Page 85 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight
“Willy here?”
She pulled the gown tighter and pursed her lips. “He was checkin’ on that new hand.” Her voice was full of disdain, and she glanced over Grady’s shoulder for a moment at the shed and the barn a fair distance from the house. Grady had a feeling the disdain was meant for Cole, and he told himself it wasn’t worth it to punch an old lady in the face.
He turned and headed that way.
“Where are you goin’? Willy isn’t expecting you…”
Grady ignored her and beelined for the shed. He came up to the door and heard what sounded like a fifty-five-gallon drum slapping the wall, and the unmistakable groans of an old man fucking. So, Grady was prepared for it when he went in and found them at the back of the shed. What he wasn’t prepared for was the look on Cole’s face—pinched in pain, he was bracing himself against the drum while Willy slammed into him and spewed all manner of filth. Grady caught “whore” and “slut” before Cole opened his eyes like he must’ve felt Grady’s presence. His lips parted and his eyes widened. He pushed up toget Willy off him, and Willy shoved him down hard with a hand on the back of his head, cracking Cole’s skull into the drum.
Grady felt a blinding rage and moved before he could’ve thought to do it. Willy had a moment to realize he was there a second before Grady punched him across the face, blood showering out of Willy’s nose as he tumbled sideways onto the wooden floor.
Cole scrambled up and yanked his pants up. Grady looked to check in with him and saw him terrified.
“What the fuck! What the actual fuck, Grady!” Willy was shouting, holding his nose and getting up, his fat gut hanging over the edge of his open pants.
“Go on and get in the truck,” Grady said to Cole.
Cole was breathing hard and still looking scared.
Grady softened his tone, looked straight at him and said, “Go on now. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Cole nodded, reached behind the drum for his duffel and went for the door.
Willy was standing now, and he looked at Cole booking it for the door. “Ya not finished yet. Get on back here, I reckon I made a deal, and you better be payin’ it!”
Grady saw Cole stumble, but he couldn’t see his face under the curtain of his hair.
“Go on, Cole,” Grady said and moved so his body was between Willy and the door.
Grady heard the door slam and the sound of boots on gravel receding.
“What the ever-livin’ fuck, Grady? I made a deal with that whore.” Willy spat blood after he said it.
“I ain’t sure why you think you can be callin’ him a whore. Thought he was your hand.”
Willy laughed. He started fastening his pants as he spoke. “That there is a prime-grade whore who’s been sellin’ that ass to keep his daddy’s place afloat for years.”
Grady heard the words but couldn’t make sense of them.
“Years?”
Willy finished doing up his pants, looked at Grady and smirked. “Done made a deal with the banker, cost a pretty penny to fuck that when he was fresh. Now”—Willy shrugged—“he’s still a sweet fuckin’ ride.”
Grady took the measure of Willy in front of him. A fat old man of at least fifty, his gut busting the seam of his pants where he’d tucked the shirt back in, and he thought of Tom on his land, taunting Cole, and some of it started to make a sick kind of sense.
“So, I reckon you’re gonna be sendin’ him back in here. You run him off, you don’t get no say—”
Grady was punching him square across the other side of his face before he could finish that sentence. Willy dropped like the sack of shit he was, and Grady kicked him in the gut and then the nuts. Willy gasped and held himself. He was spluttering something.
Grady squatted and got right close to his ear. “I want you to listen up real good now, Willy, ya hear me?”
“Fuck you,” Willy gasped.
Grady grabbed a fistful of his hair and cracked his head against the floorboards and Willy wailed.
“You listenin’ yet, Will?”
Willy didn’t say anything, just glared and tried to breathe through his bloody nose as he looked up at Grady.
