Bone Fire

He heard the boy whisper a question and McEban stand out of his chair, spitting over the railing. “I don’t know,” he said, “I guess you could go in the house or just down there off the end of the porch if you can’t wait.”

Einar watched the boy wriggling away from them, working at his zipper. “When I was a young fella,” he said, trying to make it come out as simply informational, “I used to have to hook it under that railing not to piss in my eyes.” That was how J. L. Manz had told it, with just a hint of regret in his voice. “Now I’m left with laying it across the top rail so I don’t piss on my shoes.”

The boy tried out a laugh but wasn’t completely sure what had been fu

“Just go on,” McEban said. “We can talk about it later.” And then, to Einar, “I don’t suppose I’ll have to explain gravity to him ever again.”

Paul led the bay through the corrals and Griff fell in beside him. Against their silence, the resonant bass of the creek, the ascending notes of a single meadowlark and the soft, fleshy chitter of the cottonwoods kept lively in the morning downdraft. She thought to reach out to take his hand but wouldn’t, and that set up an itch, a slight but specific panic like wanting a cigarette and not having one. It was a feeling she liked.

Royal stood ahead of them, saddled and tied to a rail where the corrals met the corner of the barn, nickering at their approach. Leaning against the side of the barn were two wooden posts, a length of four-by-four-inch lumber for a cross brace, a bundle of steel posts and, tucked beneath them, two box pa

She’d been out at dawn, packing the pa

Now she held the packhorse while Paul lifted the pa

“It’ll be a light load.” These were the first words he’d spoken to her.

She heard Ke

“Is your sister home?”

“Should be next week.” He was balancing the posts on top of the pa

The gelding stood solidly. He didn’t even shy when they shook the packcover over the posts and it bellied in the wind before they could tuck it behind the sides of the pa

“She bought a color printer in Denver,” he said. “Had it UPSed up to the ranch.” He was uncoiling the lashrope. “So she can print up diplomas for the white women who take her classes.” He stood back from the horse. “I’m not tall enough to tie a hitch over all this.”

She went into the granary and returned with a five-gallon bucket, turning it up by the horse’s side, and he threw the lashrope over and stepped onto the bucket. He steadied himself against the pa

Griff handed the cinch back under the horse’s belly, taking up the slack, slinging the pa

“Doesn’t that look exactly like a load of shit,” he said.

“You want to do it over?”

“I don’t know how I would. I guess it’ll look better after we get those posts off and set.” He led the bay in a circle, walking backward to see how the pack rode. “Rita says everybody wants to be Indian if they’re not. You all set?”

“I guess.”

She brought Royal around and they led the horses back through the corrals, stopped at the gate and watched as Ke

“What’s he doing?” she said.

“Killing Orcs. McEban bought him the boxed set of those Middle Earth movies. They’ve watched them six or seven times.”

The boy started to make arrow sounds, the sounds of arrows striking Orcs.

“You think this’ll take us all day?” he asked.

“Are you still mad?”

They were sitting back against the wheel fender now, waiting for McEban to notice and say his good-byes.

“No, I’m okay.”

He was kicking a boot heel back into the divot he’d made in the soft ground in front of the tire. It was something he used to do as a kid, ten years ago when Rita had moved them in with McEban.

“I know RISD isn’t the only art school in the country,” she said. “If I thought I could go back to school I’d find something in Chicago.”

“Right.”

“I would.”

“It’s too nice a day to fight about this.”

“Or you could stay.”

“In Wyoming?”

“It’d make McEban happy.”

He stepped a boot up against the tire, tightening his spur leather on that one and then the other. “I like it in Chicago.”

“Because the grass is greener?” She couldn’t keep the taunt out of her voice.

“Sometimes the grass is greener.”

“Define greener.”

He turned toward her, leaning into the truck’s sidewall. “Greener’s being able to go out for a beer and not have the rest of the bar waiting for Tonto to get drunk and piss his pants, or pull a knife and go to scalping, and you know goddamn well that’s how it can feel for me here.”

“You got us all ready?” McEban called, coming down off the porch.

“Just waiting on you,” Paul called back.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s too nice a day.”

She stepped to the packhorse while he pulled his chaps from where he’d draped them across the seat of his saddle. He belted them and bent to buckle the leg straps.

“I love you,” she said, watching Ke

“I know you do.” He stepped up onto his horse.

They worked in pairs, McEban and Ke

Ke

“How we doing?” McEban asked. He took a plastic Pepsi bottle filled with water from a saddlebag, drinking half and then passing it over to Ke

“The top two wires are down for about a hundred yards just half a mile west of here,” she told him. “And the corner brace is rotted out.”