The vet’s verdict was that it was a harmless habit, like a person who taps their pen or paces when they think. But Bill wasn’t satisfied. The “habit” was too intense. It felt less like a quirk and more like a vigil.
The seasons bled into one another. A rainy autumn turned into a brutal Kentucky winter, but Bessie didn’t change. Even when the wind chill dropped below zero, she would trudge through the snow to stand by that well. When Bill tried to keep her in the warm barn, she would pace and bellow until he let her out. She would rather freeze by the well than be comfortable in her stall.
Watching her plow a path through waist-deep snow just to stand by a hole in the ground finally got to Mary. She asked Bill if there was something actually *down* there. She brought up stories of dogs sensing earthquakes or cats leaving a house hours before a fire. She wondered if Bessie was sensing a danger they couldn’t see.
That conversation was the turning point. Bill decided that with the first thaw of spring, he was going down. He gathered a heavy-duty climbing rope and a high-lumen tactical flashlight. He started by lowering the light on a string, deep into the shaft.
When the beam hit the bottom, about fifty feet down, he saw the same thing he’d seen years ago: a few inches of dark water. It wasn’t deep enough to explain a cow’s thirst. The walls were covered in slick moss and grime. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. But as he pulled the flashlight back up, a faint, strange odor hit his nose.
It was a sharp, acrid smell—something familiar, but out of place on a farm. Mary worried it might be a gas leak from an old natural pocket. Bill didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t smell like any swamp gas he’d ever encountered. It smelled… industrial.
They decided to go to the county records office to see if there were any old mining maps or utility lines they didn’t know about. They met with a clerk named Miller, a man who looked like he hadn’t enjoyed a day of work in twenty years. Miller listened to the story about the cow and the smell and simply shrugged.
He told them the county didn’t have “cow psychologists” on staff and that the land was private, so whatever was in the well was Bill’s problem. Bill asked about old mineral rights or abandoned pipes. The clerk shut him down, saying the records were incomplete and it wasn’t the government’s job to inspect old farm wells. It was clear the bureaucrat thought they were just bored seniors looking for attention.
When Mary asked what they should do next, the clerk suggested calling a private environmental firm—at a cost of thousands of dollars. Leaving the office empty-handed, Bill made a decision. He wasn’t going to pay a firm to tell him what he could find out himself. He was going down into the dark. He spent the next few days prepping, his mind filled with a mix of dread and determination.
He found his old heavy-duty tow rope and checked every inch for frays. He bought a new headlamp and backup batteries. For safety, he called his oldest friend, Jim, a retired mechanic who lived three miles down the road. They had been friends since grade school, served in the same National Guard unit, and trusted each other with their lives.
