One Door From Heaven

hay wagon also offers T-shirts bearing strange messages. NEARY RANCH, one declares, STARPORT USA. Another shirt features the picture of a cow and the words CLARA, FIRST COW IN SPACE. Yet another states WE ARE NOT ALONE - NEARY RANCH. And a fourth insists THE DAY DRAWS NEAR and also features the name of the ranch.
        Curtis is interested in Clara. Although he's familiar with the entire history of NASA and with the space program of the former Soviet Union, he's unaware of any attempt to place a cow in orbit or to send one to the moon. No other country possesses the capability to orbit a cow and to bring it back alive. Furthermore, the purpose of sending a bovine astronaut into space completely eludes the boy.
        A book is displayed for sale beside the T-shirts: Night on the Neary Ranch: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. From the title and the cover illustration-a flying saucer hovering over a farmhouse-Curtis begins to understand that the Neary Ranch is the origin of a modern folk tale similar to those told about Roswell, New Mexico.
        Intrigued but still concerned about the suicidal types that are at least a portion of this gathering, he again trusts Old Yeller's judgment. She smells no prospect of exploding heads, and she's eager to sniff her way through the fragrant throng.
        Boy and dog enter the meadow without being challenged at the open gate. Evidently they are thought to be with attendees who rented a space and legitimately established camp.
        In a holiday mood, carrying drinks, eating homemade cookies, lightly dressed for the heat, people stroll the close-cropped grass in the aisles between campsites, making new friends, greeting old acquaintances. Others gather in the shade under the awnings, playing cards and board games, listening to radios-and talking, talking.
        Everywhere, people are engaged in conversation, some quiet and earnest, others noisy and enthusiastic. From the scraps that Curtis hears as he and Old Yeller amble through the field, he concludes that all these folks are UFO buffs. They gather here twice a year, around the dates of two famous saucer visitations, but this assemblage is related to some new and recent event that has excited them.
        The campsites are organized like spokes on a wheel, and at the hub is a perfectly circular patch of bare earth about twelve feet in diameter. The meadow grows all around this circle, but the earth within is chalky and hard-packed, not softened by so much as a single weed or blade of grass.
        A tall, thickset man, about sixty years of age, stands in the center of this barren plot. Wearing bushman’s boots with rolled white socks, khaki shorts that expose knees as rough and hairy as coconuts, and a short-sleeve khaki shirt with epaulets, he looks as though he will soon embark on an expedition to Africa, to search for the fabled elephants' graveyard.
        Eighteen or twenty people have gathered around this man. All appear reluctant to venture into the dead zone where he stands.
        As Curtis joins the group, one of the new arrivals explains to another: "That's old man Neary himself. He's been up."
        Mr. Neary is talking about Clara, the first cow in space. "She was a good cow, old Clara. She produced a tanker truck of milk with low butterfat content, and she never caused no trouble."
        The concept of troublemaking cows is a new one for Curtis, but he resists the urge to ask what offenses cows are likely to commit when they're not as amiable as Clara. His mother always said that you'd never learn anything if you couldn't listen; and Curtis is always in the mood to learn.
        "Holsteins as a breed are a stupid bunch," says Mr. Neary. "That is my opinion. Some would argue Holsteins are as smart as Jerseys or Herefords. Frankly, anyone who'd take that position just don't know his cows."
        "Alderneys and Galloways are the smartest breeds," says one of those gathered around the dead zone.
        "We could stand here all day arguin' cow smartness," says Mr. Neary, "and be no closer to Heaven. Anyway, my Clara wasn't your typical Holstein, in that she was smart. Not smart like you or me, probably not even as smart as that dog there"-he points at Old Yeller-"but she was the one always led the others from barn to pasture in the mornin' and back at the end of the day."
        "Lincolnshire reds are smart cows," says a stocky, pipe-smoking woman whose hair is tied in twin