By David Anthony Durham

The horse and cattle markets were at the southern edge of Crownsville, set away from the houses, down a broad slope and in an enormous, shallow bowl. From a distance, one could see a motley conglomeration of fenced-off areas, buildings and parts of buildings, wood structures that jutted up like abandoned scaffolding. What these were or would be was hard to say, but undoubtedly they were the work of some entrepreneurial dreamer, strapped for the moment in want of wood or money.

It was in and about these works that the market in flesh plied its wares. As Gabriel and James walked toward it, they marveled at the mass of life before them. It may have been only a tiny fraction of the great herds of this land's near past, but to their eyes the animals seemed beyond calculation. The herds were such, in fact, that the boys had to choose their way carefully for danger of finding themselves deep within a moaning body of cattle. They twice had to break into a fast jog to avoid such a fate, and they were once shouted at by a cowboy on a sorrel horse, who waved at them with his whip, a gesture directional and threatening at once. They followed his command as best as they could understand it, and before long they had made it through that gauntlet and blended in among human herds of considerably smaller yet no less confusing numbers. It wasn't until they attached themselves to a stationary object, a fence of wood surrounding a ring of some fifty yards squared, that they could again breathe easily.

A bull stood in the center of the ring, eyeing the crowd with belligerent mistrust. It was an enormous thing of solid white, built of muscles. Its horns were adorned with silver caps that caught the sun in blinding flashes. The shaft that hid its member dangled serenely beneath it, conspicuous in its life-giving power. The bull seemed to stand there for no particular purpose that it or the boys could make out, except as a spectacle reminiscent of some pagan culture.

A boy not much older than themselves entered the ring. He wore the hat of a cowboy and walked with a wide-legged swagger, but in fact his arms were so thin as to be diminutive, his chest so narrow as to mark him a child. Gabriel and James watched him closely. The bull spun around when it caught sight of the boy, chucked its head in the air and flared its nostrils. It hardly looked like a creature that would bow to the whims of man, and it appeared that the boy was about to offer the audience a share of gore at his own expense. But to Gabriel's surprise, the boy just walked over to the beast, stroked it calmly on the nose, and led it away. It walked behind him like a misshapen, obedient sibling.

Soon after, the ring filled with horses. They came in charged with energy, bustling into each corner of the enclosed space, measuring its dimensions. They wheeled and turned, neighed and spoke to each other, shared horse thoughts about this new space and this old event and about the people watching them. Brown was the most prominent color, but a few were black, one was reddish in hue, and many were paints. Some had about them the look of Indian horses, a certain wildness in the eyes and an energy hardly contained in such a small space.

An auctioneer took his post, an elevated platform just high enough that he could see into the crowd, which grew considerably around and behind the boys as the morning's market prepared to begin. He was a small man, long-nosed and balding. He spoke in quick staccato rhythms, his voice a bird that darted with his eyes, reaching back into the audience and catching bids, promoting bids, creating them. Gabriel watched his mouth but could make nothing of the words shaped there. He watched the horses that sold fastest or for the highest price, trying to formulate in his own mind the features that distinguished some from the rest. Several times he deigned to answer James's questions, showing him with a frown the importance of his concentration. Before long, all but three horses were sold. These remainders looked no sorrier than the rest, but for some reason that escaped the boy, these were returned to their masters.

"You got an eye for horses?" Gabriel asked his friend.

James shook his head. "I know you're supposed to check that they have good teeth, like they used to do slaves."

As a new set of horses entered the ring, Gabriel noticed a commotion on the platform. A man had climbed up there and was speaking in animated words with the auctioneer and his assistants. They seemed to know him, were half amused but also wished him to get down. He would not do so, and only grew more passionate in his entreaties. The auctioneer eventually shook his head and grabbed himself a seat, resigning his post for a moment.

The new man smiled heartily at this and took himself out to the edge of the small podium and to the attention of the waiting crowd. He was a tall man, in stature and shape similar to Solomon, except that he stood straight-backed and moved with confidence in himself and his place in the world. He had long arms that stretched beyond the reach of his jacket's sleeves, leaving his pale wrists exposed. His clothing was the usual muted browns, his face well tanned and weathered, but these colors sat strangely on him, as his hair was so blond as to approach white, his eyebrows even more so, and his smile likewise flashed bright in the sunlight.

But it wasn't until the man began speaking that Gabriel recognized him as the cowboy he'd seen the week before, with the herd of cattle back at the homestead. The man introduced himself as Marshall Alexander Hogg, the Marshall being a name only and in no way an indication of profession, the Alexander being his father's notion of a warrior prototype, and Hogg being traditionally Scottish and in no way a suggestion of his character. He spoke in polite and eloquent language edged with humor and somehow slyly common, as if he liked to dazzle the crowd with a certain amount of lyricism but was careful to remind them that he came from the likes of them and was no more or less than a kinsman. He explained his need to speak on behalf of the fine horses the audience could clearly see being led into the corral. He was sure this need not be said, but nevertheless he wished to warn prospective buyers that these were the finest horses likely to be sold in the state in the course of this year. He knew so because he had driven them up from Texas for the express purpose of supplementing the quality of horses in the wonderful state of Kansas.

He went on to say that because of the sad fact that the horses could not demonstrate their full range of abilities in so limited a pen with so limited an amount of time, he wanted to highlight a few of their less obvious qualities. He directed everyone's attention to a certain young bay. This horse, he assured the audience, was smart enough to herd cattle without either rider or instruction. He had a habit of doing just that, managing the herd all day and only calling it quits when his replacement showed up. Another specific horse, he claimed, had mastered several Indian dialects and could happily serve as a translator if the need arose. Several others had skills in regards to cooking, fishing, and celestial navigation. And quite a few had things to say about animal husbandry.

He had just begun to point out another horse when he called out, "What? Who put my horse in the ring?" His face took on a look of great consternation, lightened by a smile just behind it all. He ranted a few moments, confounded the help he had for their ineptitude or downright treachery, and finally spoke once more to the audience. "That horse, gentlemen, is my own sweet Sophia. She's so smart she once tied up my shoelaces for me. She's so strong she once sent a grizzly to the great beyond with one fell kick. She's so fast she ran from the top to the bottom of a twister in six and half seconds flat. And she's just about pretty enough to marry. But none of you'll have her. She's mine till the good Lord sees to tear us apart, which may happen eventually but surely won't happen today and is likely not to happen in Kansas."

He went on for some time refusing offers that nobody had made as yet, and then he prepared to retire. He said goodbye to the auctioneer, bowed to the audience graciously, and hurried down to the ring with the utmost feigned urgency. Applause followed him from the podium. It turned to laughter when he whispered in his horse's ear and patted her on the rump solicitously. Gabriel laughed with the rest and watched as most of the horses sold high and fast.

Gabriel walked back into town alone, with a casual, loose-legged gait that still had something of the city in it. The hard labor of the past months had carved changes into the boy's body. His hands were callused across the palms and bruised over the knuckles, making them puffed, rugged versions of their former selves. Cords of muscle fanned out across his back like wings growing beneath the skin, and the round curves that joined his chest and arms had twisted into solid balls. The drudgery of farm life, which warped many bodies, broke manmade tools, and took a toll of blood on both the land and its people, seemed only to strengthen this boy and speed his way to manhood. He grew with an intensity beyond that of anything planted in the ground--like a weed, some might say, and with much the same angry intent.

He spotted the wagon from some distance away, parked on a main street near the store. The mule stood with its head hung low, in quiet contemplation of whatever it is that mules are likely to think about. Gabriel walked up to it and stroked the coarse hair of its forelock. He studied the creature for a few moments, then whispered in its ear, "You ever wish you were all horse?" The mule watched him with one rotund eyeball but gave no answer. "Ever think about that? You could have been all a horse or all a donkey, but instead somebody stuck you together a hinny." The mule tossed its head at this and shied away a step, apparently not comfortable with being so characterized.

Gabriel turned and looked at the store. It was a flat-faced wooden building built with a certain practicality of design that highlighted and yet economized on the sturdy timbers transported a thousand miles into this treeless world. It stood out on the street, not in design or size but in the brightness of its fresh white paint, and by the raucous colors of its new sign: HOWE AND SONS GENERAL STORE, yellow letters on a vermilion background, with a border of dark green.

The inside was lit only by the front windows. Gabriel stood for a moment near the door, letting his eyes adjust to the dusty light, trying to make some order of the rows and stacks of merchandise, food items, household wares, and building supplies. He eventually located Solomon. He went up behind him, stood for a moment, then cleared his throat. When this brought no motion from Solomon, Gabriel cleared his throat once more and scuffed his foot against a crate. The man turned around, roused out of his thoughts, and smiled at the boy

. "Hey, Gabriel, I was wondering what you were up to. Just looking over some things here. Just dreaming, you know. Just dreaming. What do you think of this here?"

He held out the new plowshare that he'd been contemplating. He ran his fingers over it and checked the blade from different angles in the light, divining a future in its contours. He held it with the delicate fingers of a glassblower as he explained that this blade was some new steel, harder than the old stuff, longer-lived. Perhaps with a blade such as this they could turn up the whole of that south-facing slope and double their tilled land in no time at all. He asked the boy his thoughts and got answers, such as they were, only in shrugs and nods, which seemed neither to confirm nor deny his hopes. Whether disheartened by this response or not, Solomon decided to make the purchase. He took the plowshare and his other supplies up to be tallied by the storekeeper.

Gabriel stood back a little, watching the man calculate their bill. He looked over his features, settling on the man's thick and unpleasant eyebrows and the slightly sinister curl of his mustache. He was cordial in the way of whites to blacks, joking with Solomon and asking after the health of his family, wondering whether they were turning much soil, assuring him that this plow would indeed help their progress, and saying that Solomon was lucky, as this was the last one he had in stock.

This statement, casual as it was, caught the attention of another man, a small fellow with reddish skin and ears that craned forward, rodent like, as if to pick up just such information. He approached the counter, watched the goings-on for a second, then spoke. "Did I hear you right, Howe? Is that there the last of them new blades?" Howe answered that he had heard right. The man thought this over, his eyes fixed hard and suggestively on the storekeeper's. "Don't you remember I asked you to set one of those aside for me? Just the day before yesterday, came right in here and asked you explicit not to sell the last one except to me."

Howe slowed in his work and drew himself up, his eyes finally meeting the other white man's and joining in some optical discourse. Before long he began to recall just such a conversation. "Hal, damned if I didn't forget all about that."

"I thought you'd remember, though," Hal said, letting a smile tilt his lips. A trickle of tobacco juice escaped the corner of his mouth and blended into the reddish hair of his chin. "I had your word, didn't I?"

"That you did." Howe hung his head for a moment and considered the sad state of these events, then looked up at Solomon. "Sorry, Solomon, looks like this here plow blade was on hold, just like Hal says. I can't sell it to you."

Solomon was slow in answering. Across his face passed many emotions in rapid-fire succession, not the least of which was anger. From where Gabriel stood, he could see the man's fingers grip the gray boards of the counter as if they would pierce through them and rip the wood asunder. The boy waited for what words or deed would come, as surely some must, for this was the man who had so lamented the pain of dreams deferred and cried the virtues of the freedom of honest work.

"You can't?" Solomon asked, as if no other words would come to him.

"Naw, he can't," the customer said. He reached over and took the blade from Solomon's things. As he turned to resume shopping, he murmured, "It'd be wasted on you anyway, damn nigger farmer."

Gabriel followed the man with red-hot eyes. They fixed on the man's ears, on the scrawny tube that was his neck. He looked back at Solomon, his face for once characterized not by a look of loathing but beseeching instead, longing for a wrong to be righted. Solomon held his gaze for a second but made no communication with the boy, turning instead and settling the bill.

Outside, the two loaded up the wagon in silence. Solomon patted the boy on the shoulder, turned, and climbed onto the seat. Gabriel watched him, sour-faced. "That's what you call being a free man?" He said it quietly, just a whisper, but clearly so that his stepfather could hear it.

The man paused before seating himself, thought for a moment, then let himself down onto the blanket. When he spoke, his voice was honest, half defeated and far from proud. "Naw, I don't reckon we're all the way there, but we're on the way. Things could be a lot worse than somebody taking your plow. We're still finding the course to better things." He motioned for the boy to climb aboard.

Gabriel looked around, considering other options and none too sure that the wagon was the best one. He eventually climbed in and settled himself, facing the back. He crossed his arms and sat in silence as the vehicle began its slow, creaking progress home.

The sky that Sunday evening began calm and still. No breeze blew across the grass, and even the coyotes were silent, their familiar cacophonous calls absent from the night. Hiram sat beside a tallow candle, in its warm, flickering light, and read from the Bible, from the old tales of the pharaohs and the Israelites. Egypt seemed an incomprehensible land, and Gabriel could scarcely conjure images of that strange country and the deeds performed there. Hiram spoke of Moses and Pharaoh, he who spurned God's wishes, of how Pharaoh was punished with miracles beheld by all, how he became repentant and wished to release the Jews. But each time Moses returned, God would turn Pharaoh's heart hard and make him refuse and thereby bring upon his people a new plague. This they repeated time and again. Gabriel couldn't help thinking that God was a cruel God, one who would toy with the souls of men and make them suffer against their wishes, who would choose one race of people over another and so mete out his curses.

Hiram found the words moving to the core and soon turned the evening's reading into a full-blown sermon. He spoke not as Hiram to his close kin but as preacher to a greater audience, with a fervor that made Eliza smile. He began by recollecting their distant homes in the South. He talked of that warm and humid land, of the beauty in its tragic history, and he spoke of the troubles of that place, the hardships they'd all known. They'd come here to escape some of that suffering, hadn't they? They come to make a new life for themselves, to prosper, grow and multiply. Wasn't this so? He paused when they answered in the affirmative, and then said that they might escape many things in this country, but there was one force from which they could never escape. "Do you know what I'm speaking on, all of you?" He looked at the boys, who affirmed that they did. Hiram seemed to doubt this. He closed his eyes and stated, as if to a loved but naughty child for the hundredth time, "Ye cannot escape God's laws, God's sight, God's blessing, and God's judgment."

He went on to tell the story of Jesus' life, summed up and abbreviated, stressing his love for the poor and devotion to the common man. With his own upheld arms he painted a picture of Jesus nailed to the cross, dying once again before their eyes, for their sins, so that man would not be destroyed but could live to be tested further. And later, with quiet words that caused the listeners to crane forward, he told of the man's resurrection. His body became stiff and unwieldy, dead and frozen, and only gradually did he regain life, as the Lord breathed the spirit back into him and Jesus both.

In the end, Hiram turned their eyes back out toward the fields. He read from the hundred and fifth psalm, verses forty-two, forty-three, and forty-five, and painted a picture of the prairie blooming like a giant rose, a sweet smelling thing of beauty and delicate refinement. "Are you looking for the Promised Land?" he asked. Eliza's voice, singsong and light, said that they were. "Well, behold, you've found its location. Now farm and reap and thank God for the gift of life." By the time he'd finished, there was little doubt as to the bounty of this land or the blessed rightness of their decision to journey here. Gabriel alone lacked enthusiasm, a fact that he tried hard to demonstrate with his twisted countenance.

They bedded down a couple of hours later, Hiram wishing all a fine rest and heading out to his half-completed room. It was just after the house had fallen into silence that the wind kicked up. At first it just tickled the prairie, caressed the house as a benevolent hand pets a loved old dog. But as the night grew darker, so the wind grew bolder. Before long a tempest howled against the sides of the house like a Fury intent on utter destruction. Gusts tore through chinks in the walls and cracks in the door, creating a whirling dance within the cabin. Gabriel pulled his cover up over his head and lay listening. "You hear that?" Ben asked.

"I don't hear nothing. Go to sleep."

But sleep had been blown away by the wind. Both boys lay with ears alert. The storm soon became a living thing running across the prairie. Far off they heard the pounding of footsteps, a steady bass over which the wind played. It grew louder, like a stampede of cattle, coming on hard and furious. It hit the house with a force that seemed to rock it. The window shook in its pane and the door bucked against its hinges. But the pounding was no herd of maddened beasts, no creatures of the apocalypse. It was rain.

A few seconds after it began, water started leaking through the roof. It dribbled down at first in a single trickle, then two. Then a section of the ceiling, which had been so faithful in lesser rains, caved in. Water pelted onto the table and floor in a torrent, some liquid, some tiny balls of ice.

"Damn," Ben said. He jumped to his feet. "The roof's broke!"

Gabriel looked over his shoulder but only half took in the scene. He turned away and curled close to the wall. "Who cares?" he mumbled.

Solomon emerged from behind the curtain with a lamp in hand. The light illuminated the downpour and caught the erratic bounces of the hail, like jewels thrown about the table. A second later, Hiram tumbled through the door. The light caught the surprise on his face as he stepped from one downpour into another. "You can't escape the flood!" he yelled, finding sudden humor in the situation.

Solomon was more serious. "Ben, see to Raleigh and the mule. See they don't get too spooked and are tied up properly." Ben jumped into action immediately, reaching for his boots and coat. He was out the door in the space of a few seconds. "Hiram, we gotta mend this roof."
"Directly," Hiram agreed.
"Gabriel, go fetch some of the cut sod. We'll layer it over top as best we can." He and Hiram lifted the table and chairs out of the way. Eliza appeared with the quilt from her bed. She tossed it across the floor, covering the larger part of the rain-soaked area.

Gabriel went so far as to sit up and survey the chaos. He blinked and said, "Let the damn roof leak, for all I care."

Solomon had just set the table down. He swung toward the boy. His hand came up and flew at Gabriel, so fast neither of them seemed to know it was happening. He smacked the boy open-palmed across the cheek, snapping his head around and sending him sprawling back against the pallet. Gabriel was up in a second, chest thrown out and fists at the ready. Solomon met him head on. "What the hell's wrong with you, boy? What kind of creature you got eating at you?"
"Nothing's eating me except being here."
"You're a fool, Gabriel. You're a damn fool child.
If you would put away that anger, you'd see we're making a life here." A fresh gust of wind tore through the open door and around the room and fled through the roof, rocking them all where they stood. But Solomon kept his gaze on Gabriel. He spoke just loud enough to be heard over the noise. "I'll accept you into this home like a son. I'll love you like one if you let me, but I ain't gonna tolerate you forever. You can make it with us or not. I don't care. You can be damn sure we can do it without you." He turned and shoved the door aside, Hiram following close on his heels.

Eliza eyed Gabriel angrily. "Get out there and help."
Gabriel pulled on his boots and strode out into the rain without even a jacket to protect him. Ice balls pummeled his back and shoulders, sending his muscles into convulsions that he overcame by turning them into a full-tilt run. He could barely see the ground before him, and he ran with his arms outstretched, feet kicking out in a clumsy, stiff-legged gait. He stumbled over the sod before he knew he'd reached it and landed flat on the slick earth. He jumped up with all the speed of a man who'd tripped over a dead body, but then he stood, gasping, forgetting his mission and staring back at the spectacle that was their home. A jagged line of white lit the sky and a foul, misshapen world flashed into view, outlined in blinding detail. One could have mistaken the soddy for a dinghy afloat in a raging sea. The prairie's contours were suddenly waves, moving with a slow and ominous bulk. The moment passed and all went black. There followed the slow rumble of thunder, a sound that in its breadth and depth overcame all other sounds, like God clearing his throat.

This spurred Gabriel back into motion. He felt for the sod with his hands and feet, found it, and shimmied his fingers under a block. He hefted it up, sank beneath it, and let the dead weight lie on his shoulder. His footing was loose and sloppy as he struggled toward the house. By the time he reached it, the two men had leaned a ladder against the wall and Solomon had scaled it. He was hard at work on the roofs, sorting through the material with some plan that Gabriel could scarcely conceive. Hiram greeted the boy but motioned him to stand back. He began handing short pieces of wood up to Solomon.

Gabriel stood with soil running down one half of his body, rainwater washing down the other. It was only then that he noticed the hail had stopped. But to make up for it, the rain fell much harder. He could just hear the commotion coming from the barn. Raleigh and the mule were anxious. The roar of the wind and rain made it hard to hear what was going on over there, but Gabriel could make out brisk whinnies and hoofbeats, intermingled with Ben's soothing voice, his explanations that all would be well.

Gabriel jumped when Hiram called him. He helped the man push the block of turf onto the roof. Hiram climbed onto the ladder and Gabriel held it as best he could, but the crooked wood shifted and bucked and rocked precariously as the men worked.

Eliza appeared in the open door and stood silhouetted there, her eyes hidden until the sky flashed again. Then Gabriel saw that she was looking at him. Her face went black again before he could read it. Solomon called for another block. This time Gabriel headed off without delay, so consumed in the work, the elements, and the electricity in the air that he didn't even consider any further protest.

The next morning the family surveyed the damage with somber eyes. If the house had once been an ogre, now it was that ogre's diseased and feeble grandfather. Inside, mud clogged the floor and seemed to have climbed up objects of its own accord, staining clothes and beds and even worming its way into the sealed trunks. The door was propped open to promote drying, but this succeeded only in merging the mud inside with the puddles outside. Outside the wildflowers so patiently nurtured by Eliza had been pummeled to naught, both by the downpour and by the men's frantic feet. Their patch job cluttered the roof like rubbish that has collected at the bend in a river--sticks crooked and cross-hatched, chunks of sod thrown over them every which way, like finger bandages over a gunshot wound. Looking at it, all agreed it was a wonder the house had sheltered as well as it had.

The fields were flooded, knee-deep in mud and more like the rice paddies of the Far East than Kansas wheat fields. It was impossible to say whether the ground might hold the seeds still or whether they were likely to float away and sprout in some distant spot, or whether they would just drown outright. Hiram speculated that the better part of them would be just fine, but nobody else voiced an opinion on the matter. Raleigh and the mule seemed largely unaffected, if a bit bedraggled. The sow was not disturbed at all, slogging about in the mud with obvious pleasure.

Solomon took it all in impassively. He shook his head but said not one downhearted word. Once the survey was complete, he shrugged his shoulders and met the earnest gazes of the others. "Let's get this place cleaned up," he said.

The others nodded and went silently to work. Gabriel helped his mother clean out the house, watching her for some sign that she saw the futility in all this. One storm, he longed to say. One storm and look at the place. He yearned to name the plagues that would follow, as if they were Biblical prophecy preordained and unavoidable. He would have asked her if she'd had enough yet, if this wasn't proof that the land could wreak upon them any whim that took its fancy, save that he knew she would not allow him questions. He would have fallen to his knees and begged her to see reason but that he saw no reason himself and was sure that reason no longer played a part in her decisions. So he aided her efforts in silence, watching for any indication that she might be swayed.

Yet again, Eliza gave no sign of regret. She simply went to work, shaking her head in an almost amused manner, as if somebody had played a joke on them all and she couldn't help but acknowledge the humor in it.

Gabrielworked hard over the next couple of days. Nobody commented on the outburst of that stormy evening, but it hung over the homestead like a cloud that would neither rain nor blow on. It lingered in Eliza's reproachful eyes, in Hiram's exhaled breaths and in the slow shake of his head at his internal dialogues, and in the polite, distant manner in which Solomon spoke to the boy. Gabriel even saw something different in his brother. It seemed that the younger boy had stepped away, looked back and found his older sibling deficient in his role, no longer one to look up to unquestioningly. Gabriel sometimes wanted to rage at them, to take them on, stir the fire and have at it--anything other than the purgatory of the wary looks and quick sighs. But no one spoke, and the week wore on, uneventful and tiresome, until James arrived.

He found Gabriel and Ben at work around the house. The day was sunny and bright, June's beauty having returned in its blue-skyed glory. The boys had dragged many of the house's contents out into the sun and were spreading them on the ground to dry. James surveyed the damage with wide-eyed wonder. "Damn, you all did get whupped," he said. Once his initial surprise faded, a new look came over his face, an anxious quiver that told Gabriel he had some news to deliver but for some reason dared not do it in front of Ben. He worked with the boys, unfolding sheets and laying out linens with clumsy hands, creating a patchwork of fabric, furniture, and clothing that from above must have looked like a giant ragged quilt being sewn on the prairie.

It was only when Ben went into the house to fetch the waterskin that James grabbed Gabriel by the wrist. He waited till Ben was inside and then finally exhaled his words close to Gabriel's ear, and loud. "I might have got me a job, and you too if you want it!" Gabriel pulled away from him and looked over his shoulder toward the house. They were surely out of earshot, but still he silenced James with a hand. A second later he asked, "What're you talking about?"

"I talked to Mr. Hogg."

"Hogg?"

James stamped his foot in exasperation. He explained that Mr. Hogg was the man they had watched hold forth at the auction the other day. James had come upon him out by the stables that morning and considered asking if he had any work. Before he could make up his mind, some other boy had put the same question to him. James had listened to all that was said, most notably that the man was indeed looking to take a few new hands back with him to Texas and that only general skills were required for the particular openings he had to offer.

"He told you this?" Gabriel asked cautiously. "Naw, not me exactly. He told it to the boy that asked him. He told him to come on back tomorrow afternoon and they could talk about it. What do you think?"

"About what?"

"About getting jobs with Mr. Hogg. Texas, Gabe! Man's got a full ranch, cattle, horses like we seen. You saw the way he ran that show."

"I saw." Gabriel contemplated the sky above him, unable to share his friend's abounding enthusiasm. "Why would he hire us? Neither of us has ever worked a day on a ranch."

"He didn't tell that other boy no. He was scrawnier than either of us, little sick-looking white boy, but Mr. Hogg told him to come back anyway."

"He probably don't hire coloreds."

"Does too! Had a colored man standing right there with him like his right-hand man."

Gabriel thought this over for some time.

"Thought you didn't care for cowboys."

"Shit," James said. "I never said that. They might act a fool sometimes, but I never did say a word against the work. Gabe, two days ago I met a cowboy wasn't fifteen years old. Not fifteen, but had him a horse, a Stetson hat, spurs clanking when he walked, and a six-shooter. Had him a six-shooter like he's ready for a gunfight. Don't that sound sweet?"

Nobody protested when Gabriel asked to go to town. The previous week's work had tired them all, and the chores left to be done that morning somehow didn't seem so urgent. The men walked the grounds, shaking their heads and laughing at the way God overdoes his bounty sometimes. If Ben had any interest in going with Gabriel and James he didn't show it. He spent the morning tending Raleigh in the barn, something he had taken to recently. He stroked the horse's nose and spoke to him softly, telling him things for his ears only. The horse responded by stepping closer to him, as if he would push his shoulder up against him and rest his weary bones there. Only Eliza worked on that morning, taking advantage of the empty house to wash the walls and clean out the corners of the place. She wished the boys a good day and asked only that Gabriel make it back for supper.

Gabriel said that he would. He walked to the door and paused, looking back at his mother. She lifted her eyes and met his, a curious, loving look.

"Hmm?" she asked. The boy shrugged that it was nothing, and as an afterthought asked her if she needed anything from town. She said she didn't. With that answer, Gabriel walked away, turning his back on her with no intent of malice but with a nagging feeling that such was somehow the result anyway.

The boys had walked only a half-mile or so before they were picked up by Mr. Mitchell, the family's nearest neighbor. He was a kindly Mennonite man who spoke with well-measured words and long pauses. He asked Gabriel about the progress of their farm and seemed well pleased to hear that things progressed in accordance with the Lord's wishes. It was a long ride for Gabriel, but he spoke with the man in the polite tones he always reserved for white folks.

Outside the general store, Mr. Mitchell bade the boys enjoy the day, telling Gabriel to meet him no later than four for the return trip. Gabriel thanked him and turned to survey the streets. There was a busy weekend atmosphere; the streets were filled with cowtown traffic, as new herds were being driven in daily for transport via rail to points east. Wagons full of merchandise and loaded high with baggage rolled by. People strolled: some cowboys and many farmers; some women dressed garishly, whether respectable women or prostitutes, Gabriel wasn't sure. Cowboys patrolled the streets on horseback or on foot, swaggering and proud and a bit louder than necessary. A few people hawked homemade goods, and a row of quiet but poor-looking Indians sold the wares of their people.

James tugged his arm. "Come on. We already done wasted half the day."

They found Marshall Hogg leaning against a fence, half looking over the horses held inside and half talking to the small group of men around him, all cowboys or garbed as such, loose-jointed and weatherworn. Marshall had about him the same confident air he'd had on the podium. Close up, one could see that his hair was not so white as it had first appeared. He had thin, sunburned lips, a square jaw, and a nose slightly crooked in its line of descent, whether by nature's design or because of injury was unclear. He smoked a hand-rolled cigarette, which he perched on his lips so that he could gesture with his hands, talk, and laugh at the same time. His eyes touched on the boys for a second as they approached, but he looked away, hardly noticing them.

James pointed out a boy who stood near Marshall. "That's the boy that asked about work," he said. Indeed, the boy didn't surpass James's earlier description. He was thin around the neck and shoulders and generally sickly-looking, pale enough for the dead of winter and with a nose pink and sore, as if he suffered from that season's illnesses.

"And there's the colored," James whispered.

Again he reached up to point, but Gabriel stopped his arm. His eyes had already found the man. He stood at the edge of the group, leaning back, both elbows against the fence, one leg bent and resting on a crate of some sort. He was not a man of great stature or girth, but there was something immediately impressive about his body's hard lines. He seemed made entirely of sharp edges: the triangles cut by his limbs, his jutting cheekbones and chin, the narrow slits that were his eyes. The only thing truly rounded about him was the crown of his head, which was clean-shaven and smooth. He returned the boy's attention with his own appraising gaze, but on his face no greeting or kinship could be read.

Gabriel lowered his eyes, and the two approached the men like nervous schoolchildren. They stood waiting for some time before Marshall noticed them. "You two after something?" he asked.

James nodded that they were.

"Well?"

"We...Mr. Hogg, we was wondering if you might be needing some hands." It took James a great effort to get the sentence out. Once he had done so, he exhaled a pent-up breath and seemed to relax considerably.

Marshall eyed James briefly, then studied Gabriel. "Is that right?" Gabriel nodded that it was. He wondered if the man recognized him from the day he'd spoken with him and Solomon. If he did, he gave no sign of it.

"And what can you do?"

"We do everything," James said. "I mean, we'll do anything you put us to."

The white boy looked askance at the two newcomers, his eyes loathe to touch on them. He seemed to be preparing some speech in his head but came out with mucus instead, which he sent in the vague direction of Gabriel and James.

Marshall shared a smile with the man next to him. "Here's two young colored boys who figure they can do everything," he repeated for the man's benefit. "They call me Mr. Hogg, too. Polite chiggers." He looked back at the boys. "In my years of ranching, I never have come across a hand that could do everything. I've found some that can do something. A few that could do this thing or that thing. But the only ones I ever heard try to do everything ended up doing nothing. What do you make of that?"

James hesitated. He glanced at Gabriel. "I didn't mean it like that. What I was saying was Gabe here knows farming, and I been working with--"

"Don't waste your breath, boy. What do they call you two?" "James and Gabriel."

Marshall feigned surprise at the improbability of this. "The king and the archangel! Very impressive. Well, damned if I could be luckier." He looked at another of his companions. "They look to be two strong ones, don't they? Probably got some fight in them." The man to whom he was speaking smiled a toothless grin and nodded complete agreement. "Tell you what, you boys follow me, all three of you. Got a test for you, if you're up for it." He spun on his heel and started walking off, not looking back.

The boys hesitated. James mouthed some words that Gabriel couldn't make out. He shrugged in answer, and they followed the group of men who had moved off with Marshall. Only the black man remained. He didn't move till the boys did, slowly bringing up the rear.

As the group reformed within the confines of a barn, Gabriel found himself standing close to Marshall. The man raised his arm in a gesture to another, and for a moment the silver glint of a pistol flashed from inside his jacket. The boy craned to see it better but caught only the black handle of the thing, smooth and curving and engraved with some design he couldn't make out. He straightened up when he realized Marshall was watching him. The man grinned and whispered to the boy, "Don't trust a man with a fancy gun. It may be pretty, but it'll kill you just as dead as a plain shotgun."

He laid a hand on the boy's shoulder for a moment, then walked into the center of the group, creating with his circular path a ring of sorts. He moved a few of the men back with his hands, gesturing, treating the whole thing like some solemn work. When the circle was to his liking, he beckoned Gabriel and James forward and had them stand facing each other. "Now, look into the eyes of your competition." From the position he had put them in, it was clear to each that the other was whom he referred to. "You both want a job, but there's room for only one. Question one is whether it's one of you. Question two is which one of you it might be. Figure we got one easy way to settle it--a little boxing match. First boy that bests the other walks away with a dollar. If you impress the jury here, you may walk away with a job. So have at it." He stepped back and motioned for the boys to join in battle.

The boys stared at each other in surprise. Voices around them urged them on, encouraging and coercing at once. The boys still made no move, although James looked at Gabriel with desperation in his eyes. His hands had begun to tremble. He flexed them to steady them, clenching them into fists and then releasing them. He took a few tentative steps from side to side, trying to conjure some solution through movement.

"Boys, you're sorely disappointing me. I won't make you fight if you haven't got it in you. But I will take myself and the job of a lifetime on back to Texas, leave you here in the sorry state I found you in."

These words brought up in James a sudden rage, which he directed at Gabriel. "I'm not going back to Pinkerd's. Let's just do what we've got to," he said.

Gabriel didn't even lift his arms. "James, I ain't fighting you." He'd just turned to leave when James moved forward and punched him on the shoulder, not hard, but enough to bring his attention back. Gabriel wheeled around. "What are you doing? You're gonna let--"

He cut his words as James threw another blow, this time toward his face. His head bobbed out of the way, his feet sure beneath him, sliding him almost imperceptibly away. He would have said something else, but James came at him again. Gabriel had to slip left to avoid yet another whirling fist. A change came over his face. As he looked at James, his scowl returned, his lips drew back from his teeth. When the other boy made another move toward him, Gabriel unleashed an anger quicker even than its genesis. His arm swung up on that well-oiled shoulder joint, fist tight and hard as a rock, and he spun it down toward his friend. It caught the other boy between the lip and the nose, snapping his head back. As James stumbled, Gabriel hit him several more times across the chin, then the neck, dropping one blow into his abdomen.

James pitched over but reached out with one arm and grabbed Gabriel. He drew him in, preferring to receive his blows at close range. The two boys tussled about that way for some time, a moving mass of limbs and grunts. Eventually Gabriel got a grip on James's legs and yanked them into the air. The other boy hit the ground with a force that sent spit from his mouth and churned up a cloud of dust. Gabriel lashed out twice with his heavy foot, catching James in the arms crossed over his chest, this position suddenly his only means of defense.

Gabriel paused in his attack and stood above his newfound foe, his chest thrown out in the attitude of a gladiator considering the kill. He allowed James to rise. The boy's face was bloody and distorted with emotion--either anger or desperation, it was hard to say. The boys stared at each other, tired from the effort and seemingly amazed at their own behavior.

Marshall stepped between them, laughing uproariously. "That'll do, boys. Shit-fire! That's what I like to see." He looked back at his companions. "I asked them to fight and they damn well did. As far as I'm concerned, you've both earned work. What about you, you ready to fight one of these?" He turned to the white boy at the edge of the group.

The boy nearly spat when he answered, "I ain't fighting no nigger for a job."

"Figured you wouldn't. We won't be needing your services, then."

"You want the niggers instead?"

"I respect a fighter, is all. I'll always give the best man the job. Ain't that right, Caleb?"

The black man stared back at him, no visible answer on his face. He scrutinized the boys with eyes that seemed to find them a sorry sight, then looked down at his own feet as if they were of equal interest.

Marshall continued undeterred. "Boys, you don't know shit about ranching, do you? Not a thing, I can see that. But if you'll work half as hard as you fight, we'll use you for something. If you want in, be back here tomorrow at sun up. We won't wait for you, so be early." He studied them for a moment, appraising. He wiped a lock of whitish hair from his forehead, then pulled out two cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offered them to the boys. "Have a smoke on it, and remember, there's more where these came from."

Gabriel took the cigarette, holding it out before him as if he was unsure of its purpose. The two boys walked away with the men's best wishes, but they shared none of their enthusiasm. They walked without saying a word to each other, and mumbled their goodbyes without ever asking each other's plans.

Gabriel climbed out of the Mitchells' wagon at their turning, a half-mile from the house. He waved goodbye and cut out across the prairie through the dusky light. The knee-high grass brushed against his legs with each step. There was an undertone of insect life in the air, the background hum and chirp that can be heard and forgotten and thought of as silence. He walked with a steady progress that soon brought him to one of the knolls from which he could see the house. It was only here that he stopped, squatted and took out the cigarette that Marshall had given him. He rolled it in his fingers a moment, then placed it between his lips, where it sat unlit.

To eyes untainted by anger, the house on which the boy looked was no poorer a beginning than any other in the heart of the continent. It sat lonely on the plain, indeed, but its character was not one of desolation only. There was in its simple geometry a stoic perseverance. The items spread across the grass had been taken inside, and candlelight flickered in the windowpane like a heart beating, dim but warm. Plots of turned earth had grown around the house on three sides, as yet only patches of greater darkness on the plain, but signs of progress and a testament to months hard spent.

But to this the boy's eyes were blind. His thoughts were bitter. His gaze focused on the forlorn plow stuck deep in the boggy field, a sorry tool for such surgery and a fresh reminder that here too inequity ruled the land. Nothing was truly different here. All was toil and the flight from racial strife and dreams thrown about the impartial land like seeds. Where would they take root, if ever, and who would reap that harvest when the day came? He offered no answers to these questions. He asked them only as a pretext to name his one answer, to shape one word into many words, to make it clear, perhaps only to himself, that he would not reap this harvest and these were not his dreams, nor his future, that his answer had always been and could only be no.

He reached up and touched his chin, felt the bruise there beneath the pressure of his fingers. By the cold vigilance of his stare, one might have thought it was the homestead itself that had so bruised him and not the fists of his friend. He let his fingertips rise higher and massage the balls of his closed eyes. He did this for some time, pausing only to listen to the passage of some birds above him.

With that, he stood up and turned around, not daring the warmth of home and family but choosing instead this dark field in which to make his judgment. As he moved away, he wondered if it could really be this easy. Were decisions made this way, with such silence, in such solitude? He wondered, but even as he asked, he knew that there was nothing easy about this, and he felt within that silence the threat that nothing would ever be easy again, and the fear that solitude might be no more a blessing than it is a curse. He thought so, but still he walked, with hesitant steps that only gradually grew more forceful, away from the light of his home and into the evening's willing embrace.--CP

From Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham, copyright (c) 2001 by David Anthony Durham. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.