Free Lime Creek by Joe Henry Page B

backbone, see what that actually looks like, least if you boys don’t mind. And Whitney says, It’s still beating. And I say, No, I don’t guess it’d make any goddamn difference now anyway. And so Stony gets in the jeep and goes off.
    I kneel down next to Whitney and he moves aside and I lay my hand up against her and feel her heart beating raggedly within her. I watch at her dead face with her eyelid nearly closed and she groans and so I stay there on my knees. And her heart which had been racing against the inevitability of the poison seems to ease into a slower rhythm and so I say to Whitney, She’s goin now. It’sslowin down now. But it keeps on with a dull and steady persistence until she suddenly takes in a great inhalation of air and lets it back out and I say, Jesus, out loud to myself. And Whitney says, What? And I say, She’s still alive, Whitney. And he shakes his head and says, You heard him, Luke, it’s just the reflex. And I say, I swear to Christ, Whitney. And he kneels down beside me as she breathes again and presses his hand under mine and says, Goddamnit. And then standing back up, Where the Fuck is he?
    The jeep is finally audible coming off the hill and as I watch her, her eyelid rises enough for me to see her living pupil. And I’m repeating over and over inside myself, I’m sorry I’m sorry. And her heartbeat is slow and steady in her breast which is still warm against my hand.
    Whitney has gone past the backhoe as Stony drives up and Whitney yells, She ain’t dead, Stony. And so Stony comes and kneels down where I am and I stand back up and he injects her again and this time stays against her until there is an absolute nullity where his hand lies. I kneel at her head and move her eyelid back down and then lift her face so I can move the halter around where I can unfasten it.
    And I think now she is free. Now there is nothing to hold her back. And I let her go.

LOVE
    He could hear the August wind again, and then broken and quiet and then perfectly clear the clash of hay machinery from the field down below and for one instant Spencer’s voice calling, Where in the blazes did Luke go? Who at that moment, fugitive and on foot and having already turned all the bales on the ground in advance of whoever was driving the flatbed which was still a whole pasture away, had apparently disappeared. And wondering if she’d be there as they had planned and before he had to return to his chores, when Luke finally did climb up and over the ridge, she was already running towards him.
    And then the warm wind must have changed again because there was only the sound of the dry rustling grass rubbing together beneath golden tassels that waved and bowed over them while her skin under his hand made a flame in him that he could hardly stand, her fingers locked about his wrist where his pulse ran crashing in his ears and pounding in his chest.
    They both must have fallen asleep, wearied by the force and heat of the blood risen so precipitously that it carried them right up to that line that still wouldn’t be crossed. And then they woke to the noise of more machinery that sounded as if it were nearly right below them once again the way the wind carries sound sometimes so you can hear voices or an animal or a bird as if they were nearby when in fact they were actually some distance away. And almost with that same facility that sometimes makes time and distance seem nearly interchangeable, so you could swear you’d been someplace before that you were seeing for the first time. Or maybe in truth, just seeing with new eyes.
    He could hear Whitney’s voice this time over the clashing noise and then it was quiet again. She sat up and turned around to button her blouse while Luke sat up too and brought his t-shirt back over his head saying, I guess, the way Red always said “I guess” when it was time to go back to work. But just as his face reemerged shepushed him back against the ground crushing her mouth against