Butterfly Yellow: Part 2

A horse can walk, jog, trot, canter, gallop.

A warm undercurrent zigzags through her, twirling her intestines, causing a ticklish fumble she hasn’t known.

Hằng and Mother practiced shuffling with heads down, as if asking for alms.

She never imagined they could release so much heat, or their shoulders would undulate like shifting boulders, yet they could be startled by a mouse.

Hằng notices Ly-Roi’s teeth are yellow too but decides to keep her opinion inside, having been chastised.

Imagine, he used to sit in air-conditioning and read about cowboy life and copy down cowboy lexicon.

While reading, whenever he felt like it, he would mosey over to the refrigerator or pantry, gather up an unlimited amount and variety of snacks, then go back to the couch and chew until he was bursting.

He’s got a drop-on-your-knees hankering for nachos, even a worse one for brownie sundaes.

Mr. Morgan goes on and on about Thea’s compact body with a broad chest, deep girth, short back, well-sprung ribs, and powerful loins.

He likes it better when she’s brooding, when he can predict which cranky expression will hold tight on her face.

Linh nickers that she accepts the deal.

His horse is cured; even the skin sloughing around her nose has completely healed.

“Talk how?”
“Just talk.” The boy sounds testy.

“You’ve got no inkling how much your sister has to tell you."

There’s no chute, just a pickup man holding on to the halter as best he can before letting go and getting out of the way.

Desperation always stirs up memories, which lately have been supplanted by ranch work.

These eyes once implored her to tell him stories, to get him to school, to cut open a fruit, any fruit at all.

She gnaws on desiccated ginger and remembers that when sick, people sing.

Then The Meanie had them scrub all eleven troughs with vinegar and baking soda. The horses flared their nostrils and refused to drink until the stink evaporated.

By his own admission he did reach out and squeeze her hand in the back of the truck. At the time, it was a gesture of solidarity, as they were both plum worn out.

A mesquite is not a tree any right-minded human should be getting near, much less wrestle out of the ground, not with them gnarly pokey branches and roots that can crawl two hundred feet underground.

“Bà told you?”
“How else would I know?” Chú Quốc tries to smile, to be neutral, but Hằng knows he has embellished here and there to build more pathos for the judge.

Bà did not tell the man that she alone raised her sons by using her hands to grow herbs and her brains to turn the plants into ornaments like bonsai, starting a craze as lucrative as grafting orchids.

Still, he can’t quell his pining for open land or a bucking bronc. Everyone, he figures, has longings that won’t fade even when clobbered by cold, brutal facts.

After two stacks of pancakes, which he vows never again to be deprived of, thick slices of ham, whose existence Mr. Morgan ignores, and half an apple pie, which he truly deserves, LeeRoy finally feels sated as a pig in mud.

It doesn’t pay to stick out like a citified boy trying out a rough life.

Bà would pretend to chide him, in truth nodding at his cleverness.

She runs, amazed at her own elation.

For once, her dad does not launch into a lecture about frivolous dreams.

After testing the strata exposed in the walls, it’s understood that the oldest rocks on the canyon floor go back two hundred and forty million years and every layer tells its own history.

The youngest rocks of course are at the canyon rim and we're sitting on quartz, sandstone, and limestone. On down you have what’s called massive micaceous, quartz sandstone, and conglomerate, also interbedded shale and mudstone, next is variegated shale and mudstone in addition to quartz and calcite that they call sugar sand.

On down you have what’s called massive micaceous, quartz sandstone, and conglomerate, also interbedded shale and mudstone, next is variegated shale and mudstone in addition to quartz and calcite that they call sugar sand.

Hikers today still find burned boiling pebbles and hearth stones and flint flakes and all kinds of artifacts, especially near the wet portions of the main canyon and tributaries.

He hopes she’s not working up a fever that likely will send her uncle into a conniption.

The captain of our fishing boat lamented, “I ask for everyone’s forgiveness.”

My stomach rejected every bite of fish, every drop of sweet water, also emptied of every remnant of the ocean. Undaunted, more muddy hands offered more grilled fish, more coconut.

Pulling his arm once more, her eyes widen and entreat him to keep talking.

But truth is, he does like seeing her happy. Somehow, that is taking precedence over what would make him happy, namely a gorged belly and long, warm days roaming rodeos.

LeeRoy hears quick, stuttering breaths, stifling a full-on cry.

If she would look up, he could point to the sun peeking through and black birds giddy at the bonanza of exposed worms.