Allie Liu | Sacrifices to Be Made Fiction

SACRIFICES

to be MADE Allie Liu

It’s just about dinner time when they first notice it. Bill rocks slowly in the old rocking chair, his balding head resting on an open palm, a few wisps of white hair poking through his fingers, his eyes firmly shut. Nina was the first of his grandchildren to walk up to his sleeping figure and take a closer look. The faded scar trailed down his arm crookedly, its ridges the ghost of past stitches that held the two halves of the skin of his arm together. The other children soon crowd around to examine the healed cleft. To his teenage grandkids, the scar only adds to his image of perpetual clumsiness, and they all murmur in concern that they had never noticed this particular scar before. Bill awakened abruptly. The children’s crowding interrupted the gentle rocking of his chair, and he looked annoyed, his hand rubbing the rift between his scrunched, bushy eyebrows. “Now what is all this commotion? None of you were all too excited when I was gracing you with the tales of my youth before lunch, so I was just sitting here, all by my lonesome, taking a nap.” “Grandad, what’s that scar you’ve got there, huh?” one of the smaller kids interrupted, launching all of them into a volley of questions. “I’ll have you all know that the stories I told you before lunch were not the only tales I have to tell. If you would listen to this next one, then maybe you’d actually understand me more than you do now.” The group prepared to listen carefully, but they knew he usually only told stories where he cast himself as the unrealistic hero. “Now then, settle down and gather ‘round children. I believe you young’uns are ready to hear this tale, blood an’ all,” Bill trilled in an extremely affected Southern accent, getting into character. “Imagine the heat. Scorching Texas plains, cacti and dust for miles all around. I was thirty-four years old and a seasoned cowboy, just doin’ my job.”

Wind swirled the dusty ground into small tornadoes that blew around the cowboy’s face. He wiped at the dirt smeared on his sunburnt face and stared at the lone longhorn standing stock-still against the sienna landscape. It was the biggest longhorn Billy had ever seen, and he was almost sad he was the one who saw it first. Killing longhorns was not usually part of a cowboy’s job, but the cow boss told him and the others that this one was especially wild. It had already escaped from the regular herd and sometimes came back and destroyed the boss’s property, often wounding the other cattle in the process. Boss had offered a sizable bounty for its head. “First come, first served,” he whispered to himself. “I just can’t think about it too much. I’ve got a family to feed.” His horse shifted onto its front hooves as he sat looking at the longhorn. The animal seemed anxious, but he disregarded it and tapped the horse’s side with a spur. After all, it was the Depression and his family needed food. He moved towards the bull, but it didn’t run or fight. “Maybe it’s the wrong longhorn. It seems awfully docile for a creature that’s supposed to be wild and vicious,” he