King

By Shervin Ira Wood

King’s bawling shattered the night.

Well. Bulls don’t bawl but what King was doing was certainly not mooing. It was a loud and strong and sad and frightened noise. It lasted for minutes and then started again - like a primal warning to other bulls. As if he was broadcasting a really sad message into the darkness of the night.

Two days ago Mr. Russ had moved all of the other cows to the grass-piece to the east, and left poor King all alone.

I lay in my bed and it was way past midnight but I could not sleep. Tomorrow would be the last day before the Christmas holidays and school was closing at noon. I was very happy about that right up until yesterday evening when I saw the two men leading King from the back of the grass piece.

 Mr. Russ was nowhere in sight – which was strange, because he would not have had to go and find King and tie him to bring him to the two mango trees.

Every morning and evening for as long as I can remember Mr. Russ went by the two huge trees across the marl road from our house and started shouting the names of his cows. They all came running from all directions. He fed and petted them and talked to them and even bathed them in tick-water every few days.

Sometimes in the evenings after school I went there and helped him give them the food from the sacks and I liked rubbing my hands over their smooth bodies.

King’s mother was Molly who was an ordinary cow. Mr. Russ said that his father was the Red Poll Bull that they brought from Jamaica. All of King's brothers and sisters were ordinary cows, but King was big and strong and dark reddish brown.

 When he was first born Mr. Russ used to give him milk out of a baby’s bottle and he was always petting him and rubbing him down. Then when he was still a small calf he used to follow Mr. Russ around like a puppy follows its owner.

As King got bigger all of the other cows seemed to know that he was the King. They followed him around and wherever he went they went behind him - just like he had trailed behind Mr. Russ when he was a baby.

 Whenever Mr. Russ shouted out their names King was always the first to come. And after awhile Mr. Russ could just call King and he would come running with the whole herd behind him.

He grew so fast and was so big and strong. I used to think that if I was a bull I would like to be like King. But now all the other cows were moved and he was probably lonely in the big grass-piece.

I could not get to sleep because King kept up the bawling nonstop. I just tossed and turned in my twin bed and worried about King. Why did Mr. Russ leave him behind when he moved the other cows? Why did the two men tie him to the trees? Where was Mr. Russ? Who were the two men?

I must have fallen asleep because the sounds of men’s voices caused me to jump and I could see that it was dawn outside. I put on my clothes and went outside through the back door and closed it silently so as not to wake up my father. I sneaked up to the edge of the road and looked across the road at the two mango trees where King was tied.

During the night someone had put a cardboard sign on the barbed wire fence. In bright red letters it read “Christmas Beef for Sale”.

The two men from yesterday were back and King’s head was tied with a rope to one tree. Another rope went around his large body and was tied tightly to the other tree. He could not move and was bawling loudly. He sounded very frightened.

The men were busy tying something on a chain to the branch above their heads. It looked like a hoist. A large metal scale hung from a lower branch on the tree. They were talking excitedly. Then one of them picked up something from on the ground and they both walked towards King. He was swinging his arm and first I saw the handle and then I saw that it was an axe.

A car stopped and a man inside shouted to the two men that were by King. He said something to them about beef and the two men told him to go by Mr. Russ’s house and pay him and then come back in an hour. The car drove off and stopped a bit to the east at Mr. Russ’s house. 

The man with the axe moved closer to King and started swinging the axe behind his back and over his head several times as if practicing his swing. King started prancing his feet and trying to move, but he was tied tightly to the tree. His mooing got harder and longer as if he was pleading.

Then the man stopped swinging the axe and put it on the ground. The two of them did something with the ropes and hoist and they tried to get King to sit down.

King would not sit down and he kept on bawling even louder than before. The man who had the axe started petting King's head and he instantly got calm and quieted down.

Then the other man swung the handle of the axe hitting King's front legs from under him. He fell forward as if kneeling before them and the one that had been petting him quickly tightened the rope to the tree.

King continued standing on his rear feet and bending forward with the middle of his front legs resting on the ground. He looked up at them with expectant eyes.

He could not get back up because they had his head tied to the tree. Maybe he was thinking they were going to start petting him again, and he kneeled before them in total humility and waited.

Suddenly the man lifted the axe high over his shoulder, made one swing and brought it down with a thud in the back of King’s head. King lurched forward and blood spurted up in the tree and some went on the man’s arm.

 He made a short moo and his eyes became glassy. Then the man lifted the axe and drove it down again into King’s head once more and blood gushed everywhere.

The axe kept going up and down as it went deeper and deeper into King’s head. Then his back feet collapsed and his body dropped heavily to the ground and he rolled to one side.

The other man took a hatchet and started chopping King’s head off and soon his head was cut from his body and dragged to one side. There was blood everywhere and on the clothes and arms of the men.

I felt dizzy and ran back inside and started throwing up in the bathroom. I must have fainted because when I woke up I was on the bathroom floor and my father and mother was there and I was wet all over and a puddle of water was on the floor around me.

Christmas was a few days later and everybody was celebrating and enjoying large servings of fresh Christmas beef – but I could not eat any.