After the strange cow—on our land that night, yet unbranded—nipped Pete, we watched him close for a month, and, this proving wise, every full moon thereafter, until Ma, Mellie, and I returned from vacation to find Pa’s dementia had deepened, and over a mouthful of burger, Mellie asked, “Where’s Pete?”

Graham Robert Scott teaches writing at a university in north Texas. His stories have appeared in Barrelhouse Online, Nature, and Blink-Ink. See more at hemicyon.wordpress.com.