by Milo Abrams
and when I got back they were all freaking out. I went in and the latch was undone, but they were all still in the pen. I looked all over for tracks or hair, but I couldn’t find anything. I saw a news story last night that made me wonder about coyotes. Coyotes couldn’t have done that, could they?”
Dell scratched his chin. “Well, Maybe. What kind of latch is it?”
“It’s just a real simple one, all you do is lift it straight up.”
“Possibly,” Dell said. “If the pen walls are only a couple feet high, then it would be easy for the coyotes to get right over them, and with a latch like that, they could jump up and hit it. But I don’t know if we are sharing the same predator. You see, the doors on my chicken coup are actual doors with knobs, not long handles or easy to undo latches.”
It was a strange thing, but Will had no ideas to offer up to him. In twenty years of living in Monroe and trying to maintain a small farm, Will had never encountered problems like this. He was probably lucky to have had never to deal with predatory animals, but he never had any other animals. His farm was all about the fruits and vegetables that they grew and nothing else. The goats had come only a couple years ago.
“Now that I think about it,” Dell said, “I don’t remember seeing anything either. There were no footprints or tire tracks anywhere. You know how quiet it is out here, so the only way people would be breaking into my property would be on foot. I would hear ATV’s or trucks from a mile away.”
Dell was right. You could hear traffic from great distances thanks to the open space. This reminded him again of what Ruby had mentioned to him. Sirens carried even more than truck exhausts, and there hadn’t been anything in the couple days since the fireball came down. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t stop thinking about it, but it just wouldn’t leave him. In his unconscious thinking, his eyes dropped again to the back of Dell’s truck and Dell noticed.
“So, what’re you going to do about your problem?” Dell asked.
“What? Oh. I guess all I can do is try and seal up the goat pen some more.” Will wanted the chicken wire in the back of his truck badly, but he was too prideful to ask for it.
“You consider setting up some sort of security camera or something?” Dell asked with his arms folded. It was apparent that he wasn’t picking up on Will’s desire for the chicken wire, and wasn’t going to offer him any.
“I don’t know,” Will replied, “It sounds expensive.”
“More expensive than replacing all the animals you lose to a predator?” Dell had a point. If he set up some sort of camera, he would be able to keep an eye on the goats and figure out exactly what was scaring them, and then take a more calculated approach to protecting them.
“You should do the same,” Will said. “I’ll consider it for sure, but I don’t have as many animals as you do.”
Dell nodded. “I think I will. If I catch anything, I’ll be sure to let you know. I’m sure we’ll run into each other again. It seems like we both come here quite a lot.”
Will smiled. He felt weird smiling, but in a strange way, he felt like he was making a friend. He wasn’t sure if the friendship was mutual, but it didn’t matter, it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that Will would pursue. He wasn’t going to ask Dell over for dinner or anything, that was for sure.
“Thanks. And if I happen to figure out what’s stalking my goats, I will let you know.”
Dell waved at Sam and then got in his truck and pulled out. The only thing for Will to do now was to find another way to get what he needed. He got back into his own truck and started to head home.
A plan began to form in his mind as he drove. He might not have had a lot of money to spend, but one surveillance camera wouldn’t exactly break the bank. He wasn’t sure if Ruby would like the idea of spending the extra money to set it up, but in his mind, it would be cheaper in the long run than building up the goat pen’s defenses. The goats were everything to Ruby and if anything happened to them, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to pull her out of the hole of depression she would fall into. It was worth the extra cost. She would see that. She would have to. All he had to do was head home and pick her up and then head into the city. Everything was more expensive in the city, but it also offered a lot of the things they just couldn’t get out in Monroe. Of all the treasures that Crays’s had, he didn’t carry surveillance cameras.
It’ll give her peace of mind, he thought, even if whatever it is never comes back. She’ll be able to see her goats any time she wants and that will make her happy. His obsessive need to make her happy was formed from good intentions. On the way back home, he saw a patch of wild flowers growing just off the road. He knew that it was private property, and while he normally respected people and their property, he couldn’t resist the urge to bring Ruby some of the flowers growing there. He would only stop for a second, but he couldn’t risk anyone seeing him.
He ran from the truck, his heart pounding in his ears and feeling like he was a kid again. Scooping up a couple handfuls of beautiful pink and orange flowers, whose names and species he had no idea, he clumsily ran for his truck and dove inside. He giggled as he pulled away and headed back home. Ruby would love the flowers—she always loved flowers. He didn’t give them to her as much as he should. Even though he considered himself to be a good husband, he knew there was always room for improvement. He would try to be better, no matter how hard it might’ve sometimes been.
7
As soon as Will started pulling into the driveway, Ruby burst through the screen door and came running toward him. He quickly killed the engine and threw the door open. Tears were streaming down the delicate curves of her cheekbones causing her mascara to run in hideous black streaks.
“Will!” She screamed as she closed the gap between them. She crashed into his arms and buried her face into his chest.
“What's wrong?” he said into the top of her head, “what happened?”
The tears, which she had managed to temporarily hold back, came out again harder and faster now that Will was back. He just let her cry for a minute before she pulled her face back and left his shirt wet and stained.
“Tucker is gone,” she sobbed.
Will couldn't stand to see her melt like that in front of him. The thoughts of what she could possibly mean flooded in and spilled out over his teeth. “What do you mean? Gone? He’s dead?”
Ruby looked up at him, wincing at the words. “He’s gone. He’s not in the pen anywhere. The others are still there but he’s gone. I don't understand where he went. Was he there when you fed them this morning?”
Will’s stupidity hit him like a brick. He was in such a hurry to get to Cray’s that he had somehow overlooked the goats. His palms instantly started sweating and his voice became hurried with his embarrassed panic.
“We need to check for signs, did you look in the cornfield? Maybe he broke loose and is out there.” He started to walk toward the barn but Ruby hung back. She was anchored to the ground by his lack of an answer.
“You didn't answer me,” she said folding her arms. The intensity with which she held her arms across her chest had not so much to do with anger but with hurt.
“We need to look as soon as possible, the longer we wait the more time he has to wander further away.”
Ruby stood back firmly. She knew that Tucker hadn't wandered into the cornfield. Never in the all the time since they had the goats had they ever gone into the cornfield. Not when it was grown anyway.
“Why do you keep avoiding my question? Did you take him?” Her eyes were sharp as knives.
Will immediately went on the defensive. “What? Of course not. Okay, listen. I forgot to feed them before I left, that’s all.”
Ruby just stared at him.
“But that doesn’t matter now. The longer we wait around the more time he has to get further from here.”
Ruby softened. Slowly she began to follow Will toward the barn. Inside, he immediately examined the latch to the pen. It was
still closed securely.
She shook her head. “After breakfast I was bored. There was nothing on the news but stupid sports, and I thought that you had already fed them, but I decided to come out and see them anyway. As soon as I stepped out onto the porch I could hear them crying.”
Will watched the sadness spread and move across her face like the colors on a watercolor painting.
“At first I hesitated. I didn't want to go wandering out here if you weren't home. What if there really was a bear or a pack of coyotes or something? I had no idea how long you were going to be so I waited. I turned the TV off so I didn't have to hear the damn sports and I could hear them through the windows, Will.”
“I’m sorry,” he said lowering his head. “I should've checked on them this morning. I shouldn't have left you in that situation.”
“No,” she said sternly trying to reassure herself, “it isn't your fault. I mean, it is your fault that you forgot to check on them but you're only human.” Her eyes looked even sadder than Will ever imagined they could look.
“I’ll find Tucker,” he said taking her hands in his. “Don't worry, it’ll be okay.”
She wanted to believe him, she really did. But every time he said those words to her they became less and less believable. Their power was weakened with every repetition in much the same way that a word loses its meaning after being repeated over and over. Maybe it was her skin