Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.”)

Matthew 7:2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

Blaze

Blaze pulled in next to Nia’s Ford, facing the Dunkin Donuts. She got out of her truck, walked around to his passenger’s side door, and got in.

“Hey,” he said.

The smell of a campfire came in with Nia. It took him back to a warm night in the backyard with his mom. Glowing coals in a cast iron fire pit. Brownish white marshmallows, warm in his mouth.

Looking down, Nia handed him his keys. The parking lot light fell on her freckled face, her brownish-white crocheted hat, and her curly red hair. He took the keys gently and reached out a hand to touch her hat, but she looked up at him then. Her eyes were two blue storms.

A red Camaro pulled in on the Blaze’s side. Blaze watched the couple in their fifties get out of the car and walk into the restaurant, arms crossed in front of them to ward off the chill, and then his eyes turned back to the car. The parking lot lights illuminated the sculpted exterior. He imagined himself looking like Kanye West, racing down a seacoast road at 238 miles per hour. The roar of the engine. The warm wind blowing through the open windows.

“That’s the dream,” Blaze said.

Nia cleared her throat and Blaze looked back at her.

“Is there really nothing . . . ?” she asked. Her hand gestured between them.

“Look,” he said, a sudden head rising along his neck and face. “I’m interested in you, Nia, but if I’m going to get serious with somebody, that somebody has to understand that there are some things I just have to do. I know you’re not crazy about me taking over Patterson, but I need to do this.”

“Even after today?” she cried. “You almost died in there!”

“It needs a lot of work,” he said. “But I’m not afraid of work. You know, some kids want to grow up and be an astronaut. Others want to be a teacher. But do you know what I’ve wanted since I moved to Mt. Hope when I was six years old? I wanted to manage the coop. I’m a long ways from being able to manage Mt. Hope, but I think I can clean things up at Patterson and manage it. I think I can provide a service to the community. Do you see the value in that?”

“And you’ll make more money.”

“What is it with you and money? Are you allergic or something?”

“It destroys things.”

His hands flexed on the steering wheel. “Destroys things? What are you talking about? It’s just like anything else. Money can be used for good and it can be used for evil. It can build things. It can provide food. It can provide shelter. What is so wrong with that?”

She turned away from him.

He sighed and let go of the steering wheel. “It’s been a long day, Nia. I need to get home and try to sleep. I hope Kansas City works out for you.”

She flashed those blue storm eyes at him. “I don’t think you’re going to be getting out of here as quickly as you think.”

“Wha-?”

Faster than he could react, Nia reached across him, opened his door, and slammed it into the red Camaro. Horror clutched Blaze as he looked up at the couple walking out of Dunkin Donuts. They froze. The bag of donuts between them blew in the wind, rocking back and forth.

Nia

Nia pulled her coat more tightly around her, walked across the parking lot, and entered the Dunkin Donuts just behind a church youth group. Coffee aromas and the yeast and sugar smells of the donuts made her mouth water. She dug in the pocket of her coat for cash. Some of the teens formed a line while several others headed for a booth. Nia watched the ones headed for the booth, noting that one of the girls grabbed a whole chain of napkins are her way past the counter. At the booth, she handed them to girl who was looking a little green.

As Nia stood in line, trying to figure out why she had just done such a stupid, mean thing to Blaze and two innocent civilians she didn’t even know, a man got in line behind her, talking on his phone. She cast a sideways glance at him. Nice leather jacket. Perfect hair. The baritone-depth, smooth as silk voice of a DJ. She listened carefully to his conversation just for the pleasure of hearing him talk.

“Our cook just got sick. Do you think someone else from the church could come do the cooking for the weekend?” he asked.

Nia wondered if this might be a good opportunity. She knew her way around a kitchen. It might keep her mind off everything else and it might even feel good to help out these kids. When the man got off the phone, she turned to speak to him.

Blaze

“Yes, I have insurance. I’m so sorry this happened. I will grab my insurance information out of the glove box and then would you like to step inside to call our agents?”

“That’s probably the best thing to do,” the man conceded. “Brielle, while we do that, maybe you can text Merit and let her know we’ll be late.”

“There are so many kids in there. I think I’ll wait in the car.”

“All right. You have keys if you need them?”

“Yes.”

Blaze was reasonably certain that he couldn’t be any more angry, but when he and the owner of the Camaro entered the Dunkin Donuts and he saw some jerk buying Nia a coffee and a sprinkle doughnut, he discovered a whole new galaxy of wrath.

Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.” Verses are also posted on the countrygirldrive account on Instagram.)

Matthew 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

Blaze

“I guess I’ll see you around,” Blaze said as he got out of Nia’s truck.

“Probably not,” she said, moving the gearshift into park. She picked up her phone and started typing.

It was dark out, but not late. The smells of fireplaces burning hung in the air. And someone nearby was grilling hamburgers.

“What do you mean?”

Nia stopped typing and looked at him. Her annoyed, angry-eyebrow stare softened. “Things aren’t working out for my family here. We’re talking about moving back to Kansas City. I’m going there this weekend to see a friend.”

“Yeah, but you would give Abe two weeks’ notice at least, right?”

The angry-eyebrows returned.

“Thanks for the ride home.” Blaze sighed and shut the truck door. He had zero energy to try to decipher Nia tonight. He had hoped her presence at the hospital meant something a little more straightforward and simple. “Guess not,” he said under his breath.

As Nia backed out of his drive, he fished in his pocket for his keys when he got to the door, not because he ever locked his door, but because it was a habit. Since he had started at the coop, he checked his pockets before entering his house to make sure he had two key rings: one that held his work truck key and personal car key and the ring of keys for the coop itself.

There was only one set in his pocket tonight: the vehicle ring.

He turned to hail Nia. The old red and white Ford was just idling there, its headlights and taillights shining. Nia’s smug, smiling face was framed in the driver’s side window. She held up his ring of keys and roared away into the night.

Nia

The male, Australian navigator voice directing Nia onto Interstate 35 was interrupted by 21 Pilots’ “Stressed Out.” Nia pulled to the side and answered her phone.

“Hello?”

“Nia?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you headed to Kansas City?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll meet you at Matfield Green. I need my keys back.”

“Okay.”

Blaze sounded tired. Maybe she shouldn’t have capitalized on the fact that his keys had fallen out of his pocket. Maybe she should call him back, turn around, and just drop the keys off at his house. It was still early. She could . . .

“Oh man,” Nia said aloud. “Sapphire.” Nia had completely forgotten her promise to help Sapphire with the orders. Yeah, she should probably go back.

But then Nia passed a huge billboard advertising a jewelry shop in El Dorado. She stared at the image of the well-dressed couple on the yacht, their hair swept so elegantly by the sea breeze, and the woman’s hand decorated with a diamond.

The little gold band in Nia’s pocket practically burned against her leg.

She kept driving northeast, wiping the tears away.

Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.” Verses are also posted on the countrygirldrive account on Instagram.)

Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Nia

Nia sat in the waiting room. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A quick glance confirmed that it was just a text ping from her friend, Dory. “Everything okay?”

How did Dory always know? Leaving Kansas City had been hard in a lot of ways, but the hardest part had been leaving Dory. Nia launched into a reply text like rocket bound for the outer limits.

“Hey Dory. I’m in the waiting room at the hospital. No, it’s not Mede. It’s this guy I’m in love with. I am pointlessly in love with this guy. He’s not in love with God. Or me. He’s in love with a dream that vaguely involves nice cars and houses. It’s raining. I don’t want to sleep in a tent tonight.”

Nia highlighted the text and press “cut.” Then she wrote one sentence:

“Could I come spend the weekend with you?”

Io’s Journal

Mom and Dad looked at each other.

“I don’t think it’s a mistake we’re here tonight,” he said.

Mom nodded and gave Ro a bite of potatoes. “I feel the same way.”

The woman who had taken Mom’s purse to a locker came over to our table with a brown box. She whispered something to Mom, let Mom peek in, and Mom nodded.

“We got a special donation this afternoon,” the lady said to us. “I think it came here for you kids.” She opened the box and stretched it toward me. Inside were four cupcakes with white, sparkly icing, nestled in feathery white paper. My heart ached.

Cal snatched one. “Who made these?”

“Angels,” I whispered.

Abe

“You told them to give us a low pressure spray on our signal?”

Gleason, holding the limp, cloth hose in his leathery hands, nodded.

Abe was on a ladder, his left shoulder touching the manhole cover on the side of the silo. He could feel the heat of the smoldering grain. “You ready?”

Gleason nodded.

“Give them the signal.”

Lord, help us, Abe prayed, reaching out a gloved hand to open the manhole.

Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.” Verses are also posted on the countrygirldrive account on Instagram.)

Matthew 6:31-32 “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”

Io’s Journal

The rain started while Dad was still talking to the man at the homeless center. Mede glanced at me. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was, that it was already going to be really cold tonight in the tent and now it was going to be wet cold. We were about to become The Great Popsicle Family of the North.

Or maybe our tent would be flooded again and we would just spend the night in the van. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Dad could run the heater at times and that would be nice.

Dad got in the van and drove us around the building to a parking lot. “Mr. West has invited us to supper.”

Mom nodded. “That’s very kind.”

“That’s what I thought,” Dad said.

Our family got in line like everyone else, but almost everybody in line smiled at little Ro and waved us all ahead of them, inside. And that’s when I saw it. We stepped in the doors and there was that same painting of Eleanor that Eleanor had been looking at on the computer.

Dad stepped up to a desk and started writing down something on a clipboard. A woman took the diaper bag from Mom and put it in a locker.

I pointed to the painting. “I know her,” I said, once the gummed-up words finally got through my teeth.

The woman handed Mom a slip of paper. The woman shook her head. “She lives in Seattle.”

Mom and Dad had to take turns blowing into a machine. Dad had to check in his pocket knife and was then patted down with his arms stretched out to the side. I was expecting this to be like a church pot luck, but the checked luggage and TIA routine were making me think we were about to board a plane.

Abe

Abe was at the power pole, disconnecting the power supply with a switch on the box, when the ambulance pulled out of the lot, followed by Nia’s truck. The rain and wind cooled his feverishly hot cheeks. He breathed a prayer of thanks that Blaze, the other firefighters, and himself were okay—so far.

“Lord, thank you for the rain. Give us wisdom,” Abe prayed.

Gleason was finishing off a water bottle when Abe reached the fire truck. His brown eyes were narrowed, staring at the elevator. His weathered hands crushed the bottle and cast it into the bed of the fire chief’s pick up.

“Is the gas off?” Gleason asked.

Abe nodded. “Yeah, I shut off the propane to the dryers when I first got here.”

“How likely is this thing to blow?”

“I’m not sure,” Abe answered. “You saw everything I did. The milo is hot enough to be smoking. The elevator itself is layered in a pretty thick coat of dust.”

“The chief is setting up a perimeter with the help of the highway patrol and Mt. Hope police—a quarter mile out for us, a mile out for everyone else.”

Abe nodded. “I think our best bet is to open the man hole on the side of the bin and have hoses ready for a low pressure spray.”

Gleason nodded.

“Roy–”

Gleason nodded again, “I know.”

“I’m trying to say that this is my mess. I was his boss. I want to be the one to go in.”

“Stuff happens.” Gleason wiped his nose and mouth, scowled at the elevator again, and said, “I’m going into the perimeter with you.”

Io’s Journal

We filed through a door that led into a dining hall and squirted hand sanitizer on our hands. Even Ro wanted some. Plates of food lay on a stainless steel shelf at the kitchen window. Dad handed us each one and we carried them to a table. There were little cards at the tables. I opened the one at my spot and a little heart popped up. It was signed, “Anna.” Cal grabbed the one at Mom’s spot with a drawing of a tiger on it. I looked up and saw several girls my age, standing at the kitchen door, wearing hair nets and aprons.

The food was good—meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy, and stir-fried vegetables. The man who had invited us for supper walked through the tables, up to to the kitchen, and clapped his hands.

“Good evening! Let’s give a hand to Mrs. Nguyen’s class for volunteering tonight.” Twenty-some kids walked out of the kitchen to soak up the applause before they were escorted out a side door by their teacher and parents.

Mr. West raised his hands for silence and continued, “As you all know, this facility will be closing soon.”

The quiet room grew quieter. “But God is answering our prayers. Today we were given a new facility just two blocks from here. It needs a lot of work. If you have construction skills, please come talk to me after chapel.”

Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.” Verses are also posted on the countrygirldrive account on Instagram.)

Matthew 6:28-30 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Nia

A crack of thunder shook the sky as Nia walked in the back door at Abe and Sapphire’s house. Sapphire had a carrot stick poking out of her mouth and was moving a stack of envelopes to the coffee table.

“Hey,” Nia said. “Thanks for your patience.”

Sapphire took out the carrot stick. “No problem. I’m setting up a work stationf or you here.” She handed Nia her phone and was explaining the Esty site when ther was a knock at the door. Eleanor happened to be passing through and opened it. Sister Givens was standing there, her brows furrowed.

“Sapphire, what’s going on at Patterson?”

Sapphire cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Brother Givens and the firefighters just got called up there.”

Sapphire grabbed the couch for support. “Abe said he was going to go get something to eat.” Her eyes darted to the right. “No, he said he was going to get his phone.”

Nia had heard enough. She set down Sapphire’s phone and ran out the back door.

Blaze

“I can’t, God,” he whispered. “I can’t hang on.”

His slick hands slipped several inches. His left toe scraped the grain. Blaze winced and tucked his legs up.

The muscles in his hands and arms burned. Abe was here now, but it might take quite awhile to actually get to him.

Nia’s face flashed before him again. He wondered if she would be his last thought on this earth.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye.

Nia

When Nia arrived at Patterson, the rain was pelting the windshield with large drops. Nia looked behind the front bench of the truck and found the orange canvas bag that would once again hold their tent when they stopped living in it. She threw it over herself as she emerged from the truck, into a world of flashing lights and solemn, pensive faces.

Blaze

Blaze turned his head. A white rope dangled beside him, a boatswain chair attached to it. Before Blaze could wrap his head around a plan for grabbing it, he heard Abe’s voice and looked up to see Abe descending on another chair toward him, followed closely by Gleason Tomacheck.

Abe grabbed the empty chair with one stroke and grabbed blaze’s belt with another. Gleason wove a rope around Blaze’s chest. Blaze felt and heard the clicks of carabiners. Through no effort of his own he was suddenly sitting in the chair, the cord was no longer in his hands, and they were all ascending to the top. All of Blaze’s thoughts were “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus”, borne on a swift flood of relief.

Nia

The firefighters brought a stretcher out of the loading bay. One firefighter was holding a piece of plastic above a man’s face, making it hard for Nia to tell who was lying on it. But then she saw—it was Blaze. She ran to the stretcher, afraid of what she would see.

His face—still smooth-skinned. His intelligent eyes open and alert. His strong arms intact. His legs whole. He turned to cough as she caught up to them. When the cough subsided, he smiled at her. “You look good in orange.”

Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.” Verses are also posted on the countrygirldrive account on Instagram.)

Matthew 6:26b-27 Are you not of more value than (the birds)? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

Abe

The kitchen was a funky art lab, sporting paper and paint and glue smells. Sapphire’s wiry frame stood, hunching over the mess, spider-like—reaching here and there. She held a piece of paper at an angle, studying it, and then blew on it gently. When Abe touched her shoulder, she jumped.

“Aah!”

Abe withdrew his hand. “Sorry. Thought you heard me come in.”

Sapphire’s eyes flew to the clock. “Lunch already?”

Abe nodded and pulled open the refrigerator. “I’ve got it,” he said.

A frosted glass container beckoned him. He opened its red lid and stared in at . . . something. Then he reached for another container of . . . something. These are leftovers, right? I should be able to identify some recently eaten food in one of these. But each container just looked like black and brown soupy broth and he couldn’t recall eating any soup in the past three months.

He shut the refrigerator and pulled open the door to one of the shelves. A can of cherries. A box of stuffing. A bottle of salsa.

Sapphire cleared her throat. “Um, I haven’t been to the store lately.”

Abe turned around to see Sapphire looking down at her red socks.

“No problem,” he said, reaching for his back pocket. “I can grab something. You know, I–” He stopped. His phone wasn’t in his pocket.

“I must have left my phone in the truck. I’ll be right back.”

Sapphire nodded. Abe kissed the top of her head.

But he didn’t come right back.

Io’s Journal

Nia had to call Sapphire. She won’t be able to make it back to Mt. Hope for awhile. When we got to grandma’s-not-grandma’s, Mom and Dad were strapping down a load of furniture to donate to a place in Wichita. Mom is driving the van now. Nia is sitting in the passenger’s seat. We are following Dad.

Abe

“Gleason, get a crew up to Patterson. I think we’ve got a fire,” Abe said, crossing highway 96 as fast as he safely could.

“On it.”

Abe hung up and tossed the phone into the passenger’s seat so he could take hold of the wheel with both hands. He floored it on the Burmac, the needle teetering around 110 miles per hour by the time he had to start slowing down to make the turn onto 84^th. Abe couldn’t see smoke, but in the pit of his stomach, he feared something was very wrong. There were so many things that could have gone wrong.

Blaze was just going to look at things. What could have happened?

Entrapment.

Fire.

Explosion.

Breakage.

Leakage.

Cave-in.

He started to assemble a plan of action in his head. What should he start with? Abe looked down at the floorboard and something nagged at him. A sledgehammer. He was going to grab a sledgehammer at home. But why?

Bridging.

If Blaze had, in fact, jumped into a bin of milo, what are the chances he would survive? Basically none, save a miracle.

Oh God, Blaze prayed. That boy is the closest thing I have to a son. Save him, Jesus.

Abe was almost to the top of the elevator when he heard the sirens outside. He reached for his phone just as his phone rang.

“What do we got?” Gleason asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Abe responded. “I’ll call you when I know more. Don’t enter the elevator until we know what we’re dealing with.”

“Abe!”

Abe heard Blaze, ran to the open man hole, and shone his flashlight down. Tears sprang to his eyes, making it hard to see. “Blaze, are you okay?”

“Uh, for now.” Blaze coughed and Abe smelled the smoke.

Abe wiped the tears and focused on Blaze. He saw that he was near the bottom, but hanging on to the temperature cable. “Just step down, man.”

“The grain is smoldering. If I touch down, it will introduce more oxygen.”

Abe nodded. “You might be right. The fire crew is here. We’ll get you out, man. Hang on.”

“I can’t hang on much longer, Abe.”

“You’ve got to, or we’re all gonna die.”

Abe dialed Gleason.

Hello, Friends. I just wonder if some of your lives look different this week than they did a week or two weeks ago. I pray that God’s Word is a comfort to You, that His peace is a reality for you, and that His love is a fortress for you in these days.

“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” Matthew 6:27

Blaze

When Blaze’s foot touched the crust of milo, there was a sound like a cracker breaking, followed by the sound of his breath sucking in. He tried to jump up, to catch the lip of the man hold, but his fingers only scraped the air.

And then he started falling.

Adrenaline shot from somewhere in his chest straight up to his brain. A large piece of the crust, now above him, broke away with a loud CRACK! Blaze looked up, saw it hurtling toward him, and put up his hands to protect himself, but it as it swung from the wall as though hinged to it, it slapped Blaze from behind, toward the cement wall of the bin. In the semi-darkness, with only the dim shaft of light shining through the small hole above, he saw the temperature cable there, against the wall, and a hope surged in him. His fingers reached, grabbed the cable, and then his body crashed into the wall.

The crash stunned him. He started falling again and felt the cable slipping through his fingers. The floor of grain, now eighty feet below him, rushed up.

Io’s Journal

1:00

We’re in the van, going to grandma’s-not-grandma’s. It was her house, but now it’s not.

Anyway, I just had the coolest experience—I made a friend. Like, a-friend-not-sibling-or-other-relative-friend. Her name is Eleanor and she’s just as sophisticated as her name sounds. She’s a dancer. She practices in the basement of a church. There’s a cement stage there. Her tap shoes sounded like gun fire, echo-y gun fire, when she danced on the stage.

Nia is planning to get the truck from Dad at grandma’s-not-grandma’s so that she can go back to Mt. Hope. She struck a deal with Sapphire—if Sapphire would watch us this morning, she would help Sapphire with Etsy orders.

Sapphire is my hero. She took me to a library today. The librarian is nice. I think she might let me have a library card.

If my family stays around here.

I hope my family stays around here.

Blaze

Another lightning bolt of adrenaline struck Blaze clear through. His hands grasped the temperature cable, hard, and his body jerked to a stop.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He heard himself breathing. He saw Nia’s face. Felt strain in his hands, his arms. Tasted acid in his mouth.

And smelled fire.

His eyes popped open. He looked below him. The floor of grain was only twenty feet below him now. One portion of it, glued against the wall, was smoking. He looked above him, at the manhole now close to one hundred feet above him. It seemed unlikely he could climb that far. His hands were sweaty. The plastic encasing the cable was already so difficult to hang onto, growing more slick all the time.

He started coughing from the smoke. I don’t think that’s gonna help, he thought.

What would happen if I let myself down onto the grain?

It was possible that when he touched down on it, it would stir up the fire. The fire could spread upward, engulfing him, and spread to the rest of the elevator. He had heard of elevator explosions so powerful, the force threw steel reinforcements a quarter mile away.

Nia’s face flashed before him again.Had she known this was going to happen? Aunt Min had known.

And now here he was.

Why didn’t I pay attention? I could be working at Taco Bell. Can I take your order?

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Stupid YouTube notification, he thought. I need to call Abe.

Could he hold his position with just one hand?

In spite of the pain, he released one hand, holding it close to the cable for a moment. It seemed that this would work. But coughing seized him and he grabbed with both hands again. He slid several feet before stopping.

When the fit passed, he eased a hand off again and grabbed his phone. He dialed Abe. It rang. And rang. And rang. And went to voicemail.

“Abe!” he yelled. “We got a problem!”

The coughing started again. As he reached for the cable, the phone fell. Blaze heard the glass face break, watched as a puff of smoke billowed up around it, and coughed into his arm.

Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.” Verses are also posted on the countrygirldrive account on Instagram.)

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? – Matthew 6:27

Abe

Abe stuck the key in the ignition, but he didn’t turn it over. If he didn’t get the skid steer over to Ray’s for awhile, it would be okay. Maybe he would grab a bite to eat at home, head up to Patterson to check things out, and then figure out Ray’s situation. Even if all he checked was the bin of milo, he’d feel better about things. “I better grab a pole before I head over there,” Abe thought. “There could be bridging and I’ll need some way to check.”

Of course, bridging would only be an issue if someone would try to jump in, and why would anyone do that? Still, if someone jumped into a bin that he thought was full and it was just a thin sheet of milo stuck together, that poor soul could fall a hundred feet to the floor and that would just be the end.

Abe called Ray. When he was done, he set his phone on the seat. On the short drive home, it fell between the front seats.

Nia

“Why do Grandpa and Grandma have to move?” Cal asked, buckling himself into his car seat.

Nia understood the hurt in his question. “They’ve wanted to move to Arizona for years. It’s a dream come true for them.”

Cal nodded. “We just got here.”

“Why can’t we buy their house?” Mede asked.

Nia marveled at how much Mede had matured during the time they were away from each other. This was not a child’s question. He had the look of a man trying to solve a problem, a man who needed accurate information to do so.

“Their house was sold before we got here. They just didn’t have to move out until today.”

Nia finished buckling Ro and slid the van door shut. She would drive around the block, get Io from the church, and head on to her grandparent’s house where her parents were helping them load the last of their things.

Blaze

Blaze’s stomach rumbled as the lift took him up to the gallery. When he stepped out into the gallery, a grim sight greeted him. Grain and dust lay in thick, uneven piles on the floor, the belt, and the window sills.

The smell hit him suddenly. He subconsciously took a step backward toward the lift. It was the smell of heat, of rot, of burning. And that’s when the debate began inside him.

Leave. Leave now.

I can’t leave. This place is my responsibility now. I’ve gotta prove I can do this.

The previous fairy-tale longings for a nice car and nice house had fled. He no longer knew that those things existed. Raw pride bore him forward. A warrior nobility.

He started lifting the rectangular, metal covers of the one hundred-twenty-foot bins, smelling and looking for trouble. The first bin smelled strangely sweet, that same sweetness he had smelled first thing that morning. He used the flashlight on his phone and shone it into the bin. Wheat.

That’s not how wheat is supposed to smell.

The second bin was mixed corn and soybeans.

Aw man. We are gonna get seriously docked for that.

The third bin he opened made him step back yet again. That was definitely where the burning smell was coming from. He shone his flashlight again. This time, a bin full of excellent-looking milo greeted his eyes, just a few feet down.

I could just jump down in there and poke around a little, he thought. If the smell is that strong, I should be able to figure out what’s going on pretty quickly, probably eliminate the issue, and head home.

In that moment, he disregarded every company and OSHA regulation concerning entry of enclosed spaces. He swept all that aside, slipped his phone in his back pocket, took hold of the edges of the hole, and lowered himself down.

Hey Friends! Thanks for continuing the Country Girl Cattle Drive as we herd 111 verses from the pages of our Bibles to our hearts. (Matthew 5-7)

(If you are new, here’s the scoop: I write down a verse and then write a story to help us remember the verse. If you want to begin at the start of the current story, go to the post entitled “Store Up.” Verses are also posted on the countrygirldrive account on Instagram.)

Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

Blaze

The clock read 12:17, but Blaze’s growling stomach was fairly certain that it was at least three in the afternoon. Blaze grabbed the keys from his office wall and was headed out the door to lock up the elevator when the phone rang. He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t have to answer since it was after twelve on Saturday. But he did.

“Farmer’s Co-op,” he said.

“Hey man, sorry I haven’t got over there yet. How are things looking? Is all the grain in good condition?”

“Hey, Abe. No problem. Yeah, things are looking good. I’ve got one bin that’s a little warm, but I’ve been running the fans on it and it seems like it’s doing all right.”

“Folks are telling me that Roy’s been letting things slide. I guess his wife left him a few months back and he’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard.”

“Hmmm.”

“Have you looked in the bins? Smell anything off?”

“I’ve been pretty slammed. I’ve had milo going out and corn coming in.”

“Yeah. Same here. Maybe I was going to head over this afternoon, but I promised Ray Morris I would help him get some gravel down on his driveway this weekend.”

“I think things are all right. I haven’t locked up the elevator yet. I’ll take a look in the bins before I lock up.”

Abe was silent. “All right. Have a good weekend, man.”

Nia

The reflection of the van in the glass windows of the library looks so normal, Nia thought as she shut off the van. Like a vehicle any other family would drive.

“But we are not every other family,” Nia said aloud as she got out.

There was a large covered area in front of the library. Two barn swallows flew past her and perched on a little nest near the library door. Their young cried out and the parents fussed around them. “Surely there are times when you get stressed,” Nia said. “Like when a hawk is chasing you.” The commotion in the nest quieted for a moment. “Uh, sorry,” Nia said, fairly certain the birds couldn’t actually understand her, but feeling it rude not to apologize.

The door had a friendly swish as she entered the library. She passed statue of a civil war soldier and was about to call out to a passing, familiar toddler when she noticed a librarian sitting at the L-shaped counter. “Hello,” Nia said.

The woman’s bright eyes looked up from a book and she was about to smile, but froze. “You are Io’s sister?”

“Yes, ma’am. Has she been any trouble?”

The woman chuckled. “No. But when I asked her if she would like to get a library card, she said she couldn’t on account of not having an address.”

“I’m a full-time employee at the co-op. Could she use that address?” Ro crashed into Nia’s legs with a chuckle and Nia picked her up.

“Of course, but I’m more concerned about the fact that your family doesn’t have a place to live.”

“Oh,” Nia said, shifting Ro’s weight to one hip. “Thank you. It’s maybe not what it seems. My dad works—he’s been working on Ray Morris’ house.”

The librarian nodded. “South of town.”

“Right. He’s about done there. We thought we would live in this area, but nothing is opening up, so my parents are thinking about moving back to Kansas City when the Morris house is finished.”

“Well, I’m Cindy,” the librarian said, grabbing a pen and paper. “I’m going to write my number down for you. Io said you’re staying at Cheney Lake?”

Nia nodded.

“It’s getting cold. If your family needs a place to stay, you can stay at my place.”

“Thank you,” Nia said, taking the paper. “That’s very kind of you.”

Nia made her way through the library and stopped where Abe’s niece, Eleanor, and Io sat together, looking at one of the computers. They were looking at a news story on kansas.com. Nia only caught the words “The Foundry” and an image of the interior of a building where there was a large mural of a girl dancing.

“That’s you,” Io said in an awestruck voice.

Eleanor whipped her head around, burning Io with fiery eyes, and then clicked out of the news page. She stood, grabbing her purple duffel bag from the ground beside her, and stomped toward the back door.

Sapphire came through the back door just then. “Hey, girlfriend. Where ya headed?”

Eleanor closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “I’ll be at the church, tap dancing for my life*.”

“Can I come?” Io asked.

Nia cringed. Could Io really not understand the situation?

Eleanor’s eyes opened into slits. “Very well,” she said, opening the door. “Come.”

Nia and Sapphire exchanged glances as the two girls walked out into a mass of orange and red leaves that scraped the parking lot and swirled toward the heavens.

*From “the poet” by Lucille Clifton