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I could barely hold my fork. I had spent all of the previous day clearing a pasture of sagebrush, using a grub hoe. Today would be more of the same. It was a tedious, grueling job, not one I enjoyed, and for the first time in months, I was regretting my decision to leave school.
    “Nah, Katie. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to take you tonight.” I poked another bite of potatoes. “I won’t be home until dark. Besides, I’m going to be pretty worn out.”
    Katie clenched her fists and punched downward, stomping onefoot. She had just come off a week-long bout with the flu, and although she was still weak, and chalk-white, she had never been patient with inactivity. Mom came in from the barn, lugging two full milk buckets. She kicked the door shut.
    “Mom, Blake won’t take me fishing tonight.”
    Mom stood up, sighing, and looked at me with a raised brow. I ignored her, going back to my breakfast.
    “You really shouldn’t be going out yet anyway, Katie,” Mom said, but it was clear that she knew that this line of reasoning would not work with her headstrong young daughter. “Maybe you ought to wait and ask him again when he gets home,” she added, to my relief. I hoped that by evening, Jack and Dad would be back from Belle Fourche, where they had taken a load of grain the afternoon before. Then she could pester one of them.
    “We’ll see how I’m feeling when I get back,” I said, which barely pacified my sister. But Katie was soon occupied with something else, and as I prepared to leave, she was filling a bucket from the well to go water her garden. I carried the bucket for her, and studied the twisted, withered plants that bent with their own weight. Katie began pouring the water, holding the bucket awkwardly in her tiny hands. The water poured unevenly, but she didn’t seem bothered by this, moving down the line.
    “Everything looks great, Katie. Looks like you’re going to have a good crop this year.”
    She blushed.
    As was usually true, I felt better about the job ahead of me once I got out into the open air. It wasn’t as hot as usual for July. I rode at a leisurely pace, studying the thick grass. We’d had a fairly cold, snowy winter, which meant a big spring runoff. The country had not looked this good for several years, with bright green grass and fat, healthy livestock.
    My horse Ahab and I wandered along the river, following a two-rut dirt road until we came to the crossing, where the ruts descended at an angle down the slope into the muddy waters of the Little Missouri. I had to coax Ahab down the bank, as the black mud was moist, and slippery. He eased into the river, which just washed his belly. He hesitated midstream, and I found myself kicking him, harder than necessary.
    George’s body had still not been found. And each time I crossed the river, I was well aware of the possibility that my brother was probably hung up beneath that rush of muddy water somewhere. The image gnawed at me whenever I crossed. And although I always glanced quickly to each side, my heart would rise into my throat, hoping that I wouldn’t catch sight of a bobbing foot, or a patch of hair poking from the water.
    In the tradition of our region, we did not speak of George, and a debate raged within me about whether this was the right thing to do. I thought of him every day. Often. In the morning, I would sometimes look at his empty bed before I was fully awake and wonder why he’d gotten up so early. But the time I felt his absence the most was when I was out in the open, where the silence was magnified.
    It wasn’t until a few days after the fire that I remembered the bundle of papers I’d discovered under George’s mattress. One day I tucked the papers under my shirt and snuck off to the barn, making sure I wasn’t followed. I climbed into the hayloft, settled into a comfortable spot, and piled the papers on my lap. On top was a thin paperback book—a book about the fundamentals of baseball. I