“What were you fighting about this time?”

“The mine-that bung hole!” He burst out. “If Pa thinks I’m breaking myself in that mine for the rest of my life so he can buy hay for a horse nobody rides, and then break my back for asking for a couple of dollars of my own pay-my own pay for Christ’s sake, I wasn’t asking him for nothing I didn’t earn-he’s got another think coming.”

“Is that what set him off? You’ll be twenty-one next September, and Mr. Gumpert’ll have to give the money to you ’stead of Pa. ”

“Jamie Locke’s pa told him me and Jamie were drinking last Saturday night.”

“David!” Sarah sat bolt upright, her mouth agape. “That’s not so, is it?”

“What the hell else is there to do in this black backwater of a town? A man would go crazy looking at the same rundown shacks, crawling in a hole in the ground every time the sun comes up, breathing everybody’s stink.” He paced the small space between the stalls and the door. “It’s so.”

“Don’t all the time swear. You didn’t used to swear.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Pa. ” Sarah bit her upper lip, sucking it in.

“I’m sorry, Sare, Pa ’s making me crazy. This town’s making me crazy; I feel I could tear it down with my bare hands.” He struck the side of the stall with his fist, and Myrtle kicked out at him.

“Stop, David. You’re scaring Myrtle and me.” Suddenly he roared and hurled himself into the straw. Squealing, Sarah rolled out of the way and scrambled for the floor. David caught her easily, tickling her until she begged him to stop and they lay side by side in the straw, panting. David picked up the heavy yoke with one hand and turned it above him; sunlight, broken into stripes by the shed wall, flickered across his hands.

“Jamie’s brother, Matthew, went west after the war,” he said. “He told Jamie after leaving this place you can’t come back, least not for long. He says they’re mining silver out of Nevada Territory till hell won’t have it. He says a couple of boys like me and Jamie could make a fortune. They’re always needing men that know mining. Matthew says they’re even hiring Mexicans.