Looking beyond the bull, James surveyed the rest of the herd and spied an odd-looking cow. She looked odd because she looked like a dairy cow, having next to no meat on her, and even having her ribs showing and hips protruding, except just behind her cheek and jaw, where there looked to be an odd bulge.
James wished he had binoculars, or even a camera, with him so he could see closer, but based on her angle and the shadow the sun was casting, James guessed it was her parotid lymph node that was swollen — if not, it was probably her retropharyngeal one, because it was at the wrong place to be her submandibular, which was the only other one in the area.
“What’re you looking at?”
Having — unusually — not heard anyone approaching, James startled violently enough to startle some of the nearer cattle. He turned to see Mr. Baron’s foreman, introduced to him as Angus Coombs from a ranch in Montana earlier in the afternoon.
“That cow,” James said, pointing. “The skinny one. She’s got a swollen lymph node, you may want to get her checked out.”
“She’s just an old cow,” Mr. Coombs replied. “One of too many in this herd.”
“Which is even more reason why you should check it out,” James replied. “As you ought to know if you have any experience with cattle.”
“And just why is a young kid like you questioning my experience with cattle?” Mr. Coombs demanded. “Trying to flash around a college degree?”
“I never went there,” James replied. “But my son’ll be going at the end of the summer.”
Mr. Coombs startled. “Did he fast-track?”
“No,” James replied. “He’ll be eighteen in October.”
“You’re old enough to have a kid that old?” Mr. Coombs asked.
“Yes,” James replied.
“Well you sure don’t look it,” Mr. Coombs said. “Nonetheless, it’s not like the pasture’s even overstocked because the cattle were here before I showed up.”
“I wonder how well that went,” James said.
“I don’t know that I want to know,” Mr. Coombs muttered.
James didn’t either. “Notwithstanding, your flippancy makes me question your experience, seeing how your paycheque happens to depend on the health and wellbeing of the cattle being at its best, particularly considering that I know how much your employer knows about cattle.”
“He actually knows about cattle?” Mr. Coombs asked.
“Exactly,” James replied.
“Why does one old cow’s dying matter?” Mr. Coombs asked. “This entire herd is one of the worst groups of animals I’ve ever seen, but whoever sold them to him knew he didn’t know that, because he paid twice as much as he should’ve for them.”
“She hasn’t eaten a bite as I’ve been watching her,” James said. “She looks like it’s all she can do to stay standing, and if I were to get up close I would probably find her to have a fever, on top of the swollen lymph nodes, all of which are symptoms of bovine tuberculosis, which I don’t want to see in my neighbour’s herd, as that means that it could infect my herd, the herds of my other neighbours, and even the local wildlife population, which would be the worst thing of all.”
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