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Back The Cloud Chamber Save as PDF
Chapters (35)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Author’s Note
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty

“Easy, honey.” Aunt Sal this time, her cool hand pressing hard on his jacket, like she was easing an ornery bull back into the stall.

“Let go of me! I want my dad.”

He flung his whole body down, scrabbling his fingers in the frozen ground. Hands pulled at him—Aunt Sal and two of the policemen. He could see the feet of the dogs as they pawed against the sides of the police van, hear the scratchy sound of the dispatcher on the radio and, quieter, the voice of his father as he was eased into the ambulance. Not words, just a low moaning.

He tried crawling on his belly. He had to get to his dad, but the hands kept him back. The door slammed and the ambulance pulled away.

One of the officers lifted him up. “Easy, kid. You don’t need to be seeing this.”

“That’s my dad inside. I have to see my dad.”

“Your dad’s in no shape, son. We’re bringing him to the hospital. Your mother’s coming along to answer some questions. You’d best let the adults take charge and go on in the house.”

Nate kept kicking, so hard one of his shoes came off. He watched the boot sail past the tire swing their father had put up for them and land in a mud-encrusted snowdrift along the gravel.

“Come on now, honey,” Aunt Sal was saying. “Let’s you and me and Junie go in the house and fix ourselves some hot chocolate.”

As he watched the ambulance disappear down the driveway Nate took a last look at the figure in the back—his father. By the time he reached the back door, he was quiet. He even knew to take off his one remaining boot, along with the wet sock, so he wouldn’t track mud onto the linoleum.

Two

EVEN JUNIE KNEW THAT THEIR FAMILY’D BEEN HAVING hard times. Poppa—their mom’s father—whose adjacent ranch was four times the size of their own small dairy and hay operation, was always criticizing his son-in-law for not being a good enough farmer. But to Nate, it seemed like his dad had just had a bunch of bad luck: milk virus taking five of their best heifers two years back, followed by a drought that wiped out half their feed crop. Then came the new regulations from the dairy association that required them to buy expensive refrigeration equipment if they wanted to keep selling their cream. For as long as Nate could remember, they’d kept the cream jugs chilled in the wooden box his dad had rigged up in the creek that ran behind the barn. Now the county health department said that wasn’t good enough, and the Meadow Gold truck, which used to come by once a week to buy their thick, rich Jersey cream, hardly ever stopped at Chance’s Farm.