FiveCrystal dangled from her tree, her biscuits hanging lower than her shorts. Ellis, out of his rocking chair and sorting loose wire in the yard, saw her accidental display, frowned, and grumbled, “Cover yourself, girl.”
“Daddy!”
“Daddy nothin',” Ellis insisted, headed into the shack. “You're a spectacle. Cover yourself!” Crystal dropped to the ground and yanked her shorts back in place.
Caleb was still laying with the pups in the grass. Spot had joined them and the boy, using the mother Shepherd as a pillow, called to his sister. “How come Daddy don't let no one come here?”
“Cause people try to make us leave our home,” Crystal answered without interest.
“How come?”
“Daddy says the world's gone mad.” She picked a wild flower, the first she'd seen that spring, and spun it in her fing
