A Hanging at Cinder Bottom by Glenn Taylor

Goldie. “Another time,” he told her. He took George Devol’s book from his pocket and setit down on the upright parlor piano. “Tell the boy to read this,” he said. “I’ll come collect it after a while, show him a trick or two.” And then he was out the door.
    Little Donnie Staples stepped from the kitchen. “What?” he said.
    Rebecca thumped a fist at her ribs to break up the indigestion. She told him never mind.
    Across the street, Jake was tending bar. Big Bill Toothman sat on a stool and rubbed his lower back. Neither had seen Goldie.
    Jake told him to try Hood House. “She’s likely up there with mother, taking turns at bad-mouthing you.” There was plenty of that to go around. Al Baach in particular was angry with Abe. Al had traveled the day before to Welch in order that he might calm his preacher father-in-law, who had heard of the middle boy’s penchant for drinking and bucking those that mattered. Before he’d ridden off on his new bay colt, Al had spat on the ground and told Abe, “I would tell you take care of the women and children, but I know better.” Al was worried. He’d not paid a cent in consideration money for six years, and he wasn’t about to start up again on account of his son. Al had finally been able to put a little away, and Henry Trent had even tapped him to run for council the following year. There was real money to be had in that game.
    Abe put his hand on the barstool and leaned. A long house centipede raced from under the kickplate. Saloonsharks they called them. Abe shot out his boot and stomped it dead.
    Jake asked if he’d like a drink.
    “Just a beer.”
    He had three, plus the onion-stuffed heel of a breadloaf, before he hiked up the hill. He was halfway home when he stopped and put his hand against a tree trunk. He retched and his knees nearly gave at the thought of losing her. But a single word arose inside him. Climb . And so he did.
    Goldie was not at Hood House, whose rooms were full-booked. Nor was she at the second house, which they’d taken to calling the orphanage on account of Sallie’s ongoing rearing there of the motherless children of whores.
    Abe watched his mother through the open door of an upstairs room. She hummed Twinkle Twinkle and worked a highback rocker with her foot. The child she held was Agnes, who had come to her only a month before. Every other unwanted baby had gone the way of adoption, but Sallie was determined that wouldn’t happen with this one. Agnes would be a Baach. Agnes would be the girl child she’d never had.
    Sallie pretended not to see her middle boy in the hallway. She shut her eyes and hummed until he was gone.
    Only when he was out the door and down the hill did Goldie come out of the closet behind the rocker. “I’m going out to the barn for awhile,” she whispered.
    Sallie only nodded and kept at her humming
    In the nave of the crib barn, Goldie stood and rubbed at the muzzle of her favorite horse. Dot was the mare’s name, on account of the white between her eyes. She was a blood bay, one of four horses the Baaches kept. As a girl, any time the notion struck, Goldie would knot a hackamore bridle and throw a leg over and ride. She’d not done so in years, but now she was of a mind to clap spurs to the horse and go.
    She looked in the darkwater eye of the horse and saw there a refracted light beam from the open barn mouth. It curled white along the black roll of the eye, narrow to wide, and it looked to Goldie like the front lamp of a far-off night train, and for a moment, she was inside the eye of the horse called Dot, and she forgot what Abe had done, and she was happy. She scratched at the horse’s chin. She said to her, “I bet you still like to get out on a straight stretch.”
    Samuel Baach walked past the open aisle with a shovel in his hand. When he saw her, he backtracked and said hello.
    “Hello Sam,” Goldie called. The sun lit his forearms pale. He was the age and size of the red-haired boy