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about, they weren’t going to continue in front of her.
    “I’m going to fix this,” Beth announced. “I have a plan. Today I’m going to go speak to Mr. Darling’s attorney.”
    “You shouldn’t do anything without speaking to ours first,” her father advised.
    “Hear me out—maybe we won’t need him. Maybe we won’t need to go to court. I’m to blame here. I did a stupid thing, and I can own up to that. I’ll pay Mr. Darling what he wants. I’ll pay him back for as long as it takes.”
    “And just where are you going to get the money for that small country it seems he wants to buy?” Rose asked.
    “I’ll start with my tuition.”
    Abel set his coffee cup on the table. “You will not. You’re going to vet school in September, Beth. There’s no reason for this incident to derail that plan.”
    Rose scoffed. “Incident. Hear her out, Abel. She has a part to play in whatever solution we’ve got to come up with.”
    Beth measured salt into her hand and tossed it into the pot of water. “My tuition will be like a down payment. And then I’ll get a job. Two jobs. We’ll negotiate a payment plan. Ten years, twenty years, whatever it takes. I might have to put vet school off for a few years, but I can save up for it again.”
    Her father shook his head. “I don’t support the idea.”
    “If we don’t come up with some money we won’t be able to support anything,” Rose said. “Not this ranch, not those men, not our own flesh and blood.” She stabbed at the pork with a spatula. “I can’t believe you put us in this position, Beth.”
    “Rose, honey. You’re too hard on her. We did fool things when we were her age.”
    “Nothing like this,” her mother said. “Nothing that jeopardized the lives of a dozen other people.”
    Beth’s insides were bound up in knots of shame. She wouldn’t be eating breakfast today.
    “If I make a proposal like this now, he might agree to a lesser amount of money, don’t you think?” she said. “He’ll avoid all the legal hassles, the attorney’s fees—”
    “It doesn’t usually work that way,” Abel observed. “Men like Darling tend to enjoy those things. And they’re impatient.”
    “They’re hiring for summer down at the feed-and-tack,” Beth said. “Might turn into a full-time job. And I can work at King Soopers on the off shifts.”
    “And while you’re working twenty-four-seven elsewhere, who’s going to pick up your slack around here?” her mom said.
    Beth’s older brother, Levi, strode into the kitchen and snatched up a slice of ham with his bare fingers right off the griddle. “Won’t be me,” he said. At twenty-six, Levi had his father’s broad-faced features but none of his body mass. “I’m not gonna lie in this bed Beth made.”
    “Yes you will,” Rose said, grabbing the meat out of his hand and throwing it back down to cook longer. “We’re a family. Breakfast will be ready in five.”
    “It’s ready now,” Levi said.
    “Clock says it’s not. Where’s Danny?”
    “How should I know?”
    Beth said, “We already made plans to redistribute the chores when I go to school in the fall. So we make the switch a month ahead of schedule. And I won’t be at school. That’s all.”
    No one seemed to be listening to her.
    Levi said, “You couldn’t sell this land for what Darling wants out of it. He wants us to bleed.”
    The salty scent of ham came off the stove. Beth’s water seemed unwilling to boil. She couldn’t argue with the likely truth of Levi’s mean-spirited point. Rose tended to the strawberries that needed slicing by slamming the colander onto the cutting block. Levi poured himself a cup of coffee.
    Fifteen-year-old Danny entered the silence with a whistle and went straight to the sink to wash up.
    “Taciturn and sullen, all of you,” Danny said. “Who are you and what have you done with my family?”
    “Beth killed them off,” Levi said.
    “All but you, you mean.” Danny dried his hands at the