138 The Meadow her right hand, working the levers for the brake or clutch or whatever those levers did. Adam would know, but he was already at the fence, and I knew my place was on the path we had created, back to the house. Mom and Dad were in the living room, watching some Western. The man rode a horse, a rifle in his hands, shooting at some hills. People with bows fell off rocks, holding their chests or they slumped down the side of cliffs. The man spurred his horse on, desperate, on some mission. He arrived at a creek and submerged his hands in the water, a dark liquid clouded over rocks and stones, mingled with passing twigs. Mom started to cry, and Dad averted his eyes. Like always, I watched Adam and Mary at the barbed wire fence. I imagined they discussed the tulips. Would she get an answer out of him? Was he telling her to, according to Dad, fuck off? I worried. It was getting harder to see, the sun gone, the sky purple and darkening with each blink. I fought off sleep and snuck into my brother’s room. I knew it was in his dresser. I had seen him with it for months now, since he got it for his birthday. Its metal was sleek, an army camo printed on every surface, even the handle. The CO2 was next to it, heavy and full. A bag of red paintballs was half empty. Sometimes, before it got too dark, he would shoot in the backyard, using our shed as a backdrop for his targets, soda and beer cans, squeezing, not pulling as he corrected me, the trigger, producing a puff out of the barrel, causing a thud/thrush sound, followed by the clank of a can crumpling and bouncing off the sawhorse. The gun itself was lighter than I expected. By the time I got back to the window, I couldn’t see a thing. My gut felt squirmy. Was she in the barn right now? Were her parents in on it? Stealing our chickens? Hurting them? I carried the paintball gun, having already screwed the CO2 tank to it and filled it with paintballs, to the kitchen. Mom and Dad were still watching TV, the cowboy sat around a fire now, his
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