“Okay.”
“Stay on the phone with me.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.
Then I ran.
“Dad!”
He looked up from the barn.
One look at my face and the smile disappeared.
“What is it?”
“Gerald.”
That was all I had to say.
One of the teenagers dropped the fence post.
Dad moved faster than I had seen him move in weeks.
“Inside,” he ordered.
The ranch hands came running.
Nobody asked questions.
Nobody argued.
They knew.
Everyone knew.
We locked the front door.
Then the back.
Then every window.
Dad checked the deadbolt twice.
I pulled the curtains closed.
The ranch hands stood near the kitchen with their phones in their hands.
Waiting.
Watching.
My heart beat so hard I could hear it.
I kept looking toward the front window.
Toward the road.
Toward every shadow outside.
