Diesel has his big head pushed up against the gate trying to get at the boy, and Nash is talking to him in a voice he reserves for animals and his mother.
"Hey, partner."
He glances up at me. "Can we take 'em out?"
"Which ones?"
"All of 'em."
"All of 'em is a lot of dogs."
"That's why I brought help." He holds up the football like it's an explanation.
I almost laugh.
I unlock the kennel and let the three of them out one at a time.
Diesel walks. Jagger explodes. Bella waits to see what the others are doing and then sets off after them at her own pace, the way she always does.
We head across the yard toward the eastern pasture, the four of us and Nash, and the late afternoon sun is doing the thing it does this time of year where the light goes gold and heavy and lands on everything sideways.
Nash throws the football.
Jagger goes after it like he's been bred for nothing else.
Diesel watches with the disinterest of a man who's seen too much.
Bella stays close to me.
We walk for fifteen minutes.
Nash tells me about a kid at school named Owen who put a frog in another kid's lunchbox.
He tells me about how his teacher Mrs. Holloway has a baby in her belly and might be gone by the end of the year.
He tells me he wants to ride a horse for his birthday and his mama says he has to wait until he's seven.
I listen.
I tell him seven's not that far off.
He throws the football. Jagger brings it back. We're about a quarter mile from the western fence line when I see the sedan.
Same one.
Parked in the same pull-off on the county road.
The driver's side window is cracked an inch. There's a man in the seat I can't see clearly, but I can see enough—dark shirt, head tilted slightly toward the ranch.
He's not eating. He's not on the phone. He's not pretending to be lost. He's watching the property.
I don't change my pace, but I don't look at the sedan again.
I make a half-turn that brings us back toward the kennel and I tell Nash we ought to head in before his mama wonders where he is. Nash says okay, throws the football one more time for Jagger to chase, and we walk back across the eastern pasture the way we came.
The dogs go back in their kennels. Their fancy kennels at that. They each have a twenty-by-twenty run, with a ten-by-ten heated and air-conditioned house.
There’s even a communal bit where they can all head into if they want, activated by tags on their collars.