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CHAPTER ONE
"Easy now, I ain't gonna hurt ya." Chas McPherson, forty-one and looking it, heaved a nearly grown ewe onto her hind end. The thrashing animal immediately went limp, her legs splayed out like a collapsed marionette. The phrase, "Ever had a Blackbelly? They're mild...tender--not like woolies" rolled around Chas's head as he dabbed a cream on the ewe's eye from a tiny tube his fingers could barely manipulate. Mild and tender; not like woolies. He gripped the ewe hard between his knees and screwed the cap back on. He examined the animal's hooves, then slid his hand into the pocket of his muddied canvas jacket and exchanged the ointment for a pair of heavy, medieval-looking trimmers. He used the scissor-like instrument with quick precision to snip the hooves into sharp triangles. The phrase playing in his mind was one his father used to sell his butcher lambs, ever the salesman. When Chas released the animal, she remained motionless in a heap at his feet as if paralyzed.
"Git on now!" he yipped, giving the ewe a mild kick in the flank and sending her bounding back to the safety of the flock.
He slipped the trimmers back in his pocket and strode to the gate. The flock darted to the other side of the catch pen to avoid him. He unlatched the gate and swung it wide to let them out. They bunched together in a mass of wiry hair and black ears, pressing against the cold metal bars on the far side of the pen from the gate. Shrugging, he left them to figure it out and started for the barn. When he was some distance away, a single brave ewe bolted toward the pasture, leaping high in the air to clear a barrier at the gate only she could see. The others quickly followed, mimicking her precisely, springing over the unseen obstacle on blind faith.
Chas snapped the twine on an alfalfa bale and tossed it through the barn window to the feeder below. His sheep streamed toward it in a long single-file line, as if they'd forgotten that only moments ago they were terrified of him.
He paused and looked out on the Sweetwater River that ran along the southern boundary of his three-hundred acres and into the tiny hamlet that shared its name six miles to the west. A grove of black walnut trees stood leafless and bleak along its banks. The river ran dull and sluggish, like liquid lead under the gray December sky. The water was low, leaving a wide, black crescent where his animals waded up to their knees in mud to drink.
He poured a bucket of oats over the hay, then lumbered across the muddy yard toward the house. His eyes skimmed the decaying eaves of the building, looking at the hooks his father had spaced every six inches--for Christmas lights. He thought briefly of putting them up before the old man came home, as a welcoming gesture. But the idea dissolved with the realization his father wouldn't see the lights, only the grass sprouting from the gutters, or the thick slabs of moss on the shingles--keeping the roof in one piece, really. Assuming his father would even recognize the place, and that was a large assumption.
Chas stomped up the wide porch steps, loosening clumps of mud and sheep shit from his boots, which he kicked off next to the door. He dropped his jacket on a table already piled high with broken tools, tractor parts and chipped dishes never brought in from last summer's suppers.
He pulled two hickory logs from a disorderly pile in the entryway and added them to the woodstove in the living room. He stoked the fire up. In no time it burned so fiercely he opened the front door to let out some heat. He sat in the kitchen at a pine table gouged deep with time, his dirty breakfast dishes pushed to the side with last night's, and jotted notes in a small book where he recorded which animals he'd treated for which ailments and the date.
As he finished up, the phone rang. "Hello," he said.
"May I speak to Charles McPherson, please?" a woman asked.
"It's Chas. And you've got him."
"Um, my name is Mattie Holden, and I'm calling about your ad. I'm a nurse."
Chas listened.
"Are you still looking for a home-care nurse, Mr. McPherson?"
"Yeah. Where ya from?"
"Spokane. But I can be there with two day's notice."
"You ever been to Sweetwater?"
"No, but I see here on the map, it's not too far from Salmon City."
Chas took a deep breath. That wasn't what he was getting at. "I can't pay you much."
The woman hesitated.
"This ain't a rest-home; it's a sheep ranch. You're gonna be a long way from any shopping malls and movie theatres."
"I understand," she said.
"You better."
"I'm sorry, sir, I-I thought you were looking for a nurse."
He scowled. Why the hell else would I put an ad in the paper, he wondered. "I am. Just making sure you've got the whole picture before you waste your time driving down here."
"Do you want to ask me any questions? I mean, about my experience?"
"You're a nurse ain't ya?" He looked around his house at the piles of clutter and filthy dishes. Before she could answer, he said, "You know how to cook?"
(continued on the next page)
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