Spur looks up when I climb the rail.
I can tell from his face that he reads me before I open my mouth.
He's been reading me for two weeks at the round pen. He knows the difference between the Dakota with a paperback and the one with something to say.
I cross the dirt and hand him the paper.
He takes it and reads it.
The face I get is one I haveneverseen on him.
Years he has spent not letting me see anything. The face he turns up to me now is from before any of that. Before the Saints. Before me. From a life I don't know and won't ask about, and I think — for the first time in two weeks of him being twelve inches closer than necessary every chance he gets — *this is the man Pops pulled out of a motel room in Laredo.*
It scares me a little.
He folds the note, slowly. "Where was it?"
"Saddle bag. Tack room. On top of my gloves, rolled the way I always roll them."
"Who was in the barn?"
"Nobody. It was empty when I went in."
"Who's been around you today?"
I list them. Brothers in passing—Thunder near the kitchen this morning, Bullseye at the meat locker, Longhorn fixing something on the south fence. Marlena bringing me water at the practice pen at two. Presley walking past the round pen this morning on her way to her car.
Then Buckley.
Spur stops on Buckley.
"Buckley what?"
"He hit on me at the practice pen this afternoon. I shut him down."
His jaw locks. I watch it happen. Watch the next thing he's going to do from behind his eyes, and watch him put it back.
"That's a separate problem. You're going to your father with this. Now."
His hand goes to the small of my back.
It’s the first time.
The first real touch since the handshake at the fire pit two weeks ago.
I feel it through my shirt the whole walk to the main house.
* * *
Pops reads the note at the kitchen table.
Marlena is at the counter with Cal on her hip. He's gnawing on a teething ring while he watches Pops with the serious face he always makes around his daddy.
She doesn't say anything. Instead, she watches my father read.
Pops sets the paper down and puts both his hands flat on the table.
He doesn't speak for almost a minute.
