Page 7 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight

W

hen Grady got back from town, the sun had already turned in, and the sky was muted with a yellow glow.

The combine and tractor had been returned to the front field and sat like neatly penned laborers, the truck parked out front.

Grady was impressed. Not that he’d be mentioning it; it’s not like he couldn’t have achieved it himself, and Cole would know that, so it’d be an insult to say anything even if it was impressive.

Grady tucked the box from Mavis’s grocery store under his arm and pushed the flatbed door shut with his shoulder.

He went up to the house and saw the dogs on the other side of the screen door wagging their tails to greet him.

He huffed. They danced back on their haunches, tongues lolling out and looking up at him in that way that looked like smiling as he came in.

He glanced into the living room, not expecting to see anything, but he drew up short at the sight of Cole stretched out asleep on the couch with a book lying open on his chest. Cole was wearing those worn-out sweatpants again, and some black band T-shirt that’d seen better days, his dark hair curling around his face like it was drying from the shower.

Grady cracked a smile when he saw the book.

Animal Farm . He wondered if he picked it in the hopes of learning something or if he knew it wasn’t going to help shit out here.

He kicked his boots off quietly, hung his hat on a nail and went down the hall into the kitchen, the dogs padding beside him.

They watched him unload the groceries raptly like they’d never known this was where it all came from and where it all lived, and he guessed they hadn’t.

Because they used to live outside. He grabbed a beer and hesitated.

He grabbed another one and went back into the living room, stood behind the couch.

He wondered if he should wake Cole up. The kid needed to get back on normal time, but watching him sleep, Grady didn’t have the heart to do it.

Cole was stretched lengthways along the couch, but he still had that way about him like he was trying to make himself small.

Arms over his chest and legs slightly curled.

His breathing was soft and quiet, and his eyes darted behind his lids like he was busy dreaming.

Or having a nightmare. He had the look of the other Cole boys but also didn’t.

Jack, the second eldest, had been in Grady’s year at school.

Cole had that same dark hair and classic features, the dark eyes that looked black, but where Jack and the others ran to harsh, manly, something about Cole was pretty.

Eyelashes that were too long, eyes that were too big, something about them sad and beseeching in the fine angles of his face.

He had a full-lipped mouth that looked on the cusp of a sneer that never came.

Grady reckoned it was probably wise to never tell Cole he was thinking all this, and anyway, looking like he did with seven or whatever it was older brothers, he’d probably heard it.

He cracked his beer on the corner of the buffet behind him and took a drink.

He turned back, and Cole’s eyes flicked open.

Grady felt caught. They stared at each other for a moment before Cole sat up.

Grady cleared his throat, said he’d gotten Cole a beer and handed it over.

“Thanks.” Cole took the beer. He leaned down and picked up the book where it’d fallen on the ground when he sat up.

“You studyin’?” Grady asked.

“Huh?”

Grady indicated the book on the coffee table with his beer and cracked a smile.

“Fuck off.” Cole smiled down into his lap. He went to twist the beer lid off, realized it wasn’t a twist top and turned to get up, but Grady stopped him and took the beer back, cracked it on the buffet and handed it over.

“Reckon I might sit on the porch.” Grady looked out the window at the turned dirt of the front field, the tall trees on the fence line turning black against the dying light.

He felt Cole’s presence, the space he took up in the high-ceilinged and airy living room as he stood to follow Grady out, and Grady tried not to notice it but failed.

There was an old swing chair on the porch, but Grady never sat in it. Instead, he took the top step. Cole held the door open for the dogs to come out, then sat on the porch step below Grady instead of taking the chair.

Grady stretched his legs out and leaned against the post. He saw Cole from the corner of his eye where he was sitting with his legs bent, his elbows resting on his thighs as he took small sips of beer. It was an awkward silence and yet it wasn’t at the same time.

“How long do you reckon it’ll take to move the sheep?” Cole finally asked, his eyes on the label he was peeling off his beer.

Grady took a long drink and thought about it. “I reckon those ones take us about a week. Then after that, I’m lookin’ to move the ones from the other farm back to this one. Then might get the cattle movin’ before we have to start the big move for shearing.”

Cole was nodding, his shoulders hunched in a way that seemed like a tense kind of hope.

“Could take a while. To do all that,” Cole said.

“It could, yeah.”

Cole glanced over his shoulder. Grady was struck again by how pretty the kid was. Those wide eyes and full lips, all that bravado that hid a quietly na?ve core, that had to. Cole gave him a quick smile before glancing back out at the skyline. Grady smothered his exhale with a long drink.

“You want another?”

“Uh, yeah, all right,” Cole replied.

Grady got up to get it and wondered for a second if the kid was even legal.

It wasn’t like he was paying all that much attention to the progeny around the county, but he reckoned he’d seen a Cole boy in every year from the first to the seventh grade, so he figured this one’d be seventeen at the very youngest. That’d be all right if he was just drinking under Grady’s roof.

He grabbed two beers from the fridge, the bottles clanging as he pulled them out, the chill from the fridge a puff of relief into the heat of the room.

Grady wondered again how the kid had managed to do all that driving through the day and admired for a second the tough little core he was hiding, because fucked if even Grady wanted to do that job in this heat.

Cole was draining his first bottle when Grady came back out and handed over the new one.

“Thanks,” Cole said.

Grady grunted and sat back down. They drank in silence and watched the sky shift. When it was dark, the blackness was so complete there was nothing until your gaze trailed up to the litter of stars filling the night. Grady got up to flick the porch light on before sitting back down.

“What happened to your dad?” Cole asked. It felt like it came out of nowhere; like they’d been quiet for so long, the presence of words was downright unexpected. Especially those words.

“You didn’t hear?”

Cole shook his head. “Well, I mighta, but I don’t remember.”

Grady nodded. “You woulda been too young. Just got sick. Cancer.”

“Sorry,” Cole said.

Grady shrugged. “Happened quick, which was the weirdest or, I dunno, jarring part of it. One day he’s here and I’m finishing up school and then he wasn’t.”

“So, you were still in school when you took over this place?” Cole asked.

“Yeah, not like there was anyone else, and it was mine, so…” Grady drained his beer. “I finished school with the distance program, though. Did it at night.”

Grady wasn’t sure why he added that, why he still had the twist of shame people might think he was stupid.

“That’s cool,” Cole said. He was looking out at the field as he said it, even though they couldn’t see it anymore in the dark, his tone distracted as if he could.

“You could do that.”

“Huh?” Cole glanced over his shoulder.

“The distance program.”

Cole looked at him like he’d suggested Cole man the first flight to Mars.

“I already finished school,” Cole said.

Grady frowned at him. Kid couldn’t have been that old.

“Thought you were the youngest.”

Cole nodded and twisted his mouth up at the same time. He looked back out to the field as he answered.

“I am, but I got, you know, accelerated or whatever.” He waved his hand not holding his beer, took a big drink like he didn’t want to talk about it.

And yeah, well, Grady got that. If being the youngest of seven brothers didn’t get the shit kicked out of him, getting accelerated would’ve done it.

“Huh.” Grady finished his beer.

“So, you wanna start moving those sheep tomorrow then?” Cole asked.

Grady shook his head and gestured with his empty at the sky. Clouds had begun rolling in and blanketing the stars. “Reckon it’s gonna rain. Might do it Tuesday.”

Cole turned his head and met Grady’s eyes before skittering them away again.

“You want me to do somethin’ else then? I could have a go at these weeds.”

Grady looked around the yard in front of the house, the weeds lit up by the porch light growing as tall as the little white fence ringing the house, and shrugged. “If you want. But I usually just bring some sheep in.”

“I could do that.” Cole looked over his shoulder. “Tomorrow. If you want.”

Grady nodded. “If you want.”

“Cool.”

“There’s some in the pasture up thataway, beyond those trees. If you take Lady, you should be able to get them down the driveway before this breaks,” Grady stood and pointed at the sky again. “I gotta go back into town.”

“Oh, okay.” Cole twisted around to face the night.

“Tomorrow.”

Cole nodded.

“I’m turnin’ in.”

“’Kay.”

Grady hesitated, and he didn’t know why. Yeah, heading into town was a damn good idea, he thought. He said, “Night,” and then went in, the screen door slapping in the frame behind him as he made his way up the stairs.