She lifted the antique kerosene lantern from Nat’s desk—where he would write about trains and cyborg cowboys and a spirited heroine who happened to share a birthmark in precisely the same intimate spot—and left the cabin in darkness. Outside, she extinguished the lamp and hung it from an old, rusty car part she had nailed beside the door. After she paced circles in the field, she made her way to the fence and the highway that would carry her away from here, shoulders shaking uncontrollably.
* * *
A bale of hay sat where the back, left wheel of Clem’s 1939 truck used to be. The exhaust valve was charred, a crack split the engine block, and a family of barn rats had taken up residence inside the seats, but Nat needed the old heap to rescue him more than it needed rescuing. He reclined against the bed’s weathered wood planks, roped stars in his mind, and made plans to finally restore a piece of Meier family history.
The summer after Nat lost Clem’s truck on a fool’s bet, he drove down a country road on a steer-purchasing trip and spotted the abandoned truck in a thicket. Upon closer inspection, the truck had the unmistakable hourglass pattern of patina and rust on the quarter panel—two fish bumpin’ uglies—Clem used to say. Nat made a fool’s trade to get it back. Willie said it was the world, evening itself up for Nat carrying his brains in his back pocket.
Nat hoped his decision to let January go wasn’t another brains-in-the-back-pocket moment.
Up at the house, the screen door slammed. Lazy feet rearranged gravel and dirt. Nat knew it was Wes before he opened his mouth. Never did pick up his feet all the way. Must make marching a bitch.
“The fuck you doing here, man?” said Wes. “Guys and I all had bets on when you’d come back from the cabin. Mack had the quickest—tomorrow morning. I gave it a good week.”
“You knew?”
“Hell, yeah. Damned near every one of us pitched in to help.”
“Wait…” Nat’s thoughts clouded. He sat up. “Help with what?”
Wes frowned. “January’s surprise. What are you talking about?”
The cabin. She’d done something with the cabin. Now he knew why his ranch hands had been so secretive the past few days. Why Willie acted so strange when Nat had caught him sanding a block of wood. God, he felt even more like an ass, if that was possible.
Nat pulled the map piece from his pocket and handed it to his brother.
Wes held the paper up so the lights from the house lit the page.
“I couldn’t do it,” said Nat. “I couldn’t ask her to be anyone but who she is.”
“You didn’t ask. She offered.” Wes’s tone was amped, mired in confusion.
“She wouldn’t be happy here, man. We’d get five, ten, twenty-two years in, and she’d tell our kids that she has to go ‘find herself,’ just like Mom.”
“You’re an idiot,” said Wes. “You’re not doing this for January. You’re doing it to protect yourself from being hurt again.”
The mere suggestion that Nat was being selfish about this made him want to tackle Wes to the dirt, the way they used to solve problems when they were kids. “You weren’t here. You don’t know.”
Wes choked out a laugh, bitter to the bone. “Right. I can’t possibly understand what it’s like to lose someone I care about.”
Nine months ago, his team was ambushed in urban warfare. Bomb vest on a young woman he had befriended. Wes was the only one who made it out alive.
“Get over yourself, Nat. Why invite pain when there’s a whole fucking world of it out there? I guess you wouldn’t know that because you stay here, year after year, inside these fences. Even Grandad ran alongside Sherman tanks in the invasion of Wernberg and sparred against Joe Louis and went after the girl he loved, right at the top of the Ferris wheel at the State Fair while she was in a seat with that mama’s boy from Oklahoma. Grandad lived, man. Will you be able to say the same?”
Nat couldn’t take this ambush lying or sitting. He slid off the truck bed and paced to the opposite side of the truck. “That’s great, Wes. While you and Chance were out living, someone had to keep this place in the family.”
“I get that. And I appreciate it—having a place to call home when things are going to pot over there. But the time’s come for Chance and me to step up and for you to stop shouldering all the responsibility.”
“Does this mean you’re here for good?” Nat asked.
“Means I’m weighing my options.” Wes sat on the tailgate, his shoulders rounded, a slight hint of defeat in his voice.
Weighing his options was the closest they’d come to having him back before they lost him for good. His last tour had been Hell. Wes needed family and plans that didn’t involve the potential for casualties.
Nat rounded the bumper to sit beside him. A truce of sorts.
The truck frame creaked in protest.
“January’s always going to want that freedom, Nat