Lions by Bonnie Nadzam Read Free Book Online Page B

looked up at the stars that Dock told him were his cousins, that too was a word.
    Emery loved the shop. He’d sit on the workbench and swing his legs in circles as he watched John show Dock how to weld the muffler bracket on Emery’s ATV, or how best to attach hog wire to the steel posts around the Sterlings’ lot, or how to prep steel pipe coral with phosphoric acid and water. For all of this instruction, Dock was given a small hourly wage because, John reasoned, Dock was doing most of the work himself. It wasn’t charity, but it wasn’t business, either. People would say John was out of his mind—he had a wife and son to support, for the love of God—and Dock, a huge man who lived modestly off his hogs and meager patch of alfalfa and whose wife had to watch their great big boy twenty-four hours a day, he, like everyone else, absolutely knew it, and was filled with equal parts wonder and gratitude. One, it seemed to him, never showed up without the other.
    Late this afternoon, Dock and John were bent over a couple dozen drill tips. Dock couldn’t find a drill for his no-till planter that he liked, or that fit, and wanted to make his own. That was a song John Walker loved to hear.
    â€œYou want to get them as close to 60 Rockwell C as possible,” John was saying.
    â€œExpensive?”
    John shrugged. “Anything less,” he nodded at the window toward the board-hard ground, “you’ll be back in the shop halfway through the planting season looking for repairs or new drills.”
    The men raised their hands in hello as Leigh propped herself on the workbench next to Emery. “Where’s Gordon?” she asked.
    â€œIn the house,” Dock said.
    â€œTwo ways to heat treat the forward face of each drill,” John said.
    â€œStick electrode,” Dock tried.
    â€œThat’s one,” John said. “Probably the one and only instance in the world in which you want to hear the steel crack after laying a bead. But there’s a second way.”
    â€œHang on a second,” Dock called to Leigh. “You want to see this.”
    Leigh kept her distance, but stayed in the shop to watch. John turned on the torch, lowered his helmet, and began to heat the steel. Dock lowered the shield on Emery’s helmet, then lowered his own.
    â€œTorch it till it’s up to temperature,” John said over the quiet roar of the torch. Emery was transfixed. The metal glowed bright red, then pale gold, then white. John turned off the torch and waited until it cooled to purple, and turned to the steel drum of water beside him.
    â€œThe faster the quench,” he said, his voice deep and faraway inside his helmet as he held up the red-hot metal in the channel locks, “the harder the material.” He plunged the part into the horse tank and disappeared behind a wall of steam.
    Dock lifted his helmet and grinned at Leigh. “Tell you what,” he said. “This old man’s a wizard.”
    â€œI know it,” Leigh said.
    John lifted the hood on his helmet and waved at Leigh.
    â€œI’m stealing Gordon now,” she said.
    â€œI know it, my truck too. Know what that’s going to cost you?”
    She crossed the smooth concrete floor and kissed John Walker on the cheek. He put his arm around her and pulled her close in a half hug.
    â€œBring him back,” John said. “And tell him he’s got work out here.”
    She met Gordon outside the shop beside the truck and they climbed in. The late afternoon sun picked out golden threads in the weeds around the gravel drive as he backed up and hit the frontage road.
    â€œWhat were you doing inside?” she asked him.
    â€œWatching a ball game.”
    â€œYou were not.”
    â€œI was.”
    â€œWhat kind of ball?”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Bring something to eat?”
    â€œGot us a couple beers and sandwiches.”
    He touched her face. “You look