Canberra kept the line

A paddock without a line is just cows in a weather. Canberra does not allow weather. Canberra allows walking, in an order, toward a gate that has not changed since yesterday.

This morning the others had other ideas. Tokyo was already a zigzag. Harare had found a patch that was the same grass with a different opinion. Denver was a boulder with legs. Manila was, as usual, the other side of the fence, which is not where lines go.

Canberra put her head down and started anyway. One cow. Then the space behind her, which is an invitation. London took it. That is how a line begins: not with a speech. With a step that looks like it has always been happening.

The bull arrived to announce the line. He likes announcing things that are already true. Historic lining-up, he said. The best line. Canberra did not look up. Looking up is how a line becomes a meeting.

Spike ran the edges, because the edges were where the scribble was trying to get back in. He headed off Tokyo. He headed off Tokyo again. Tokyo is a full-time job if you let her be.

He tried the stare on Canberra, in case she needed hurrying. She did not. She is the hurry. She is also the opposite of the hurry. She is the walking.

Suzy went to the front. Not to pull. To be the thing the line is for. A kelpie at the gate is a reason to keep the shape. She sat. She watched the paddock. She let Canberra do Canberra.

Moscow drifted wide, because troughs call to her even when they are empty. Spike put himself in the drift until it was not a drift. Nairobi tried to lead from the middle, which is adventurous and also not a line. Suzy did not move. The front stayed the front.

When the bull bellowed, Canberra pretended not to hear, which she learned from watching London, or London learned from watching her. The line took one more step. Then another.

They reached Suzy. Canberra went through first, because she had been first the whole time. London third-from-front became second-through, which she accepted with the dignity of a cow who knows maths is not the point.

The bull said he had straightened them. He had not. He had stood on the crate and been loud near a cow who was already doing the job.

Spike shook the zigzag out of his coat. Suzy waited until the last tail cleared the gate, then looked at Canberra, who was already starting the next line, because the paddock on the other side also needs walking in an order.

Some cows make a fuss. Some cows make a line.