Mongrel [bxb] | Bad Moon Book III

Chapter 3: gas and match

Cherry trees sprinkled the gravel driveway of the farm like a pelt of pink snowfall. Matt watched the cows in the pasture as he passed, their coarse, mottled coats stuck with flecks of wet mud from last night's rainfall. It wasn't necessary to wash their coats, but it soothed Matt like slow, lyrical music. His meditation, he called it. A few moments in the evening sun where there was nothing but the brush and the heaving breath of a gentle giant. 

He parked his Wrangler in the guest house driveway, thankful that Jessica's pickup wasn't there to impose on his parking space. Much as Matt hated horses, he was thankful for Jess's. They kept her busy, and most of all, they kept her away.

The guest house was the size of a large apartment, built for his grandmother who died a week before she was meant to move in. It was clean, spaceous, well insulated, and more importantly than anything, a safe distance from his pop. For five-hundred a month, Matt had the escape he needed. The independence without the financial suffering. Only problem was Jessica, who had practically adhered herself to the walls from the moment he moved in.

As the rickety front door battered shut behind Matt, he was choked by the stink of hot, scented wax. A candle burned on the fireplace mantle, browning the paint on the wall beside it. Matt masked his mouth in his sleeve. "Son of a bitch, Jess." He dropped his things by the couch and blew the flame out in a hurry. As he reached for the candle, the glass seared into his fingers. He dropped it to the floorboards, jar cracking clean down the middle. Fucks sake, he hated candles. Hated the artificial stink, the way the smoke caught in his throat. More than anything, he hated them 'cause twice now they'd nearly burned the damn house down.

Candles, country music, her unhealthy obsession with horses—damn near everything Jess did cut cold shivers down his bones like nails on a chalkboard. But still, Matt wondered what life would be like without her. If being completely alone would destroy the last of whatever was left in him.

He opened the windows to waft out the smell, changed into his farm clothes and headed out toward the shed, fetching a bathing brush and a bucket of warm, sudsy water.

"Billy!" he shouted out into the breeze, setting a stool down on the gnawed pasture grass. When nothing happened, he cupped his hands to his mouth and gave his voice to the valley in deep, rolling echoes, "Billy!"

The fat Hereford cattle came bounding toward him, a small dot on the horizon. Matt could tell it was Billy all the same; he was the largest cow on the lot. Too fat to ever sell, too loyal a friend to ever slaughter. He thumped over, head low, snout gusting. When he caught a whiff of the soapy water, he swung his bulky hips over, nearly knocking Matt off his stool.

"Alright, alright," Matt said, wetting the brush. "Hold still, you bastard." And as every time before, when Matt went to work washing the mud and manure from his fur, Billy turned into a two-ton comatose hunk of affection. He swung his head, nipped and nudged at Matt's shoulder—more dog than cow, Billy. The only thing on this farm he didn't detest with every fiber of himself were the animals, but mostly Billy. He was just different. Understood Matt.

Raven's voice curled in his ears, thin and whispered like a breeze through an oat field. "Jesus kid, get yourself a girlfriend, huh?"

A crow careened down from the bare oak trees, long wicked toes clutching at the edge of the pasture fence. It's head snapped in all directions, black, bead eyes wide and unblinking.

"I have a girlfriend," Matt said, turning away from the bird and back to the soap on Billy's chestnut coat.

"Get yourself one you like. Or at least go stick your dick in something that doesn't make you hate yourself. Something that doesn't live on this farm, preferably."