PARTISAN REVIEW
At a fork in the road a car.
It
was the postmaster. The
farmers with sticks crowded round him. He had letters and
papers. Wool's dropped a cent again. But there's hot news
from Ioway. The fellows out there are batting hell out of
sheriffs and scabs. The boss was cleaning the nose of a sheep
that had begun staggering in a circle. He snorted impatiently,
"H.ain's on."
The troublesome old ram had disappeared. vVe found
him in a meadow, head buried in sweet fern. The boss started
cursing. He switched him until the wool flew off his rump. He
kicked the lagging sheep in their scuts. He kicked hard with
his hobnailed boots. We hadn't seen him let go of himself that
way yet.
The rain first fell in slugs. Over the woods, sawing in the
wind, lightning flashed. Last year there had been a tornado.
The sheep tried to crawl under brush and trees. "\Ve drove
them savagely out into the road. They turned round to face
us. The farmers let out all their misery on them. We pounded
them with sticks. We chucked clods and gobs of mud. We
stoned them till the stones took great bites out of their sides.
Lightning ran down the sky like the flare of a burning
fuse . The clouds lifted in rocks and shattered on the hills.
The rain hurled itself on the sheep. The sheep lay flattened
in the road in a torn woolen mass.
Surrounding the flock, we waited. The storm grew worse.
The boss tightened his belt. He waded thru the wind. The
sheep stirred. They stumbled thru water up to their bellies.
It was late afternoon when we reached the barn of our
nearest neighbor. Here the flocks went different ways. This
farmer had given up his phone because of the hard times.
Several bolts had struck to the east. The anxious boys couldn't
call up their mother. We left a dozen of our smallest lambs
and a stunned ewe.
We reached the wood. The boss broke the wire with his
hands. The dazed sheep crawled in. As he twisted the strands
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