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horses—a vet was coming out later and she wanted me to move the horse to a different field. As she spoke, I had to turn to dump the manure into the wheelbarrow. I hoped she was too distracted to see my face, but she stopped talking. I looked up.
    She was staring at the bruise. It wasn’t the first time I’d come to work banged up, but I worried she was thinking about the shots last night.
    “What happened to you?” she said. Ingrid was a farmer’s wife through and through. She wore men’s jeans and shirts, kept her hair up in a bun, could nurse a lamb with a bottle while baking a pie and throw a hay bale as hard as any man.
    She also didn’t miss anything that happened on the farm.
    “This?” I rubbed my jaw. “Angus got me.” Angus was one of the Clydesdales—he often knocked his big head into someone, usually on purpose.
    “Told you to stay away from his front end.”
    I forced a smile. “His back end’s just as dangerous.”
    She chuckled. “True enough.” Her face turned serious, the leathery tanned skin pulling at her eyes. “Walter said you kids have some rats.…”
    “We’re getting them.”
    “Maybe it’s time to try some poison.”
    “We don’t want them stinking up the walls.” I felt sick, thinking of the blood still on the floor in the bathroom, the bag of bloody rags, flies circling.
    “We’ll talk to your daddy about it when he gets home.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    *   *   *
    That night we heated up the last can of tomato soup. Courtney told us Ingrid had asked about her burn.
    “Did she believe you?” I said.
    “I don’t know. She asked weird questions, like why you’d been cooking and not Dani, and if we went to the hospital. She said it wasn’t good, us being on our own so much, but I said Dad was coming home soon.” Ingrid could be nosy, and she had no problem sharing your personal business with anyone who would listen. She’d more than likely already told a few people that we were still alone. People who might decide to be neighborly and check on us.
    Courtney looked at Dani. “We should just get out of here.”
    Dani thought it over, taking so long I wanted to shout at her, but the more I pushed, the longer she’d take. She liked to look at all sides of stuff, weighing the options, but I thought she should listen to her guts more. I agreed with Courtney, but if I told Dani what I thought, she’d just tell me to shut up.
    “If we split right after those gunshots, they’re going to wonder,” she finally said. “Maybe even send the cops after us. Let’s just hold tight for now.”
    *   *   *
    When we were finished eating, we ripped up the linoleum in the bathroom, which had already been peeling in places. We didn’t know what to do with it, so we shoved it into the shed until we could figure something out. We dug the bullet out of the wall—it had lodged in one of the beams—then patched the hole with some drywall putty we also found in the shed. We repainted the whole bathroom and the plywood floor with some old paint Dad had stolen from one of his buddies.
    Around midnight we took Dad’s truck to the quarry, sticking to the back road. Dani drove, wearing one of Dad’s cowboy hats and a big coat, making her look bulkier in case anyone passed us. Courtney and I stayed low on the passenger side. At the quarry we drove around, checking that no one else was out there for a late swim. It was quiet. We went to one of the highest spots, put the truck in neutral, and pushed it over the edge. It didn’t sink right away.
    “Shit! It’s not going down,” I said. “We should’ve opened the windows.”
    “Wait,” Dani said. Finally it started to move, sinking below the surface. Bubbles rose.
    “What if someone sees it? Like swimming down or something,” I said.
    “They won’t,” Dani said. But she didn’t meet my eyes.
    *   *   *
    We decided to ditch the bleached rags and ripped-up linoleum at a neighbor’s. The man had more junk in his yard