Travis stood over the open grill on the slab behind the house with the grate pulled off and leaned against the leg of the patio table. He worked the wire brush across the bars in short hard passes, both hands on it, his shoulder driving it, and the gray came off in flakes and went down onto the concrete around his boots. Some of it caught in the crack that ran out from under the grill toward the fence.
The slab still held heat; pushed it up through the soles of his boots and into the backs of his knees. Along the top of the cedar fence the light lay flat and long, running the length of the boards and putting the shadow of the fence out across the yard and up onto the back wall of the house. The wind came over from the patch with the sulfur in it and moved through the slats.
The back door slid open on its track. Erika came out with a dish towel in her hand, crossed the slab in her flip flops with the rubber slapping her heels and stopped at the corner of the grill, folding her arms over her chest.
"That coach from West Texas A&M came by here looking for you."
Travis kept the brush moving.
She tipped her head to the side to catch his face under the brim of his cap, her eyes going along with his hands.
"Said he been calling you for two weeks and you ain't been picking up."
Travis knocked the brush against the lip of the grill twice, the flakes coming off the bristles and dropping.
"’Cause it ain’t nothing to talk about."
"Then call that man and tell him that."
He set the brush on the table and picked up the rag beside it, wrapped it around two fingers and reached down into the burner box, dragging it along the bottom from one end to the other. The grease came up dark on the cloth and spread across the weave. He turned the rag over and went back through the same track.
"He already knows what I’m gonna say."
Erika watched him work, her weight settling onto one hip. "You scared of that job, Travis?"
Travis came up out of the burner box with the rag balled in his fist. "I ain't scared of nothing. A man can’t be fine where he at?"
"You're fine."
"I got a good deal where I’m at. Good school, good players, ain’t gotta worry about the politics of Houston or DFW. You don’t think other coaches would kill for that?"
"Not if it meant sitting behind some old man stuck in his ways for six years."
He shook his head and bent back over the box, running the rag along the inside wall of it, into the corner, out along the front. "They Division II. I ain’t leaving my job to be a position coach in Division II."
"Well, you ain’t gonna jump straight to Alabama."
"I ain’t gonna get to Alabama through West Texas A&M either."
Erika looked past him at the strip of yard along the fence where the grass had gone thin and the caliche came up through it in patchesr.
"You keep telling me what you ain't gonna do, coach."
Travis pulled the rag out of the burner box and dropped it on the concrete beside his boot.
"I ain't married no coward."
He shook his head. He bent and picked the grate up off the ground by the edge with both hands, walked it around and set it down on the grill, then put the flat of his hand on the corner of it and squared it in the frame, pushing it a half inch.
Erika tapped the corner of the patio table twice with two fingers. "Tell me when you're done with that so we can start dinner."
She went back across the slab, the flip flops slapping, and pulled the door shut behind her on the track.
Travis stood with his hand on the grate. He picked the brush up off the table and set the bristles against the bars again.
Ol' Betty came off the county road and dropped onto a caliche two-track, the tires finding the ruts and the front end working side to side in them. The track ran a half mile through mesquite, the limbs coming in close on both sides, dragging along the fender and the door, the ground going white under the truck and the dust standing up behind it and staying where it stood.
The pens sat at the end of it, pipe rail set in concrete with a crowd tub at the near end and an alley running back to a loading chute. A gooseneck was backed to the chute with the gate swung open and the inside of it empty, the floor of the trailer scattered with old bedding.
Two men worked the alley behind it. The older one wore a straw with the brim curled in tight on both sides and moved along the rail with a hot shot in his hand, knocking it against his leg as he walked, watching down the line of backs. The other one had a long-sleeve shirt buttoned to the wrist and buttoned at the collar. He had a black baldy walking up toward the chute with his arms out and his hands low, cutting her off when she came off the rail.
The dust hung in the pen at the height of the cattle and did not go higher. The smell of manure and hot pipe came up out of it. Flies worked the backs of the cows in the tub and the tails came around after them.
Wes rolled up and stopped short of the trailer, killed the engine and stepped down. He came up to the rail, hooked his boot on the bottom bar and laid his forearms over the top and stood there.
He watched a while. The baldy came off the rail again and the hand cut her back and got her turned.
The older one came down the alley and stopped on the other side of the pipe, the hot shot hanging off his fingers.
Wes reached up and tipped his hat. "I’m looking for a man named Boone. Boone Latimer. He around?"
"Boone ain't been ‘round here since March." The older one looked at the truck behind him, at the plate on it, and came back.
"Well hell."
"You know Boone from where?"
"I ain’t say I know Boone."
The hot shot came up and tapped the top rail once. "That don’t answer why you looking for him."
Wes grinned into the pen. "Same reason anyone looks for Boone, I suppose."
The hand got the baldy up the last of the alley, swung the gate behind her and dropped the pin, then came over to the rail wiping his face on the inside of his sleeve, the sleeve coming away dark at the cuff. He put his hands on the pipe.
The older one moved the hot shot to his other hand. "Name’s Odell Tippett. This here’s Chuy."
"They call me Wes Cody." He took the toothpick out, turned it and looked at the chewed end of it, then set it back in on the other side of his mouth. "Y'all shipping?"
"Trying to."
Wes tipped his chin at the gooseneck, at the fender rusted through above the tire. "That trailer looks like y’all stole it from the Sooners."
"It been working that long. Gonna work a while longer."
"An old man and an old trailer." Wes let his eyes go out over the pen, past the tub and the eight or ten head standing packed in it, to the one off by herself in the corner with her head up and her ears working. "That one in the corner ain't gonna load for you."
Chuy looked where he was looking.
Odell looked too, and his jaw worked once. "No, she ain't."
Wes ducked between the rails and came down into the alley. He walked out into the pen, his hands hanging along his thighs, his shoulders loose, the dust coming up around his boots and settling behind him. He came around wide of her and got himself on the off side and stood a second. She turned her head and put an eye on him. He moved and she moved, two steps, and he stopped and let her stop with him. Then he moved again and she went the rest of the way and put herself in with the others and dropped her head into the pack.
He came back through the rails and got his forearms up on the top one.
Odell knocked the hot shot against his leg. "You got business with Boone or you looking for work?"
"Sound like the same thing to me, boss."
"You worked cattle?"
"Here and there."
"Where?"
"Where I worked cattle."
"For who?"
Wes turned his head and grinned at him. "You need three references?"
Odell held his eyes across the pipe. "I might."
"They ain’t gonna put in a good word for me either way."
Chuy laughed into his sleeve and turned his head away toward the chute.
Odell knocked the hot shot against the rail, the pipe ringing and going quiet under the noise of the cattle. "What is it you do, then, when you ain't out here asking behind men you don’t know?"
"Ride, wrangle, whatever put money on the table."
"Watched you a couple TV shows and fancied yourself a cowboy then."
Wes shrugged. "Like my daddy and my daddy’s daddy and his daddy before him."
"Where they at?"
"Cody men ain’t known for making it easy to find them."
Odell looked out at the tub, at the backs packed in against each other and the dust standing over them at the height of their shoulders.
"I got two more loads going Thursday and Friday and I'm a man short both days. Cash, at the end of the second one, and you don't carry your ass around my barn after dark."
"I ain’t going around no barns at night unless the boss’ daughter in there and done taken a liking to me."
Odell snorted.
Wes took his boot off the bottom bar and set it in the dirt. "What time y’all starting?"
"Daylight."
"I’ll even be early. How about that?"
Odell was already turning back down the alley. "Bring your own shit."
"You got it, boss."
Wes came around the front of the truck, pulled the door open and stepped up on the running board and in.
The pizza box sat open on the top step with four slices gone out of it. The cheese had set along the cuts where the wheel came through and pulled back off the edges of the cardboard. The grease had gone out into the box under the crusts in dark rings, one of them ran out to the seam.
Saint sat a step down with his back against the rail post and his legs stretched out across the walkway, one heel hanging off the side, a slice hanging off two fingers. Dani sat above him with her knees together and her feet flat on the step below her, a slice laid out on a paper towel across her palm, the towel gone dark under it.
Behind them the front door stood open with the screen door shut, the aluminum ticking in the frame when the wind came up. The television played in the living room past the hallway, the sound of it coming out through the mesh, the light of it moving on the ceiling, going flat and coming back.
Dani turned the paper towel a little on her palm and brought her thumb up under the crust to hold it.
"Keen went in Gary’s shit and stole Colton’s fucking money."
Saint looked up from the slice, turning his head partway up the step at her, jaw still working at the piece of the slice in his mouth.
"Fuck you know that?"
"His dumbass fucking told me when he got back from running around with that fast ass girl he fuck with."
Saint worked what was in his mouth twice and swallowed it. He looked at the slice on his knee then took another bite.
"How much he take?"
"Sixty."
He sucked his teeth, reaching into the box and grabbing the cup of ranch to dip a bit of his slice in it.
"That’s it? That nigga stupid. Gonna get into shit behind three fucking twenties."
Dani took a bite from the slice on the napkin. "You know his fucking ass don’t listen to nobody. I told him not to take that boy’s money."
"Young ass white boy’s money, too."
Dani shook her head. "Facts."
Saint picked his slice back up and bit the point off it. Inside the house the television changed over to something louder and Colton's shape shifted on the carpet, one arm coming up and going back down.
Dani’s eyes went out to the street. "I just don’t know why y’all make shit harder for yourselves. Life hard enough."
Saint looked at the truck sitting in the driveway with the light off the pole laying across the back glass.
"Keen’s ass ain’t gonna stop until he get kicked out."
"And they’ll send his ass to Huntsville for all the shit they don’t charge him with because they feel bad for him."
She picked the paper towel back up off the step, the crust sliding to the low side of it, and she turned her wrist to bring it back.
"We all in this motherfucker because nobody wants our old asses. Add in being a difficult ass nigga and DCFS putting you on the curb with your shit in a garbage bag and a good fucking luck."
Saint reached up for another slice and Dani had the box moving before his hand cleared his knee, two fingers hooked under the near corner, sliding it down the step and turning it so the cut side came around to him. He got a slice loose and the cheese came off the one beside it in a long string, stretched out over the box and broke, the end of it laying back down across the crust. He folded the slice lengthwise and pinched the fold shut.
"Colton know yet?"
"No."
Saint turned his head toward the window. The blue came across the glass. "He don’t need the shit anyway."
"That don’t mean Keen ass should’ve gone in that boy envelope."
A truck came up the street out past the fence, the headlights swinging through the chain-link, the bed rattling as it took the seam in the asphalt, the sound of it going on down the block and getting small at the corner.
Dani bit the crust off the end of her slice and worked it in her back teeth, her eyes still out there past the gate at the street.
"You start putting your shit in for school yet?"
Saint chewed. "No, not yet."
"Get to it then, nigga. That shit gonna be here before you know it."
He took another bite off the fold and chewed it down. "I got some letters."
"What that mean?"
"They interested in talking to me. Might give me a scholarship if I fit what they looking for."
Dani nodded once, her jaw working on the crust. "You better be calling them and making sure they give you a full ride."
"I ain’t chasing behind nobody."
"Alright."
She folded the paper towel over on itself with what was left of the crust inside it and set the fold on her knee.
Saint brought his head partway around toward her again. "They approve you for extended?"
"I'll know by next week."
"They really dragging that shit out."
Dani turned the folded towel a quarter in her fingers. "Yeah, I applied at UTPB, though. My man said he’ll give me a spot to stay, too."
"That nigga working in the fields. Don’t count on them to stick around."
She sucked her teeth. "Don’t put your shit on everyone else."
"I ain’t the only one who know about that."
"Yeah, whatever."
Saint looked out where she was looking, at the fence, the pole light and the street past it, and he brought the slice back up, took a bite off it and worked it.
Dani tapped her fingers against the fold of the towel then reached into the box and took the last slice out of it. She tore it down the middle, the cheese giving at the wide end and stringing between the two halves before it broke. She set the bigger half on the lid in front of Saint and brought the other up to her mouth to take a bite.
"I hope you get one."
Saint nodded. "I hope you get in."
Remy came down the side of the house with his shoulder brushing the brick, past the AC unit running against the wall with the fan turning behind the grille and the hot air coming off the top of it into his face. The gate settled back onto the post behind him, the latch dropping, the hasp swinging once against the wood. Two yards over the sprinklers went in their arc, the water hitting a fence and running back the other way.
The back door stood open behind the screen with the kitchen dark past it, the shapes of the chairs pushed in at the table, a light burning over the stove at the far end.
Harper stood in the gap with her hand out on the frame. She got a fist in the front of his shirt and pulled him through, came around him and closed the door slowly, making sure to not slam it.
From the front room a television played, and over it a man's voice came back through the house.
"Where are you going, Harper?"
She turned her face toward the hallway. "I was going get something out of my car."
She kept her hand still on the frame, her head canted toward the sound. Remy stood behind her with his back against the counter, the edge of it in his spine.
Harper let the frame go and turned to him, her voice coming out under the television.
"Don’t be stomping through the house this time."
Remy snorted a laugh. “I’ll tip toe then.”
She got her hand around his wrist and walked him along the counter, past the sink with the dishes stacked in the rack, past the refrigerator with the magnets holding paper down on the door.
She put her hand on the bannister and took the stairs on the outside of the treads, her weight at the edges where the wood met the stringer, and Remy set his feet where hers came off. Halfway up a board took his weight and let out a sound, and Harper's hand tightened on his wrist. Both of them froze and waited, listening for noise coming from the living room.
She turned into her room and he came in behind her. She pushed the door to with her palm flat against it and put her thumb on the lock, working the button in until it clicked.
Remy looked at the door, then at her.
"You miss me?"
"You’re the one always complaining about how much gas it takes to get here."
She came off the door. Remy’s hands went to her hips and her hands to the front of his shirt, balling in the fabric. He walked her back until her legs found the bed. She sat down, the frame sliding and knocking against the wall.
Both of them went still.
Harper's chin came up and her eyes went to the door, her hand out on his shoulders. Her breath went out of her.
"You gotta be more careful."
"My bad."
She pulled him down onto the bed with her. He got a knee up on the mattress and sat up, pulling off his shirt as she reached pass him and turned off the lamp. She then sat up as he pulled off hers.
"How long you got?"
"All night."
Harper snorted a laugh. “You don’t last that long.”
Remy shook his head and leaned down toward her. Downstairs, a chair leg dragged across the floor, wood sliding against wood. Harper’s hand shot up to his shoulder to stop him.
Footsteps went across the floor and the tap in the kitchen ran then shut off. A cabinet door slammed shut. Both of them remained still as feet came up the stairs, walking down the hall and another bedroom door closed.
Their eyes found each other in the dark, Harper’s chest going up and down, Remy watching her. The TV cut out, the house going silent downstairs.
Harper let out a breath. "My mom’s going to sleep and my dad’s going smoke his cigars."
Remy smiles, leaning the rest of the way down as Harper kicked the comforter down off the bed.
The Malibu came down the street with both front windows down and the music loud in the door speakers, Dakota steering with her wrist hooked over the top of the wheel and her phone laying against her thigh.
Brynn had her bag on the floorboard between her feet and her hand on the door handle, her fingers already through it, when she brought her eyes up through the windshield.
A car sat at the curb in front of the house. A gray sedan, the bumper cover cracked across the corner and pulled away from the fender, a Visit Hill Country sticker in the back window.
Linda stood out on the front step with her arms crossed under her chest and her weight on one leg. Below her on the walk a woman stood with a set of keys in her hand, taller than Brynn, thicker through the shoulders, her hair pulled back off her face the same way, the same face.
Brynn's hand came off the handle. She sat back into the seat, brought her knees together and put her bag against her shins.
"Keep going."
Dakota looked over at her. "What?"
"Go and park up there."
Dakota shrugged and took her foot off the brake. She eased in at the curb between a work van with ladder racks and a pickup with a camper shell on the back. Dakota put it in park.
"Who is that?"
Brynn stared into the side mirror.
Dakota looked in her own mirror down the block, at the two women standing there. She looked back over at Brynn then back into the mirror then shrugged again. "Okay."
She picked her phone up off her thigh and put her thumb on the screen.
Brynn got out, swinging her bag onto her shoulder and reaching behind her to push the door shut. She went up the sidewalk away from the house with her arms down at her sides, past two driveways, and cut between a pair of yards. She came out on the back side of the block and went along the fence lines with her shoulder close to the boards, past a dog run where the chain dragged along the dirt, past a shed with a swamp cooler up on the roof, counting the fences as they went by her. Four. Five. The sixth one had the crossbars gone gray and a slat missing near the post.
She took the top of the boards in both hands and came up on her toes.
Kayla was walking back to the sedan with the keys swinging off one finger. She said something over her shoulder and Linda answered her from the step d. Kayla got the door open, stood in it a second with her hand up on the frame, then got in and pulled it shut.
The sedan came off the curb, straightened out and went down the street.
Linda looked down the street where the car had gone. She uncrossed her arms, turned and went inside.
Brynn stood at the fence with her hands on the boards, her breath going in and out through her mouth.
She got a foot up into the gap where the slat was gone, pulled herself over the top and came down into the dry grass on the other side, her hands going out to the ground.
She went along the back wall of the house under the kitchen window with her head below the sill, past the hose bib with the dark ground under it, to the window of her own room. She got her fingers under the sash, worked it upShe swung a knee onto the sill, ducked under the frame and came through onto the carpet.
Alma sat up on her bed with her back against the wall and her phone propped on her knees, one earbud in and the other one hanging down the front of her shirt, the light off the screen sitting up on her face. She brought her head up.
"Hey, I think your sister or somethin—"
Brynn went past her.
She put her hand under the mattress and ran it along the frame until her fingers came onto the box cutter. She pulled it out, closed her hand around it and walked into the bathroom, pushed the door shut with the heel of her hand and turned the lock.
She sat down on the edge of the tub.
Her hands were shaking. She got the button of her jeans open on the second try, pushed them down past her knees and sat forward with her elbows on her thighs, the light over the sink coming down across her legs, the old scars standing up pale along the inside of her legs.
She pushed the blade out, a few days from the box she kept in her dresser. She stared at it for a moment, vision blurring then put the blade next to the last scar on her left thigh and pressed her hand down.
Her breath hitched, catching on an attempt at a sob. She closed her eyes, her chin drawing in to her chest, her shoulder going up and down the breath coming through her mouth in halting stops. She let go of the box cutter and it clattered to the tile, red drops darkening the white ceramic.
She reached over, got hold of the toilet paper and pulled a length of it off the roll, wound it around her fingers. She brought it down and held it against her thigh, her hand pressing flat. The paper turned dark red under her palm. She pulled another length and put it on top of the first one, keeping the pressure, her elbow braced against her knee.
“Stupid bitch,” she whispered.
The tears came out from under her lashes, down her cheeks and off her jaw onto her forearm.
She sniffled, using her free hand to swat at tears. “Stupid fucking bitch.”
She lifted the paper and looked. The new line lay in among the others, red along its length, the skin drawn up on either side of it. Her eyes went to the box cutter for a second before she shook her head and put the paper back down.