The Slaughter of Mrs. Humphrey
Source: Google Photo
I have written a couple unpublished novels of speculative, post-apocalyptic fiction. Here’s an excerpt, just for fun.
Rosemary has always thought that Elder Stoltz’s face looks very like a mouse. Though she muster all powers of concentration, she cannot stop herself from seeing him in this way. His ears stick out nearly 45 degrees from his head, his face is narrow and pointed, he has a mild overbite and his nose is fabulous—long and arched. It is the nose that draws the eye, and Rosemary can look neither at his mouth, nor his forehead, nor even at his closely placed eyes because his nose calls to her.
Elder Stoltz first gives thanks for Mrs. Humphrey. She has worked hard her whole life and produced fine offspring, but her time has come. Rosemary, Aaron King, Elder Stoltz and Mr. Becker huddle around Mrs. Humphrey, faces glowing softly in the lantern light, their November breath coming in steamy clouds of warmth. Especially Mrs. Humphrey’s. Her breath bursts heavy and loud from her nostrils billowing like a dragon.
Elder Stoltz is effusive in his thanksgiving this morning.
Rosemary keeps her eyes open when people pray. It is not due to irreverence. She simply needs the visual stimulation if there is any hope of focusing on what is being said. And because her eyes are open she knows who else does not close their eyes in prayer. It is a secret club of open-eye pray-ers that the closed-eyes pray-ers don’t know exist. Michael Hermann, Moses Keller, Leah Peterson. They are all part of the secret society.
“… she has been a generous mother … gentle and obedient …”
Mrs. Humphrey shifts nervously where she stands, crunching the straw beneath her as Elder prays on and on. Rosemary drifts in and out of the prayer, looking into Mrs. Humphrey’s sad eyes. So, she thinks to herself and nearly says out loud, Mrs. Humphrey doesn’t close her eyes in prayer either.
Rosemary mouths to Mrs. Humphrey her reassurance, “It’s OK,” and Mrs. Humphrey blinks in response.
“… now there is safety and sufficiency in our settlement. So, we thank you, our great and powerful God, for the mercy you have shown your people and for the provision you have given us.” Elder Stoltz places a hand on Mrs. Humphrey’s ample shoulder and pats her firmly. Rosemary thinks the slap of his hand must feel good to Mrs. Humphrey. Then he strokes her head as he drones on in prayer. Rosemary smiles at her as if to say, “You’re doing just fine,” and Mrs. Humphrey releases a massive sigh. It’s nearly over.
The “Amen” is spoken in unison, and it brings Rosemary out of her trance. Another prayer where only wisps of words are caught in her frenetic mind, too crowded with other things. Like tonight’s ceremony, or her courtship with Saul. And she thinks about her best friend Ruth, and of course about Mrs. Humphrey and how she will get to meet her children on the other side this earthly veil very soon. Her children were taken to glory in the same manner, though they were only two or three years old.
Mr. Becker knows just where to place the chisel to make Mrs. Humphrey’s death immediate and painless. He feels for it: between the bottom of the skull and the top of the spine. A soft spot where the chisel can quickly and easily penetrate where the brain and spinal cord meet.
Mr. Becker finds it with his thumb, places the chisel there, then lifts the hammer. Rosemary looks at Mrs. Humphrey one last time in this life. She never can watch the actual act of severing the spinal cord during the slaughter, no matter how many times she has witnessed it. She looks down at the ground momentarily and hears the clink. It is followed by a massive thud.
Rosemary looks up. Mrs. Humphrey has gone limp, her 1,200-pound body collapsed to the ground, head twisted awkwardly, and her four hooves crumpled beneath her massive Guernsey frame. Half a chisel protrudes from the base of Mrs. Humphrey’s neck like the horn of a saddle.
To harvest an animal as large as Mrs. Humphrey requires block and tackle. Her hooves are wrestled out from under her and bound together. She is hoisted upside down until her head is off the ground.
Mr. Becker takes out his knife and opens up her throat. Great rivers of blood pour onto the cold, hay-covered ground. Steam like a fog rises from the pool that forms. They wait for the flow to stop and then lower her down so Aaron King can reach to make the first incision near her hooves. The men are peeling her hide away, stripping her legs of their covering then down her massive body, cutting carefully around the anus, past the haunches, undressing her all the way down to the neck. They hoist Mrs. Humphrey up as they go so as not to kneel in the lake of blood. Within a few minutes the heavy outer layer of the cow hangs limp, draped over her head as if to cover her eyes from the undignified sight of her naked body. Aaron King saws through the neck so that head and hide splash thunderously into the blood. She has become unrecognizable now. Just a skinless, red and white marbled slab.
Aaron helps Rosemary lift the bloody head and hide into a wheelbarrow.
“Good hide,” he says.
“Maybe,” she says. “I’ll need to see it laid out.
Nothing of Mrs. Humphrey is wasted except her blood—bones for gelatin, tongue for mincemeat, stomach in which to make cheese, brain for certain medications. Not even her intestines are wasted. They slither to the ground with a sound that is almost musical and are gathered up for sausage casings. Everything is used. Although Mrs. Humphrey was raised and fed by Mr. Becker and his family, she is divided judiciously –half to the Corporation and the other half to the Mennonite community, measured out according to a carefully calibrated formula so that everyone benefits equally from the harvest. The same had been done with her milk during her lactating years.
The Gold Temple Oil Corporation sends someone quarterly to gather a tax which is used to keep up some roads and pay for Corporate patrols keeping the area free from marauders. Though the Mennonites are pacifists and self-sufficient, they feel obliged to contribute something to the whole of society, even those communities outside of their settlement. Paying a modest tax and accepting corporate kerosene in trade for meat, or leather goods, and produce is a grace they bestow upon the English.
Aaron King wheels the head and hide into the tanning shed for Rosemary. Her little brother, Josiah is there. He has sharpened the tools in preparation for the tanning. Six years is old enough for such things.
“Hey little man.” Aaron says. Josiah is looking at Aaron’s mouth, and the boy smiles. “You’re a good helper for your sister, aren’t you?”
Rosemary sets to work carefully removing the hide from the head. Then she slices Mrs. Humphfrey’s scalp, guiding her knife around the eyes and snout with surgical precision.
“I don’t dare let you cut the hide from her scalp, Brother King. You boys have sloppy knife work when you harvest the head.” The skin over the scalp is thinner than the rest of the hide and perfect for pot holders, and for teaching Josiah to master leatherwork.
“You nervous about the Singing tonight, Sister Miller?” Aaron asks.
“And why should I be nervous?”
“You know…” Aaron King helps Josiah and Rosemary pull the hide over the tanning stone, flesh side up.
“Speak plainly, Brother King. Clearly I don’t know.”
“The Council post; leader for the young women’s choir.”
“No, I’m not nervous, brother King. There are twenty-three of us. That means there’s a one in twenty-three-chance of being selected. And I’ll bet my little brother here can compute that as a percentage faster than you can even say ‘one-in-twenty-three.’”
The boy has been studying their mouths. He holds up four fingers, then puts his thumb and forefinger together as if to say, “and a bit more.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind terribly if you were selected as leader. That’s all.” He says as he returns to the barn with the scalped head of Mrs. Humphrey in a wheelbarrow.
“Ridiculous.” Rosemary mutters, huffing and grunting, half from exasperation and half from the effort of scraping the hide. “The youngest one in the household serving as head, no thank you.”
Josiah rubs salt over the bits of fat and meat clinging to skin. Mr. Miller taught Rosemary to tan leather when she was only six, and now at fourteen she must teach Josiah. Small hands make for intricate work. Rosemary’s leather-working skills are legendary. The corporation sends people from Milwaukee and Green Bay to Gleason, Wisconsin to trade oil for Mennonite leather products.
Mrs. Humphrey was old, and her meat will require the mamas to bring out the sharp knives. Not nearly so tender as Mrs. Humphrey’s children who were taken while young. But her hide! Her hide is gorgeous to work with, and Rosemary is thanking Mrs. Humphrey for the gift, and laying out in chalk various works of art she will create from the garment which once covered the beloved Mrs. Humphrey.