Lawrence Block - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 2. Whole No. 834, February 2011

“I liked that story you were telling,” she said. “I wish he’d let me talk to you so’s I could hear how it ended. He doesn’t like it when I have fun over something he hasn’t made up.”

“I could tell you the rest of that story,” he said slowly, trying to keep the edges of his teeth away from the cuts inside his mouth.

“Don’t talk. He’s mad enough already. He don’t have good control when he gets this mad.”

“I think you’d like the rest of the story,” Dan said. “I can speak quietly.”

She turned her head toward the door. He saw her chewing her lower lip. Then she sighed another windy sigh. “Talk real low,” she said. “I mean real low.”

The pain from his jaw kept his mouth from opening more than an inch or so. A loose flap of skin on the inside of his cheek caught on his back teeth when he spoke, but he had to finish the story. He could see that his only chance was the woman. He took a deep breath and tried to let the story come back. Of course, the story had changed now, and it came to him so fast he could barely keep the words from stumbling over each other as they came out of his mouth.

“The farmer lived alone and had a cold supper of baloney and pickled peppers, listening to the far-off crashing and grinding together of trees as they fell against each other and were lost to the current of the rising flood. He didn’t think the waters would reach the farmhouse or the barn, but if they did, he didn’t know what he’d do with those thirty head of cows when they needed to be milked in the morning.

“After he finished eating he lit his pipe and went out onto the front porch and looked out into the hazy night, the sky somehow lightened by the lowering rain clouds. It wasn’t long before he heard it, the piercing cry of a panicked animal, sharp against the roar and murmur of the flood. He turned his head, using his good ear to focus on the point and gauge its location, several hundred yards downstream of the house.

“ ‘Serve the damn thing right if it drowned,” he said and then put out his pipe and went back out to the barn and put on the chest waders he used when he went fishing for brook trout up in the mountains. He grabbed a halter for the cow and a flashlight and trudged away from the house and the barn, too quickly reaching the edge of the waters. He hesitated a moment, giving himself one last chance to turn back, and then began high-stepping his way through the flooded alfalfa field.

“Feeling the fool, he waded deeper and deeper, playing his flashlight over the dark water, which had become surprisingly smooth now except for the occasional wake of some branch or dead critter and the accompanying foamy moustache. ‘That damn cow is probably gone, and what do I care about the dog?’ he said aloud but continued on.

“The sound of barking led him further out into the flood than he had thought he could reach, out through the cottonwoods and closer to the deep channel of the river within this new river. He moved gingerly now, as the water had reached his thighs, telling himself, Ten more steps, only ten more , and then he would go ten more after that.

“When he first saw the dog, it was balanced on a log pressed against a tree by the current. It had stopped its barking and held its dark, shiny eyes against the flashlight. Relieved in a way he didn’t want to admit, he saw that he only had to take a few more steps and he would reach the dog and then he could carry it back to shallow water and begin to focus his worry on the real problems this flood had brought to him.

“But he didn’t make even that next step as his foot caught on some submerged branch or root and he fell forward, the cold water flooding over the front of the waders, drenching his shirt and the top of his pants. He quickly regained his stance, cussing himself and cussing the dog. He tried to stand fully upright, but some instinct or maybe the thick, low clouds, heavy on his shoulders, kept him hunched over.

“He flashed the light toward the dog again and realized that it wasn’t standing on a log at all. The dog held its precarious perch on the cow, where it had become lodged against the cottonwood tree, the cow bowed in the middle, its head low in surrender to the current. Instead of feeling relief at finding both of the animals, the farmer sighed in resignation at the effort it would require to free them and get them back on dry land.

“Looking closer, he saw that the cow had a wound on its neck, a loose flap of skin that showed red even as the lapping waters tried to wash away the blood. He checked the dog again and saw its lolling tongue and blood-stained muzzle, shocked but somehow not surprised.

“ ‘You,’ he shouted at the dog, never having given it a name, only ‘dog,’ only ‘you.’ He shouted the word, the name, in a stern voice, an accusing voice, that failed to stir the dog as it lowered its head and bared its teeth.

“The cow suddenly reared its head out of the water and appeared to recognize the farmer with wide, mad eyes. Abruptly closing those eyes, it tried to lunge toward the farmer, suddenly breaking loose from the grasp of the current and sliding away from the tree, the dog struggling to keep its balance.

“The farmer pulled out the halter, thanking his good luck that he didn’t have to pull the cow out from behind the tree himself, and as he held the halter out toward the head of the cow, the dog moved forward on the cow, balancing on the cow’s neck, and tore savagely at his hand. The teeth caught him in the web between his thumb and forefinger, leaving a deep gash and intense pain.

“Enraged, the farmer looked about him for a floating branch, anything that might be floating by with which he could beat the dog, beat it loose from the cow and let it fend for itself. It had gone crazy and was worthless to him now, or at least for the time being.

“Finding nothing for a weapon, he swung at the dog with that painful, closed fist and caught it in the head. It didn’t fall, but backed up enough that the farmer thought he could slide the halter over the cow’s head.

“ ‘Come on, you young heifer,’ he said, holding out the halter, waiting for the cow to recognize it, to settle its head into the familiar nylon head gear. The snout of the dog came out of nowhere again, the sharp teeth catching the outside of his already injured hand. He swiped at it but missed again.

“ ‘Damn it, you bitch, get your head in here,’ he shouted at the cow, leaning back a little, thinking the dog might not be able to reach him.

“At last the cow did come forward, with a sudden bawl and a violent lifting of its head, catching the halter with its nose, but not square on enough for him to get it over the cow’s ears. So he grabbed those ears and held on and tried to slide it up over one ear at a time.

“He’d forgotten the dog in that instant when he sensed success, when he thought the hardest part would be done. So when it came leaping out at him, grabbing hold of his own ear and tearing it as it shot by, the farmer screamed in such rage and pain that he dropped the halter and started splashing about, swinging his arms, wanting only one solid punch, one painful crack on the dog’s head. He had to get rid of the dog or it would kill him.

“The struggle had preoccupied him to the point where he’d lost any sense of his location. He had probably been slipping down the slope of the hole for a few seconds before he noticed that the water was pouring over the top of his waders, sloshing down all the way to the rubber boots, quickly filling them. He still had hold of the cow’s ears, and he quickly realized that that cow had become his lifeline, his only hope. He needed to use the cow’s buoyancy to keep him from going down and not coming up.

“The dog nipped at his ear again, but he didn’t care. He had the cow’s ears and thought that he should try to slide up and put his arms around its neck. He still had hope, a slim hope, that he would get out of this mess and the cow seemed to cooperate, staying still and floating along with the current until maybe they would settle into a shallow place.