My girl Montana is the top of the pecking order and she keeps the other hens in line. We keep them hidden behind the barn now, one wing clipped, the wire fence hidden from sight by the pigweed and lamb's-quarters, the Indian cabbage and ditch sunflowers I've let grow. They're all twined together, those weeds, their branches linked up like kids playing Red Rover, a wall solid enough to keep the hens hidden in place. I like to watch the flock scratch around and gossip. Those girls have opinions about everything. For example, they don't much care for their new covert lifestyle. They prefer things free-range. They think Hitchcock, the rooster, is a real jackass. I happen to agree.

Hitchcock is always strutting around like he owns the place, jumping those poor girls whenever he feels like it, which is all the time. He's insatiable. He tore the feathers right off poor Betty's back when he mounted her, which I think is why she's gone all broody and refuses to leave the clutch she's nesting on in the barn. The crowing isn't as much a problem as you'd think because Jerry made his living selling no-crow rooster collars to the backyard chicken crowd. It's real humane, the collar, just wire and Velcro around the rooster's neck. I wouldn't say this to Jerry but it's not really no-crow either. Hitchcock crows all day and all night. The collar keeps him just quiet enough that the neighbors don't hear, and at night I put a bushel basket overtop of him. We've got boxes and boxes of no-crow rooster collars in my hayloft because there's nobody to sell them to now. We're using Hitchcock to start our breeding program, and then eventually we'll need those collars for the little baby roosters our girls are going to hatch. We've already got a waiting list of people who want their own secret flock. Mostly they're last-minute preppers. They might be militia. Jerry's worried some of them might be government spies, but the truth about Jerry is that he's always been real paranoid.

One time we were driving through Nebraska, me and Jerry, and a cop pulled behind us in the lane. His lights weren't on or anything. Jerry got all worked up about a dime bag he'd stuffed in the ashtray before we left. He was mumbling some nonsense about redneck cops and the war on drugs. I wasn't speeding and I knew my taillights and blinkers and all the stupid stuff cops pull poor people over for were working. The only thing was my Colorado plates. Nebraska cops were still super pissed off about legal weed in Colorado back then. You had to be a little careful.

“We've got to get rid of this shit,” Jerry said.

“Be cool,” I told him. “We're fine.”