The Day the Cows Came Home

"Your cows have come home, Hansjörg."

Hansjörg didn't look up from his laptop. It was late at night, early in the morning, really, and Hildegard had gone to bed hours ago. But the annual report couldn't wait.

"They're not my cows," Hansjörg said. "Go back to bed."

Hildegard did not go back to bed. "I recognize the bells," she said.

Hansjörg pulled up another spreadsheet, another PowerPoint. Last year's figures were looking great. Assets under management, new money, total equity all up, no significant debt, great gains on fee and commission income. The bank was now the most profitable in the country, with the best Tier 1 ratio. All things to be proud of. All things the board would commend him for at the annual meeting, all things the shareholders would applaud him for, and approve his raise and higher equity incentive to boot.

All things Hildegard couldn't care less about, at least not right now.

"The cows, Hansjörg," she said.

Hildegard still wore a nightcap to bed, a little bonnet that kept her warm at night, Hansjörg guessed, even though they had oil heating now, since they'd moved down to the valley from their alp years ago. The bonnet, like much else Hildegard still clung to, was purely performative.

"It's the middle of winter," Hansjörg said. "Cows don't come home in the middle of winter." He looked up briefly, out the window, where the blizzard hadn't abated. So much snow, more than they'd seen in a decade. A white wall, really. A good night to stay home and count money, his and his shareholders'.

No cow in her right mind would be out in weather like this.

"Cows come home in the early autumn," he said. "Besides, all our cows are dead."

"I'm pretty sure that's Flora," Hildegard said, holding her hand to her ear. All she needed was an ear trumpet and the picture would be perfect: The former farmer's wife who pined for her old life up on the alp, with their cows and wildflowers and the soft cheese they made themselves, raw milk to drink, honey and clover for dessert. All so idyllic, all so quaint, all so trite. Hildegard had never adapted to their new lifestyle, to her role as the wife of the CEO of the best-capitalized bank in the country, to the fashions and the cars and the small talk. It was all Hansjörg could do to stop her from showing up to the annual meeting wearing her bonnet.

Their townhouse was stylish. Hansjörg had selected all the furnishings himself, from a fancy interior design store in town, where all the bankers and fiduciaries and lawyers bought their furnishings. Art from a local gallery, where even Yoshitomo Nara had exhibited not too long ago, but Hansjörg couldn't afford a Yoshitomo Nara. Not yet.

Their townhouse was stylish, freshly built on land that had belonged to Hildegard's grandparents, but Hildegard still always complained about how it wasn't as functional as their hut up on their alp used to be, where everything was convenient, where there weren't any staircases that were too wide and twisty and led to rooms you never set foot in, where you didn't have to figure out which light switch, which dimmer did what, where all you had to do was get a log from right outside your door and throw it in the fireplace and light a fire, and you had all the light and warmth and romance you needed, even when it was cold and dark outside. And when it was cold and dark outside, you could go out and snuggle and watch the stars, the stars that stayed in the sky and the stars that fell to earth, leaving a trail of splendor, where you didn't need yet another 4K OLED or whatever they're called to keep track of what was supposedly going on in the world, of the silly stories other people were so desperate to tell.

It's a story as old as time, but when Hansjörg told Hildegard their cows had died and they were moving down to the valley forever, leaving their alp behind, and Hildegard fell to her knees and cried, Hansjörg still thought he'd win her over in time, that she'd come to love their new life, but she never did.

Hildegard still had that stupid wooden heart hanging in the kitchen, right above the kitchen table, where he had to look at it every morning when he had breakfast before leaving for the office, every night when he came home to have a drink before watching the financial news and going to bed. The wooden hearts were the only custom that was truly this country's own, a custom no one else in the world shared: When the long summer was over and the alps got too cold and the herdsmen herded their cows down the mountain to the valley barns where they spent the winter, the cows that had given the most milk, the cows the alpine farmers were the proudest of, would wear their milking stools on their heads, decorated with beautiful headdresses made of wildflowers, just like cows in other mountain countries did. But here, and only here, they also wore wooden hearts on their foreheads, between their horns, red hearts with a cross on top, inscribed with the holy letters IHS, symbolizing the first three letters of the Savior's name in Greek, ΙΗΣΟΥΣ. The wooden heart hanging in their kitchen was the heart Hildegard had made for Flora, the heart Flora had worn on her last descent from the alp, before her last winter on earth, before the last spring when Hansjörg and Hildegard herded their cows up the mountain again to their alp, where the cows died.

Hansjörg hated that heart.

Hildegard was still looking out the window, still holding her hand to her ear.

This time, Hansjörg heard the bells, too. And the loudest bell did sound like Flora's.

"Jesus Fucking Christ," Hansjörg said.

Hildegard waved a finger at him. "You better check," she said.

Hansjörg took a longing look at his spreadsheets. He saved them and backed them up. He closed his laptop and got his coat out of the closet. He didn't have his farmer's coat anymore, the coat his mother had made him, the one that kept him warm when he cuddled outside with Hildegard under the stars, the one that kept him snug in the winter down in the valley, back when they still had their cows. His coat now was a designer coat, from the store next to the interior decorator in town, a store he'd thought only tourists could afford, back when he was a farmer.

He didn't have a hat anymore. He had a Porsche Cayenne instead. And an Audi.

He held his coat tight around him. Hildegard leaned in to peck him on the cheek.

"Better go back to bed," he said.

When he opened the door, the wall of snow exploded into the house and immediately melted, dirtily, on the rug with the country's coat of arms he'd bought at the interior decorator's, a rug even more expensive than his coat. He hurried out the door, pulled the door closed with all his might, it's a good thing he worked out regularly at the gym in town, he turned around and stumbled down the steps and struggled against the billowing snow.

Damn, it was cold, as if hell had frozen over.

Even with the wind howling past his ears, he could hear the cowbells. They were close by, Flora's bell the loudest, but he also heard Bella's and Fiona's and Belinda's and Bianca's. Maybe Sina's, maybe Luna's.

He hated the fact that he could still recognize their bells.

The night his cows died, a few hours before his cows died, the night he and Hildegard had gotten into a fight in their hut up on their alp, an argument about something irrelevant, something he no longer remembered, something he regretted, he'd also recognized their bells even from afar, as he stormed out of the hut and up the mountain in anger, past the stream where they drew the cows' drinking water with a bucket, past the fields covered in sweet grass and clover and buttercups and daisies and forget-me-nots and bellflowers, and even the occasional edelweiss, juicy pastures where his cows were happy, as he stumbled over rocks and roots of shrubs, stepped into cow patties, opened the gate at the electric fence that marked the boundary of his grazing rights, trying to tire himself out, punishing himself with the pain in his legs and lungs, all the way up to the cross at the summit of the peak right above their alp.

The man leaning on the cross held out his hand and helped him up the last few rocky steps to the summit.

Hansjörg was out of breath. The man was not.

The man was wearing an elegantly tailored suit, a black suit with a red tie, entirely inappropriate for the venue, the weather, the hike he must have taken to get up here. He pulled out a cigarette, offered one, wordlessly, to Hansjörg, who didn't smoke but accepted it anyway, and the man lit both of them with a match he'd struck against something, Hansjörg didn't see what.

Hansjörg coughed, not just because he wasn't used to smoking, or because he was out of breath, but because it filled the uncomfortable silence. The man hadn't even introduced himself yet.

Hansjörg could still hear his cows on the alp far below. Flora was still awake, so was Sina, maybe Bella. The rest were fast asleep. Hildegard was probably fast asleep, or waiting up, angry and sad and worried.

"Your cows," the man finally said, waving his cigarette toward the alp below. "You love them?"

Well of course, Hansjörg thought. The man's accent wasn't from here. It didn't have the lilt of the mountain or the broadness of the valley.

Hansjörg shrugged.

"And your wife," the man said. "You love her?"

Hansjörg hesitated. The man smiled.

"You can keep your cows and your wife," the man said. "Or you could give me one or the other. And I'll give you something in return."

Hansjörg tried to make out the man's face, but there was no moon tonight, the stars shone more dimly than usual, and even the ember of the cigarette didn't gleam brightly enough to illuminate it.

Hansjörg had sold cows before. Every autumn and winter, he sold milk and cheese at the market. He knew how to drive a hard bargain.

"Are you offering me the same for both?" Hansjörg asked.

The man smiled. He exhaled. "Wealth, prestige, and the pretense of work, in return for either your cows or your wife."

"Down in the valley?"

"Down in the valley."

What would Hansjörg do with his cows down in the valley, especially if he were rich? No rich man had cows in his garden. He couldn't take his cows to fancy parties. Or annual meetings.

"What will you do with the cows?"

The man dropped his cigarette on the ground. "I'll take care of them, just like I would have taken care of your wife."

Hansjörg shook the man's hand. The deal was done. Hansjörg climbed down a few steps and looked back up to the summit. At the foot of the cross, only the glowing stub of the man's cigarette remained.

Hansjörg descended to his alp, to his hut where Hildegard was waiting up, angry and sad and worried. He could no longer hear a single bell.

All of that felt like a very long time ago, a different life, as Hansjörg worked his way through the blizzard, following the sounds of the bells of his dead cows. It was like a game of hot and cold, except every direction was cold. Tonight was a full moon, and despite the storm, its light trickled through the clouds and glistened faintly on the snow. Hansjörg looked down at his feet, at his leather shoes that weren't made for this kind of weather, and the snow looked green, sickly, unnatural. He stepped into a cow patty. He would have to buy new shoes.

His cows were waiting for him on a snow-covered meadow just outside of town.

Even at the best of times, cows look reproachful, as if you've done something wrong. Maybe you didn't give them enough water, maybe you didn't let them graze long enough, maybe you were too rough with them when you milked them. But even at the worst of times, even when he'd had a particularly bad day up on the alp, his cows had never looked menacing. He'd never been scared of his cows before.

Now he was scared of his cows. Especially of Flora, who stood at the front of the herd.

"Hi, Flora," Hansjörg said.

Flora didn't answer. She pawed the green shimmering snow with her hoof. Her horns looked especially pointy tonight. Her eyes gleamed red. She ground her teeth. She raised her head and curled back her lip. Sina flanked her on the left. Bella flanked her on the right.

In the faint moonlight, Hansjörg could tell something was wrong with Bella. He still knew his cows, and her head wasn't right. He inched forward to get a better look, and when he squinted his eyes, he saw a growth coming out of her forehead, right between her horns, right where Hildegard would have tied a red wooden heart with the symbol of the Lord to prepare Bella for her alpine descent.

A bloody growth. Hansjörg moved closer, squinted harder. The storm lifted, the moon escaped from the clouds, and the meadow lit up in a spectacle of fresh, sparkling snow.

On Bella's forehead, speared between her two horns, hung a man's bleeding heart.

The blood ran down her muzzle and dripped onto the pristine snow.

Sina attacked first, spearing Hansjörg's right shoulder with her horn and wrestling him to the ground. Fiona and Bianca each came from behind, chomping hard into his calves and thighs. Bella stomped on his left arm with her front hoofs, pinning it down. The blood from the man's heart dripped onto Hansjörg's face, into his nostrils and mouth. Hansjörg screamed, like a calf being slaughtered. Flora's bells, Bella's bells, all the bells rang in his ears, bells from hell.

But it was Flora – Flora, Hildegard's favorite, the cow who always gave the most milk, the cow with the prettiest wildflowers in her headdress, the cow whose red wooden heart hung above Hansjörg's kitchen table – it was Flora who gave him the coup de grâce, the estocada. With one thrust of her horns, she pierced Hansjörg's chest, cracking his sternum and ribs, tearing his aorta and his veins and his tissue, and she ripped out his heart and strung it up between her horns.

The next morning, when Hildegard found her husband dead in the meadow, his blood splattered across the snow, his face a mask of horror, his chest hollowed out, she cried, but only for a minute, and then she followed the trail of cloven hoofprints and blood through the snow, to a ravine that began at the foot of the mountain, and she climbed up the ravine to a hole in the rocks where the tracks disappeared, a hole so deep she couldn't hear a stone hit bottom when she dropped it, but she could still hear the sound of bells ascending from the depths of the earth, like music to her ears, bells that would never stop ringing.