The Prodigal Cowboy. Kathleen Eagle

front tire, and one pair of boots sticking out from under the orange cab.

      “Did you guys run over somebody?” Shelly called out. She glanced back at Bella and nodded toward the two faces now turned their way. “There’s your man.” She raised her voice. “You’ve got a visitor, Wolf Track.”

      “You patted her down, didn’t you?” Ethan wiped his hands on a rag as he rose to his feet. “Was she packin’?”

      “Packing what?” Shelly asked.

      “A .38.” Grinning at Bella, he touched the brim of his straw cowboy hat in salutation. “Smith & Wesson, right?”

      Bella’s eyes widened as she and Shelly approached the truck. “That was you?”

      “You saw the pickup that cruised past? That was trouble.”

      “You followed me?”

      “Trouble followed you. I followed them.” Beneath the bent brim of his hat a smile danced in his dark eyes. “You don’t wanna tip your hand out on the street like that, Bella. Some people might find a Smith & Wesson even more tempting than a Bella Primeaux.”

      She returned a level stare. “Neither one was there for the taking. As I said, I know how to use it.”

      “If you really knew how to use it, you wouldn’t be giving away your advantage by broadcasting it.”

      “This sounds like an interesting reunion,” Shelly injected, amused. “I’m guessing high school sweethearts.”

      “No. Never.” Bella laughed. “I was a lowly underclassman when Ethan was the cock of the walk.”

      “The what?” Ethan said.

      “You were the captain of everything except the cheerleading squad.”

      “And our little two-man history team.” He winked at her, and she wondered whether the gesture had become pure reflex. “I dropped the ball on that one. It was your leadership that got us on the A list.”

      “Well played, captain. Credit your teammates. We’d love to hear a play-by-play. Sounds like the makings of an excellent lesson in humility.” Shelly slipped an arm around Bella’s waist. “Please stay for supper so the boys can watch their hero recover whatever he’s fumbled.”

      “Thank you, I will.” Bella gave Ethan a sweet smile. “I’m interested in seeing how a cock walks the straight and narrow walk. We already know how he talks the talk.”

      “You do know a cock is a rooster, right?” Ethan said.

      “Of course. My mother had one. Beautiful plumage. But the hens got tired of him, and the neighbors complained about the crowing.” She shrugged. “So we ate him. I made a tiny dance bustle out of his tail for my little cousin.”

      It took a moment, but Ethan burst out laughing. The boy standing near the truck joined in, and the one underneath called out, “Whoa!”

      “Are you watching what you’re doing there?” Still chuckling, Ethan returned to his duty. “Has the oil finished draining from the filter?”

      “How am I supposed to tell?”

      “Use your eyes, Dempsey. See anything dripping?”

      “Out of the filter, Dempsey, not your face,” the other boy jeered as Dempsey scooted out from under the cab.

      Ethan tapped the scoffer’s barrel chest. “You’re not gonna make it as a comedian, so you’d better learn to make yourself useful for something else.” He reached through the cab window and drew out a box. “Step two.”

      “I gotta get back under there?” Dempsey whined.

      “What do you say, Bongo?” Ethan laid a hand on the big boy. “You wanna do the oil filter?”

      Bongo chuckled as he glanced under the hood. “Does it go on top?”

      “No, you gotta get down and dirty.”

      Dempsey laughed. “Good luck gettin’ him back out.”

      “So that was our automotive program,” Shelly said to Bella as she turned her toward the barn. “The next stop on our press tour will be the henhouse. One of the few centers of serious, steady, no-bull productivity on the place. Besides the kitchen, where we have another woman in charge. I swear, Bella, the testosterone …” With a smug smile she glanced back. “Carry on, boys.”

      Ethan looked up at Bella as he sank down, butt to boot heels. “You stay for supper, me and the boys’ll show off our table manners. We just learned that passing is our first option.”

      “Yeah, but Bongo still wants to run with the bowl.”

      “Shut up, Dempsey,” Bongo called out from under the orange cab.

      “Count me in, Shelly,” Bella said, amused, hesitant to move on. “I’m really interested in your program.” To be honest, she felt favored, much the way she had the day Ethan had tapped her on the shoulder in history class and pointed his finger in her direction and then his own. You’re with me on this one.

      “I’m interested in her .38,” Dempsey said, loud enough to be heard.

      “Jeez, Dempsey, what’s wrong with you?” Bongo asked.

      “You do know a .38 is a gun.”

      “Sure, I do. And I figure she can read the No Firearms sign out at the gate. You’re just rude, Dempsey. Ahh!” Bongo kicked both legs in the air. “Something’s dripping on me!”

      Ethan tipped his head and leaned to one side. “Is it hot?”

      “No, but it don’t taste too good.”

      Dempsey leaned back against the truck and howled.

      “Maybe you’d better keep your mouth shut and get done, Bongo,” Ethan said. “I gotta get cleaned up for supper.”

      Folding dining tables flanked a large pass-through window that separated the kitchen from the commons area. Two worn sofas, a card table, a TV and a few chairs furnished the opposite end of the great room. The setup was a small version of the commons at the Indian boarding school Bella had attended before her mother decided she should come back home and go to little Sinte High School. It was not Bella’s choice—the South Dakota mission school had a good reputation for preparing kids for college—and she remembered questioning her mother’s judgment, even accusing her of being selfish, which had turned out to be true. Her mother jealously guarded those years, claimed them as her time. But what she really meant was their time, and Bella had had no idea how short the time would be.

      She wondered how many of the two-dozen boys who lined up at the window and came away with plates loaded with meat and potatoes would be taken home by their parents if and when the state stepped aside. They behaved like the boys she’d gone to school with, jostling for position, be it in suckling, pecking or batting order. Dying to get noticed, an expression a few of them would take literally if they found no other way. But here they were allowed to be boys while they learned to be men. If they could, and if they would. She’d reported on more than a few who did not.

      “You really are their hero,” Bella noted after Bongo and Dempsey had taken the long way around the tables to congratulate Ethan for “scoring.”

      “Yeah, they think I’m bad,” he said with a smile.

      “Which is good.”

      “In their eyes, maybe. Should I leave it at bad, or should I admit to a generous helping of stupid?” He shook his head as he cast a glance at the fluorescent fixture overhead. “I don’t know, Bella. I’m new at this job, and I’m kinda wingin’ it. You never know what’s gonna work with these gangsters.”

      “They don’t seem like gangsters.”

      “A couple of them are