Mad Cow Nightmare (17 page)

“What’s APHIS?” Ruth cried. She was going mad with these initials. “And what proof have you? None, my lawyer says! I want to know exactly why you’re taking these calves.”

An hour before, Ruth had received a call from the Vermont state veterinarian—a sympathetic fellow who’d come to examine the calves, who seemed to be on her side. But who, like her lawyer, said she’d do best at this point to comply with the feds. “They’ll put you out of business if you don’t,” the vet warned.

Leafmiller muttered something about Animal Plant Health— Ruth lost the rest of it. “I’m sorry,” the woman said when Ruth made a noise in her throat that might have sounded like a growl. “But if this gets out of hand and into the food chain, it could be a disaster for the country. We understand that this is very difficult for you, but it’s our duty, our mission, to protect American agriculture. We have an emergency here.” Her voice rose to a high pitch. “An
extraordinary
emergency. BSE is on a list of pathogens that the terrorists might weaponize. Did you know that? Since 9/11.”

“Wait a minute here,” said Ruth. “You don’t
know
these calves are sick. You can’t tell me how you know.” But Leafmiller went on.

“Perhaps you read about that woman in Glasgow? Who died this past April, a month after giving birth to a baby boy? Diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease—the human form of BSE? Died from eating contaminated beef—perhaps a decade earlier, who knows? Only married three years!” the woman cried, sounding horrified, aggrieved. “But the baby tested negative so we—so they—well, the disease was possibly not passed on. There’s hope.”

“Hope?” said Ruth, thinking of the dead mother, the bereaved husband.

“Hope that your calves will test negative.”

Sure, Ruth thought, but the tests, she’d heard, were inconclusive. They took years. For the East Warren shepherds the tests were being done on mice, and only when the mice took sick from the tissues injected into them could it be diagnosed as Mad Cow. But since the disease could incubate for more than forty years— and if no mice took sick—why, she could be an old woman by then! Her farm gone, her way of life. What would be left to pass on to her children?

“They’re not sick!” Ruth cried, balling her fists, feeling the blood up in her head. “I won’t let you take them. You’re not to quarantine my cows. What does that mean anyway, quarantine? I can’t sell my milk? Can’t sell my bull calves? Is that what it means?”

“I’m afraid so,” Leafmiller said, sounding like she’d been bereaved herself, and went on with her litany: “Our mission, as I said—”

“I won’t do it. I won’t let you have them.” Ruth was beside herself now, she was out of control. She slammed down the phone. Immediately it rang again and she let it. She was too distraught to go back to work. Her hands were shaking, her cheeks turned to jelly. She was falling apart.

“Ruth,” the answer machine intoned: “She’s carrying it, that Enola woman,
she’s
the plague—you better believe it, Ruth. She killed that man. Now she’s spreading plague across Vermont— across the country, Ruth. You better get her back before we all die, Ruth. All of us. Can you keep this on your conscience, Ruth? Can you sleep at night?”

“Bertha, shut up!” Furious, Ruth picked up the phone, pictured her former sister-in-law on the other end: the dyed orangy hair, the thin red lips, the shiny black pumps, the sanctimonious mouth. “I don’t want to hear this, Bertha. I don’t need to hear it. She is not spreading it. We don’t know she has it. It’s fear, Bertha. That’s all it is. Fear. Hate. And you’re spreading it, you’re the one spreading the plague—you!”

“You’d better go find her, Ruth, it’s the only way to stop this thing, this plague. Find that plague woman—”

Ruth dropped onto a stool, the phone still in her hand, the disembodied voice coming at her like bad apples falling off a tree. Mad, bad, and dangerous—that was Bertha. That was what they were calling the innocent cows. That was Ruth’s world this summer. A mad-summer’s plague. A plague of fear, like rotting fruit. Ruth dropped the phone. It banged on the floor and buzzed like some alien bird, flown into the sanctuary of her kitchen, chilling it.

When Colm barged into her kitchen a quarter of an hour later, filling it with life again, she ran to him, buried her head in his chest, held on to him as though he would keep her from falling over the edge of the world.

“Ruthie,” he said, holding on so tight she could hardly breathe, “Ruthie honey. What is it, Ruthie? Something’s happened, tell me. Those damned reporters again? The feds? My cousin’s uncle?—I heard he was here.”

“All of the above,” she mumbled, not letting go of him. “All of it, and more.”

“More? What’s
more.
Tell me, huh? what’s
more?”

She told him about the phone calls. “We’ve got to find that woman, Colm. We’ve got to find Nola. And not because of what Bertha said. I mean, we have to get her to that hospital, we have to know she’s free of that disease.”

When he began to mutter about police, feds on her trail, she clapped a hand over his mouth.

“We, Colm. You and I.
We
have to find her.”

She heard him sigh. Finally he removed her hand and said, “You’re nuts, Ruthie, you’re just plain nuts. But I love you. God, how I love you.”

* * * *

Nola knew she couldn’t keep the mare with her much longer or she’d be found. She didn’t want that. She had one thought in mind and that was to get to Tonawanda, find Keeley, and take him away— maybe even to North Carolina. To the clan, who would hide them, nurture them, let them live in peace. Never mind her father—she’d stand up to him. She’d changed with all that had happened these past few years. She was stronger now—if not physically, then mentally.

But the mare was company, she ate apples out of Nola’s hand— shared them, those early, barely-red apples she’d taken from this orchard by the lake. It was so beautiful here on the shore of Lake Champlain, she wished she could settle here, start a new life. Yet she was a runaway, an outcast—terrorist, they called her. Was she? She was hiding from cops the way Ritchie used to hide—though he’d died without telling her all his past, she could only guess. And she didn’t want to know—she tried to think of him more kindly now he was dead. He’d had a bad upbringing: that swindler father, the cruel uncle. The abused turned into abusers, she’d heard that. And Ritchie never really hurt her bad, had he? Not really. Not till he found her that night by the edge of the swamp. Not till they’d had that awful row. Not till—well, she didn’t want to think of what happened after that.

The terrifying image of Ritchie, with those reins wrapped three times around his neck, lived just behind her eyes. She couldn’t blink it away. She couldn’t bear to touch the reins after that, just left them around his neck. She led the mare off by its bridle—no saddle on her anyway, but Nola rode bareback as a girl, she didn’t need a saddle. Somebody, she’d figured, would find Ritchie. She wanted to be miles away by then.

She had to turn her mind away from what happened, she had to think of the present—how to keep out of sight. Beyond the orchard was the bridge that led to New York, on the narrow part of Lake Champlain. She could see the sign from here, it said Crown Point, NY, 9 miles. From there it was—she didn’t want to think— oh miles and miles to Tonawanda, the western end of the state of New York. Could she ride across a bridge on a mare? Or even lead her? Someone would see, even at night. Nola, a bareback rider, with a rope taken from that orchard barn to serve as reins. They’d be looking for a woman with a mare—a woman last seen in a white shirt and blue-striped skirt—she’d heard that on the barn radio after she tethered the mare and crept into the empty barn.

No, she’d have to leave the mare tethered here, outside the barn. It was a quiet time in the orchard, no one picking yet. The apples weren’t ripe, she had a bellyache from eating them. But it was all she had except berries, a loaf of bread, and a chocolate bar she’d got from that Healing House. She didn’t know where the mare had come from, so she couldn’t leave a note. But they’d have heard the radio news—the animal would go back to its rightful owner. Nola put her arms around the mare and the mare nickered back. They were friends now, they were practically soul mates. They’d been through hell together. To hell and—not back yet, no, not yet. She had to reach the New York farm, she had to find Keeley. She had to get him away from Uncle.

Uncle. The man she hated most in the world. Hated for what he’d done to Ritchie as a kid. What he’d done to Keeley—she worried about that. Even Ritchie—she’d found him in the bedroom once, hands lifted like they’d come down hard on the boy. He’d looked up startled; she saw the tears crowding his eyes, his hands clutching like they’d strangle the bad desires. Then he’d followed her out and yelled at her for coming in on him. He was just saying good night to the kid, that’s all, he said. Why did she have to follow him round like a suspicious cat? She’d pulled into herself then, kept her silence, ignored him till he stomped out of the trailer. Then she went to Keeley, poor Keeley, who was wide awake, trembling. Keeley, who seldom spoke his heart, even to her.

She held the mare close, so close she could hear the heart beating. She was filled all at once with love and hate for the world. One glancing off the other, like two sides of a coin, like they were one.

She whispered good-bye, gave the mare a last embrace, and ran off into the woods beyond the orchard. She’d wait till nightfall and then she’d cross the bridge—on foot.

Chapter Thirteen

Boadie was feeding the Friesian calves, the pig loose and rooting in the nearby grass. She loved to watch it. She loved the way its little tail curled and then twitched as it frolicked in the grass. Since they took it early from its mother, it needed to find something to chew and suck on. Boadie had an old sock for it in the trailer—out here it was sucking on a thick blade of grass. The pig she had before this had its tail docked by the farmer—poor thing spent its life keeping its poor clipped tail out of the mouths of its penmates till she rescued it. It was happy in its prison, the farmer said. Happy, ha! Happy with no sun, wind, rain—straw to sleep on? Just a hundred other miserable pigs all squeezed together? That was happy?

If Boadie’d had her way she’d of taken all the pigs, every one, let them roam on Uncle’s farm. Let them have their freedom. To go where they wanted. She’d made the mistake of coming to Uncle’s farm so she could be near Maggie and settle in one place. But then was sorry. That trailer—she could hardly turn round twice in it. And one of her favorite pigs—she found it on Uncle’s dinner table! Hated Uncle for that. Hated him! Hated Ritchie, too—it was Ritchie turned in the pig.

Now the first calf was done eating, and she put down the pail. It moved against her flank, licked her cheek with a fat, scratchy pink tongue. It was grateful, so grateful. She rubbed her cheek against its hide and it mewled softly. Herself, she’d had seven babies, breast-fed them, and they all grew up. The way this heifer calf would grow and birth and feed its own. No one was going to take away this calf. Or take away the other one calling for her now, wanting its turn, its pail of grain. No one was going to take away her pig, rooting happily in the grass. Boadie was as happy now as she’d been in her whole life. It was like everything was coming together at this one moment in time: bright sun, blue mountains over beyond the red barn. Grass so green it turned your eyes to emeralds.

Even the horse cantering up the dirt road now, with its rider shouting something Boadie couldn’t comprehend, didn’t disturb her peace. Till horse and rider swerved into the driveway, kicking up gravel, striking Boadie in the forehead, like a shatter of glass.

Who was this now? She squinted, but couldn’t see for the dust. She reached out a hand to touch the shotgun she kept close by. Nobody was going to take her babies. Nobody was going to take away her good day.

* * * *

There was a commotion outside the barn where someone was riding a horse up the drive. Ruth saw it was Franny, bareback in jeans and purple shirt. She was waving her arms, shouting, “Ophelia, it’s Phelia back, Ruth, and she’s all right—though she has a hurt foot, we’ll have to work on that. But the feds don’t want me to keep her, they want her quarantined ‘cause that woman had her, that Enola female who killed that man. I mean, Ruth, I just got her back and now
they
want to take her! But Ruth, I’m telling you, oh I’m telling you, they’ll take her over my dead body!” Franny flung her arms dramatically in the air. It might have been a sign of victory—or loss. Or both, Ruth thought, poor woman.

Ruth ran up to caress the mare and pat Franny’s leg that was flung over the animal’s belly. Ruth was both delighted and sorry. They were birds of a feather now, two women under siege. “She looks beautiful,” she told Franny, “she looks in the pink of health. Don’t let them take her, don’t.”

“It’s cruel,” Franny agreed, “it’s cold-blooded, it’s inhumanly callous.”

Ruth glanced at the white pens where Boadie was fussing over the Friesian calves, a shotgun at her feet. Since the ‘traveller had heard about the feds, she’d not let the animals out of her sight except to go back to the trailer and sleep or eat. Before Franny arrived with her mixed news, Ruth had been resigned to letting the agents have the calves for testing. “You can’t win over the USDA,” Colm had insisted in his pragmatic way—she’d told him about the state veterinarian’s warning. “At least they’re not taking your herd (for good) just to monitor them. You have to realize, Ruthie, they do a lot of good around here.” He’d outlined their mission. But Ruth could think only of her cows.

“I won’t ever, ever let them have her!” Franny cried. Making a clattery turnabout, she cantered off down the dirt road, alternately throwing kisses and giving the finger to the absent feds. “Once more unto the breach!” she shouted back, and disappeared into a blur of road dust.

Ruth smiled grimly. At least something positive had happened— Franny had her horse back. And Nola was still alive—one of the orchard hands recalled seeing a woman leading a mare. The witness didn’t know which way she’d gone after that; police were chasing in all directions.