 WF House presents an unabridged recording of Pity the Beast by Robin McLean, narrated by Dion Graham. For Cindy to keep a promise, for Marsh who stayed behind, for Margaret always, and treat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also. If anything but death parts you and me. Ruth, Chapter 1, Verses 16 and 17. Perturon. Once, here on this high plain, there were only horse, bear, rhino. No words to put to things, no call to put them. But today, Jenny and Dan in the barn, and words like this. You fuck me over, you fucking fuck me over. And Jenny, behind the heaving mare, said, Her waters broke, I broke it. He was fucking her while you were fucking him and thereby fucking me over, said Dan. Now that foal was too big for her. She swatted flies, her hat was filthy from mucking, her coveralls were unzipped to her waist, one arm hung free, folded to the knee, the other was stuffed inside itself. Her flannel shirt was rolled up her elbow. The dust filled the doorway like the bees and flies. That foal will turn her inside out, Dan said. That foal will bust her. No one knows how things go. How they go, how they go, he said. Look at her belly. He spittin', stirred the dirt with his boot. Behold the suffering of an innocent creature. Jenny spat, too. Behold, she said, and how got things to do? Out at dawn, Jenny was in the barn as midwife. Dan saw to the cows. Most of the herd already speckled the south field to the east, burned two weeks back and quickly regrained. The cows ate the grass. Dan was a punctual rancher. He'd slapped them through the gate with his stick, one black one. Sample complete. Ready to continue?