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it to the lamplight. The thick, golden material hung from
the brush like honey. If he sealed the wood, it would keep
underground for a few months longer, maybe even a year. Would that
be honest, though? Wouldn't that be putting just another layer
between him and his return to the dirt?
    Larry wiped the brush clean on the edge of
the bucket and set it to soak in turpentine. Best to go with plain,
bare wood. Like what surrounded him here in the barn. The barn
itself was like a coffin, except it was filled to busting with
life, chickens and pigs and old Zaint the horse. Zaint was so far
faded he was about half glue, but he kept heading to the pasture of
a morning and turning up again every night.
    Larry's pastures had seen more drought than
plenty. His days in the world hadn't added up to much. Fourteen
years loading produce on trucks paid him with a bad back and a
smoking habit. Oh, he'd had about eighteen good years before that,
when his parents were still around to pay the bills, but those were
so long ago and far away that they might as well have been in a
book, or somebody else's memory.
    Once in a while over the years, he'd had
stretches where getting out of bed wasn't such a lost cause. This
last year had shown some promise, which made it the cruelest and
slowest of them all. And the blame belonged squarely on Betty Ann
Armfield. Betty Ann. Betty Ann.
    Larry gritted his teeth and laid the crown
molding along the edge of the coffin to test for length. When you
mitered the joints, you had to allow for that little bit of extra
distance. There would be no putty or wood filler used on this job.
No crack could be wider than a spider's leg. Larry's coffin had to
be as airtight as possible so the rotting would be proper, from the
inside out.
    The phone rang in the house. That would be
her.
    Larry slammed his hammer against the work
bench, causing his tools to jump and raising a ruckus among the
hens. He looked at the angled box before him, six sides, planks
straight, the knots aligned in something approaching art. Not that
Larry had much use for art, besides the art of dying. But you did
things right while you were on this earth, and let things take care
of themselves after you were under it.
    The phone bleated again, as insistent as a
pregnant ewe. Larry wiped the hammer handle and hung the tool from
its pegs. The handsaw gave a dull grin, hungry for another meal of
hardwood. Or maybe that was only his blurred reflection. He'd have
to polish the saw later. But right now he had to answer the
phone.
    He stepped out of the barn into sunshine and
tasted the mountain air. Rocks, water, grass, and trees, he had
plenty of those. He owned seven acres of dirt, some bottom land and
a ridgeline. He couldn't own any woman, though, and he couldn't
make any of them love his land.
    The walk to the house took thirteen seconds,
another seven to get through the kitchen, and two more to get the
phone to his ear. Betty Ann knew the distance, probably had an egg
timer running at her end, and if Larry was ever more than five
seconds late—
    "Hello?"
    Usually he just said, "Hello, Betty Ann," but
once in a while he got a call from work and those damned
telemarketers had been trying to give him credit cards lately. He
didn't believe in borrowing. You pay as you go, and when you had a
chance, you paid a little bit ahead.
    "Larry."
    "Hey, Betty Ann."
    “Where you been?”
    “Working in the barn.”
    “You and your damned wood. You ready?"
    "We ought not talk about this kind of thing
on the phone."
    Her laughter sounded electronic, as if she
were one of those pull-string dolls. "You've always been paranoid,
ain't you, Larry?"
    "Just cautious, is all."
    "Cautious, my ass. Chickenshit, you mean. If
it wasn't for me, you think you'd ever have a woman? Think anybody
else could stand you? Any other woman let you play smoochie and run
your hand down her skirt and—"
    "That's not proper talk for a lady."
    "I ain't a lady no more. Not after
tonight."
    Larry