Playing Fair and Being Kind

STEALING COWS AND SUCH

Crawling up I-25 out of Santa Fe into the Glorieta Pass in the dark I’m holding Rocinante above sixty-five miles per hour. It’s about a nine hundred foot climb from where St. Michael’s enter the interstate to exit 299, Glorieta/Pecos. This time of night one can’t see much it’s so dark. New Mexico drivers are aware of the dangers of this length of highway. In these parts it is the most comfortable route from the Pecos river in the east to the Rio Grande in the west through the mountains. This cut through the Sangre Cristo Mountains has seen a fair share of violence; high winds, cars flying off the road, wars. Tonight I will contemplate another violent action to add to its history.

I caught up to a trailer truck just beyond the exit that goes to Cline’s Corner, U.S. Route 285 south. The highway begins a steeper climb at this point. The semi had is its flashers on to indicate its slowed speed. I pulled into the passing lane and saw it was hauling cattle to slaughter. The metal siding of the trailer with the large holes gave it away. As I was pulling past I tried to ignore the cargo but out the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a white face pressed against an opening. I tried to tell the face not to worry but that was such a terrible act of denial I dismissed it immediately.

What were my options? Ultimately I had none. The cattle were being transported to the slaughter house and that was it. So I was left with fantasy; what ifs. What if I could stop the driver? What if I could unlock the doors and put down the ramps for the cattle to skedaddle? What if, in the dark, the cattle could get across the wire fences that always border the interstate highways? Why, they’d be out on the range with all that open space with plenty of grass to eat and ground to shit upon. What a wonderful solution, until daybreak that is. Then the cows would be cornered and rounded up and put back into that fucking truck and hauled away to the imagined humanitarian death which we know is bullshit. There is no way out. Once you’re born a cow that’s it. You’re done for.

I pass the truck and feel grim for a while. I turn on the radio to 98.1 Radio Free Santa Fe. By the time I get to my exit 343 in Las Vegas I have relaxed from the stress of the cattle and I have captured the feeling for a story later. I pull into the Walmart to buy almond milk, lettuce, and bananas because I am vegan and I don’t like that people eat other animals. Maybe we’ll stop doing that some day.

G. M. Goodwin

9 October 2016