Page 1 of True North

Prologue

HARRY

SPRING OF 1972

The velvet teat rolls through my hands, one after the other. The milk hits the steel bucket with a ping. I can’t hear it, but I know it does. “Burning Love” blasts through my headphones, the Zenith portable radio Ma bought me for my eighteenth birthday last month hangs from my worn jeans. The sun is just now comin’ up. The birds no doubt starting their squawkin’ as the small herd of Friesian cows mill over their fresh hay on the other side of the pen.

I nod to the tune.

The old milkin’ cow shifts her feet. I pay her a glance, watching the bucket.Hell, girl, don’t kick it over. Not again.Losing milk isn’t an option. I wait for her to settle, hand tight over the rim of the bucket. She swishes her tail, slapping me in the face, before dropping her head into the feed trough.

“Steady, Mabes.”

I take up my earlier rhythm, coaxing hot, frothy milk from her. Mable’s udder is full—should get a half a bucket, I reckon. I relax as my song fades out and something grungy starts up.

Nice.

I return to nodding my head with the beat, letting my hands carry the same tune as the milk fills the bucket between my feet. I pause, turnin’ up the volume. How is it songs can put you in a mood? This one makes me happy, excited. I let my thoughts wander to today and what it holds.

Prom.

Taking Lou, more specifically, to her prom. Dancin’ never interested me, but she loves it.

I need it to go well. For the last part of the night.

The old cow lifts her head. I turn, too slow, to find what she’s lookin’ at. My old man’s hand slams up the back of my head. The headphones fly onto the hay-littered ground. Stars creep into my peripherals. I jerk on the small wooden stool and shake it off.

Fuck.

I ignore him, setting my gaze on the udder in front of me. I can smell the booze from here. He never came home last night. So his mood tracks.

Lousy, damn?—

“Answer me, you useless good-for-nothin’!”

My hands freeze on the teats. I suppress the urge to strangle them between my palms in my wrath, but this old girl doesn’t deserve that.

“Missed the question, sir.”

“Ha. Sir, if you didn’t walk around with your head in the goddamn clouds, Harrison, you would have half a clue what’s goin’ on ’round here.”

I’m not going to bite.

Nope, not doing it.

“I didn’t hear you.” Stupid response, sure, but I can’t answer a question I didn’t catch.

“You shifted those bales? Weather’s comin’ in.”

“I’ll do it next.”

“I’ll do it next, what?”

“Do it next, sir.”

“Better. I swear, boy, you are one useless son of a bitch.” He wanders off, tripping over his own feet. My blood boils with the words he uses about Ma. I can’t wait ’til the day I take her away from here. Find somewhere to make an actual home. Ma, Lou, and me. That old asshole can drown in his own liquor for all I care.

I pluck the headphones from the ground before Mable treads on them. Ma saved for months to gift me one birthday present. She should have kept the money for herself. But she’s always looking out for her only child. One day, I will make damn sure every sacrifice she made for me in the last eighteen years is rewarded. Tenfold. Because it will be a cold day in hell when I turn out like my old man.

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