Prologue

They took his shoes. Not that they needed to, since he wasn't going anywhere, what with his hands tied behind his back. His head was caved in several inches. His face was covered with blood, the only clean spots the tracks made by his tears. When they found him, the cop thought he was thirteen, not the nineteen he really was. He was that small.

I wasn't even there, but I can't stop seeing it. The butt of that pistol coming down, again and again, on his beautiful face.

But here's the thing. Those people who think they know what happened? They have no idea.

BEFORE
September-October 1998

Chapter One
 
The first time I saw him, he was riding a big fake horse. I was mostly interested in the horse. It was for the university's production of Oklahoma!, and my dad had gotten me on the stage crew. He was looking for a way to get me out of my bedroom--"back into the world," as he put it. He wasn't wrong. I was spending a lot of time in my bedroom. It was the only place where I could just be. You know, not have to pretend that everything was okay when it wasn't.

I helped make the horse. It looked good--fake, but in an obvious way, like you were supposed to know it was fake. I didn't notice the guy on the horse until he started singing. It was the first song from the show, the one where the male lead, Curly, is singing about what a beautiful morning it is, how the meadow shimmers in the early light, and the corn is as tall as the sky. His voice--light and soaring, like a swallow--pulled my attention from the horse to him.

He was wearing blue jeans and a plaid shirt, with a bolo tie around his neck. His hat was at least a couple of sizes too big, and he kept pushing it up so he could see where he was going. He finally got frustrated with the hat and threw it into the fake corn, stage right, and it was only then that I could see his face. It was small, like the rest of him, but there was something in his eyes that was big. Like he had something inside of him that was bigger than he was. His hair was dirty blond, and it glimmered in the stage lights. I guess people would have called him cute, which was going to be a problem for the production, since cowboys aren't really supposed to be cute. I imagine rugged is more what you're going for with a cowboy, and this kid was far from rugged.

But there he was, as Curly, riding his fake horse, singing about how everything was going his way. His hundred-watt smile made you want to believe that there was nothing out there on the shimmering meadow but beauty, and goodness, and possibility.

But there was something in his voice that made you doubt the smile, if only for a second. Just a hitch, maybe. The tiniest crack. But it was enough to suggest that he knew that beauty and goodness were as fake as the horse, that possibility was the last thing you should ever hope for.

"His name's Shane," a voice behind me said.

I turned to find a girl, older than me, maybe nineteen or twenty, long dark hair hanging like curtains around her face.

"What?" I said, flustered.

"Shane," she repeated. "The guy you've been staring at."

"I wasn't staring." My face felt hot. The girl raised an eyebrow.

"The horse," I said, trying to recover. "I helped make the horse."

"Real lifelike."

"It's not supposed to be lifelike. It's supposed to be like, theatrical."

"It's definitely that," she said. "Very theatrical."

She was a big girl. Not fat, just big. Like every bit of her was necessary. Her skirt was shorter than most girls her size would risk. She was wearing a faded Hole T-shirt under an oversize army jacket, Doc Martens on her feet. Her jacket was covered with band pins: The Breeders. Sonic Youth. Sleater-Kinney.

"And what about you?" she said. "Are you theatrical?" Something about the emphasis she put on the word made it more than a simple question. I decided to dodge it.

"I'm on the stage crew."

Not knowing what to say next, I told her my name.

"I'm Ash."

"Jenna," she said. "We've been watching you, Ash. People are talking."

"What?"

"You've become the object of great speculation. No one knows who you are, or where you came from. But we have several theories."

My scalp started to itch.

"I don't go here," I said, resisting the urge to rub my head.

"Where exactly do you go?"

"Juniper High."

"Ah. That would explain things. So, you're what, sixteen?"

"Seventeen."

"And how does someone in high school find himself making horses for a college production?"

"My dad works here."

"What's he teach? Maybe I've had him."

"He's not a professor. He works on the grounds crew. And he's done some landscaping for Mr. Finster, the director. I'm basically here because Finster liked this thing my dad did with zinnias."

I looked back at the stage, where Shane was leaning on a fake fence, looking at a girl. The girl was pretty, with hair like Rachel from Friends, which didn't exactly fit in with the whole prairie aesthetic. She was a head taller than Shane, but the difference in height didn't matter, because he was singing again, and smiling, and that smile was bigger than the stage and brighter than the spotlights. It was such a stupid song--the one about a surrey with fringe on the top--but the girl was hooked.

"And what about you?" I asked, turning back to Jenna. "Are you in the cast? I haven't seen you on crew days."

"I'm just a hanger-on. I guess you could call me a theater groupie. The singing cowboy's a friend of mine."

Shane and the girl had gotten to that part of the song where he takes her in his arms and she leans her head on his shoulder, pretending to be asleep. I was suddenly struck by the desire to have Shane's arms around me, his voice whispering in my ear.

"He's good," I said, not knowing how to say the rest of it. The voice, delicate like a bird. The smile that lit up the stage. Something in his eyes that was bigger than all of it.

Jenna laughed and did that thing with her eyebrow. My face burned again.

"You're cute," she said. "Maybe I'll see you at the party tonight?"

"What party?"

"Oh. Awkward. No one told you? I'm sure that was just an oversight."

I wasn't so sure. I'd always heard what a bonding experience theater could be, but as the only high school kid in the production, I hadn't exactly bonded with anybody. I mean, the two guys I made the horse with talked to me, but they didn't really have a choice.

"I don't know," I said. "I'm not really a party person."

"Maybe you haven't been to the right parties."

She was probably right about that. Also, the appeal of spending another Friday night at home, pretending that I was okay by myself, was starting to wear off.

"I'll have to ask my dad."

"Or not. I'll send you the address. What's your email?"

Here was the problem with having a character from your favorite video game as your email address.

"spacemama@aol.com," I said.

"Space Mama?"

"Space Mama. She's a character from Rayman. She's this lady in an astronaut costume that--"

"Spare me the details, Space Mama. I'll see you tonight."
 
I thought about not asking my dad, just taking off without saying anything, but I couldn't do that to him. Things at home had been pretty bad lately.

But I also couldn't tell him the truth. A college party couldn't have been what he had in mind when he urged me to get "back into the world." He knew what college students were like. He'd found too many empty beer cans and used condoms in his carefully planted shrubbery.

"I'm getting a pizza with Ryan," I said. I used to be over at Ryan's almost every day, but I hadn't hung out with him in months. Dad had asked about him a couple of times, but I'd just said something about him being busy. Now, he slipped me twenty dollars and told me to have fun.
It took me forever to get ready because I couldn't decide what to wear. I figured the bigger the better. Anything to cover up my scrawniness. I ended up deciding on a pair of baggy jeans and a flannel shirt that gave the illusion of shoulders.

I spent another five minutes in front of the mirror trying to tame my hair. I liked the color, jet black, but it didn't really have a shape, apart from that bit that curled up on the side no matter how hard I tried to keep it down. The mirror reminded me that my nose looked like it belonged on someone else's face. It was too big for mine. I liked my eyes, though, which were almost as black as my hair. My mom said they looked soulful.

The party was in a run-down neighborhood on the other side of campus. The address Jenna emailed me led to a small one-story house, peeling paint, with people crowded around a keg on the porch. I stood outside in the dark for what must have been fifteen minutes. The idea of trying to fit in with a bunch of college kids made me sick to my stomach. But the thought of going back home and spending another Friday alone was enough to get me up the stairs and through the front door.

The air inside was clotted with cigarette smoke, the people packed in tight. I thought about bolting, but the thrust of the crowd had already pushed me into another room, a living area with ratty furniture shoved up against the walls. I squeezed my way into a corner and tried to look like that was exactly where I wanted to be, but it's impossible to stand by yourself in a corner at a party and look like you're cool with it.

I finally spotted Jenna across the room, talking to some guy I'd never seen before. He looked out of place among all the theater people. He was older, maybe thirty. His hair was long and greasy, and his eyes kept darting around the room while Jenna talked to him. Eventually, she saw me, said something else to the guy, and joined me in my corner.

"Daddy approved?" she yelled. The music was loud, that pulsing pop stuff I hated, all driving bass and stuttery snare drum.

"Something like that."

"Cool." 

"Who was that?" I asked, nodding toward the guy she'd just left.

 "Just someone I'm talking to for an article I'm working on."

"You're a journalism major?"

"No. Veterinary sciences. I'm just writing for the campus newspaper as an extracurricular."

"You want to be a vet?"

"My parents want me to. I'm mostly just looking for ways to spend more time around cows."

I laughed.

"Really?"

"Yeah. My parents manage a ranch up near Sheridan, so growing up I spent a lot of time with cows. It feels weird not to have them around. People think cows are stupid, but they're actually very smart. They have these complex social structures. I'm currently working on a project about cow grudges."

"Cow grudges?"

"Yep. There's some research that suggests that cows can hold grudges against other cows. Like if one of them pushed another one away from the trough. The one that got pushed away will remember it weeks later and find a way to retaliate."

"How do cows retaliate?"

"Mostly ear biting. Also some strategic defecation."

I was pretty sure I didn't want to know what that involved.

"And this article for the campus paper. What's it about?"

"The local meth trade."

"Meth?'

"Methamphetamine. It's this drug that's become a huge problem in Juniper in the past couple of years--the whole state, really. I'm beginning to get a handle on some of the small-time dealers who move it, but I still don't know where it's coming from."

I knew Juniper was full of stoners--what college town isn't?--but the idea that it was the center of some sort of meth trade was crazy. That kind of thing only happened on the coasts, not here in "Wyoming's Hometown."

"Sounds dangerous," I said. "Snooping around drug dealers."

"It can be. But I'm careful. Anyway, too many lives are being ruined, and no one seems to care. Someone has to tell the story."

"And that guy? He's a dealer?"

"If I told you that," she said, smiling, "I'd have to kill you. Come on, let's get a drink."

She grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the bar, where people were ladling something that looked like cranberry juice into red plastic cups. Jenna poured one for herself and one for me. It looked safe enough, but the bitter taste at the back of my first sip let me know it was more than cranberry juice. I put it back down on the bar.

A new song came on, some up-tempo trancey thing, and people started dancing. I was bobbing my head slightly, which was my version of dancing, when I noticed a buzz in the crowd. The energy in the room had shifted somehow. And then I saw the source of the shift. It was Shane, dancing his way into the crowd. The other kids danced around him, toward him, with him, and he was at the throbbing center of it all, his face bright like a little kid at Christmas. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Every bit of him was in motion, all wriggling shoulders and hip thrusts. His hands seemed like they belonged to someone else, traveling over his body, caressing his chest, running fingers through his floppy hair. At one point we made eye contact, and the hairs on my arms stood up.

"You like him," Jenna yelled into my ear.

"What do you mean?" I asked, still unable to take my eyes off Shane.

She put her hand on my arm and turned me toward her.

"It's okay," she said, her eyes kinder than they had been. "You don't have to be afraid. Not here. Not with these people."

I almost laughed. She made it sound so easy. Like there were places where you could just stop being afraid, even if being afraid was what kept you safe. If there was a gay rights movement, it hadn't made it to Juniper. Just the week before, I'd seen a guy downtown wearing a shirt that read: "In Wyoming we have a cure for AIDS. We shoot fags."

And now, just by watching me watch Shane, Jenna had seen something in me that I'd worked hard to keep hidden. If Jenna could see it, maybe everybody else could too.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. Her face tightened, her eyes growing cold again.
When the song was over, Shane rushed over to us and threw himself on Jenna, wrapping her up in a big hug.

"Girl," he said, "are you aware that you're the sexiest person in this room? Love the eyes."
He was right. She looked amazing. She was wearing a knee-length dress, made of this cool olive-colored material. It was kind of prim and proper, with a bit of lace at the neck and the sleeves, but the black choker she was wearing undid the primness. So did the white stockings that came up to her knees, giving her a sexy schoolgirl vibe. Her eyebrows were pencil thin, and her eyes were layered in mascara. She was beaming, all because of Shane.

He unwrapped himself from Jenna and turned to me.

"And you must be Ash," he said, holding out his hand and flashing that megawatt smile. "I'm Shane."

He was even smaller up close than he was on the stage, a good four or five inches shorter than me, and I was only 5'7". But standing there in front of me, smiling, his blue eyes lit up by a lamp on the bar, he didn't seem small.

"Jenna's told me so much about you," he said.

"Really?" I asked, casting a side-eye at Jenna. "That's strange."

"What's strange about it?"

"Well, she doesn't really know anything about me. We only just met."

"You'd be surprised," he said. "This girl has magical powers."

I was about to tell Shane how good he was in the show, but a new song came on, and he yelled "Oh my god! I love this song! We must dance!"

He grabbed Jenna's hand and pulled her back toward the center of the room. And there I was again, alone in my corner, wishing I was the kind of person who could have followed them and thrown my body up against all those other gyrating bodies, not worrying what I looked like.

Shane and Jenna were soon joined by Patrick, the hot guy playing Jud. The three of them were dancing together, but gradually it became clear that Jenna was an extra, necessary only to make it less obvious that it was the boys who were dancing together. Watching Shane on the dance floor and feeling my stomach lurch at how close he was to Patrick, I realized that standing alone in the corner was not going to get me closer to Shane, which was suddenly all that mattered.

I made my way through the crowd, and when I got to the three of them, I did the only thing I could think of. I started bouncing up and down like a crazy person. I'm sure I looked like an idiot, but maybe it didn't matter. Jenna was yelling "You go, girl!" and Shane looked surprised, like he was seeing me for the first time. Only Patrick seemed less than thrilled with my presence.

We kept dancing through the next few songs, and at some point I realized I didn't hate the music anymore. The thumping, the pulsing, the tension and release of drums and synths surged through my body, a kind of euphoria, connecting me to Shane, to Jenna, even to Patrick.
After another couple of songs, I said I needed some air and headed out to the front porch. The air wasn't the real reason. I wanted to see if Shane would follow me.

It had cooled down considerably, and the sweat on my neck gave me a chill. A couple of guys were tapping a new keg, and I moved to the other end of the porch, away from the glare of the porch light. I just stood there, staring out at the street, and waited, wishing I was the kind of guy who could do more than wait.

I was about to give up when the screen door swung open. I resisted the urge to turn around. The porch creaked, and there he was, standing beside me.

"Hey," Shane said, bumping his shoulder against my arm and sloshing the beer he was holding. 

"Hey."

"Want a beer?"

"No thanks."

"You don't drink?"

"Not really."

"Probably don't smoke then either, right?" He put his beer down and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, offering me one.

"Nope."

He lit his cigarette, took a big drag.

"You're a good dancer," he said.

I laughed. "There's no way that's true," I said.

"Okay, well, maybe enthusiastic is the better word."

"Yeah. Enthusiastic hopping is really all I've got."

"It works," he said, taking another drag on his cigarette, his eyes still on the street.

We were quiet for a minute, and I was afraid he was about to go back inside. I needed to keep him talking.

"You said Jenna told you about me. What'd she say?"

"Nothing, really. Just that I should meet you."

"But why? College guys don't usually hang out with townies."

"She thinks I need to meet new people," he said. He took a drag on his cigarette. "Different people."

"And I'm different?"

He turned his gaze toward me.

"Jenna seems to think so."

"Different from what?"

He turned back toward the street.

"Different from the people I usually find myself with."

"What kind of people do you usually find yourself with?"

He took one last drag off his cigarette before flicking the butt into the yard. I watched its ember arc, die.

"The wrong kind," he said. I wanted him to look at me, but he kept his gaze on the street.
"How do you know I'm not the wrong kind?"

He laughed again, taking a sip of his beer.

"It's just a feeling I have. Jenna was right. You've got this whole 'boy next door' vibe going on."

"You mean boring?"

"No. Not boring. More like, someone you can trust."

Trustworthy. Didn't exactly sound like the kind of guy whose bones you might want to jump.

"She said something else," he continued, glancing toward me.

"What?"

"She said you were cute." He bumped my arm again. I was glad we were in a dark corner of the porch, so he couldn't see me blush.

"That's not really how I think about myself."

"Well then," he said. "You should reconsider."

I knew I should say something, that I thought he was cute too, but it felt like I had cardboard in my mouth, and I couldn't get the words out.

"We should get breakfast tomorrow," he said.

My heart fluttered. Was he asking me out? Like, on a date?

"Sure," I said, trying to keep the heart fluttering out of my voice. "That'd be cool."

I gave him my address and suddenly realized how late it was. Dad was going to be pissed.
"I have to go. Can you tell Jenna I said goodbye?"

"Sure. See you tomorrow."

And then he hugged me. His body fit perfectly into mine, and his hair smelled of lavender. The lavender stayed with me on the walk home. It seemed like it was coming from the flowers, the bushes, every tree that I passed.

---

Excerpted from All the Truth I Can Stand by Mason Stokes
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.