I’ve never shot a gun, and suddenly, Quinton is pressing the grip of a long-nosed revolver into my palm. I don’t anticipate its weight. The chilly steel. We’re cousins, but I’m new to life in Parched River. I’m used to… Continue Reading
I was thirteen when Daryl Harrison fell off our grain bin. Zach brought me along once to go visit him in the hospital. I remember clenching onto the plastic railing of the footboard of his bed. It all happened on… Continue Reading
I remember the summer of 1952 as momentous. Momentous because that summer plumbing was installed in our family home that sat on a dirt patch forty miles south of the Canadian border. I was seven with four siblings below me. … Continue Reading
I took up smoking at fifteen, and quit at twenty, thirty-two, and, finally, again at forty-one. A week after that, I bought a dog from a guy living illegally in a run-down house over the interstate. I’d gone over there… Continue Reading
“I’m thinking of getting a reduction,” Teresa said. “Not you too…” Chuckie rolled his eyes, but it looked like yet another anxious blink. “Let me guess, your beak?” “No, my breasts. I mean… I come from a naturally voluptuous flock.… Continue Reading
Ruth always wore just her robe out to the chicken coop no matter how cold it was. She would only be out for a minute, but this bitter morning the wind chilled her metal scoop even before she got to… Continue Reading
Bill Hobinson stomped his feet against the cold, then grabbed a couple of milk pails and headed into the barn. “Good morning, my lovely belles,” he said. One of the cows mooed. He set an old wooden stool beside Sadie… Continue Reading