Beyond the Arroyo

I have heard a cow grunt before giving birth. Sometime for days, I have heard a cow bellow when their calf is taken away. Many times I have heard the moo when the feed truck comes but never did I imagine that I would hear a cow scream. It happened last summer when fierce rains gathered and swelled the dry gulch with fast, moving water, getting deeper and deeper. I could hear it sounding from over the ridge. “A cow is screaming across the arroyo,” I said to myself.

I drove to the ridge top and there was the tragedy unfolding; the cow being swept away by the new-formed current, its footing gone and moving downstream on its flank side, no hoofs on the ground. No matter how much effort was observed, it could not right itself. I watched until I could see it no more.

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dVerse prompt flash fiction using the quote by James Harrison