Free Dream Country by Luanne Rice

him shoot the head off a rattlesnake hanging out the beak of a flying hawk.” As he spoke, his father scanned the crowd, looking for Louisa. At the sight of her, he smiled and looked proud.
    “I never claimed I could tame Dalton Tucker,” she said, breathing lightly. “I just asked God for help on how.”
    “Louisa!” the sound man called from the stage. People turned toward the door, clapping and calling her name. A young man came forward, handed her her guitar. Being run through sound checks, the microphone gave off feedback. James backed away. He glanced toward the bar, saw that a middle-aged woman—skinny, bleached-blond, missing teeth—had gone to stand beside Wilton, caressing the back of his hand.
    It was time to go.
    James grabbed his jacket. He glanced at his father, to say good-bye, but Dalton was concentrating on throwing another dart. People had come from all over for Friday night at the Stagecoach, and the room was warm and full. Turning to go, James heard Louisa call his name.
    “What?”
    “Same goes for you,” she said.
    “What’s that?”
    “What you said about your father, what you said yourself, in your own words.”
    James wrinkled his forehead, trying to remember. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “He’s still got it.” Louisa was smiling.
    James turned and walked out of the bar.
    It was a long ride home, Louisa’s words ringing in his ears. He drove his truck along state roads, then veered off at Split Tree Pass.
Got it,
he thought. Got the ability to ride a horse, birth a calf, shoot a coyote. To smile at a girl, buy her a beer, take her to bed when you both knew you’d be gone before sunup. Bumping along dirt roads for ten miles, he swirled up a storm of dust and thought about how there was more than one kind of drought.
    Driving through the gates of DR Ranch, he passed the big stone house where his father and Louisa lived and pulled around back to the narrow drive that took him home. He lived in a small log cabin behind the other ranch buildings. He had built it himself sixteen years ago, from cedar logged on the mountain. It had been a belated wedding present for Daisy, started the same week she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d finished it just in time for the babies to be born.
    Running his hand along one smooth log, he stood outside the front door and smelled the sage. Night birds were calling, and the stars were on fire. James stared at the sky. The mountain made a black hole against the glowing stars, and that seemed about right to James; it was the place where Jake had disappeared. He tried to look at the sky, but his gaze was always drawn back to the mountain. Just across the pass was the canyon where—
    The telephone rang. James let it go. It was the same line that rang at the main house, probably one of Louisa’s nieces or nephews calling. But the bell wouldn’t quit, snapping him into the present. He walked into the house, his boots sharp on the hardwood floor.
    “Hello.”
    “James?” She said his name, and he heard her voice.
    “That you, Daisy?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    He waited, trying to get his breath back again. He heard from her once or twice a year, always telling him something about Sage—her good grades, her artistic prowess, the essay she’d had published in the town newspaper—and informing him in none-too-kindly tones that he should send his daughter a telegram, a letter, a bunch of flowers. That he should get on a plane and visit her. But every single time, the sound of Daisy’s soft voice shocked him to his bones, as if he was hearing it for the first time or as if he’d never gone a day in his life without it.
    “How is she?” he asked, knowing Daisy had to be calling about Sage—there wasn’t ever any other reason.
    “She’s . . .” Daisy gulped, and then there was something like silence, broken by the unmistakable sound of her breathing into the receiver. James could practically feel it on his ear. “I don’t