City Slickers

We took a walk into the fields, the dog and I. It was sunny, and he hadn't been out lately, so it seemed a good thing to do. The dog was interested in sniffing out the hiding spots of cats, and I was looking for a piece of old machinery or something like that to take home as art.

Well, the dog didn't find any cats, although there were plenty of other things to investigate. And for my part, after we had been wandering around a bit, I did find an interesting piece of rusty pipe.

As I picked up the pipe to look at it, I noticed that all the cattle in the field were looking at us. Every last one of them, near and far, had stopped grazing and turned in our direction.

In times past, the dog was fond of harassing the cattle, but for some reason this time he left them alone. As I was reflecting on this, I noticed that the cattle had started moving. Moving toward us. And then one of them started running. And then the others. And then I noticed that there was a bull among them. And they were all running fast.

I looked at the dog. He was still sniffing.

I looked back at the gate. It was far away, and soon there would be cattle between it and us.

Come on, Guinness, I said to the dog. Let's go!

I threw down the pipe and dashed for the gate. Guinness trotted along with me, curious what game we were playing now and still not noticing the cattle -- the cattle who would soon bar our escape.

But we got there first.

I scrambled over, and Guinness slipped underneath, wagging his tail with delight at this new game. And just then, the first of the cattle came around the corner of one of the buildings, their hooves thudding dully into the muddy ground.

There was laughing from the drive. It was Trudy.

From the house, she had seen the cattle stop their grazing and begin moving en masse, but from where she sat she could not see us. So she came outside to see what was going on. And what she saw when she got outside was her husband and her dog running home at full tilt. It made her laugh very hard.

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