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Chapter 1
Dusty
October
IgulpedwhenIsaw the email pop up.Stockman’s Magazinesent me a reply! It had been so long since I submitted I wasn’t expecting an answer anymore. My fingers trembled as I opened the message.
Dear Sir,
We have reviewed your submission…
This was how rejection letters started. I’d seen enough of them to know. But I kept reading anyway, and… and it wasn’t a rejection.
We will be proud to feature your poem, “The Cowboy’s Call,”in our December issue.
I almost dropped my phone. I was barely awake anyway, and I thought at first it was a dream. But this was worth stumbling out of bed early for. I felt flushed all over. Published, at last! I wanted to whoop for joy, throw my hat in the air, and bark at the moon. I was going to be published! A real cowboy poet! I was no Waddie Mitchell or Baxter Black, but I’d cut my teeth on their writing. Maybe someday, someone would smile over my words the way I’d basked in theirs.
I should tell someone. I’d kept my poems under my hat for two years because, in my family, you didn’t waste working hours on stuff that didn’t put beef on someone’s table. I solved that by writing at night, but I didn’t expect anyone to get it. I couldn’t stand my brothers' teasing or my dad's long, heavy look when he thought I wasn’t pulling my weight. So, I’d kept quiet.
I read the email about ten times more, then celebrated by turning on my desk light and trying to capture the moment in a few lines in my journal. Once I was done, I pulled my clothes on and rolled out into the frozen dawn. I was about to bust inside, but stock still needed hay, and now I was running late. Luke would…
Oh, no.Luke.
How was I going to explain this?No onein my family poured all his feelings out on paper for strangers to read. No one spent good energy on something that didn’t help pay the bills or take care of the animals. They’d think I was trying to be some kind of smart-aleck dandy, and that wasn’t what made me want to write at all. I wrote because I couldn’tnotwrite.
I still wasn’t sure what wild impulse led me to submit that poem toStockman’s. It wasn’t like the fancy western periodicals that graced coffee tables in big country estates. I’d been turned down by all of those.Stockman’s, on the other hand, was a working rancher’s handbook. It was crammed full of market prices and sales reports and practical updates on horse and cattle veterinary research. Luke was always scanning it to look for the latest hot bloodline to augment our rope horse program, and Evan knew all the Angus stats by heart. My whole family read each issue cover to cover before the next one came out.
And I’d gone and sent my poem in.
Would it be too late to call the magazine and ask them to pull it? No, that was stupid. Besides, this was what I’d always wanted. At least I’d sent it in under a pen name—Wyatt Chandler. But since that was my middle name and my mom’s maiden name, it wouldn’t take half a second for my family to figure it out if they saw it. Maybe I could get hold of our copy the day it arrived and just… make that page disappear. It would be in the back. Maybe no one would notice.
It was Luke I was worried about most of all. I couldn’t stand losing face in front of him. He wasn’t just one of my brothers. He was kind of my hero.
Twelve years earlier
“Heads up!”
I ducked. In my family, if you heard that, someone was probably throwing a rope at you—especially when you’re the youngest of four brothers. It was instinct by now to cover my head and get my arms where I could toss the rope off before someone could tighten it enough to trip me.
But I wasn’t at home, and that hadn’t been one of my brothers. Brody Egan, the Sophomore who somehow made Varsity, let out a belly laugh when his football beaned me in the head.
“Got you, Walker!” he laughed. His buddies from the football team slapped his back and joined him in pointing at me. “Why don’t you go get yourself a calf to play with, little baby?”
It didn’t do any good to tell him to stop. I was a puny eighth-grader whose voice had barely started to change, and Brody was even bigger than Luke, a Senior. And not a nice bone in his body. I just got up and started walking away.
“What’s the matter, little Dust-ball?” he crooned as he got right up on my shoulder and followed me. “Are you gonna cry now? Go tell the teacher? You’re herfavorite, aren’t you? Go on, tell the teacher!”
I balled my fists and kept walking, but my eyes were pricking with angry tears. I didn’t cry anymore when the bigger kids picked on me, but there wasn’t much I could do about the flush of hot embarrassment on my face. Brody always did this when the girls were watching.
And not just any girl. I risked a glance to my right, where a tight knot of ninth-grade girls were eating lunch. Sure enough, they’d stopped to stare, and right in the middle of them was Jess Thompkins. Her sky-blue eyes locked with mine, and they were filled with pity.
Pity was the last thing I wanted from Jess Thompkins. I looked away.
Brody shoved me in the shoulder, pushing me until I tripped. “Come on, Dust-ball! You got a spine? Say something!”
I thought about picking myself up, but what was the use? He’d just push me down again. I wasn’t a coward, but I wasn’t stupid, either. A guy my size had no chance against him and half the football team.
“Hey, Brody!” I heard from behind me. There was the heavy sound of a fist connecting with someone’s jaw, then a savage, “Pick on someone your own size!” Even as he said it, Brody dropped beside me, groaning and holding his face.
