Stars Go Blue by Laura Pritchett Page A

directly in his eyes. “We’ll bury you here, Ben.”
    Then he watches Renny’s sea-green eyes go soft, blink, sees how she folds for a moment into a sadness. She reaches out to straighten Ben’s glasses, brushes her fingers along his temple as she does so. “We’re heading into town to visit Rachel’s grave. Today was her birthday. Are you ready Ben?”
    Ben’s tongue won’t work and his mouth hangs open and he has a sense of a hope, some words floating in his brain, something about how he hopes she can catch his eyes too and will understand the truer part of him, will understand what he must do and why.
    But now Del is clearing his throat. “Carolyn and Jess went over there this morning.”
    â€œIt’s the hardest thing,” Anton says quietly. “I’ve got a funeral to attend in town myself today. The grandmother of one of the deputies.”
    Renny gathers her down jacket, ripped from barbed wire and stained with manure, and her purse, the same leather one she has had for years, and the dead chicken. She turns to Anton. “I’m sorry to hear that. About the grandmother. I hope she went quick?”
    â€œNo, actually, she didn’t.” He glances around the kitchen, then rests his eyes on her. “Cancer. This dying business isn’t easy. Seems like when it’s drawn out . . . Seems like with animals we do a better job. Seems like we haven’t figured out how to do this right in this regard, when it comes to our own dying.”
    Ben looks past them, out the window, and that dog is trying to play with the chickens and they stare at him in response. He clears his throat. “My body’s doing great, but my mind isn’t what it used to be. Still, I know that the irrigation ditches need to be . . . cleaned up. The fence posts are . . .”
    â€œRotting?”
    â€œYes, rotting.”
    â€œYes.” Del scratches his jawbone. “I know. Carolyn told me you were concerned about them. I know what needs to be done. I could sure use your help, though. Always. Always, I could use your help.”
    â€œYou’re committing your lives to a certain hell,” says Renny, who is telling the truth and making a joke, Ben knows. He knows Renny means that she considered living on this ranch like a hell, even as it was a heaven. And because their ranch’s name, for a long time, has been Hell’s Bottom Ranch, since they bought the place the year they were married, and the first time they had walked the place there had been a flood on the river and stuff was scattered everywhere and Renny had said, It looks like the bottom of hell. But she didn’t mean it. Because even in that mess, it was heaven. They fell in love with each other and with this valley below the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Hell’s Bottom, Colorado, that’s where we live. That’s what Renny used to say. And Ben used to joke that it was named for the place from whence Renny came, her being so ornery and all. And she would joke that it was where shewas going. Renny liked being known as a tough woman. Most women did, he supposed. She liked being the type of person who was a little hell swirled in with heaven. She used to say, Ornery enough to keep everyone on edge, intriguing enough to keep them around.
    Now she says, “Ben, you ready? We’re stopping by Rachel’s grave, okay? I’ll throw Fred out the window on the way. Save the fox from going to the trouble.”
    â€œI could use a bite to eat,” he says, and she hands him a cinnamon roll. He wishes she would make him two eggs, because he does not like sweet breakfasts such as cinnamon rolls; he prefers two eggs scrambled up on top of a piece of buttered toast.
    The dog, he sees from the window, is sitting in the snow, staring at a chicken that is bok-bokking at it. The dog scratches her ear. And now the chicken cocks her head at the dog. He thinks of his own mother