inside him. There are these things to be done. Bury the boy. Get on with what must be. The sound of a car passing on the county road above drew both their attention, Leah turning nervously to take it in. It was the sheriff’s car, the lights dormant on top, the vehicle slowing to make out who was in the yard.
“Oh shit,” Leah said. “I shouldn’t have come.”
She stepped toward her sedan, and he knew when she left again his thoughts would turn wild once more, trying to fill the space between her words. Before she could climb inside, he closed the distance and took hold of her arm.
“Not yet. You were about to say something.”
“Let go. You’re hurting me.”
The sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway, heading down between the oaks and statues. His hand tightened hard enough around her arm to paint a bruise, but she stopped trying to pull away. “Please,” she begged.
He did as she asked, embarrassed by his own desperation. She turned toward him, her head lowered, and spoke in a low breath. “That day Seth got in trouble for busting the aquarium, Mr. Berman had been egging him on. He didn’t like it when he caught Seth flirting with me out in the hallways. He called him ‘Seth Felon,’ said some other things. Said the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I’ve never seen Seth so angry. That’s when he turned over the aquarium.”
He shook his head. That was it? The sheriff’s car pulled into the last stretch.
Leah dropped her cigarette in the gravel and held herself, one hand kneading the place he had hurt. “I hadn’t stopped seeing your son, even though my daddy made me promise. I think I caused Seth to get punished that way. You know that Will Gunderson kept a hunting shack back in those woods near the landing?”
The sheriff’s car rolled to a rest.
Leah rushed on before he could climb out, her voice barely above a whisper. “Kids at schools say he took people there to punish them. Burnouts and stoners. He cuffs you to chair and does things to put a scare into you. After school, that’s where I think he took Seth.”
Steve was walking toward them, his hands on his hips. “Everything all right here? Horace Greeley called to say your cattle were loose near the county road.”
Leah didn’t look back as she went to her car. “I was only here to pay my respects,” she said to Steve in a shaky voice. She opened the door and ducked inside. Safe behind tinted windows, she didn’t look at either man as she drove away.
When she was gone, he told Steve everything was about as fine as expected. “Unless the sheriff has gotten into the fence-repair business.”
Behind him, Grizz heard the cattle calling to one another as the bull led his harem and calves back inside the fence he’d wrecked. He turned in wonder. It didn’t make sense, and Grizz had never seen such a thing in all his life, but with the sun burning off the clouds, it was hot and already dry by early afternoon, the land drinking in what modest rain had fallen in the night. The pond in the lower pasture had dried up during the summer drought, but with fresh rain there’d be mud where the cows could cool themselves awhile. His cattle, which could have run free all day, were leading themselves back into captivity.
“I’ll help,” Steve said, surprising him. The two men fanned out on either side and raised their arms and shouted at the stragglers in the yard, “Get along, girl,” and “move along, Bessie,” until the rest were inside the damaged fence.
Grizz went to get his tools, the girl’s words churning in his head. Seth had been hurt. He had been scared, but he hadn’t come to his father for help.
Steve touched his mustache, ran his hands over his chin. Beads of sweat stood out on the fat man’s forehead from the little effort it had taken to corral the cattle. “Look, Grizz,” he began, “the other night I said some terrible things.”
Grizz picked up his shovel and the staves and wire clamps he’d left lying in the grass. “There’s things I have to do,” he told him as he went to the barn to shut off the fence’s electricity so he could make repairs. This new Steve, his voice slick with concern, scared him. He preferred the one who came to his house two nights before and