The Chosen Child

Minutes later, the sound of a vehicle drew his attention, and Max barked a warning as the Thompsons’ minivan pulled into the drive. Sylvia parked beside Cody’s Chevy and leaned through the open window, her long, gray-streaked ponytail hanging over one shoulder. She gave him the same warm smile she always wore whenever he went through her checkout line at Wal-Mart. “Hi, Cody. How’s it going?”

“Not bad, Sylvia.” The lie rolled easily off his tongue. He nodded toward Sylvia’s husband. “Good to see you again, Frank.” He didn’t know Frank well, but he seemed like a pretty good guy. Walked with a limp as the result of some shrapnel he’d taken in his hip in Nam.

“Likewise.” Frank nodded. “I sure appreciate you finding some more chores for Dustin.” The older man shot the kid a look.

“No problem.” Cody craned his neck to peer into the van where Dustin sat in the middle seat beside one of his foster siblings, brooding as usual. He hadn’t taken kindly to the community service he’d been assigned, much less to the extra work Frank and Sylvia had sentenced him to. “Ready to string some fence, Dustin?”

“I guess.”

Progress. Not much, but some.

“I wanna help, too.” Five-year-old Michael spoke from the back seat. Beside him, the two-year-old, Jessica, began to fuss in her car seat.

“So do I.” Michelle, seven, smiled widely at Cody.

He smiled back. “You keep eating your vegetables, kids, so you’ll grow big and strong, and then we’ll talk.”

“I am big and strong,” Michelle insisted.

“I think I’m going to puke.” Dustin rolled his eyes and climbed from the van, his body language letting everyone know there were a thousand places he’d rather be than here.

“Dustin,” Frank warned, “mind your manners.”

But Dustin only scowled, ignoring Frank. With both hands he ruffled Max’s fur, avoiding further conversation. Cody had been surprised by the way the big German shepherd had taken to the boy—and vice versa—the first time the two had met.

Max’s normal attitude ran the gamut from aloof to forbearance. He’d been Cody’s dog for two years now, after a gunshot wound had put him out of commission as a K-9 officer with the neighboring Ferguson Police Department. Though he tolerated and respected Cody, Max had never shown much interest in bonding or being overly friendly toward anyone after losing contact with his partner. Until Dustin came along. Even now, despite his normal pickiness, he took the bone-shaped treat the boy withdrew from his pocket and chomped it down with enthusiasm.

Turning his attention from dog to boy, Cody noticed Dustin’s previously long and shaggy, chestnut-brown hair trimmed to a reasonable length. Yet he still wore baggy jeans and running shoes with his ball cap at a cocked angle to match his attitude. Instead of his usual oversized T-shirt, he’d put on a long-sleeved shirt, untucked. Stringing fence, even if it was barbless wire, wasn’t something a person wanted to do without the protection of sleeves and leather gloves.

“Let’s get to it.” Cody gave the van’s door a friendly tap. “’Bye, kids.” He waved at Jessica, who paused in the throes of fussing to stare at Cody, wide-eyed. Cody tried not to think about how the little girl’s big, blue eyes reminded him of the child he’d lost. “Frank, Sylvia, see you later.”

“Keep him busy,” Frank said. “Dustin, you remember what I said about minding your manners.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Dustin sulked away from the minivan, hands shoved into deep front pockets.

A long chain hung from the wallet in his back pocket down to his knees, then disappeared back up beneath his shirttail, attached to his belt, the end of which also dangled down the leg of his pants. He postured a gangsta walk as he made his way to the Chevy and climbed inside. Cody shook his head and followed as the sound of the Thompsons’ van faded down the driveway. He opened the driver’s door of the pickup and let Max jump up onto the seat before sliding in after him.

Dustin remained silent as Cody started the truck and headed out a ranch road that led to the back half of the property.

“Did you bring gloves?” Cody eyed Dustin’s baggy jeans. A person could hide a small child and two dogs in the pockets of those things.

“Don’t need ’em.”

Cody bit back a sigh. “Yeah, you do need ’em.” He leaned forward and retrieved the kid-sized pair of leather gloves he’d picked up at the feed store yesterday, and tossed them in Dustin’s lap. Dustin glared at him, but Cody ignored him.

“I’m not a hick.” Dustin spoke the word in such a way that let Cody know exactly what he thought of him.

“I believe the politically correct term is cowboy,” Cody shot back. Then he softened. He was supposed to be setting a good example, not arguing with the kid. “Look, the gloves are for your safety, like I told you before. I’m not trying to make you be a hick.”

“Don’t you mean ‘cowboy’?” Dustin looked out the passenger side window as though bored out of his mind. “How can you stand living out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Cody resisted his initial impulse to throttle the kid. The ranch meant almost as much to him as his marriage. It might be the only one of the two he had left at the moment.

Hell, if he lost Nikki, nothing else would matter.

“This ranch has been in my family for almost seventy years.”

“That’s probably because nobody else would want it.”

This time, Cody was unable to hold his emotions in check. “Look, Dustin, you put yourself in this situation,” he snapped. “You might as well make the best of it.”

Dustin faced him, his dark brown eyes narrowed and his freckled cheeks red. “I didn’t ask to do stupid cowboy chores on some stupid ranch.”

“No, but you chose to spray-paint my squad car. Negative actions have consequences.”

“Oh, excuse me. I’ll remember to write that down in my journal.”

“You do that.”

Dustin rolled his eyes, then postured his shoulders, hands, and arms gangsta-like. “So me and my homies decided to spray-paint a few buckets. Big deal.”

“I’d hardly call a Crown Vic with a souped-up 460 a bucket. And while you’re busy taking notes, remember that your homies decided extracurricular art wasn’t such a good idea after all.” Cody steered the pickup around a pothole in the dirt road. “They obviously learned something from what happened to you.”

“Yeah, right.” Dustin slumped against the seat and stared out the window at the rolling grassland and the groves of trees beyond.

Frustrated, Cody was nonetheless determined. He’d overseen juvenile community service on more than one occasion and had managed to see those kids through their assigned hours with a fair amount of success. He’d find a way to work things out with Dustin, too.

Minutes later, Cody veered off the dirt road. He drove across the pasture to the corner of a section of fence that sagged between posts, some of it broken, where the horses had leaned on the wire to reach grass that was always greener on the other side. With the Chevy parked, he got out and closed the door behind him, Max tagging at his heels.

Dustin did likewise and stood staring at the five strands of barbless wire that stretched out of sight from both points of the corner post. “We have to fix all of that?”

“Most of it.” Cody moved to the back of the truck and dropped the tailgate. He reached for the heavy roll of wire and dropped it onto the ground, rolling it along with his booted foot. Leaving it by the corner fence post, he returned to the truck for the tools they would need. He handed the fence stretcher to Dustin.

“What’s this thing?” The boy looked at the metal, saw-toothed and jointed contraption as though it might bite.

Cody grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you.”

Two hours later, Dustin had the operation of the fence stretcher down pretty well, and Cody thought the boy even seemed to be enjoying the pleasure of working with tools. “Let’s take a break.” He lifted his cowboy hat and ran his sleeve across his damp forehead. The July sun burned down on them without mercy. Max had long ago retreated to the shade beneath the pickup truck, where he lay on his side, snoring loudly.

“Canteen’s empty,” Dustin said, tipping it upside down and giving it a shake.

“So, go fill it.” Cody put his hat back on. This wasn’t the best time of day to be out here stringing fence in the heat. Had he purposely picked late morning to early afternoon to make things harder on Dustin—or was he punishing himself? He’d done a lot of that, ever since Anna’s death.

“Where?” Dustin crinkled his features in a mask of adolescent sarcasm. “I don’t exactly see a convenience store anywhere nearby.”

“Try the water pump.” Cody gestured to the west. “It’s over that knoll, by the stock tank. You can’t miss it.”

“You want me to drink horse water?”