Bargaining with Beasts

Why four tons of tallow-oxen had decided to stop fighting the mud was the sort of question Neeltje Houthuis preferred not to ask on an empty stomach.

Usually the drive from the lower holding alleys to the grease-rendering vats cost her half a gallon of sweat, two split knuckles, and at least three bruised ribs from an errant horn. The beasts were broad-skulled, thick-necked creatures bred for fat rather than speed, their tallow-heavy hides greasy to the touch and their tempers sour as stale mash. A sensible herder never stood directly in front of the gate latch. She kept a stout ash-wood crook tucked under her arm, a handful of dried beet skins rattling in her apron pocket, and her boots planted wide in the slurry.

"Move your hams, Klaas," Neeltje said, tapping the flat of her crook against the hip of the lead steer. "We have six barrels of render due at the third kiln before noon, and I am not taking the docking from Henk's ledger because you fancy a nap in the drain."

The steer did not balk. He did not blow hot mucus through his nostrils, nor did he drop his shoulder into the mud-brick post as he had done every morning since the autumn shearing.

Instead, the animal rose in a single, fluid motion. His hooves found the centerline of the ramp with surgical neatness. Behind him, the remaining five steers stood without a single command, their heavy wet flanks falling into an exact, single-file spacing of five paces apart. Not an ear twitched. Not a tail swatted at the flies congregating over the grease-gutters.

Neeltje stepped back onto the dry stone apron of the retaining wall, her brow furrowing under her greasy wool cap. A tallow-ox did not walk in straight lines. Left to their own devices, they milled, they leaned against the timber fencing until the cedar groaned, and they shouldered each other into the drainage ditches out of sheer, bovine spite.

"Klaas?" she called, clicking her tongue against her back teeth.

The six beasts moved together. Their hooves struck the packed clay of the terrace in an unhurried, synchronized cadence—clop, clop, clop—echoing against the curved brickwork with the precision of a water clock. The lead steer did not turn left toward the rendering chutes, where the steam kettles bubbled and the copper kettles waited for their morning tallow. He turned right, taking the descending brick incline that led down into the heat-vent galleries of the Lower Third Kiln.

Neeltje ran along the outer catwalk, her heavy wooden pattens clattering on the rungs. "Whoa, you thick-skulled tallow tub! Left turn! The vats are behind you!"

She swung her crook over the timber railing, planting the hooked head against Klaas's snout to turn his neck. The wood bit into the thick gristle of his nose. By every law of livestock handling, the steer should have tossed his head, pinned her crook against the mud wall, and bellowed until the stone shook.

The steer simply leaned into the ash-wood hook with serene indifference. He did not quicken his stride, nor did he flinch. His neck remained perfectly rigid, dragging the stout ash staff along the rough brickwork as though Neeltje were no heavier than a horsefly. His eyes, usually clouded with dull yellow cataracts and perpetual animal irritation, were clear and fixed upon the heat shimmers rising from the lower kiln intake flues.

A strange vibration ran up the length of the ash wood into Neeltje's wrists—not the erratic muscle tremor of a balking beast, but a faint, rhythmic thrum, humming through the gristle of his jaw at the exact pitch of the distant Great Bell.

Down in the flue trench, the air was shimmering white with draft heat. If the herd entered the lower gallery at this pace, six steers would walk straight off the unloading lip into the molten slag collection channel before the furnace men could drop the iron grates.

"Stubborn brute," Neeltje muttered through clenched teeth. She let go of the crook before the steer's momentum pulled her over the parapet.

She reached into her vest pocket and pulled out her herding whistle—a notched shinbone split down the center with a copper wire loop. When blown clean, it produced a piercing double-tone that could cut through a winter gale.

She raised the bone to her lips and blew.

A clear, sweet note echoed across the mud-brick terrace. The six oxen did not slow. The sound seemed to settle across their broad grey backs like grease on water, causing their rhythmic stride to lock into an even tighter cadence. Their pace quickened, hooves drumming the terrace road with martial precision.

Neeltje spat on the cobbles. "Of course. You like the tune."

She caught up with the lead steer at the narrowing bend of the kiln gallery, where the terrace path dropped steeply toward the intake arches. She planted herself on a stone block, drew a deep breath, and jammed her thumb into the whistle's side-notch, deliberately fracturing the airflow.

She blew with all the force in her lungs.

A wretched, screeching dissonance tore through the alley—a harsh, spitting shriek like wet tallow dropped into a white-hot crucible, ragged and devoid of pitch. At the same instant, she began stomping her iron-shod wooden heels into the flagstones, hammering out an erratic, broken syncopation that defied every cadence in the fortress.

The lead steer stumbled instantly. His left knee buckled, scraping across the gravel as if an invisible harness had snapped. The five oxen behind him collided in a sudden, clumsy tangle of horns and steaming flanks, snorting in bewilderment as the smooth geometry of their march shattered into messy animal chaos.

Klaas shook his head violently, blowing thick ropes of grey snot across Neeltje's leggings. He rolled his eyes, took a lumbering step backward, and let out a furious, indignant bellow that bounced pleasantly off the mud-brick walls.

"There you are, you miserable lump," Neeltje said, catching the loose crook from the dirt and smacking the steer squarely on the rump. "Get your fat tail back up the slope."

Grumbling and jostling with their usual stubborn malice, the oxen turned about, crowding into the narrow lane that climbed toward the rendering vats. Neeltje stayed on their heels, rapping horns and flanks with the ash staff whenever a steer slowed to eye the lower flues.

At the threshold of the tallow pens, she dropped the heavy cedar bar into place behind them. The herd settled into the straw, grunting and nudging the feed troughs with dull, familiar hunger.

Neeltje wiped the sweat from her eyes with the sleeve of her grease-stained tunic. She rested her forearm against the top rail of the pen, catching her breath in the warm, mutton-fat air.

Inside the pen, Klaas did not bury his nose in the mash. The old steer stood upright against the inner palisade, his massive head turned toward the distant, smoking crown of the Great Bell's tower. His dark muzzle was parted, lips pulled back in a loose, untroubled curve that looked monstrously like a peaceful human smile.