The fire stands in the middle of the long field, where the hay came off a week ago. Split ash and oak, old fence posts, a cartwheel with three spokes missing, stacked into a tower taller than the barn’s hayloft door and burned down by now into one roaring core.
The herd is here — all 7,776 of them, in loose rings around the blaze. The nearest lie with their legs folded under them, each eye holding the fire as a small moving coin. One ancient bull has the spot closest to the heat, and nobody has argued.
At the top of the field the barn has both doors flung wide. A brindle bull plays slow disco from a booth of three round bales. Off to the west, under the ash, there is a grave. Nobody has said whose. Nobody has needed to.
ABSENT #3512, under the ash
DECKS #777 · the long field set
BULLTOSHI #3512