The Jesus Cow (13 page)

But as the child spotted the calf she let out the softest
oh
and dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around its neck, and rather than startling, the calf, seeming to sense the child's fragility, simply allowed itself to be held. The mother had gone to her knees and was praying, eyes closed and hands clasped.

The child—the child
. Harley felt his throat clench, and tears came to his eyes. Mindy and Billy were in the same state. There was no sound save Tina Turner ruminating and the mother's whispered prayers.

Outside the Plexiglas, there was a muffled kerfuffle. The line of people had stopped moving. They were pointing and waving their hands, and despite the constable's nonstop megaphoning, they were beginning to clump up. Harley told Billy to remove his bandoliers and store them in the silo room with his shotgun—“Last thing we need is somebody getting shot”—then sent him out to help the constable.

“We can't see!” one of the people hollered, loudly enough so that Harley could hear it through the Plexiglas. “That girl! Tell her to move!” Harley turned and saw that the sick child had now lain herself against the calf's side and was nestled cheek to cheek with the face of Christ. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was in a half smile, and Harley swore her cheeks had taken on fresh color. The mother had stopped praying and was now gazing at her child through tears that gathered and dropped to the straw.

“We can't see!” The shouting grew louder. Several people were waving their torn tickets. “We paid our money, and now we can't see!” Billy, trying to intervene, was being crowded back toward the Plexiglas. The constable was nowhere to be seen. Someone began
pounding on the Plexiglas. Harley hustled up the haymow ladder and opened the door he used for throwing bales down to the beefers. From here, he could see long-term trouble building far beyond the viewing area. The people entering the viewing line from the parking lot were still flowing forward, while at the front of the line below him, things were at a dead stop and swelling, like some aneurysm about to burst. There was pushing and crowding, and it was only growing worse.

“HEY!” hollered Harley. “Hold it! Calm down! We'll have things moving again soon!”

“We
PAID
!” yelled a man holding his cell phone high in the air, trying to snap a shot over the heads before him.

“We can't see the holy image!” cried another.

“RIP-OFF!” screamed a woman jostling for position.

“HEY!” hollered Harley again, surprised at the anger rising in him. “There's a
child
in there! A
dying
child! Give her five minutes and we'll get things moving again!”

The line continued to surge forward, and now halfway back people were stumbling and pressing into each other. Billy was being pushed even farther back. He was nearly against the Plexiglas now. Over by the gates, Harley could see Chief Knutson in his Expedition, a Slim Jim clamped in his jaws, happily scribbling on his Wheel Commander Incident Command System and moving name tags around the board like he was on a magnetic poetry binge. Too late, Harley realized that he should have asked for a radio of his own.

A man fought his way through the line. Reverend Gary, Bible and cross high in the air. Now and then he tapped someone on the shoulder with the cross and they took one look at the razor-sharp filigree and stepped aside.

“HARLEY!” hollered Reverend Gary. “MANY ARE DYING!”

“Well, Reverend, that's stretching it some,” said Billy.

Reverend Gary pushed forward again. “NOT IN THE BODY, BUT IN THE SOUL!”

“Back off, bud,” said Billy, putting a hand to the reverend's chest.

“O, COME ALL YE SINNERS!” preached Reverend Gary.

The sinners took him at his word. The crowd surged, and Harley saw Billy stumble backward. As Harley spun around to hustle back down the ladder, he heard a
snap!
and a
crack!
It was the Plexiglas, giving way. Harley dropped to the manger just in time to see Billy tumble backward and the pilgrims pour through, led by Reverend Gary. The praying mother looked up in fear and snatched her wide-eyed child from the calf as Reverend Gary, pushed by the tide of people behind him, tripped, and fell headlong toward the calf, throwing his hands out to break his fall, and as he did so the stainless steel filigree raked across the calf's hide, and the last thing Harley saw as the people closed in was blood welling from the furry face of Christ.

Harley fought his way to the calf, elbowing and pulling at the bodies that were in his way, his ears filled with the cacophony of maniacal prayer and praises, of weeping, and, here and there, of cussing.

And then there came a thunderous sound.

BLAM!

Everyone froze.

Mindy was standing upon a straw bale, holding her smoking .44. A bit of chaff floated down from a ragged hole in the ceiling above her.

Everyone turned and ran.

Except for Reverend Gary. He was lying across the bleeding calf, clutching his bloody cross and speaking in tongues.

Harley grabbed Reverend Gary by the shoulders, trying to drag him off the calf. Reverend Gary paused in his babbling and switched to plain English.

“Let us pray! Through Christ shall this calf be healed!” He broke away from Harley and threw himself again on the trembling animal, laying his hands on the split face of Christ and unleashing another torrent of babble.

Harley grabbed the pitchfork.

He pressed the tines to Reverend Gary's neck.

Reverend Gary fell silent.

“Get the HELL off my calf,” said Harley.

Reverend Gary blinked, then crawled away over the shards of Plexiglas, taking his Bible and cross with him. Mindy kicked the remnants of the viewing frame out of the way, then slid the door closed and hooked it.

Billy reappeared from the dark end of the barn. He was strapped into his bandoliers again, shotgun at the ready. “They'll be back, and soon,” he said. “Mindy, throw a bunch of hay bales down the chute.” Mindy scuttled up the ladder. “Stack 'em against the door,” he said to Harley. “I'll hold 'em off from above.” And before Harley could ask, Billy disappeared into the silo room.

As Mindy and Harley blocked the door, people were already banging on it. Harley heard the sound of smashing glass amidst keening and praying.

The mother and sick child were nowhere to be seen.

The Jesus calf lay trembling in the straw, Tina Turner licking gently at its wound.

“That cross . . .,” said Mindy. For the first time, she looked shaken.

CHIEF KNUTSON COULDN'T
scribble and move his magnets fast enough; everything had come undone. The radio chatter was unintelligible, everyone yammering over everyone else. The viewing line had deteriorated into a boiling knot of people, some angry, some confused. There arose a babble of voices.

He was out of Slim Jims.

Giving up on the radio, the chief heaved himself out of the Expedition and ran over to the ticket booths. “SHUT 'ER DOWN!” A baying howl of disapproval arose from the pedestrians awaiting admission, and then as word spread, there came a chorus of horn honking. The chief jumped back into the Expedition and phased his way to Harley's barn door, where he clicked over to the PA.

“HARLEY!”

A moment later Harley appeared in the haymow door.

Now the chief rolled down his window and hollered.

“I don't think we can hold 'er anymore, son! You'll have to shut it down!”

“We're done anyway,” said Harley. “The calf—”

He was interrupted by the sound of a thin, piercing note, followed by a series of beeps.

Harley's heart sank. The tones were coming from the fire department pager on his hip. Next came the disembodied voice of the 911 dispatcher, echoing from the hip of every firefighter on the property.

Barn fire. At the old Klostermann place. Five miles outside of town.

“That's ours!” said the chief, turning on his heel.

“But you can't—we—all those people . . .” Harley felt sick. In the rush to set up the fund-raiser overnight, no one had considered
this contingency. At least for Jamboree Days the Boomler department served on standby.

“Protect and serve!” said the chief as he fired up the phaser yet again and backed madly down the driveway, scattering spectators every which way, steering with one arm, and using the sleeve of his other arm to wipe his Wheel Commander Incident Command System clear in preparation for this new assignment. Every firefighter on the place followed him.

And the crowd closed in.

I
t is difficult to know what might have transpired had Billy not climbed to the top of the silo with his laser-sighted shotgun. Once the ticket booths were abandoned, cars poured in willy-nilly and the lot was now a gridlocked snarl. People were milling all over Harley's property.

Billy fired only once, and that in the air and mostly to let Harley know he was up there. In truth, the shotgun wasn't much good at such a distance, but Billy found the laser sight to be indispensable. Just the sight of the ruby dot crossing a person's toes was enough to send him or her scurrying backward. In this manner he was able to establish and maintain a clear perimeter around the barn.

Inside the barn, Harley held the calf, and Mindy held Harley. Tina Turner sniffed at her wounded baby.
I have to call a vet
, thought Harley. But he knew full well: no vet would work on that calf.

At first he didn't notice the man standing in the manure
spreader. He attributed this to the bad light and his preoccupation, but really, it's not the sort of place you'd look for someone.

“I told you it would come to this,” said the man. His tone was firm, but not accusatory.

“I don't know who you are, bud,” said Harley, bringing his pitchfork to bear, “but I'm in no mood.”

Keeping his hands in view, the man dismounted from the manure spreader to stand beneath the lightbulb. He was wearing a long coat, a pale yellow scarf, snug black gloves, and ostrich-skin cowboy boots.

“Sloan Knight,” he said. “International Talent Management.”

“You're the agent . . . ,” said Harley, recalling now the man who had told him things would go wrong.

Sloan nodded.

“Um,” said Harley, looking the man over and trying to imagine what it might cost to dress like that, “you know that's a
manure
spreader, right?”

“I'm an
agent
. I don't mind a little shit on my boots.”

Harley looked back at the calf, and the bloody, matted gash crossing Christ's face. He shook his head.

“We can fix this,” said Sloan.

“But it's . . .” Harley waved his hand over the bloodied hide.

“Oh that?” said Sloan, pointing at the wound. “That's nothing. I mean we can fix this whole thing. The whole operation.”

Harley heard a sound. Billy reappeared from the dark end of the barn.

“Billy!” said Harley. “Shouldn't you be up there in the silo? Guarding the perimeter? The doors?”

“Ain't nobody coming through any doors,” said Billy. “And as for
the perimeter, it's sealed up tighter'n a gnat's ass over a rain barrel. Nobody getting within a hundred yards of this barn.”

“But how—”

“I'll get to that,” said Sloan before Billy could answer.

“It's the agent,” said Harley to Billy, nodding toward Sloan. “The one who called before.”

Billy stepped around the manure spreader and leaned against the wall, looking Sloan up and down but saying nothing.

“Pitch time,” said Sloan.

“But I don't—,” said Harley.

“Five minutes,” said Sloan. “Five minutes, and then if you say no I'm on my way back to L.A. and you never hear from me again.”

Harley, Billy, and Mindy said nothing. Sloan took this as permission to proceed.

“The key is to strike fast and on all fronts. To operate as if tomorrow that calf gets snatched straight to heaven. A comprehensive plan. Market and monetize. Multilevel, multipronged, multimulti.”

“Specifics,” said Billy.

“Fine,” said Sloan. “There are the obvious things—T-shirts, cups, mugs, can cozies, key fobs, stickers and decals, posters—but you're also going to want to consider the less obvious: official novena candles, holy hair lockets, rosaries, snow globes. Beyond the realm of souvenirs, we'll handle book rights and film development, sponsorship and naming rights, product placement, et cetera.

“Then, as long as you've got them coming in droves, give them something to do. Rides. Food stands. Booth rental for festival peddlers.”

“But . . . we'd need pilgrims in the tens of thousands to support that kind of thing,” said Harley, shaking his head.

Sloan shook
his
head. “You
truly
have no idea what you've got, do you?” Reaching inside his coat he produced a slim neoprene sleeve, from which he drew an electronic tablet. “Let me show you something.” Two taps and a swipe and then he knelt beside Harley so they could both view the screen, upon which glowed a black-and-white photo of a big-boned woman in a cotton print dress and sturdy shoes. Behind her, in plaster atop an elevated plinth, stood the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Mary Ann Van Hoof,” said Sloan. “Rural Necedah, Wisconsin. Claimed she saw visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her bedroom. And in a blue mist in the trees. And upon a glowing crucifix.”

Harley looked closer at the photo. Mrs. Van Hoof had stevedore arms and a butcher's hands. “There's a woman could throw a hay bale,” said Billy, who had moved in to peer over Harley's shoulder.

“After several visions,” continued Sloan, “she promised that on August 15, 1950, the Virgin Mother would appear in the sun with a message.”

Sloan swiped the screen again. “And this was the result.”

The photo was taken from an airplane. Acres of cars parked in endless rows across a pasture. People streaming in from all directions to surround a farmhouse nearly identical to Harley's. “Look at them,” said Sloan, pointing at the people who were swarming the house like bees a hive. “Eighty thousand souls. Some claim a hundred thousand. In
one day
. They trampled the fences. Flattened the flowers. Wore the grass down to dirt in an afternoon. Reporters counted six trains, a hundred and two buses, and seventeen thousand automobiles. License plates from nearly every state. The governor called in the state police.”

Sloan handed the tablet to Harley so he could study the photo
more closely. Even in monochrome the Wisconsin countryside looked parched, with exposed sandy patches and a scrubby stand of oak. And as far as the eye could see, people. Pilgrims. Diffuse and patchy in the outlying areas, but clustering ever tighter and ever more densely the closer they were to the house, which was small and unremarkable, and shaded at one end by the trees. Even in the stasis of the vintage photograph, Harley could feel the invisible power drawing all of the people toward the house of apparition.

“All those people,” said Sloan. “And that was a half century before the Internet.”

“Anybody ever see anything?” asked Mindy.

“Nah,” said Sloan. “A few scorched retinas, and somebody thought they spotted her in a box elder.”

“That
is
a crowd,” said Harley.

“And all for the promise of a vision,” said Sloan. “Whereas you—you have a
calf
. A living, breathing
calf
.”

Billy perked up. “That's what
I
told him!”

Harley rolled his eyes and dropped his head into his hands.

“Born on
Christmas Eve
!” said Billy. “In a
manger
! I
told
him!”

“Bingo,” said Sloan.

Billy drew himself up proudly. “Framing the narrative,” he said.

For the first time all night, Sloan Knight smiled. Then he returned the tablet to its sleeve and nodded toward the calf. “Harley, you've got a multimillion-dollar animal there.”

“Multi?
”

“Easily.”

Sloan let Harley absorb that in silence for a moment, then spoke again.

“If.
”

“If?”

“If
we work fast.
If
we work big.
If
we start
now
.”

“But those people out there”—Harley waved in the general direction of the road, where a low hubbub could still be heard—“they really believe. They really
hope
. I don't know . . .”

“We'd do a Jesus Cow app, of course,” said Sloan, as if he hadn't heard Harley. “That's a no-brainer. We can have the beta online in under twenty-four hours. We'll set up a secure visitation corral, priced on a sliding scale based on proximity and length of visit—from flyby to petting privileges. For real high rollers you can sell chances to feed the calf. For those who can't make the trip, a webcam setup, just like they have at Lourdes, only ours will be pay-per-view. That way you're monetizing the whole wide world.”

“But . . .
monetizing
? That's twice now you've said that. Aren't we putting a price on belief? Commodifying faith?” Harley had picked up the word
commodifying
at a poetry reading during college.

“No, we're
leveraging
faith.”

“Well, I'm kinda—”

“Harley, I'm about the free market. Faith will take care of itself.”

“Well, that's not very—”

“Thoughtful? Respectful? Introspective?”

“I just want to keep it under control, kinda maybe strike a balance . . .”

“Aaaannd how's that workin' for ya?” said Billy.

“Look,” said Sloan, after a pause. “You can do this or not. But the fact is, you're in a bind. You have to let the people see their calf. Because the minute that face appeared in public, it became
their
calf. You can show it for free if you want, or give it away in the fire department raffle, but the one thing you
can't
do is hide it or get rid of it. They'll storm the barn. They'll run you out of town.

“Bottom line? You don't own that calf, that calf owns you.”

From his position at the door, Billy cleared his throat and reached into the pocket of his coat. “This might tweak your thinking,” he said, and sailed an envelope toward Harley. Tina Turner flinched when the letter within spilled out in midair and floated to the straw.

“So you've already had a look,” said Harley, shaking his head as he retrieved the paper.

“Yahp,” said Billy. “Hand-delivered by Vance Hansen. I made him climb up the outside of the silo with it. Between a fear of heights and these snazzy bandoliers, that boy was a whiter shade of pale.”

Harley read, and the barn went quiet, save for the sound of Tina Turner sniffing at her calf again, then tentatively licking its wound.

Harley recognized the letterhead of Klute Sorensen's Clearwater attorneys, but the letter was also undersigned by Vance Hansen and the village board president. Harley was being notified that in light of his ongoing refusal to cooperate with the village and the recent developments involving the calf, Klute Sorensen and his development corporation, in concert with the village proper, would be suing Harley for a list of offenses that went on for several pages, from actions negatively impacting property values to willful violations of the village parking and permitting rules and failure to collect state and county sales tax. There was verbiage regarding condemnation, foreclosure, and garnishment of future earnings.

Harley placed the letter on the straw and shook his head. “A quiet life. That's all I wanted.”

“Low overhead?” said Billy.

“Low overhead,” said Harley.

Tina Turner stopped licking her calf and stared at Harley.

Sloan stood silent in the shadows.

After a moment, Billy shrugged in his parka, shifted his orange rubber clogs, cleared his throat, and spoke.

“Undevelopment.”

“Not now, Billy.”

Billy snatched the letter from the straw and snapped it in the air. “
Growth and progress, progress and growth!
People like Klute Sorensen hammer it and yammer it nonstop.
Buy, bulldoze, and build!
Undevelopment—buy, bulldoze, don't build—now
that
would be a revolution. You'd be the antideveloper. You'd honor your father. You'd honor the land. And you'd be the hero of underdogs everywhere! A man of the people—the
good
people!”

Harley couldn't recall ever seeing Billy so animated. “But . . . I'd have to take advantage of good people to do it.”

Sloan stepped forward. For the first time, he seemed impatient. “Harley, you can't help everybody. You can help yourself, you can help me, and you can help
some
of the good people. Your friend here is more committed to the good than I am—I'd be happy just to cash in. He's giving you a way to cash in
and
do some good
and
kick a bully in the nuts.”

“But—” Harley pointed to the lawsuit.

Sloan took the papers from Billy's hand, gave them a quick glance, then smirked. “This is the legal equivalent of a Hallmark card. I put our attorneys on it, they'll pound so much sand up Klute
Sorensen's ass he'll be able to crap out his own private beach. And that village attorney of yours will have his polka-dotted boxers handed to him by a team of lawyers the likes of which his wet dreams are made of. Let's just say they'll be getting a truckload of certified mail from unfamiliar zip codes. Zip codes where Klute Sorensen has no more pull than a two-legged cockroach.”

Now Billy spoke. “Your father worked all his life to hold this farm, only to have it shaved away bit by bit. And what didn't get shaved got grabbed.”

Billy paused, then spoke again. “
Undevelopment
. You'd be the hero. The weird, rich hero.”

Billy went silent then, and leaned against the door. Sloan took a step back into the shadows toward the manure spreader. Mindy had been silent the entire time, her hand light atop Harley's.

Tina Turner nudged her calf. The calf rose, shook off the straw, and turned to suckle.

Harley watched the rhythm of the calf's throat as it swallowed the milk. He thought of his father. Thought of how so much he'd worked for had been bulldozed. Thought of his mother dying, knowing the farm would be lost.

He sighed, and turned to Sloan.