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Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
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RANCHER AND I HAVEN’T exactly advertised his illness. People have enough to talk about when our names come up with the sanctuary. But people know. Sue Anderson called this morning to inform me that the local union is kicking us out. We won’t be refunded on our yearly dues. I told her it was fine. It’s not great publicity for an animal advocacy sanctuary to be a card-holding member of a slaughterhouse group anyway. Still, it never fails to surprise me how human beings can be. One day, you’re invited to the square dance or bingo night. The next, you get the door slammed in your face simply because you refuse to follow the herd’s rules. It’s one of those unspoken rules, I guess: You unquestioningly do what you are told. I wonder what Sue would do if shit was happening with Murray. Whatever.
I hadn’t been off the phone for three minutes before Marcy Sullivan calls me too with the same news.
***
I SIT ALONE AT A TABLE covered in fliers on animal rights. The local animal rights association in Katy, Texas loaded me up with anything I might need. I wish Rancher would hurry up. He’s been gone nearly an hour. Sitting alone at a market downtown is not my idea of a good time—animal rights or not. He went to check out two pulling bulls known as the biggest in the state. Working animals, he says, are the coolest.
I wonder what the animals think of that. Part of me thinks he may have a point. For working steer, life has purpose. At the same time, I think, if anyone asked, they’d rather be out in the wild. You take what you can get, I guess, which is pretty similar to me sitting here in 90 degree heat as people I once thought of as friends and neighbors walk by glaring.
Not everyone is evil. They don’t all hate me on sight just because I believe in something different than they. It’s not like the entire town had something to do with the pig head on the stake outside our home. Some are more kind; they at least fake it. They stop in front of the table, pick up fliers and look at me with pity. I can’t be sure if it’s about my husband being sick or the fact that I don’t eat meat. The things they say and ask—as if I am a creature from another planet. “You only eat grass?” “Don’t you get hungry?” “What about bacon? How can anyone live without eating bacon?”
There are times when I want to invite them to the barn and show them the sprays of pig blood all over the walls. There are other times when I want to tell them about Max and Moe—two friendly piglets I was too cowardly to stop from being killed. Abraham had begged me, telling me Moe was his friend. I hadn’t listened. My concern was getting them to school on time. I try to remind myself that I was once selfish with animals too. Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
They nod their heads and act interested. But I’m not stupid. I know they will leave and wait until Sunday of all days; they will head to church, thank the lord for all his grace, and then they will congregate in the basement whispering about the tree hugging grass eaters at the end of Cypress. They won’t ask where we are. Instead, the rumors will fly about how Rancher’s diet is what’s gone wrong. They’ll blame me, the crazy wife, for the illness they know nothing about. It’ll be my fault because, if I loved him more, I’d feed him back to health. If they only knew.
Church: It’s another place we haven’t been for a while for obvious reasons. I doubt we are welcome there either. Oh well. Another loss. Animals have no souls.
“Well, speak of the devil,” the familiar voice of Murray Anderson chuckles in a deep bellow. “Sue and I were just talking about ya’ll,” he says.
“Hey Murray, how ya’ll been?”
“Good. Good. Busy with the herd. I suppose you been busy too. Whatcha got here?”
I hold up a flier he’ll probably use as kindling for the next square dance bonfire if Sue doesn’t’ get to it first.
“Just information. Trying to get the word out about the sanctuary,” I smile.
“Good. Good.”
I don’t know whether or not to believe him. At least he has the courtesy to act interested.
He shakes his head, squinting at the flier. “I dunno how you had it in ya to convince him. Never thought I’d see it,” he says. “Must be one good woman. Ain’t no way Sue could pull me outta that union. Let me get kicked out either.”
I smile. One thing I’ve always liked about Murray is that there aren’t guessing games with him. You either ask him, or he will tell you straight himself. Murray Anderson isn’t a bullshitter.
“It took some work. It wasn’t so easy,” I say, laughing.
I don’t tell him about Lucy or how Rancher let her live in the house. I say nothing about the night I caught him sleeping with her on the couch and how he has confessed to me that he’s worried about all the blood on his hands when it’s time to meet his maker.
Murray doesn’t need to know that Rancher has gone soft. It’s not the kind of soft he’d understand. Murray Anderson is a lifetime rancher. To him, animals are property. In his world, humans are the superior species and animals are only put here for our survival. Murray is one who sits in church in the front row and nods his head when the preacher reminds us to do unto others and that human beings are God’s creatures. In many ways, it’s not entirely his fault.
Vegan