Escape

Judy waits in the van outside the café. Dust swirls in the wake of a cattle truck. Jared is late. She reaches for Aunt Ruth’s book, Higgins Family History.

Her phone buzzes, a text from Jared: Leaving feedlot. B there in 10. Judy glances up the road, then back to the book, flipping pages to a sketch of two horses in gallop. Manes flow, legs stiff and stunted. A child’s drawing.

Two fresh colts they were, Jared and William. They had just finished barn chores the night that William died. Brain aneurism. He was ten. Jared, twelve.

Across the highway, wind turbines stretch to the horizon, a plateau of giant clocks. Judy checks her email, then turns back to the book, to a journal entry from 1882:

The river was up, and the cowboys brought the cattle to the north bank. Albert and a boy named Wilbur jumped their horses into the current. Albert survived, and they found the horses downriver the next day. They never found the boy.

Before she left the house, Judy stuffed Jared’s laundry into the washer. Levi’s and shirts heavy with red dust and brown manure. Water filled the drum like the rush of a river.

They never found the boy.

Jared pulls into the lot and parks next to Judy’s van. The diesel engine hums, the cracked windshield flashes a spark of noonday sun. A picture of Amber swings from the mirror.

He steps out of the cab. “Xavier got hurt.”

She joins him on the gravel path to the front door. “Bad?”

“Horse reared up. Flipped sideways.”

His words float like cotton amid the crunch of stone. The same drawl as Tom, his father. He holds the door for her. They take a table near the back.

“What are you reading?” Jared reaches for the book and opens it, pausing at a photograph of a bride in a black dress. “Dad called last night.”

The waitress arrives. Judy orders a salad, Jared the T-bone special.

“He needs more drivers.” Jared closes the book. “He made a good offer.”

Her chest tightens. “The feedlot just gave you a raise.”

“Have you talked to him lately?”

“Why should I?” She pulls a napkin from the dispenser.

“He asks about you.”

“You don’t like transporting live weight. Remember the jack-knife outside Fort Worth?”

She recalls the argument in the cemetery, the day she grabbed a spade, swung at Tom, and drew blood. She spent the night in jail, then a month at Parkview Psychiatric.

Across the room, a man and a young boy enter the restaurant. They take a booth by the window and reach for menus. A burn festers on the boy’s hand.

“I’ll be hauling hides.”

“What about your horses?”

“They’re not family.”

She looks Jared in the eye. “Is it something I did?” She bites her lip. “You’re not moving to Kansas.”

“Can’t raise a family on cowboy wages.”

“You’re not marrying Amber.”

“Ready to be a grandma?”

A patrol car pulls into the lot.

“How far along?”

“Six weeks.”

“Don’t leave.”

“The kid’s got to eat.”

Her gaze drifts to streaks of manure wrap about his wrists. He drums his fingers.

“You can always visit.”

“Has she been tested?” She stares at him. The waitress arrives with the food. He stares back.

“You going to wash your hands?”

Jared sighs and heads for the restroom. He pauses next to her. “She’s clean, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She reaches for another napkin. “Today is William’s anniversary.”

“I know.”

Judy dabs her eyes. Outside the window, turbine blades refract sunlight like halos in search of a saint.

When Jared returns, an officer is questioning the man in the booth. The boy slides off the bench and walks toward the restroom; the sleeve of his shirt brushes her arm.

They eat in silence. When finished, Jared pushes back his plate and reaches for the check. He pays at the counter and nods to the deputy on the way out the door.

The waitress returns. “Finished with your meal?” Judy’s gaze lingers on the door.

“We’re not snakes.”

“Pardon me?”

Judy nods toward the grizzle on Jared’s plate. “Snakes don’t eat meat.” She looks at the waitress and smiles. “You have beautiful skin.”

The waitress backs away. Judy shrugs and turns to a dog-eared page in the family history.

I was ten years old when I arrived in Dalhart on the orphan train with the Divine Word Sisters. They paraded us past the local farmers on the platform. Everyone was chosen but me. I was skinny, and no one thought I’d make a good hand. The train pulled away. Gus Schrader walked up and asked my name. I told him the Sisters called me William.

Across the room, a commotion at the window booth. The man shakes his head. “No!” His eyes are focused on the restroom door. “Not true!”

Judy closes the book and turns to look down the corridor. She sees the boy staring through a crack in the open door. She hesitates, pats the book reverently, then heads down the hall. Throwing a glance across her shoulder, she slips into the men’s room, locking the door behind her.

“What is your name?” She kneels.

I was ten. The train pulled away.

She examines the wound on the boy’s hand. In the hallway, the sound of heavy boots. A knock on the door. “Deputy Romero. Oldham County.”

She glances up. Near the ceiling, an open window.

“Open the door, ma’am.”

The Sisters called me William.

“Open the door!”

“Ready?”

The boy nods.

Judy lifts him to the window. William grabs the sill; his shoes scrape against the wall.