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Ann Pancake Redneck Boys Richard has gone on and died, she thinks when she hears the knuckle on the door. Took two weeks after the accident, he was strong. The other three dead at the scene. She glances at the digital clock on top of Richard’s New Testament, then she covers her face with her hands. The yellow stink of the hospital still hangs in her hair. It’s 3:07 a.m., and Richard has gone on and died. She pulls on yesterday’s jeans and feels her way through the hall, not ready yet for a light in her eyes. Cusses when she hits barefoot the matchbox cars her son’s left lying around. She’s so certain it’s her brother, who was made messenger back towards the beginning of this mess, she doesn’t even pull back the curtain to see. She stops behind the door to steady her breath, which is coming quick and thin even though she’s expected the news for days. But when she unbolts the door, it is a boy, a man, she hasn’t seen in a few years. He blows steam in the porch light, straddling the floor frame Richard never had time to finish. Coatless, his arms pork-colored in the cold. He has forced himself into corduroy pants he’s outgrown and wears a pair of work boots so mud caked they’ve doubled in size. He grins. She knew him some time ago. And he grins at her, his face gone swollen, then loose under the chin, the way boys get around here. “Cam,” is what he says. She draws back to let Splint pass. He unlaces the muddy boots and leaves them on the ground under the porch frame. The surprise she might have felt if he’d shown up before Richard’s wreck—and she’s not sure she would have felt surprise then—has been wrung out of her by the two-week vigil. Splint walks to the sofa where he wraps himself in an afghan and chafes his upper arms with his palms. He swipes at the runny nose with his shoulder. Cam remembers what she’s wearing—just a long-john shirt of Richard’s over the jeans, no bra—and for a moment, her face heats with self-consciousness. Then the heat leaves her face for other places in her body. Angry at herself, Cam wills the heat away. “Where’s your boy?” Splint asks. Then, “I heard about Richard.” “Down to Mom’s,” Cam answers. 66 Ann Pancake “You’re up on this mountain without even a dog at night?” Splint squats in front of the woodstove, still shawled in the afghan that doesn’t quite fall to his waist. Cam watches the soft lobs between the waistband of the corduroys and the hem of the hiked-up T-shirt. Burrs snagged in his pants cuffs. Cam wonders what he’s done now to end up coatless in the middle of a freezing night. Then she doesn’t wonder. She crouches on the edge of the sofa behind him, her chest clenched, and she waits for what he’ll do next. What he does is open the stove door and huddle up to it closer, giving Cam a better look at his soft back. Hound-built he was as a boy, a little bowlegged and warped along the spine, the new muscles riding long and taut and rangy right under the skin. Freckle-ticked shoulders. She recalls trailing him one August afternoon up a creek bed where he’d stashed a six-pack of Old Milwaukee in sycamore roots. He’d outgrown that shirt, too, a tank top, and she had watched it ride up, watched the tight small of his back. The muscles coming so soon, too early, on those boys. “Why don’t you poke up the fire for me?” Splint startles her. She starts to move, then pauses, asks herself who she’s answering to and why. But she’s been raised to obedience. She leans forward and picks up a split chunk on the hearth. Its raw insides tear the skin on her palm, even though it is a hard hand that has handled many stove logs. She shoves the log in the embers, kneels, and blows until the coals flare up. Then, as she reaches to shut the door, Splint’s own hand snakes out of the afghan and grabs her arm. Cam...

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