Free One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf

way over in Revelation, Arizona, to help this situation. Her job was to take care of Holly, who just couldn’t seem to catch a break. The latest setback was an infection that somehow seeped into her bloodstream even though she had been pumped full of antibiotics the minute she arrived at the hospital. No, Will wouldn’t say a word about the goings-on at the school until he had solid information and even then he might not mention it. Marlys was exhausted, Holly needed to concentrate on getting better and worrying about P.J. and Augie wouldn’t be beneficial. Instead, he called his son Todd, whose wife was the fourth-grade teacher at the school.
    “I’m already here,” Todd said when Will mentioned he was on his way and would meet him in front of the school.
    Broken Branch School was a twenty-minute drive over gravel and county roads and Will made the trip in just less than twelve. As he pulled into the school parking lot he could see that a crowd had already formed. Inaudible shouts rose from the pack and were swept away by gusts of wind. Will looked down at his Mossberg on the seat next to him, trying to decide whether or not to bring it out with him. His cell phone erupted in a mind-numbing thrum of rap music that Augie programmed in as his ringtone. She thought it was hilarious whenever a torrent of curses set to music would explode from his phone in the middle of dinner or worse in public at the café or the grocery store. “Dammit, Augie,” he would say, pressing frantically at the buttons, trying to silence the phone.
    “What?” Augie said innocently. “You say those words all the time.”
    P.J. would nod his head gravely in agreement. “You do,” he would say.
    “Hello,” Will barked into the phone.
    “Will?” came the timid reply, so unlike Marlys. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine, fine. How are you? How’s Holly?” Will asked, looking through the windshield at four of the Broken Branch police officers trying to manage the growing crowd.
    “She still has a fever and isn’t eating,” Marlys explained in a trembling voice. “How’re the kids?”
    “Fine, fine,” Will said again. “P.J. has been a big help with the calving. He’s a natural cattleman.”
    “And Augie?”
    “Augie’s…” Will couldn’t bring himself to say anything negative about his granddaughter when he had no idea as to her safety at this moment. “Augie is trying,” he finished. Which was true. She had even joined him and P.J. in the barn the other day where number 135, a gorgeous Hereford with a shaggy red-and-white coat, was giving birth. Augie watched in awe as the calf dropped from his mother’s uterus, slick with afterbirth but undeniably beautiful.
    “Ohhh,” Augie breathed, getting caught up in the excitement, her eyes shining, a smile appearing from her normally glowering face.
    Another truck pulled in next to his and Will recognized fellow farmers Neal and Ned Vinson. Will tipped his chin in greeting and saw that the brothers had also come heavily armed.
    “Will?” Marlys said tentatively. “You sound funny. What’s going on?”
    “Nothing,” Will said, immediately regretting the sharpness of his voice.
    “Are you taking your pills?” she asked, referring to the high blood pressure medication she constantly had to remind him to take.
    “Yes, yes, I’m taking my pills.” Will’s eyes followed the Vinson brothers as they moved purposefully toward the school, their shotguns nestled in the crooks of their arms.
    “Then what’s going on?” Marlys said tearfully. “I can’t stand worrying about Holly and have to worry about you and the kids, too. I can’t take it.”
    “Nothing to worry about.” Will tried to make his voice sound casual, light. “Augie dyed her hair red. Her head looks like a goddamn rooster’s comb. I just forgot what it’s like to have a teenager in the house.”
    “I know something else is going on,” Marlys said sternly, “but I’m too tired to fight with you about it