The Meadow 133 later, I saw her walking the track, her boots scuffing the dirt. She’d kick rocks off the track. Sometimes, she would place her hands on the barbed wire, where she would meet my brother and look at the barn, the chickens pecking the ground. It felt weird without the bike roaring through the late afternoon. The chickens moved easier; they stopped hiding under the curved piece of plywood. Her parents had yelled at my parents who cursed back. That’s how she left us; she walked back to their house, her red hair muted in the semi-darkness, the approaching of night, and we all stood, with the fence between us, pointing and shouting that Adam had distracted her, that I had somehow messed with her bike or the track, how they etc. Adam left for our house soon after Mary departed. That afternoon, with the house drying off from the hose, we walked through the pasture, carrying fresh water for the chickens. Mary was on her track, going the opposite direction she usually went. “Do you think she did it?” I said. Every evening I think it’s impossible to carry all this water, but somehow, we managed. My hands hurt from the bucket’s plastic handle. “Of course it was them. They are a bunch of assholes, all of them.” That seemed to settle it. “We have to protect each other, the chickens, the house. If they think they can mess with us, they got another thing coming.” I nodded. The chickens cooed and ran to us when we got inside. It smelled how it should: Hay and chickenshit. “Listen,” he said, filling the feeders, petting Henrietta, picking up Oscar, “I’m going to get back at them. Don’t worry.” Oscar bobbed his head, his bright red comb the texture of asphalt moved with each stilted shake. “This will stop it all.” I thought he meant that he would collect our eggs and return
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