If you were just driving through this small rural town and were not observant you might have missed the exchange. To any non-local, translation: city folk, with a vivid imagination though, you might have deduced that some sort of illicit trade was being made. For the last approximately fifteen minutes, a man had been sitting in his white, Chevy pick-up, parked at the local convenience store obviously waiting on someone. As he sat there he would mess with his phone and would occasionally look down the road as if expecting someone to appear.

Finally a newer model, black, extended cab pick-up rolled into the parking lot. It was pulling a rusty looking older model cattle trailer. In the back of the trailer was what appeared to be a rather large, woolly haired Black Angus heifer that was looking around rather confused as to why it was being hauled cross country in such a manner. A little less than an hour ago it had been lazily munching grass and hay on a farm in the southern part of the county.

The two men exited their respective trucks and exchanged pleasantries. The driver of the black truck climbed into the white truck and drove off. Before driving off with the black truck, with the trailer and cow in tow, The Man did a walk around the trailer, He was inspecting his prize. He and a friend of his had agreed to purchase this beef cow off of the man’s brother to have it butchered. Their freezers were running low on fresh meat and needed to be replenished.

As The Man stared into the eyes of the large, fluffy haired black Angus, it was with mixed emotions. This Black Angus heifer was destined to provide many a main courses on his and another families dinner table. Little did it know what fate awaited it.

The Man stared at the cow and thought of how beautiful of a creature it was and how it had been created by God for a purpose. This creature with its big, round, dark eyes stared back at him with an innocence that had no inkling of what was about to happen to it in a few hours. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not conjure up any feelings of empathy for this animal. All he could think of when looking into it’s eyes was how good those steaks and hamburgers were going taste as they came off his grill……………..