Free Church of the Dog by Kaya McLaren Page A

you think men are just plain dropping the ball?” Then she quickly adds, “Generally speaking, of course, because I do see some really great fathers out there.”
    “Mm . . . both. You know, ‘Why buy the cow if you can milk it for free?’ ”
    “You know, Edith, I don’t want to be milked for free, and by that I mean taken advantage of, but I don’t want to be bought, either.”
    I wonder what these young women are so afraid of. I don’t really see them getting ahead to anywhere. Most of them just seem tired and lonely. We used to get respect.

daniel
    The feed lot fences are in need of some serious repair. In a couple weeks about two hundred yearlings will be brought here, weaned, sorted, and fed for two or three months before being sent off to a larger feed lot somewhere else—most of them, anyway. The best-quality third of all the heifers will be kept to replace the old ones that have lost so many teeth that they’ll never make it through another winter. As I replace boards, I hear hooves and look up to see a tall, skinny guy who sort of looks like the kid on the cover of Mad Magazine , only with a narrower face. It’s Tim. The hips of his old bay stick out now.
    “Hey! I heard you was back in town!” he shouts as he rides up.
    “Word spreads fast!” I answer. “I just got here a couple days ago. Is that your old cutting horse?”
    “Yeah, this is Shilo, all right. She’s thirty-one now, but she can still buck me off from time to time.”
    “I’d buck you off, too, if I was an arthritic grandmother and you crawled on my back,” I say.
    “Nah. She likes it. Gives her a sense of purpose,” he says. He ties her to a timber, reaches into his saddlebag, pulls out two cans of Budweiser, and hands one to me.
    Out of habit I look back at the house to see if anyone sees me, and then I duck behind the barn with Tim. Our backs slide down the barn wall until we find our seats in the dirt. We carefully crack the explosive beers and slurp.
    “So what have you been up to?” I ask.
    “Well, I just got back from Moses Lake. I was visiting my son. He’s ten now.”
    “Wait. You have a son?” I ask. “How is that possible? I was there when that bull landed on your nuts.”
    “I know,” he says. “When my son’s mother first told me I had a son—that was just three years ago—I was like, ‘No you don’t, you golddigger! I know that ain’t me! I can’t have kids!’ I called Doc Anderson just to make sure I had proof if she took me to court, and he says that every once in a great while something like this heals, so I should come in for a test.” Tim takes a drink. “Well, he didn’t tell me I’d have to . . . you know . . . in a cup. After the first hour . . .”
    I start laughing. “The first hour?”
    “Yeah, after the first hour, Doc Anderson knocked on the door to ask how things were going, and I was like, ‘Doc! I think you just killed any chance I had of giving you anything today!’ ”
    “Isn’t Ben’s little sister a nurse there now?” I ask.
    “Oh, yeah,” he says, leaving no question that he thinks she’s hot. “But let us not forget that my great-aunt is the receptionist there, and she knows what I’m in the little room for and what I’m supposed to be doing.”
    “No,” I say, horrified for him.
    “Yes,” he says definitively. “So I finally pick up my cell phone—”
    “And what? Call a 1-900 number?” I ask.
    “No. I ordered a pizza and a half rack of beer. It finally arrived and that did the trick. After that, I just went . . .” He looks down at his crotch, “ ‘Mr. Wiggly! We got us a job to do with these here magazines!’ ”
    “Mr. Wiggily?” I ask, laughing.
    “No. Not Wig-gi-ly. Wiggly. Wiggly,” he corrects.
    “Noted,” I say, still laughing.
    Then I hear my grandmother’s voice. “Daniel!”
    “Busted,” Tim says as he guzzles his beer. I hand him the rest of my beer, and Tim guzzles the rest of that, too.
    “Coming!” I call.
    Tim puts