"He's a kid, Wade."
"A kid."
"He's a boy. He's seventeen. He does chores in the barn. He mucks stalls and splits wood and he fixed the hydrant by the bull pen that you've been meaning to fix since March. I feed him because he's hungry. That's all."
"That's all." He leaned in the doorway because he did not trust himself to come further into the room. "There's a seventeen-year-old boy working on my place that I've never seen, and that I'm not paying, because there's no wages going out of this outfit that I don't sign. You're buying him gloves and bibs on our account at Hanson's. You're feeding him out of our grocery money. He only comes when I'm gone. And June knows his name and I don't." He heard his voice beginning to rise and he brought it back down by force. "Who is he?"
Claire's face did something complicated. She opened her mouth and closed it.
"I can't tell you that yet."
"You can't tell me."
"Not yet. I made a promise to somebody, and there's a reason, and if I tell you his name tonight you're going to do something you can't take back. I know you, Wade. I know exactly what you'll do."