The sun was barely up when Farmer Cutis hitched the old trailer to his battered pickup truck. Dew still clung to the fields, and a thin mist curled over the grass like a ghost from the earth itself. He moved slower these days — not because of age, but because of the weight he carried. Bills piling up. Hay prices rising. The market drying out. And today, he was doing something he never thought he’d do: taking his last three cows to auction.
Bessie, Marla, and Dot. Each one had been raised from calf to cow under his care. They were more than livestock. They were memories — of better days, of a time when the farm was alive with laughter, the clinking of milk cans, and his wife’s humming voice in the kitchen.
The cows loaded easily, as if they sensed something was different. No resistance, no stubborn pulling — just a calm, heavy silence between man and beast.
Cutis climbed into the truck, adjusted the rearview mirror, and took one last look at the weathered barn. It was time.
The road into town twisted through the hills like a ribbon left to the wind. It was a route he’d driven a thousand times. But this time was different. The trailer was older than it should’ve been on the road. He hadn’t replaced the tires. Couldn’t afford to.
Halfway down the ridge, it happened.
A loud pop echoed under the wheels. The truck swerved as the rear tire shredded, throwing the trailer off balance. The old hitch groaned and snapped. The trailer jackknifed, swinging out like a pendulum. Cutis yanked the wheel, but the weight was too much. The truck flipped once — then again — skidding across the gravel shoulder and into the ditch.
When he woke, the sky had darkened. Blood trickled from his forehead, and pain blossomed in his ribs. The truck was crumpled around him, smoke rising from the engine.
Panic surged.
“The cows—”
He pulled himself out, crawling through shattered glass and bent metal. The trailer had tipped, the gate flung open. Dot lay still. Marla limped in circles. Bessie stood by the wreckage, her side scratched but breathing.
Tears welled up in Cutis’s eyes. Not just for them — but for everything. The farm, his wife, his pride. He knelt in the grass, whispering apologies into the dusk.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Help was coming. But the damage — both to the animals and to his heart — had already been done.
