Page 103 of The Fire Line

Nothing needed checking. The wire held, the trough was full, Rain was sound, and the rest of the horses had settled for the night. Harris rested both forearms on the top rail and smoked while a faint stain of wildfire smoke swallowed the lower stars along the western horizon.

Rain wandered closer.

“Go eat.”

She stopped several yards away and watched him.

“Stubborn old woman.”

One ear turned toward his voice.

A door closed somewhere behind him. Footsteps crossed the yard, disappeared into the grass, then returned against the harder dirt near the fence.

Harris knew who it was before Jay reached the edge of the barn light.

Of course he did.

Jay wore a dark jacket with his hands in the pockets. No camera hung from his shoulder.

That mattered.

He stopped several feet away. “Everything all right?”

“Yup.”

Jay looked along the wire, toward Rain, then across the pasture, as if searching for the practical problem Harris had come outside to solve.

“Fence down?”

“Nope.”

“Rain?”

“Nope.”

Jay studied him. “So this is recreational brooding.”

“Could go inside.”

“I could.”

He joined Harris at the fence, leaving several inches between them, and for once did not fill the silence.

Rain breathed softly beyond the wire. A horse shifted inside the barn, and the fence hummed faintly whenever the wind reached it.

Harris smoked to the filter and crushed the ember against the metal lid beside the post. Without the cigarette, he had nothing to do with his hands.

Jay remained beside him.

“You don’t have to stay,” Harris said.

Jay straightened. “All right.”

He pushed away from the fence.

Only then did Harris hear how the words must have sounded.

“Wasn’t telling you to leave.”