The Cow Is Not the Sheriff's

dawn, monday. she looked at me first.

The Sheriff in Le Marais Perdu has now made two public statements, one in the parish paper and one on its front-page ticker, regarding a brown cow on the levee road. The first said she is not the Sheriff's. The second said she is STILL not the Sheriff's, in capital letters.

I have done this for nineteen years. A man in public office does not deny owning a cow twice unless somebody asked him twice.

I went out Monday at dawn. She was there. Brown, no tag in either ear (I looked, from the truck, with the good binoculars), standing on the crown of the levee exactly where the notice said. Not grazing. Standing. When I stopped the truck she turned her head and looked at me before I had the window down.

I asked around. Nobody in the village is missing a cow. Three farmers on the other side of the levee say they are not missing a cow. One of them counted his while I waited on the phone, which took a while, and came back and said, "Mais, I got one more than I thought," and then said that was a separate matter.

DocFenwick says a loose cow is a loose cow, that cattle wander when a fence goes down, that the levee has good grass in October, and that I should call the parish livestock office, which I did. They have no record of a brown cow. They were very polite about it. They asked me twice if I was sure it was a cow.

Here is my read. That cow is not lost. That cow has a job. She is on that levee every morning on purpose, the way a crossing guard is on a corner on purpose, and the Sheriff knows whose she is, which is why the Sheriff keeps telling us whose she is not.

Postscript, Tuesday night: the farmer who counted called back. He counted again. He is now two over. He would like the Sheriff to know that they are not his either.

If she is yours, come get her. If she is not anybody's, I would like to know who is feeding her.

I relay. You decide.

In Truth and Terror.
— Beau