The Good Brother

17

He felt nothing. His mind and body were gone, leaving only the faintest sense of space and time. A light was a speck in the vast darkness. Joe willed himself toward it. The light became bright and turned into a rectangle, its edges shimmering. He strained to see it and as weakness took him, he understood that it was a window holding sunlight within its frame.

Later he became aware of a coolness on his face, of someone near him. His leg hurt. He was thirsty.

Joe’s eyes were open and he was staring at a plaster ceiling that had cracked into a network of fine lines. A bare bulb dangled from a ceramic fixture. It was not the ceiling of the cabin. He shifted his weight and an eruption of pain jolted his leg and he remembered with an exhausting suddenness the events on the side of the mountain.

Through the window and many miles away, the sky held crescents of cloud like spilt ashes. A cow scratched its throat on a fence post and Joe wondered if his leg was still attached to his body. When he leaned forward an unthinkable pain took his breath. Sweat spread a sheen across his face. He lay back panting, his body weak.

A woman blocked light as she entered the room.

“Lay still,” she said. “You got healing up to do yet.”

She tugged the blankets to his chin and blotted the perspiration from his forehead. Her touch was firm, the fingers tight with muscle. She held a glass of water to his lips.

“You’d best not move your leg at all.”

He was silent, watching her face. It was very smooth, with large eyes and thick black hair. She was close to his age. Fatigue settled over him.

The next time he woke, he felt stronger. The room was small, with the lowest ceiling he’d ever seen. The window ran from the floor to the ceiling, and as he looked through the glass, a bull trotted by, its gait as buoyant as that of a deer. A flock of starlings landed among the boughs of a cottonwood. He heard children laughing. Wind moved the high grass like the surface of a lake. His leg ached and he was relieved to see its outline below the blanket.

Joe could recall nothing after the truck ride off the mountain. Something prowled the edges of his mind but he couldn’t capture it. The woman entered the room and he feigned sleep until actual slumber came.

Each time he woke he was stronger and more hungry. On a bedside table were a clock, toothbrush, water pitcher, and glass. Two bedpans sat on the floor and he was embarrassed by the sight. He wondered if he could walk, a thought that drenched him with fear.

The room seemed to belong to a young boy. Rough planks mounted on the wall held the bounty of the woods — skulls of raccoon, fox, bird, and deer. There was a beaver skull bigger than his clasped hands, its incisors the dark gold of feed corn. Beside severed bird claws lay what appeared to be the scalp of a great horned owl and next to that, a roundish skull with huge eye sockets. The walls were festooned with feathers he didn’t recognize. The pelt of a coyote hung beside an enormous wing. A snakeskin was pinned to the window frame.

Beside him the digital clock flicked a minute. He didn’t like such a clock, which seemed to hold time in place. A clock with a face and two hands lent a sense of time’s movement, its immensity, and Joe wondered if he was old-fashioned. Maybe people had felt the same resistance when timepieces became portable enough to carry on their person. He had no idea how many days he’d been in bed.

He woke later to a presence in the room and slowly recognized Ty sitting in a chair. Joe tried to speak but the words emerged slow and garbled as if he were hearing his voice underwater. Sleep overcame him. When he woke again, Ty was gone and the woman was back. She wore boots, a denim workshirt, and heavy wool pants with red suspenders. Against the low ceiling, she seemed very tall.

“You look better,” she said. “Hungry?”

Joe nodded.

“About time.”

She left, the heels of her boots heavy on the slat floor. She closed the door and Joe noticed that it had no interior knob. He stared through the window. Above the ridge was the biggest cloud he’d ever seen. It was like a gunship moored in the sky, its lower half dark gray, its wispy tips a glare of white. The woman returned with a plate of cold meat. His jaw ached from the abrupt salivation but after six bites his appetite was sated and he was tired again. As sleep pulled him, the woman wiped grease from his lips.

When he woke, he heard the sound of children’s voices rising in laughter, turning to tears. The woman was changing the bandage on his leg. It throbbed at her touch. The entry wound was healing into a slight depression, but the other side of his leg was still a mess.

“Not as bad as it looks,” the woman said. “I’ve seen legs worse that a bull walked on.”

“Who are you?” he asked. His voice sounded rusty at the edges, a neglected tool.

“I’m Botree.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Ten days.”

He frowned in surprise.

“You’re on drugs,” she said. “They make you sleep and lose track of time.”

“What kind?”

She plucked a small bottle from one of the shelves. Three more sat beside it.

“Butorphanol,” she read aloud.

“Never heard of it.”

“Knocks a horse out easy.”

“I could have swore I heard kids.”

“You did.”

“Was Ty here?”

She nodded.

“Am I a prisoner?”

“No.”

“Then why’s there no doorknob?”

Botree pointed to a screwdriver on a string that was tied to a nail beside the door.

“That’ll get you out. Been there twenty years.”

“What is this place?”

“My room when I was a girl,” she said. “Like it?”

Joe closed his eyes. His leg stirred him with pain and he swallowed the pills by the table. He didn’t know if weeks or hours had passed when the low voices of men woke him.

“This whole damn setup could cost my license.”

“Nobody knows nothing on it.”

“Johnny talks a blue streak.”

“He won’t.”

“He might brag it up, Owen.”

Joe opened his eyes. Two men stood just outside the door, talking quietly.

“There’s other things to worry on right now,” Owen said.

“Like me getting used as a medic for your games.”

“These aren’t games and you damn well know it.”

“You got your first casualty, a goddam innocent victim.”

“We don’t know anything about him.”

“Took three men to bring down one in the timber.”

“Rodney, we all appreciate you taking care of him.”

“Yeah, and I’ll appreciate you paying off my school loans if I lose my license over treating a man ought to see a real doctor.”

“You’re a real doc.”

“We’re talking about a man might not walk again,” Rodney said. Joe pushed himself up on his elbow.

“I’ll walk,” he said.

The men stepped into the room and Rodney’s gaze calmed the flare of anger that had driven Joe to speak. Owen emptied a sack onto the bedside table. Joe recognized his toothbrush and personal items, including his cash, the gold piece, and the belt balancer Morgan had given him. He wondered about his pistol.

“Got this stuff off Ty Skinner. Travel light, don’t you.”

“I get it,” Joe said. “You shoot a man, take his stuff, and evict him all at once.”

“That’s not how it is.”

“I guess it’d be a whole lot easier if I went ahead and died.”

“I don’t know how easy it’d be,” Owen said. “But things would sure be on the simple side, Rodney here’d sleep better, and I’d get to keep your money.”

Joe began to laugh. The two men joined him, awkwardly at first but relaxing into the shared need for release. Joe realized that laughing with these men was what Boyd would have done.

Rodney sat on a chair beside the bed and lifted the blanket to expose Joe’s leg. Owen left the room. Rodney removed the bandage and cleaned the wounds, his touch gentle, his expression tightly focused. Joe flinched at the rivets of pain that cleared his head and watered his eyes. He stared at the yellowed skull of a deer and repeated in his mind the phrase “Not me, not me.” The pain subsided and he relaxed. Sweat slid into his eyes. He was more fully alert than he had been since the barn.

“Well,” he said to Rodney.

“It’s bad.”

“Tell me all of it.”

“The first bullet lodged against the lower femur near the knee. Your little surgery drove that bullet out pretty good. Problem is, the second bullet fragmented. I picked pieces out all night. You cracked the bone, but that’s pretty much healed already. There’s nerve damage but I don’t know how much. Worse is you nicked the patella and severed the medial collateral ligament,”

“What’s all that add up to?”

“Know how a knee works?”

“No,” Joe said.

“It’s where your leg bones meet. Ligament holds them in place. There’s a big one on top that covers your kneecap, two in between the bones, and two more on the side. You cut the side one in half.”

“What’s a ligament?”

“It’s like a short piece of rubber stapled to the bones. The rubber gives when you walk but it always snaps the bone back in place.”

“So what’s that mean?”

“Bottom part of your leg won’t always stay where it’s supposed to,”

“Because the rubber piece is cut in half,” Joe said.

“You got it,”

“How can I make it stronger?”

“You can’t. You can strengthen the leg and let muscle protect it, but the ligament will always be weak. A sharp pivot and it’ll go out on you.”

“Anything else?”

“Your meniscus is probably tore up, but I can’t tell how bad without X-rays.”

“What’s a meniscus?”

“It separates your bones. Sort of like a rubber gasket. What it does is keep your leg bones from banging against each other when you walk.”

“So now they’ll rub.”

“Not too bad, but yes.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t know,” Rodney said. “The whole knee is a bad design for the weight it has to carry.”

“You mean I got hurt because of a bad design?”

“No. It was the bullets that did the hurting. The way the knee is built is pretty much proof that we used to walk on all fours. Another million years and our knees won’t be so vulnerable.”

“How do you fix it?”

“Used to, a surgeon cut off the extra tissue, trimmed the ends, overlapped them, and sewed the whole rig back together, I don’t know what they do now. Knee surgery is the only branch of medicine where they use power tools. They can restring a knee like a tennis racket.”

“Can you do that?”

“No.”

Joe moved his gaze to the light fixture on the ceiling. He felt something shift within him, a settling of some depth, and he realized that he’d aged. Just as children endured growth spurts, aging happened in short bursts, and he’d moved one step closer to the dull white skulls on the shelves above his head.

“What’s that stuff I’m on?” he said.

“Started you with an opiate-base, then tapered you off into Percodan, now just Darvon.”

“Is that animal dope?”

“The first one was, but it’s the same routine for humans. Begin with morphine, then back you down.”

“I’d like to quit them every one.”

“That’s up to you and the pain. I’ll leave some ibuprofen. You might take the Darvon at night to sleep.”

“Is that the best?”

“No,” Rodney said. “The best painkiller is heroin, but it’s against the law to give it to someone who’s dying, no matter how bad it hurts.”

“Why’s that?”

“The government’s afraid they might get addicted.”

Rodney gathered his tools. He wadded the old dressing and stuffed it into a plastic bag.

“Any more questions?”

“Just one. Why’d Johnny shoot me?”

Rodney stood and Joe noticed straw adhering to the bottom of his jeans. There was an expression of resignation on his face.

“Now you know why I like working with animals,” he said, “They don’t talk.”

After Rodney left, Joe felt better, but he was exhausted. He’d forgotten to ask about walking. He shifted his body and the pain made him gasp. He reached for the Darvon, changed his mind, opened the bottle of ibuprofen, and swallowed four pills. He was furious with himself on every front. He shouldn’t have shot himself. He shouldn’t have buried the possum. He shouldn’t have come to Montana. He closed his eyes. He’d brought it all on himself, and he hated himself for it.

His leg hurt but the fatigue was stronger. As sleep took him he realized that he didn’t blame Johnny, and he wondered why.

He awoke to a different presence in the room and blinked several times to shed the haze of sleep. Sunshine poured through the window, edging everything with a rim of light. Two small boys stood just inside the door, their faces solemn. Joe waited for them to disappear into the light of reality until he understood that they were actual children.

“Hidy,” he said.

“It’s my brother’s birthday,” the older boy said. “He’s three.”

“Happy birthday.” Joe said.

“He gets presents.”

Joe closed his eyes but a shadowed after-image of the boys remained outlined against the glowing light inside his head. He thought of Sara’s children and how he’d failed to tell them good-bye. A sudden sadness pressed him to the bed. His limbs felt heavy and thick. He opened his eyes and regarded the younger boy. His hips were as broad as his shoulders, but he had no neck. His head rested directly on his body as if bolted to his shoulders.

“I have something for you,” Joe said. He held his cupped hands in the air. “It’s just what you need.”

The older boy stepped forward.

“No,” Joe said. “It’s for the birthday boy.”

“What is it?”

“I can only tell him.”

The older boy coaxed the young one closer to the bed. Joe extended his arms and opened his hands in a quick motion toward the boy’s head.

“That was a neck,” Joe said. “Now you have a neck.”

The boy covered his throat with a hand.

“I got a neck,” he said. “For my birthday. A neck.”

“Now get out of here,” Joe said.

The boys ran from the room. Joe’s leg ached. It had been hurting all along but he’d forgotten about it in their presence. A quick anger overwhelmed him and he wondered if he was mad at the boys for returning his pain.

Through the window, the shadow of the roof pointed at the seam of sky along the ridge. Much of Montana was vacant — the land, the streets, the riverbeds. The sky was often bereft of cloud. Perhaps it was natural that he’d stayed here. There was less need to fill the emptiness in him when he was surrounded by an equal amount of empty space. The anger shifted to a profound despair. His leg hurt and he couldn’t walk He wanted to lie in his childhood bed, tended by his mother. At birth his grandmother had given him a stuffed bear that he’d slept with for many years. He missed it as much as all of Kentucky.

He slept. Three times the pain woke him in the night and he ate ibuprofen, determined to wean himself from the heavier medication. In the morning Botree changed the dressing and brought him food. He ate slowly, careful not to spill anything among the sheets. His leg hurt worse than it had in days and he wondered how much time had passed.

She pulled a chair near the bed and smiled for the first time, a breaking of light that was just as swiftly gone.

“A neck,” she said.

“I didn’t mean it to be an insult.”

“It’s already his favorite present. His brother wants one now. A bigger one.”

“Of course.”

As she looked at him, Joe was abruptly embarrassed at his weakened state, his dependence, the nakedness she had seen. He wished he was still taking painkillers.

“How long you all planning on keeping me here?” he said, “What are you anyhow, drug dealers?”

“What,” Botree said. “Who?”

“The whole bunch of you.”

“No. We’re not drag dealers.”

“Well, you’re damn sure something fishy. Shooting a man for no reason, then keeping him knocked out on animal dope.”

“You’re a hair on the fishy side yourself,” she said. “No mailing address. Carrying a pistol. Pew thousand in cash. Burying a stuffed animal.”

“Nothing wrong with any of that.”

“Nothing wrong with going to a hospital, either.”

“My business. What’d Johnny shoot me for, anyhow?”

“I guess that’s his business,” Botree said. “Why’d you shoot your leg?”

“I don’t rightly know.”

“There’s plenty of people out here who’ve killed themselves. But you’re the first dumb enough to try it in the knee.”

“I guess I thought shooting would knock out the bullet that was already in me, like driving two pool balls into a pocket at once. I didn’t think the second bullet would bust up like it did.”

“You didn’t think at all,” Botree said. “About like every man on this land.”

Joe’s anger flared, then faded as quickly as it came. He couldn’t recall ever having been so volatile and wondered if the medication was responsible. The pain in his leg was part of his being and he tried to accept it. Another part of him, deep at cellular level, craved the sweet release of narcotics. Getting mad temporarily alleviated the need.

“Is this your house?” Joe said.

“No. It’s Coop’s.”

“Who all lives here?”

“Me and the kids, and Coop, Owen, and Johnny.”

“So they’re your brothers.”

“I’m in the middle. Owen’s oldest, Johnny’s the baby,”

“He’s not a baby.”

“Johnny doesn’t feel too good about what happened.”

“I don’t either.”

“He wants to come and see you.”

“Why’s that?” Joe said, “To finish the job?”

“Talking to you would make him feel better.”

“I know he’s your brother and all, but how he feels ain’t exactly high on my list right now.”

“What is?”

“Walking,” he said.

Botree rose from the chair. At the door she turned, a grin lurking in the lines of her mouth.

“A neck,” she said, shaking her head. “A neck.”

Joe didn’t want her to leave.

“Your kids?” he said.

“Yes. You have any?”

“No, but I like them. What’s their names?”

“Dallas and Abilene.”

Joe lifted his eyebrows.

“It’s where their fathers are from,” Botree said. “I lived in Texas for a while. Long story.”

“They’re good boys.”

“It’s nice you think so. Their uncles are hard on them, and Coop doesn’t have much use for lads.”

“I never understood people like that.”

“I do,” she said. “People who don’t like kids don’t like people.”

“Yeah, so.”

“And if you don’t like people, you generally don’t like yourself.”

“How about if you like animals?”

“I guess there’s hope,” Botree said.

“My daddy always said animals and kids were a lot alike.”

“That sounds like something a man would say.”

She left the room, easing the door shut, and Joe stared at the ceiling. The dull pain was deep in his leg like the ache of a mountain after the coal was removed. He ate four more ibuprophen. His father had died in a bed at home and Joe decided that tomorrow he would rise.

In the morning he asked Botree to stay after she’d changed the dressing on his leg. The wound was healing gradually, like earth set-ding on a fresh grave. Both legs had withered from disuse. He care-fully pivoted his hips to move his bad leg to the edge of the bed. Bending the knee produced an enormous pain. Breath blew from his mouth in a harsh gust and he squeezed the mattress until his hands hurt. He refused to look at Botree. He sat until his breathing was normal. Slowly he stood on his good leg, using the bed for balance, and prepared for what scared him the most — taking a step.

He tested the weight on his bad leg. It didn’t hurt as much as he’d anticipated. Encouraged, he moved his bad leg forward slightly, one hand placed against the wall. He stared at the six inches he intended to walk. He stepped forward and his bad leg buckled and he fell against the wall. When the pain subsided, he leaned backwards until he found the edge of the bed, and lowered himself to sit. Hours seemed to have passed, but he knew the entire action had taken a few seconds. Sweat trickled down his back.

He began the slow process of lifting his bad leg, leaning backwards, scooting sideways on the bed, and swinging both legs to the mattress. Botree moved to help but he waved her away. He lay on his back panting like an animal.

“You did good,” she said.

He nodded.

“You’ll walk,” she said. “I know you will.”

After she left he took more ibuprofen and slept. When he woke, the pain was worse and the wounds were seeping. He called to Botree, who changed the dressing.

“I hate you having to do this,” he said.

“It doesn’t bother me,”

“I don’t like needing help.”

“Nobody does.”

“Or owing anybody, either.”

“You don’t owe me nothing, mister,” she said. “I’m just paying off people who helped me already.”

From, outside the door came the sound of running feet, and the children raced into the room. They wore small cowboy boots. Dallas spoke while Abilene stared at Joe.

“What’s the difference between a lake and a creek?”

“A creek moves,” Botree said, “and a lake doesn’t.”

“No, Mommy,” Dallas said. “A lake moves. Just real slow. Only people who move slow can see it.”

Joe chuckled and Botree gave him a quick smile.

“I guess I could see it, then,” Joe said, “Nobody moves slower than me.”

Abilene whispered in his brother’s ear, Dallas looked at Joe.

“My brother wants to know if you’re going to die there.”

“Dallas!” Botree said. “That’s no way to talk.”

“It wasn’t me, it was him. He said it.”

“No,” Joe said. “I ain’t dying here. But I was wondering if you can tell me what kind of skulls these are.”

The children remained with him the rest of the afternoon, Dallas identified all the bones and feathers of the room, and labeled the variety of cattle outside his window. Abilene occupied a three-year old’s world that was wholly his. At six, Dallas was twice his brother’s age. They’d never be as far apart as they were now, and Joe tried to explain this to Botree when she brought him a plate of supper.

“Maybe that’s why you got a way with kids,” she said. “How you dunk’s not like most.”

“Most people don’t think.”

“I know, I been around them all my life.”

“Well, maybe I think too much.”

“There’s something you think too much about.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “But it’s there.”

Joe turned away too fast, driving a pain into his leg like a knife between the bones. When he turned back to her, she was looking out the window, allowing him the space to recover. He wondered if that distance was her own style, or the way Montanans were.

The next day she brought him a set of aluminum crutches and accompanied him outside. He felt the strain in his triceps and his wrists. The wing nut for the adjustable handhold caught his pants pocket and ripped the fabric, tumbling him against the wall. He asked Botree for something to cover the wing nut and she brought him a roll of black electrical tape. As he bound the metal, he recalled winding the same material around the barrel of the pistol he’d used on Rodale. It seemed like years ago.

He hobbled down a long narrow hall to a large room, with a fireplace and high ceilings. Beyond it was a kitchen and another long room that contained a table and chairs. The house was the longest Joe had ever been inside, very different from the cramped houses of Kentucky. Botree guided him through a utility room, where a washer and dryer stood beside a freezer, a row of hooks, and a large wash basin. They went outside through a side door. A breeze cooled Joe’s face, the first fresh air he’d felt in weeks. The light burnished the metal roof of an outbuilding, causing him to look away. They circled the house. He took small steps with the crutches, glad for the hardness of the earth. At home, the tips would have sunk deep into the soil.

They slowly climbed the slope to the top of the rise. Botree moved with surprising grace over the rough ground, her boots finding purchase where there appeared to be none. Joe followed on cow trails worn smooth by thousands of hooves. The country was hard, its beauty grim. He crested the hill and looked across a vast green valley specked with cattle. A band of water wound through the bottomland, marked by the rich green of cottonwood trees. Dark clouds dropped lines of rain to the north while sun in the south glared off the river and made the land glow.

Joe leaned on the crutches to rest, his armpits raw.

“What is this place,” he said.

“The Bitterroot Valley.”

“Nice country.”

“That mountain over there was named for my great-great-grandfather, one of the first to homestead here.”

“When was that?”

“Nineteen-twelve. I’m fifth-generation Montana. Not too many of us.”

“Counting your kids, you all go through folks pretty quick.”

“People in my family either die off or ran off.”

“Your dad one of them?”

“He died after Mom run off. Coop was drinking hard. Owen left and I went down to Texas for three years. It wasn’t easy around here for Johnny,”

“Don’t reckon.”

“He’s scared of you,” Botree said. “He thinks you might want to get him back.”

Joe shifted his weight to look her in the face. Her eyes were neither hard nor soft, but regarded him with patience. She gave nothing away.

“I’m not mad at Johnny over it,” he said. “He didn’t know me so it wasn’t anything against me personal.”

She nodded.

“It was a mistake or you all wouldn’t have kept me alive.”

“There’s some who think that was the mistake.”

“Who?”

“Just people.”

“What people?”

Botree adjusted her hat until its brim jutted from her forehead in a straight line. The action served to enclose her in a private space.

Joe backtracked rapidly through events, trying to learn what made him a threat. The only reason they’d want him dead was if he’d stumbled across something valuable. At home that meant coming too close to someone’s whisky still or pot field. Here, the ground was too rocky for marijuana, and liquor was legal everywhere.

“Up there in those woods,” he said. “I got too close to something, didn’t I? What was it, a gold mine? Or maybe you’re a bunch of gun runners. What is it, Botree? I know it’s something because Owen and Frank didn’t want me to go to a hospital.”

She turned her head to gaze across the valley. A rainbow formed beside the mountains as the dark cloud moved south, firing lines of lightning toward the water.

“Don’t getting shot give me a right to know?” Joe said.

“A right?” Botree said. “What do you know about rights? We got ten in the Constitution, and none of them cover somebody else’s business. I wouldn’t get into rights if I were you.”

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Joe said.

“You don’t have to cuss at me.”

“I ain’t,” Joe said. “I’m cussing in general. I never cussed a person in my life. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“You got your secrets, too.”

“There’s a difference.”

“There always is when it comes to someone else.”

“I got shot over your secrets.”

“The fact is, Joe, they ain’t mine to tell.”

“Who, then?”

“Damn near anybody else. Owen, Johnny, Coop. Take your pick.”

“How about Frank?”

“Him, too.”

“Who is he, anyhow? How come he don’t come around?”

“He plays a lone hand.”

“Everybody out here does.”

“It’s the way we are, Joe. That’s what all the old pioneers came out here for. The mountain men first. It’s a way of being free.”

“Free?” Joe was astonished. “Freedom ain’t silence, freedom’s being able to talk. You all don’t say nothing.”

“It’s not either one,” Botree said. “It’s just doing what you want to do and not hurting nobody,”

“Well, I sure got hurt.”

“I know it. We all know it. That’s why we took you in.”

“Hell’s fire, the way you talk, I ain’t no more than a stray dog.”

Botree smiled briefly.

“In that case,” she said, “it’s a good thing I like animals.”

Joe stretched on his back. Sun followed the rain cloud along the valley, peeling shadows from the mountaintops as if lifting dark scalps. His face warmed. A hovering hawk was a smudge in the sky. His leg throbbed from the climb, but it was the pain of exertion rather than damage.

He picked pebbles from the rubber tread of each crutch, thinking that the crutch had not progressed in a hundred years. Someone could make a lot of money with a new design. He remembered Boyd’s ideas for inventions — a razor with a narrow blade for men with acne; hand tools with a retractable cord that fastened to your clothes. His greatest idea was a tire-changing tool that used the car engine to remove lug nuts.

Joe pulled his good leg beneath him and rose unsteadily, using the crutches to push himself upright. Botree didn’t offer any help. She showed neither pity nor sadness for him, only a kind of dispassionate concern, similar to how he’d felt about Rodale’s dog. He looked at her narrow back curved inside the man’s wool jacket. Her hair flowed over the collar. She was lovely.

“Botree.”

His voice was gentle and she turned to him. Her dark eyes were soft, her lips slightly parted. He wanted to say more but couldn’t. He felt like a child. He craved her touch, her smell. He turned and began his tedious descent.

Last year’s dead grass swayed above the fresh green tufts. Pasture fence surrounded the house while pronghorn grazed with the cattle on the upper slopes. Botree’s children waited at the bottom of the hill. Abilene was eating a spider in a casual fashion, as if raised to it. His brother watched without judgment.

“When we’re all dead,” Dallas said to Joe, “will there be dinosaurs?”

“Yes,” Joe said.

Dallas nodded slowly, as if the expected confirmation lent credence to a grand theory. Joe waited for him to continue, but the boy was distracted by the glitter of a button on the ground. Joe leaned against the fence. Botree joined him. Sunshine glowed through dandelions gone to seed.

Joe felt a contentment the likes of which he’d not experienced in nearly a year. He no longer missed Boyd and he didn’t feel homesick. What he missed was Virgil. He felt like a man who’d abandoned his religion without having found a replacement. The laughter of the children drifted in the still air. He glanced at Botree and away. The sky was a plank of blue between the far peaks.