“What will Father Morel say?” Ruth asks.

Sister shrugs. Ruth nods. Mano hiccups.

“I'm not supposed to want things for myself,” Sister says, “but I do.”

Ruth nods again. “I guess God knows you're human.”

Moisture from the irrigation ditch has slicked the weeds between the playground and the drill site. The sisters stumble and slip, but they make it past the Keep Out signs and into the clearing. The machines there—the water tank trailers, the industrial blender—are giants. Terrifying faces form in the patterns of the mixers and meters that line the side of the blender. The injector shines in the moonlight. It takes effort to make the sign of the cross, but Sister does it twice, once over herself and once over the U-locks.

Ruth and Mano move toward her as she picks up the first lock, but Sister holds up one hand between herself and her sisters. Mano and Ruth step back.

The pain is excruciating, all-encompassing, as if her joints have split open to leak poison into the rest of her, but her soul feels once more fertile and verdant, honeysuckle over boxwood, evergreen. Sister persists, but she moves so slowly through her pain that she worries she will not finish the job before the men arrive.

“This is silly,” Ruth says, grabbing the lock out of Sister's hands. Mano and Ruth help fasten a U-lock around each of her ankles, connect her right hand to a small gauge wheel.

“Thank you,” Sister says. “Now scram.”

Mano gives Sister a hug. Ruth simply nods, but when they get to the edge of the clearing, both Mano and Ruth turn and wave. The sunrise looks like Gretchen's pastel hair ribbons. Sister, as she has done her whole life, prays fervently. She listens intently for a response from heaven but hears only the owls in the distance, near one another, calling back and forth.

When you called us to protect your creation, Sister prays, this is what you meant, right? The silence that follows is a conglomerate silence, the heavy sum of the million tiny silences that have built Sister's faith.

She sees a diesel truck heading toward her, a man behind the wheel, and she imagines this man is Johnny March, angry, dragon-like. She pictures Johnny as a wide-eyed kindergartener in need of protection. She pictures herself the same way. She imagines her feet supported by moonlight, the prick of feathers growing through the skin on her back. Sister gathers her wits. She wills herself to stay visible.

Man Camp

THE MAN CAMP WAS the biggest town for god knows how many North Dakota miles, built to be torn down like fucking LEGOs when the Bakken ran dry and the whole thing busted, which everyone knew it would. The bust was a sure thing, but the timing was anyone's guess, and guessing was everyone's favorite topic. Joe knew exactly as much about the oil field as he needed to do his job, which wasn't much, but he joined in with his own loud predictions, debated whether the proper unit was months, years, decades. He was doing it now, this morning, over strong coffee and crisp cafeteria bacon, until Dustin called bullshit.