Bump in the Night

We were readying for bed when the phone rang.

"Something has the cows all upset. They're stampeding!" a neighbor cried. "We thought we saw a coyote or something."

Of course by the time husband put his britches on, loaded his gun and drove to the other side of the farm, whatever was prowling was gone. The cows, still nervous, eyed him warily but they were not stampeding.

He found a dead goose. A wild Canadian goose, he said, not one of the neighbor's tame ones.

This morning, with daylight, he checked the cows.

He found one dead.

We don't know what happened. We don't know if the cow was sick and died, perhaps drawing a coyote, or if it something killed her.

Perhaps it was a bear. We have bears around here sometimes.

Maybe whatever was causing a raucous last night scared the poor cow to death!

We don't know what happened, though, and the ground is so packed and dry there were no prints or signs.

Now we are short one cow. We will have to bury her, but that can't be done until the insurance people are called. Ew.