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Chapters (17)
  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. TOME
  4. FOUR LEAN HOUNDS,CA. 1976
  5. NATIVE SANDSTONE
  6. RANCH GIRL
  7. GARRISON JUNCTION
  8. RED
  9. AQUA BOULEVARD
  10. THE RIVER
  11. KITE WHISTLER AQUAMARINE
  12. LAST OF THEWHITE SLAVES
  13. THIRTEEN & A HALF
  14. PAINT
  15. THEICE HARVESTER
  16. A STAKES HORSE
  17. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SCRIBNER
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales
or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2002 by Maile Meloy

First Scribner trade paperback edition 2003

SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of
Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license
by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases,
please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales:
1-800-456-6798 or [email protected]

Designed by Kyoko Watanabe
Text set in Berthold Garamond

Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Scribner edition as follows:
Meloy, Maile.
Half in love : stories / by Maile Meloy.
p. cm.
1. West (U.S.)—Social life and customs—Fiction.
2. Women—West (U.S.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.E46 H35 2002
813'.6—dc21
2001054217

ISBN 0-7432-1647-4
0-7432-4685-3 (Pbk)

ISBN 978-0-7432-4685-9
eISBN 978-0-7432-3400-9

Some of these stories have been published in slightly different form:
“Ranch Girl” (The New Yorker), “Aqua Boulevard” (The Paris Review), “Tome”
(Best American Voices 2000), “The River” and “The Ice Harvester” (Faultline), “Kite
Whistler Aquamarine” (Witness), “Native Sandstone” (Ploughshares), “Four Lean
Hounds, ca. 1976” (The Ontario Review)

CONTENTS

Tome

Four Lean Hounds, ca. 1976

Native Sandstone

Ranch Girl

Garrison Junction

Red

Aqua Boulevard

The River

Kite Whistler Aquamarine

Last of the White Slaves

Thirteen & a Half

Paint

The Ice Harvester

A Stakes Horse

HALF IN LOVE

TOME

FOR EIGHT MONTHS, I had been telling my client he had no tort claim. Sawyer had worked construction for thirty years, building houses for people with Montana fantasies. He was putting up a roof when one of the trusses fell, collapsing the others and taking him down with them. He started to have fainting spells and memory loss and couldn’t work. We got a settlement, not a great one but not bad. The contractor was clearly negligent, having failed to brace the trusses, but workers’ compensation precluded the tort claim—we couldn’t sue.