He wanted me to see the calves cut. A leather communion line funneled towards his fervent medicine. The chute would wring the wildness out of the boys.
I served to pin them in a welded ribbed vault. He ministered a headgate crown. Calico surges, and trashing collisions of the cage.
Muscles clenched then slack, heave of breath sharp and metallic, then lowing. Crimson. The vaccination needle. A scalpel flash. Eyes locked with mine.
Sex offal, soiled, to the Heeler. What did we know for sure? Horn holes cauterized. The ground stained. Ten cents more a pound.
Ed Schad is an exiled Texan living in Los Angeles who curates contemporary art at The Broad museum. When he is not working, he is fishing, line dancing, and making charcoal drawings of bulls, boars, and bison.