the same, chasing down a straggling heifer and urging them faster when they’d rather loiter on their morning stroll. When the farm finally comes into view, Cooper can dimly hear the whine of the saw, so Drew must be back at work on the house again.

“What the hell?” Cooper glances toward the sound and lowers his voice, as if Drew could possibly hear him clear across the barnyard. “Brad really went belly-up?”

“Milk prices are down.”

“So he just called it quits?”

“Either that, or eventually have the bank take the entire business and the land too.”

“That sucks. To have worked all those years and watch your farm go under.”

“Brad seems relieved.”

“I think Brad’s got a screw loose.” It’s probably telling that Whit doesn’t argue the point. Cooper chews at the corner of his mouth. All those cows just…gone. Living their lives out on some other farm. “Well, at least Drew’s still here.”

Cooper pushes at the haunch of a cow that stops to sniff at the tip of a daffodil bulb poking through the crust of snow with all the greenness of spring hope. Brad’s farm would be completely empty of the busyness of spring right now.

He pulls in a deep breath, looking around. Drew’s farm is so pretty with the hill cresting behind the barn and the fields spreading out from the house. Tired and old and in need of some work, but far more gorgeous a setting than Brad’s farm. Stunning, Cooper used to think, shaking off the grayness of the city, the subway, and the cracked sidewalks outside his apartment, and jumping out of Grandpa’s car and racing toward the barn and a summer afternoon of adventures with Drew.

“For now.”

Cooper drops his hand from the cow. “What?”

“That farmers’ market closed, and like I said, milk prices haven’t been good.”

Cooper waits for more, but Whit just urges the herd toward the back of the barn. Sure enough, there’s a new pen back there, strung together from mismatched fence panels and a gate lying in the crusty, snowy mud, where the cows must’ve pushed past it to begin their morning escape.

“There are other farmers’ markets around,” Cooper says slowly as he bends over to pick up the gate.

“If it’ll even make a difference.”

Cooper stops with the gate halfway off the ground, the metal cold and gritty against his hands. “What does that mean?”

“Drew didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” He wants to shake his head to clear it, sure he’s not hearing Whit right. “Yeah, that the market’s not running? I know, I was here yesterday too.”

“Drew’s thinking about selling the farm.”

Cooper drops the gate and it lands with a metal clang. “What the hell?”

“After this season, depending on how everything goes.”

“No, he’s not.”