13
GABRIELA
Animals talk.
But not everyone knows how to listen.
After breakfast I asked to accompany the ranch hands while they fed the livestock, and Carlos insisted on accompanying me to the barn. He stood protectively by, unsheathing his claws at any male who so much as smiled or said “good morning” to me.
Vida, the goat, bleated a warning while standing on the tin roof of her short house out in the pen. She shook her head, and her floppy ears swung like helicopter blades.
My scalp tingled, and I leaned towards Vida to listen intently, “She’s saying hello to something out there, and it’s no forest animal.” I said to Carlos.
“How do you know that?” He asked.
“I spent plenty of time with goats whenever we went back to Mexico during my childhood, and this one is uneasy. Something,
