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O, that loonlike cry. That milksop hoot. My hands were clenched on the legs of my overal s, and I had to force them open and flat. Getting angry would serve no purpose. A boy needed a mother to

discuss a thing like this with, but his was sitting at the bottom of a fil ed-in wel , no doubt attended by a retinue of dead rats.

“I know you do, Henry—”

“Hank! And others get married that young!”

Once they had; not so much since the century turned and the frontiers closed. But this I didn’t say. What I said was that I had no money to give them a start. Maybe by ’25, if crops and prices stayed

good, but now there was nothing. And with a baby on the way—

“There would be enough!” he said. “If you hadn’t been such a bugger about that hundred acres, there’d be plenty! She would’ve given me some of it! And she wouldn’t have talked to me this way!”

At first I was too shocked to say anything. It had been six weeks or more since Arlette’s name—or even the vague pronounal alias she —had passed between us.

He was looking at me defiantly. And then, far down our stub of road, I saw Harlan Cotterie on his way. I had always considered him my friend, but a daughter who turns up pregnant has a way of

changing such things.

“No, she wouldn’t have talked to you this way,” I agreed, and made myself look him straight in the eye. “She would have talked to you worse. And laughed, likely as not. If you search your heart, Son,

you’l know it.”

“No!”

“Your mother cal ed Shannon a little baggage, and then told you to keep your wil y in your pants. It was her last advice, and although it was as crude and hurtful as most of what she had to say, you

should have fol owed it.”

Henry’s anger col apsed. “It was only after that… after that night… that we… Shan didn’t want to, but I talked her into it. And once we started, she liked it as much as I did. Once we started, she asked for it.” He said that with a strange, half-sick pride, then shook his head wearily. “Now that hundred acres just sits there sprouting weeds, and I’m in Dutch. If Momma was here, she’d help me fix it. Money fixes everything, that’s what he says.” Henry nodded at the approaching bal of dust.

“If you don’t remember how tight your momma was with a dol ar, then you forget too fast for your own good,” I said. “And if you’ve forgotten how she slapped you across the mouth that time—”

“I ain’t,” he said sul enly. Then, more sul enly stil : “I thought you’d help me.”

“I mean to try. Right now I want you to make yourself scarce. You being here when Shannon’s father turns up would be like waving a red rag in front of a bul . Let me see where we are—and how he is

—and I may cal you out on the porch.” I took his wrist. “I’m going to do my best for you, Son.”

He pul ed his wrist out of my grasp. “You better.”

He went into the house, and just before Harlan pul ed up in his new car (a Nash as green and gleaming under its coating of dust as a bottlefly’s back), I heard the screen door slam out back.

The Nash chugged, backfired, and died. Harlan got out, took off his duster, folded it, and laid it on the seat. He’d worn the duster because he was dressed for the occasion: white shirt, string tie, good Sunday pants held up by a belt with a silver buckle. He hitched at that, getting the pants set the way he wanted them just below his tidy little paunch. He’d always been good to me, and I’d always considered us not just friends but good friends, yet in that moment I hated him. Not because he’d come to tax me about my son; God knows I would have done the same, if our positions had been

reversed. No, it was the brand-new shiny green Nash. It was the silver belt buckle made in the shape of a dolphin. It was the new silo, painted bright red, and the indoor plumbing. Most of al it was the plain-faced, biddable wife he’d left back at his farm, no doubt making supper in spite of her worry. The wife whose sweetly given reply in the face of any problem would be, Whatever you think is best, dear. Women, take note: a wife like that never needs to fear bubbling away the last of her life through a cut throat.

He strode to the porch steps. I stood and held out my hand, waiting to see if he’d take it or leave it. There was a hesitation while he considered the pros and cons, but in the end he gave it a brief

squeeze before letting loose. “We’ve got a considerable problem here, Wilf,” he said.

“I know it. Henry just told me. Better late than never.”

“Better never at al ,” he said grimly.

“Wil you sit down?”

He considered this, too, before taking what had always been Arlette’s rocker. I knew he didn’t want to sit—a man who’s mad and upset doesn’t feel good about sitting—but he did, just the same.

“Would you want some iced tea? There’s no lemonade, Arlette was the lemonade expert, but—”