Heart of a Shepherd Read Online Free Page B

settles around us. It's too cold for bug noises and too calm for wind noises. Sometimes it gets so quiet at night, I'd swear you can hear the stars twinkle.
    Grandma finishes up her computer business and spins around on her stool. “There's an e-mail waiting for you. Are you done with that math?”
    I give a yes grunt, rewrinkle the page, and tuck it down in the bottom of my backpack, where the wrinkles will get pressed in good. I know I've got them all right, but it's best to keep up appearances.
    Grandma doesn't say who it's from. She just goes into the living room with Grandpa to sit in the reclin-ers and watch the news. I try not to care if it's from Dad. I cross my fingers under the table as I click the envelope on the screen.
    It's just the Sunday night e-mail from Frank. Maybe he knows what to do for lamb cough. Dad can cure any animal he sets a hand on, but it's not fair to worry him about ranch stuff when he can't do anything to help. Grandpa sends him a weekly update with all the good news. If there's bad news, he just says
The weather's about right for the time of year
or
Beef prices are about what we were thinking they'd be.
    I bet Dad sees right through Grandpa's messages. Still, a rule's a rule. If I'm going to get advice, it's going to have to be my brothers.
    Probably Frank will just tell me something depressing like
Half of all bum lambs die in their first week, and a bunch more don't make it past a month. Just don't get too attached.
I know he's right. Nobody fusses about death except me. They always shrug and say “That's life,” in exactly the same tone of voice that they say “That's baseball” when I strike out.
    The thing is, I hate striking out and I hate death. I hate it every time. Nobody teases me when I get all sad, but I see them shake their heads at each other like they're wondering, How am I ever going to be a real rancher? And what else am I going to be? Ranching and soldiering is what men do around here.
    Frank's e-mail is the usual boring gripes about too much homework and the usual annoying questions about how the Grands are doing. Does he think Grandpa's going to forget how to run a ranch after doing it for fifty years? I give him the usual yeah-everything's-fine so he can go back to his usual I've-got-everything-under-control frame of mind. It's not like he can help me from a high school dorm room fifty miles away.
    Besides, I remember what I really need. I head down the hall to Dad's bedroom and open the night-stand drawer. There's a big bottle of Advil in there, and a tube of Ben-Gay, his wedding ring, the harmonica, a bunch of pictures, and underneath that a black leather book. The cover is scratched and the edges curl. It's labeled RECIPES, REMEDIES, FORMULAS. The main part is in my great-grandpa's curvy writing. Some of the really old remedies are written in Irish. There are some remedies in Grandma's tidy cursive, and toward the end, Dad wrote a few new formulas. I find what I need between the recipes for glue and house paint.
    I read it twice to memorize it and head back toward the kitchen. Grandma's asleep in her recliner, but Grandpa's still awake, mending a bridle and frowning over the weather report. I tell him my plan and right away I can see he doesn't like it, but he just bobs his head up and down and says nothing. Grandma says it's a Quaker thing to think before you speak. You wouldn't catch any of the Irish in the family doing it.
    “You will take the big flashlight, be back in twenty minutes, and wear your woolies.”
    I hate my woolies.
    “Yes, Grandpa.”
    I'm such a liar. Grandpa will be asleep by the time the medicine is cooked. He'll never know I went out without my wool underwear.
    The recipe's pretty easy but I measure everything level and time the boiling so it's perfect. Outside, the stars are gone and the clouds are low. I sprint for the barn. The squeak of the door is swallowed by cold night air.
    The heat lamp makes a yellow circle of warmth in the corner