Free Dark River Road by Virginia Brown

couple of feet, then darted toward another goose, going back and forth between them until the geese decided to quit for the day. Chantry relaxed. Maybe Shadow hadn’t managed to fetch or herd, but he’d acquitted himself pretty good for a first time, he thought.
    “That your dog, son?”
    Chantry half-turned, looked up to see Dale Ledbetter watching him. “Yessir.”
    “Aren’t you Rainey Lassiter’s boy?”
    “He’s my stepfather.” He’d never admit to more kinship with Rainey than he had to do.
    Mr. Ledbetter nodded, eyes going back to Shadow. He wasn’t a big man, medium height with light brown hair, but he had an air about him that commanded instant respect. Chantry called the dog to heel and he trotted up obediently.
    “How old is that pup?” Mr. Ledbetter asked. “I’d heard Lassiter had some Catahoula pups for sale a while back.”
    “Nearly four months.”
    “He’s pretty small for that.” Ledbetter eyed Shadow critically. Chantry bent to snap the lead to his collar, and then stood back up.
    “He’ll grow.”
    “Reckon he will at that.” Ledbetter looked thoughtfully at Chantry, then down at Shadow again. “He’s got double cracked glass eyes. Any deafness or eye problems?”
    “No sir.”
    “Sharp dog. I’ll be keeping an eye on him. I like to see a good dog work.”
    “Yessir.” Chantry took a step away, uneasy with the way Mr. Ledbetter was looking at the dog, like maybe he thought about trying to buy him. Rainey’d forget their bargain quick as scat if he got any kind of offer. He twitched the end of the lead between his fingers. “He’s the runt. Mr. Crenshaw bought the mother. I hear he’s going to breed her. Ought to be good pups.”
    Mr. Ledbetter looked back at him. “So I hear. Good bloodline. Glad to know Crenshaw has the dog now.” There was an unspoken criticism in that, but since Chantry agreed, he didn’t say anything. “Lassiter plan on training this dog?” Ledbetter asked after a moment.
    “No.” That was true. Rainey didn’t plan on doing anything but raking in money. “I’m just messin’ around with him. He’s too little to be a good stock dog.”
    A faint smile pressed in one corner of Mr. Ledbetter’s mouth like he understood Chantry’s reasons for downplaying the dog. “You know the old saying, ‘It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.’ Reckon we’ll just see about this dog, huh, son?”
    “Yessir.”
    “Give your mother my regards.”
    Mr. Ledbetter walked away, back to where his family sat on a quilt on the ground beneath some old trees, having a picnic on a Saturday afternoon. Dale Ledbetter owned the local Ford dealership in Cane Creek, and his family had come to this area somewhere around the same time as the Quintons. But where the Quintons tried to own everything around, the Ledbetters just quietly did what they wanted and kept pretty much to themselves. Dale Ledbetter had been mayor a few years before but decided not to run again when old man Quinton backed another candidate. Mama said it wasn’t that Dale Ledbetter was afraid of losing, just that he wasn’t interested enough in another term of constant backbiting to put his hat in the ring. Now Philip Sheridan, Cinda’s father, was the mayor of Cane Creek.
    “What’cha wanna do now, Chantry?” Mikey asked, and he sat down beside him on the bench. “Wanna see if Shadow can do it again?”
    “Not today. This is enough for the first time.”
    Mikey just nodded, and his eyes went to the playground where children laughed and shrieked on the swing sets and slides. He had a wistful look that cut straight to Chantry’s gut. He thought about how selfish he was being to save money to buy a dog when Mikey needed so much. It’d be better if he helped Mama pay for the doctors. But maybe by the time he had enough saved Mama would have figured out a way to pay for everything, or the state bureaucrats would change their mind and pony up the