The woman with the baby on her hip, the silent blonde, flicked a look at me, then deliberately turned and went back into the shed without saying a word. I got the feeling she didn’t want me to follow. Jake started to walk up to the main house, his flip-flops slipping in the snow. All the men with the guns were turning away, going back into the farmhouse. It was too cold to stand out here talking.

Dance opened the truck door. “They’re separating us on purpose.”

“What do we do?” Grayson said.

“There’s a gun in the truck,” I whispered. “It’s not loaded. In a hole in the cushion of the driver’s seat.”

“Jesus,” Grayson said.

“Let’s get a move on!” Jake said.

“I can’t take a gun.”

“There’s a knife in the glove box, then. Stick it in your cast when you move the truck.”

“Hello!” Jake called from the porch. Somehow he had already gotten a beer in his hand.

“We can’t leave Wil without a weapon,” Grayson said.

“Less talking, more working!” Jake said. At a signal from Jake, the man in the trucker hat started toward us, hunting rifle slung in his arms.

“I have a knife on me,” Dance said quickly. “Take it, Wil.”

“They’re looking at us,” I said. “I can’t take it now.”

“Here,” Dance said. Before I knew what was happening, he had grabbed me around the waist and pulled me toward him. He kissed me, hard and cold. His beard pricked and I felt his hands at my hip, searching.

But I wore coveralls; there was no waist, no way to pass a weapon to me. Men said those things were like a chastity belt. Finally, he tucked something colder than his fingers into my pocket. A knife.

“Damn, boy,” Jake said.

“If you touch me again without asking,” I whispered to Dance, “I’ll kill you. Even if the world ends.”

“Just saying goodbye to my girl,” Dance said loudly.

The man with the hunting rifle spat.

8

I had lost my virginity to get it over with. I was eighteen; it felt past time. Avoiding the boys in town and their constant requests for weed meant I had missed out on a lot of what other girls went through: being cornered at parties, being led upstairs, giving in. That was how girls talked about it. I just got tired. It just seemed easier.

One of the men who bought from Lobo was younger. He seemed different somehow. I got the impression that he had been dragged along, that the price of the ride he needed from his friends or his daddy was a stopover here at our farm, and a long, long wait while the others smoked.

Or maybe I just wanted him to be different.