Ronald couldn't process what to do. "Empty," he thought, "the whole barn and the fields." He ran his hands through the scruff on his cheek, trying to form a thought. "Theft? Who could steal two hundred head of cattle without so much as a noise? Insurance? Won't be enough. Weeks of missing shipments and a dead market. Now this. This is ruin. Nah, ruin came weeks ago." The barn was ominously hollow without the sound of restless cattle waiting for their morning milking. He always chuckled at their impatient routine, and now he was at a loss for what to do with himself. The sun was almost up. Molly would be out soon, and she'd see. He decided to go tell her before the same stupor struck her that had left him standing in an empty barn for twenty minutes.
He crossed over the farm, unnerved by the emptiness of it all. Before entering the house, he paused to kick off his boots, but realized that he'd done nothing to get them dirty. Molly was finishing her breakfast. She smiled at him as he came into the kitchen.
-
The police left. Ronald didn't think they had been very useful, but what could they do? Stop and question any suspicious herd of cattle? He showed them the barn, and they had looked around for hoof marks or tire tracks that would indicate some type of exodus. They found nothing. In fact, no sign remained that the herd ever existed other than the structures, and the general expectation of a now purposeless staff that cows should be milling about.
It pained him to dismiss his workers. Most of them had worked for Ronald more than ten years, since he'd inherited the farm from his dad. He had no choice, though. The farm had nothing for them to do and certainly no guarantee that he could pay them. So, he sent them home with a promise to call once he figured everything out. Molly spent more time working with the books. They would take a massive loss, of course, plunging them into debt they would never recover from in their lifetimes. Still, if they could float long enough, they could use the insurance to jump start their herd. To that, they confronted a new problem. They had no idea how they would prove their claim since they couldn't prove what happened to their old livestock.
Ronald went into the kitchen. Molly and Jillian were drinking coffee and staring wistfully out of the windows. "Hey Jillian," he said, "thought you'd be gone by now."
She smiled at him, "No. Don't really have anywhere else to be, actually. I made some coffee though. It's off the clock, don't worry." Jillian was only twenty five. She'd been working for them for years though. The men gave her a hard time at first, but she earned her way. Molly quickly befriended her. They had a decade in age between them, but you could have easily considered them sisters by the way they acted. "Can I do anything for you guys? I mean, should we just go out an look for them?"
Molly sighed, "No, thank you Jill, but whatever happened those cows are long gone. Halfway across the state, sold for half their worth to various other dairies."
"Some might turn up though and give the police a lead, at least," Jillian continued.
Ronald heard a knock at the door. The two women looked at him expectantly, "Guess I'll see who that is." He left them to commiserate with far fetched theories of international cow rustler cartels and disappeared through the house to the front door.
Through the glass, he could see a woman standing on his front porch. She wore a tight fitted, red dress and a large, red sun hat. A light pink handbag hung from the crook of her elbow ,and she had over sized sunglasses with red rims. She looked as if she had just walked out of a Valentine's Day ad. Her attire put her in contrast to the entire farm, but she had a natural grace about her that seemed entirely at ease with the situation. And, Ronald couldn't help but acknowledge her beauty.
"Can I help you Miss?" he asked, opening the door.
"I think I might be able to help you," she said with a sugary smile. "I was in town this morning and overheard some folks talking about your odd predicament out here. All your livestock gone in a breeze. Shockingly strange. Then again, strange things seem to happen everyday in Cloverdale lately. My name is Mandi," she extended her hand.
He shook it, "Ronald. How can you help us? Forgive me lady, but you don't exactly look like the kind of person who knows much about the dairy business."
"Oh, that's where you're very wrong," she said with a flash in her eyes. "Look out there. See that truck?"
Ronald looked past her. On the edge of his driveway a freight truck idled. Two men stood beside it at attention, hulking behemoths dressed in red. After a motion from Mandi, the two men rolled up the sides of the truck revealing a fully stocked array of milk bottles, gleaming in the morning light.
"I run a specialty dairy of my own at the moment, but I'm looking to expand. Now, I'm not asking you to sign over your soul, just to hear me out. Maybe we could go inside and talk."
The men closed up the truck and prepared to leave. Ronald had a strange urge to follow them and take their supply for his own, but the smiling woman in front of him pressed for his attention. He waved her into his home and shut the door behind them.
"Ron? Who's this?" Molly asked.
"Ah, you must be his beautiful wife. My name is Mandi, and I'm here with a business proposition."
"Yes, this my wife Molly and one of our employees, Jillian. Uh, Jill could you give us a bit?"
Jillian slightly scowled at the brightly dressed intruder, but nodded to her boss and retreated to the kitchen. Ronald and Molly sat down on a couch, while Mandi took a position in a straight backed chair. Molly self consciously tried to sit up straight and checked to make sure her husband's eyes did not on their guest's prodigious cleavage.
"Now then, let's get straight to it," Mandi began. "My business offers a unique product that is high in demand, but currently has problems with distribution and production. I can manage the distribution part, but I need some help with the production. That's where you come in."
"How could we help with production? We're a dairy farm. We pretty much have the one function," Molly said.
"And that's precisely the function I need. An automated dairy with experienced workers. You see, my business is in breast milk."
