I crept past the sunlight on the hay, hiding from the light so as not to appear present at all to my father’s men, who were pitching the golden strands into piles.

I had been at it for an hour, trying to inch my way to Becker, who was sitting in the barn loft, stricken by quiet hysteria at the generous hole, a wound, in the side of his stomach.

The moon was making that funny sliver it does when the sky lets it hole up near the sun in that odd way—like a late roommate who is neither coming nor going.

Even at night, when the moon’s sliver was tightened up, it felt locked into the darkness, clamped down by a jaw of inky black.

I rustled too hard with my flattened body on a pocket of gravel, making the men stop their chores.

I could sense the tension in the noiseless air.

Could almost hear their sweat drip down their lanky bodies into the dusty ground.

Two of the three turned their heads around like swivel-chaired eyes, seeking out the genesis of the sound they heard.

I had the first-aid kit in my teeth—the ache was heavy, and my jaw felt on fire from the weight of the kit and the swinging back and forth of the hinged handle.

My chin was scraped bare.

I lay flat, like what I imagine a lizard would do on a sunny rock in the desert.

The men went back to their work, pitchforks into the precious golden hay.

I slithered for what seemed like another hour, but there was no guessing.

I went between the bales on the far left of the barn.

I was almost there.

The dirt was thick on my chin and in my mouth, my hair feathered in dust.

The men were so far off now.

I could see them like maybe figures in a train set might appear when you’re approaching from another room—little stark lines in the field.

The field, growing even more naked.

The sun was thinking about setting.

I got to the barn door and had to wiggle my way in through on the ground.

Careful not to let it clang shut, I caught it just in time with the tip of my sneaker as the spring latch flipped back to the close.

Once inside the barn, I stood up and dusted off my jeans and blue flannel shirt.

My white sneakers were filthy, browned up with so much dirt.

I heard the fluttering of wings and saw a crowd of barn swallows dart through the loft window, their little bodies cutting through the dusty air like pebbles from a slingshot.

“Becker!” I hissed in a whisper. “You still alive?”

I heard the smallest moan from the barn loft.

I dashed up the ladder, which shook like a relic.

Becker was groaning now, trembling, rocking back and forth.

I found him in the corner of the loft, a shred of daylight floating over him like Jesus in a church painting.

The blue of his cotton t-shirt seemed dyed half red from the hole in his side.

I hurried to him and I opened the first-aid kit like madness unraveling.

“You need to watch those horses,” I said.

Becker glared at me through a mass of pain.

“I know,” he whispered back, the words sealed off from any real sound so I could barely make them out without the hiss of air and speech to walk them off his tongue.

Becker’s black work boots were unlaced, their tongues folded down like a dog’s ear when it got into trouble.

His arms and hands were so white, I thought he had on ladies’ long white evening gloves.

“I told you, the horses will get you every time. I told you.”