Page 20 of Wicked Cowboy

He climbs back onto the ATV and starts it up. Over the engine, he calls, “Festival ain’t the only thing that got your blood moving last night.”

Then he’s gone in a spit of gravel.

I finish the line. It holds. The sun pushes past noon. I move hay in the south barn, clean the gutters on the shed, check the sump at the mill, and anything else that lets me keep my hands busy while my head keeps failing at quiet.

It’s worse in the stillness. I keep seeing Frankie at the fence after the dance, jacket on her shoulders, eyes steady.

I saddle my horse, Teddy, and take him out to the back field because staying in motion is the last trick I’ve got. The land out there rolls easily, a long sweep toward the cut of the ridge and the silver loop of the creek. The grass, rinsed clean by the storm, shines like new money. A hawk shadows us low and then lifts off, bored of pretending to be ominous.

I let Teddy find his pace. The saddle creaks and the soft thud of hooves eats ten minutes, then twenty.

I think about what she said in the barn:You think you’re warning me off, but all I hear is that you’ve been hurt.Simple. True. No judgment wedged in the words. Just a named thing and the space to breathe around it.

By the time I turn back, the sun’s leaning west, smearing gold against the cottonwoods. I stable Teddy, run him down with a brush, and head for the big barn.

Dusk comes fast this time of year. The sky goes purple at the edges, the fields bruising into night, the porch lights blooming one by one like old habits returning. I head up the yard with that ache in my shoulders that means the day did what it was supposed to. My mind’s still running, but it’s not trying to throw me anymore.

On the porch, Grandma has a bowl of pumpkin guts and a knife she’s far too casual with. She’s carved half a cat face into a big pumpkin. It looks more like a coyote and a raccoon had a baby. She’s pleased anyway. Frankie sits beside her with a bigger pumpkin and a terrible star. They’re both laughing at the mess they’ve made.

Frankie’s hair is twisted up with a pencil, a few curls escaping to frame her face. She’s in my flannel again and an old T-shirt that also looks like something from my closet. Her sleeves are pushed to her elbows, pumpkin strings webbed between her fingers. She looks like she belongs here.

Grandma sees me first. “Come tell me why this cat looks like it lost a bar fight.”

“It looks exactly like a cat,” Frankie says, wiping her hands with no success. “A cat that’s been genetically mutated into a cat/rat hybrid.”

“Don’t sass your elders,” Grandma says mildly to Frankie, then to me, “You’ll be honest, won’t you?”

Frankie glances up at me through her lashes, amusement tucked into the corner of her mouth. The porch light catches in her eyes, little fireflies trapped in amber. I hang my hat on the hook and sit on the rail because if I stand too close, I’ll forget where and who I am and what I told her this morning.

Grandma points at a pumpkin next to Frankie on the stairs. “There now,” she says. “Carve.”

“I don’t—”

“Boy, you were born on Halloween. You’re going to carve and you’re gonna like it.”

Luke snorts. “He was born in March.”

“Hush. The point stands.”

Frankie bites her lip to hide a smile. “What are you carving?”

“An actual jack-o-lantern,” I say, and cut a triangular eye that comes out more square.

We work like that for a while, quiet, companionable, the porch filling with the sweet smell of pumpkins. Luke tells a story about the time he tried to make the maze actually haunted with Bluetooth speakers and got chased by a goose. Grandma corrects his lies and adds better ones. Frankie invents a game where you have to describe your pumpkin in three words: Luke pickshandsome disaster goblin,Grandma pickscat survived apocalypse,and Frankie, after a long, thoughtful pause, gives herswish, light, forever.

I pretend that last word doesn’t catch on something inside me I thought I’d boarded shut.

When we are done carving, we light candles inside them. The faces glow, crooked, yet perfect in their imperfection. The air cools sharply enough to make breath visible.

Grandma shows us the steps with her carving. “Go on,” she says to Luke. “Carry these to the rail. Rhett, take the stars. Frankie, bring that poor cat so it can haunt the neighborhood properly.”

Luke grabs his armload and salutes. “Aye, Captain.”

He disappears around the post. Grandma gathers her bowl and heads inside, muttering about pie. That leaves me and Frankie on the top step with our pumpkins, and it's too quiet.

“Frankie.”

Her chin tips up like she’s bracing and reaching at the same time. “Yeah?”