“Ah uh,” Ginny said.

“It flavored the skin,” he said. “Washed at quiet pools.”

He looked at his wife, thought of women who’d turned their chins from side to side between mossy rocks, their mirrors drowned in Nebraska rivers behind their swimming oxen. Squares of glass twirling away toward the Mississippi, tumbling south, sharpened by stones, till they slit some poor stomach open at the Gulf of Mexico. He liked the thought. For lip paint, berries. It made the women rosy. Good thing those pioneer men weren’t too choosy.

“She’ll have to stand soon,” Dan said of the mare.

“She’ll stand.”

“Or it’ll be two for the pit instead of one.”

“Give her time to get herself collected.”

They dragged the foal to the cow pit. The foal was light, two hooves each down the slope to the corral, around the barn. The backhoe stood at the edge. They swung the foal like a hammock, one, two, three. It cartwheeled down to join new dead calves, also chicks that had frozen and a fox Dan had shot. The walnut shaded the cow pit. They shoveled in lime.

“We’ll need more lime,” he said.

“I ordered it yesterday.”

“That foal was pretty.” He powdered the foal lightly. “Might’ve won a ribbon.” A butterfly skipped so close they heard its clicking muscles and screws. “So many wouldn’t believe one can,” Dan said.

“Can what?”

“Hear a butterfly.”

A little brown with white trim and hardly worth notice. It flew through a lime cloud. They coughed and covered their faces with sleeves and skin.

“It would be easier if you’d died too,” he said next.

“Well I didn’t.”

“Like a splinter. Like a tapeworm. It’s going to bust out of me.”

“Don’t let it.”

“I might feel better if I hit you. It might relieve me.”

“Do it then,” she said. He balled his fist. “Get it over with.”

He slapped the top of her head, but was too upset to aim right. He picked up the shovel, but she took it from him. She threw it in the cow pit. “Enough already.”

They sat on the edge despite the stink. “Am I a good man? Or not?”

“You’re a good man in a bad mood.”

“I’d like to feel better. How can I accomplish that?”

“How should I know?”

“We have to be careful. We have to think.”

“I agree. We need clear thinking.”

He moved closer. “You should be more affectionate. That’s one thing.”

“I know it.”

“You should put your hands on me. Like you did him.” He wrapped his legs around her legs, his arms around her middle. He sniffed her neck. “For peace again.”

“Soon,” she said. “Give me time.”

The butterfly dropped down to the pit. He rocked her on the edge and she let him.

“A horse has the largest eye of any land mammal.”

“You’ve told me.”