C4 antho - Chamber Four

Black Night Ranch ~205~
“I don’t know,” Billy said.
“Well, I don’t, either. But I know what trust is. Do you?”
When Billy couldn’t answer, James Carl walked away.
“You better sleep out here tonight,” Miguel said.
“Yeah,” Billy said, but he didn’t move until his boss was
fully out of sight. “Why did you speak English? You got me
caught.”
“Already caught. I just made it hurry,” Miguel said. He
spoke to his family in Spanish, which Billy couldn’t understand,
but when the square-faced one went to the back of
their truck and retrieved a blanket for him, he figured out
what had been said.
Billy wrapped the blanket around him and pulled a lawn
chair close to the warm pit of embers. He sat wondering if
he’d be fired, but more than anything, he was just sorry he’d
disappointed the man. He’d disappointed people before. So
far as he could tell, it was as much his purpose to disappoint
as it was the sheep’s apparent desire to die. The way James
Carl looked at him when he realized he’d been lied to, Billy
had seen before. He’d seen it when he let the bottom burn
completely out of his mother’s favorite bean pot that had
been handed down three generations. He’d seen it in his father
when he stumbled in one night drunk and bloody. And
he’d seen it especially severe in his grandmother when he’d
doubted God. But he’d never seen it like it was in James Carl.
It felt as different to him as the difference between killing a
mouse and a horse. The bigger they are, the more it hurts.
There is something in the weight of it. The size. The space a
thing takes up in the world. He fell asleep in the chair feeling
he had scarred a big piece of the world. A really big piece.
Billy woke, scratching the back of his neck. Miguel’s little
brother, springing from behind him, giggled and tossed a tuft
of wool in Billy’s lap. From his cot Miguel shushed him, then