Page 24 of Devoted

“You’ll keep him barefoot in winter,” she said. “His feet are good, don’t let anybody talk you into shoes till spring. And he gets fed first or he sulks.”

“I’ve seen the sulk.”

“He pulls left loading in a trailer. Only if you let him stand there and think about it.”

“Then I won’t let him think about it.”

“And he’s scared of exactly one thing on this earth and it’s the Fentons’ donkey, so if you’re riding the east road⁠—”

“Olivia.” Ainsley said it kindly, and put her hand out, and it was so much her daddy’s kind of deal, a price and a handshake and no paper yet, that Olivia’s eyes stung on the way into it. Ainsley shook once and let go. “I’ll come get him when you’re ready. Not one day before. He’s yours till you say.”

“You’ll have to name the number, though. I can’t.”

“I know,” Ainsley said. “I’ll bring you a number.”

“Why him?” It came out before she’d decided to ask it. “Y’all raise good horses. You could mount yourself off your own string for nothing.”

Something went across Ainsley’s face, quick, there and covered, and Olivia filed it under the girl being caught caring about a middle-aged gelding in public.

“I like his whole story,” Ainsley said. “Drink your beer.”

Lauren found her at the coolers ten minutes later. “Ainsley looks like she won something and can’t tell anybody.”

“She bought Duke.”

Lauren looked at her a second. “You okay?”

“He’s going four miles up the road to a girl who’ll spoil him rotten. It’s the best thing that’s happened all month.” She got the cap off her beer on the second try. “Ask me something else.”

“Okay. Why is the grill bolted into the truck bed?”

“Fourth of July, three years ago, and that’s Knox’s story to tell, and he tells it different every time, so get him going after dark.”

The afternoon went long and gold the way the good ones do. Knox lost forty dollars in horseshoes and won it back on a technicality nobody could follow. Jett got the fire to the size the fire always got when Jett was in charge of it, and Chase came and stood looking at it with his arms crossed until it got smaller.

“It was a signal fire,” Jett said.

“It was,” Chase said.

“Olivia.” Knox settled against the tailgate next to Lauren with a loaded plate. “You taught Levi right?”

"I had Levi two years ago."

"Was he or was he not the smartest kid in that class."

"Knox. I'm a professional. My lips are sealed." She drank her beer. "He brought a cow's ear tag for show and tell and explained the whole traceability program to twenty kindergarteners. It's the longest any child has ever voluntarily spoken in my classroom."

"That's my boy," said Knox, who had not been involved in any way.

The dark pulled everybody in toward the fire, and Brody got put on stories the way he’d been getting put on stories his whole life.

“The bridge one,” Knox said.

“You’ve heard the bridge one.”

“Lauren hasn’t.”

“Fine.” Brody set his beer down. “Rainy season. The only bridge between our camp and the railhead goes into the river on a Tuesday. Just gets up and leaves. And the foreman, German fella, decides the bridge is a rumor. He’s got a schedule. So every morning for six days he drives down and looks at the place where the bridge was, like it’s going to apologize and come back.”