Read The Tricky Part: One Boy's Fall from Trespass into Grace for Free Online

campers standing next to mountain ponds and aspen trees. “Are you a photographer?” I asked. “Among other things,” he replied. He was the only counselor who slept in the dorm. Father Mac wanted him to keep a close eye on things, he said.
    Mom’s squinting at him. Her nail file midair, motionless.
    “When do you think your camp will open?”
    “I hope by the third week in June.” His voice is velvety. He shifts, uncrosses and recrosses his long legs. I think the kitchen will shift with him, tilt to the south. “We have a lot of work yet to do on the main dining hall.” He shoots me a look as if, in this instant, I’ve become his recruit, one of the
we
. “Plastering and painting.” There’s a ring of keys dangling from his belt. I try to count them. He’s got more than the janitor at school has. Fifteen, twenty, maybe. How many doors can there be in one life? How many locks?
    “How many boys do you expect to attend?” Mom looks so small, hunched at the table, asking her questions. I notice (perhaps for the first time ever) how shy she can be. Shy or preoccupied or both.
    “I’m not sure yet. I’m just getting out the fliers. But I don’t want more than fifteen or so a week. This way we can work together, build community. There’ll be the usual—archery and horseback and fishing and so on.” He pushes, with an index finger, his glasses up the bridge of his nose and scoops his bangs to the right. “But, more importantly, I want the boys to experience life on a working ranch. That’s my idea. A real introduction to husbandry.”
    “What’s the nearest town?”
    “Allenspark.”
    “So you can get whatever you might need there.”
    “Yes. And there’s Estes Park too. There are stores and two churches nearby, so we’ve got all bases covered.” He smiles. Mom nods.
    I glance out the window. Paul Newcomb and his little brother Eric, and Bobby and Michael Foster, have pulled up on their bikes. Stopped at the end of our driveway. They’re pointing at the bails of hay piled in the open bed of the truck; the wooden-handled tools leaning against the yellow tailgate. There’s rope and boxes and machinery and all sorts of ranch stuff and it’s all in a rig in
my
yard and they’re wondering, I know, what’s up. What they’re missing. And I feel the rush of it. An adventure has pulled right up to my door. He’s come for
me
. I hope they hang around long enough to watch us drive away. I move to the hall and pick up my pack.
    “Where is the place, exactly?”
    “Up the Saint Vrain, about three quarters of an hour. Not far from Meeker Lodge. You know that area?” Bob’s hand brushes, scratches quickly, near the buttons of his fly, where his jeans are most full and faded.
    “Not so much. When will you have him back? I think he’s got homework.”
    “Mom . . .”
    “Around sundown Sunday. Is that good?”
    The word
sundown
sings through my head as we walk out front and I give a slight nod to my silent neighbors.
Sundown . . . that’s ranch talk
, I think.
    Mom stands in the doorway, nail file motionless at her side.
    Bob ignites the huge engine, fights with the stick shift, and the truck moves backward. The boys on their bikes scatter like minnows. The tires curve out over the grass. He doesn’t seem to notice. I hope the marks don’t go too deep, that they’ll disappear before Dad gets home.
    “Let’s get George,” he says.
    I turn to see the boys frozen on their bikes as Virginia Vale trembles under the weight of what Bob owns. I watch how they gawk as he takes the left turn, swinging us wide around the corner.

7
    I WAS RIDING on a cloud, five feet off the ground in the cab of his six-wheeled International Harvester. Already, I couldn’t wait to tell the guys at school about this. Me in a big yellow truck. Me, on my way to do a job. I could feel the hum of engine rise through the soles of my boots and up my legs. I was in the middle, George at the open window, and Bob, counselor Bob in