Photo by Erwin Bosman on Unsplash
Spring 2030
“You heard the mayor, time for the cows,” I say to the rest of the crew chiefs. “Normal rotation. Emily, your turn to round up the stragglers; Jeremy, your teams brings them in; Richardo, direct them to the chutes.” No one liked that one in the spring, when the babes don’t want to be separated from their mothers during the milking. Everything needs to be retrained. “I got the milking, and people as they become available help the apprentices to match up the momma and calves for their overnight stalls. We put our minds to it, we might beat sunset.”
“Sure thing, Boss.” Mary says, smiling down from the pickup truck. Her crew’s job remains the same every night: last-minute checking the stalls to make sure everything was mucked out and reset during the day, verifying all the gates were closed and locked, counting the stock, measuring the milk, assembling numbers and plans. Better her than me.
Alledria balances the toddler she had held through the trial over one shoulder. “I’ll get this one back to his mother and then get the youths ready.” She calls over to where the teenage runners are hanging out. “Yazzie, get the cow crew together.”
No eyes are rolled. The runners quickly split up the task of wrangling the community’s teenagers and disperse. They might not want to bring the cows home anymore than we adults do, but milk, cheese, and steak stays on the menu if we do the work. If not, we all go hungry. The months between the canned food becoming rationed and the harvest coming in may be two years ago, but it is only two years ago. Everyone’s waistbands have been taken in several notches.
The herd is still being bred up to the numbers needed to sustain our community. The Farmer had ten head of cattle he and the homesteaders split for meat and fresh milk when this all began; to serve two hundred, we figure we needed about fifty all told between milk cows, breeding bulls, and meat cattle each year. This year we are in spitting distance of the magic number and may be able to get enough meat between the cows, pigs, and chickens to chub some of the little cheeks. Killing only one real onery bull that first winter had been hard, but we needed every last one of them for breeding or genetic diversity.
Now we needed to pull in the twenty-nine adults and twenty spring calves from where they were eating the winter stalks to the ground and dumping their poop to renew the soil. Emily’s crew walks out with lassos slung over shoulders. Two of Jeremy’s crew grab the lashes and prods. I don’t know what our community would have done without Lucy’s encyclopedia knowledge of all things textiles. How she knew to twist a rope malleable enough for lasso work is miraculous. And having Easton knowing all things knots and whips saved more than one life, cow and human.
I hate drawing milk duty, but it rotates between the four groups during the morning and evening milkings. My group gets every-other night milking. Let me run around anytime chasing the stragglers over hill and dale any day. As one of Ricardo’s team bring me my first cow and I situate the bucket so the bovine won’t knock it over just to fuck with me, I remember all the gorgeous equipment I used back in the day of the grid. I would pull this tube or that when washing cars.
I know car washing isn’t the best job in the world, but it was outdoors and energetic. I hadn’t lasted two months in college after a summer of Texas heat and car washes. Eighteen and a diploma in my pocket did not match up with being locked in a room with books for another four years.
I pull one nipple and another, setting up the sushing sound of milking. Around me, the rest of my crew is doing the same. Sitting isn’t bad after a full day of preparing fields for planting.
Hooking up the udder to a machine would be faster, if we had electric. Using a tractor would be easier to prepare a field, if we had gas.
In another hour we will be done, and then we will have the flogging. What will happen? We’ve never done corporal punishment before. Not to this extent.
I get why the Triple Tribunal went with it. Giovanni might have pronounced the sentence as a man on a man, but they all had agreed to it. I wondered how that discussion went.
Had castration come up? Maybe. Kicking him out of the community. Likely. But for someone who would have been legal soon, and losing a strong man? Still a line had to be drawn somewhere. Before the grid went down, people had been talking about moving the legal marriage back down to what it was before instead of 18 in a lot of the states. And in Texas that historically was whatever you could bribe a judge to sign off on, as low as age 12.
A line had to be done somewhere, and it had to be firm.
I don’t want that job. Figuring out all the law stuff. Keeping the community safe. Why did I keep getting in positions where I got to lead? I am a car wash guy.
Pressing against the udder I get a little more out. One of the teens had traded out my bucket during the milking.
My cow is led away and I get another. Twenty milk cows and I get to do three of them with my ten of six. Maybe four, but I am not the fastest of my crew so likely only three. Officially, each work crew team had ten adults assigned to them, but things happen. No one is ever fully staffed. One of my women is very pregnant; she had managed three hours in the field today only by laying down every twenty minutes. Another one is nursing which took up much more time than I ever knew. One of my men has a broken leg and is working with the toddlers back in the development, and may be transferring over to Alledria’s group permanently as he really is enjoying the littles. Dallas is guarding Nick.
When the final cow is led away and Mary’s group tell us the milk numbers, nearly forty gallons, which isn’t bad when the cows are still heavily nursing. Half already is in caldrons with the Chef crew to simmer overnight for cheese-making. The other half will go into the children during dinner with the adults getting the buttermilk from this morning’s buttermaking leftovers. All our stores are still low from winter, but for the first year since this began we had leftovers at the end of winter without harsh rationing.
Emily and Jeremy’s group had been sucked away at some point to set up the punishment viewing area. The punishment is on behalf of the community, the community must watch. In this case, since it is officially men policing men, the women and children can stay away. When I report to behind the barn, out of view of the shanty town and community dining, chairs are set up for those who cannot stand long and I make my way over to the crew chief area next to the area for the Triple Tribunal. The two of the three elder women are there; Miss Camilla isn’t there. Also, I guess in solidarity or other political reason, one of the eldest men and the emeritus-mayor are missing. One each of the big wigs to stay with the women and children eating dinner, and the rest here.
Easton comes riding up on one of the mountain bikes, exhausted. Jermey and I go over immediately to help him. He is panting hard. “Sorry. I’m not late, am I?”
“No. You okay?” I ask.
Grace, the present mayor, strides toward us as we work our way to the pole someone had set up in the center of the area, their long legs eating the distance.
The man pulled in several gulps of air. “I had to run home to get a flogger. Whips are well and good for making noise, but if you are going to hit human skin, something safer is needed.”
He has a flogger, which is different from a whip. I try to keep my face neutral. I know he has several whips; he has shown them off to the kids, explaining the traditional purpose of each and how they are different, and then let Lucy’s crew borrow the lot to help them figure out how to make appropriate whips for moving the cattle around. Horses would be better to nudge the monsters, but Farmer McConnel didn’t have any horses when this all went down. Of course, he would have more tools. I don’t know when this mild-manner guy will stop surprising me.
No wonder he was exhausted. Our shanty town on the Farm is nearly two miles by bike route from the housing development. During planning and harvest, it is just easier to stay in our tents here than make the trek home each night, when it is all hands on deck for field work. Only the toddlers, ages two through five, stay back in the development, with the elders and disabled who can’t handle months sleeping on the ground. During the summer, the work crews rotate in and out. One going out per day and one arriving back. Two days at home, two days in the field. The crafters stay in the development during summer, staying under the cooler trees.
The mayor arrives. I always forget how tall they are. I am the second tallest male in the community at six foot three, and Grace looks me even in the eye. The next tallest person is Amelia’s husband at six foot and her just an inch shorter. The five of us, John, me, Grace, Noah, and Amelia get asked to reach for things a lot during the winter when everyone is on top of each other and things need to be out of reach of climbing children.
“Good, you are here.” Grace looks Easton up and down, their face softening. “Thank you.” They move the mayor stick from one hand to the other. “If you… You don’t need to be the one to do this. You have taught all of us how to do a whipping.” They clear their throat, while dropping their eyes to the ground. “I don’t want you do lose your pleasure in this activity.”
“Oh, um. Thanks?” Easton becomes equally uncomfortable. He rubs the flannel of his overshirt. “But none of you have practiced on humans before. The skin is much thinner than cows. If this,” he inhaled deeply and exhaled, “punishment is going to be used going forward, I’m going to need at least three people to train in the technique.”
“Just remember it is to cause pain.” The mayor’s voice carried no compromise. “Everyone here needs to remember this.”
“Don’t worry.” Easton’s eyes darkened. “My people have very strong opinions about childhood SA. He will need the medical attention when this is over, and it will not be aftercare.”
“Okay, I will figure out what three people it will be.”
“I’ll do it.” I say. No one should have to do it, but if someone does, I rather it not be someone who will need to hold a child after it was done. More than half the community adults were parents at this point.
“Me too,” says Jeremy.
“No, not you.” Grace shakes their head down at my shenanigans partner as his mouth opens to protest. “You don’t have the touch needed, and you are the strongest person in the community. We need you as muscle, not executioner too.”
“But Pat’s okay?” he growled.
“Are you allowed to milk the cows?” Grace countered.
Jeremy’s well-tanned face fell. “No, I pull too hard.”
“Then I think you have your answer.”
Since we had arrived at the center, Jeremy and I break off to go to the crew chief area.
“You get to have all the fun,” his voice held playful accusation.
“If you think this will be fun, you need therapy.”
“At this point, we all need therapy.”
“Don’t we all?” agrees Emily as we come up join our group. “What is it for this time?”
“This.” I say waving around.
“Yeah,” came several grim replies.
“Not to be the one, but as the Boss of the moment, I got to be the one. Ladies … Emily, Mary, Alledria … you do not need to be here for this. Go, get your dinner. Rest.”
“And leave my guys here?” Emily retorted.
Alledria shook her head. “The male apprentices are here as is Belle, being the one learning the impact of her actions. I need to be here for them. Plus, you know, the men of my crew.”
Their responses are exactly as I expected. “Mary?” I ask, not knowing what would be going on in that special head of hers.
“Do I want to be here, no.” She take a step toward me and looks up at me with her dark brown eyes. “Do I need to be here, yes. Community and citizenship.” Her lips turn up in a half smile. “But I might hide behind you if it gets too much.”
It does get too much for her, and she buries herself into my back. Belle wails on her knees between the two matriarchs. Easton only was able to do four flogs before Grace has to take over. He collapses where Patrick (the shorter) and Dallas wait with the first aiders, tears streaming down his face. The mayor must have watched him closely for those four flogs; the next five are precision executed. My hands twitch as I memorize what hopefully will never be needed again; I expect I will have nightmares in the months to come, practicing the movements in my sleep. The elected leader’s face is granite.
“Satisfied?” they ask the two elderly men, in a tone I’ve never heard from the friendly community leader. They had worked the food line, dragging pots and pans among the community, distributing food before being elected. This voice is not their voice.
Death and determination grounding down stone to find hate instead of mercy among the rubble.
I ache for them.
Giovanni Russo and Michael Dylan nod. “Thank you,” they say, slightly out of time with each other.
“Guards,” Grace nods at the waiting men and woman. “Medical.”
Nick had laughed when brought out and made several rude comments to his young lover while being tied up, promising to do the same with her later. He whimpered as they cut him down.
None of the community witnesses ate much at dinner that night. Chef and his crew understood better than any of us how we would react, but then they had to butcher our meat animals nearly daily. They had made half rations for the meal that night. They then went on to guilt us to swallowing down the soup and bread so we would be able to work the next day.
Afterward, Miguel and his crew did their best to distract us by having children recite some of the poetry they were learning in school. Even children stumbling over trees taking both roads produced few chuckles that night. The wives dealt with a lot of sobbing husbands and sons during the dark hours.
I relieve one of the Chef’s crew stirring the milk down to increase the evaporation sometime after midnight. Jeremy joins me, beating fibers for basketmakers to work with in the morning, saving them time. We will be needing the baskets to transfer seed to the fields in a couple days. Mary pulls over a nearby stool and works a butter churner. Moving quietly in the darkness, Grace and Alledria go from tent to shanty to mound of blankets, visiting with the children, the adult apprentices, who had been behind the barn with us.
“Is this better?” Mary whispers just loudly enough for Jeremy and I to hear.
“Huh?” I respond.
“Is this trauma less than the darkness of just letting it slide, I wonder.” She knocks the churner on the side a little to loosen the forming butter. “Is it better than the…alternative.”
“Yes.” Jeremy says. “If it keeps one child safe, every adult here can just suck it up.”
“That is not how community should work. It should be keeping everyone safe.”
I smile sadly at her and Jeremy. “I wish that was always possible.” My voice wobbles as it carries over the coals.
“Yeah.” Mary is silent a moment, and then says, “let’s play This or That. Pat, you first.”
I wince as her autism takes her down a social path not normally acceptable, but she isn’t wrong either. We need the distraction. “Okay, Blue or Red.”
“Simple, but I want blue today. Like the sky.”
Jeremy pulls apart the fibers from the soft tree stem. “Red, like the coals of the fire here. Fire or Water?”
“After this face of steam, I’ll take cool water.” I continue to stir the milk. Can’t let it scald, burned flavored cheese is unpleasant.
“Me too. I would love to fill the pool in our backyard and float in it this summer.” Mary sighs at the memory from before times. The community converted her family’s pool into a cistern the first summer to keep water all year in the development. “Speed of light or slow summer day?”
(words 2,944; first published 11/15/2026)
Three-Prong Woodlands Series
- A Young Man’s Fancy (11/08/2026) – Spring 2030
- Nine Flogs (11/15/2026) – Spring 2030
- Gridless (11/1/2026) – Fall 2030
- Divorce Divisions (11/22/2026) – Winter 2030
- Grace Drops By (11/29/2026) – Spring 2031
- Election Day (12/06/2026) – Summer 2031
- By the River (12/13/2026) – Spring 2032.