Excerpt from The Fruit of Stone by Mark Spragg, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The boy's mother and grandmother winced at each round's report but did not move from the table. They put down their silverware and stared into their plates. The world stood quieter than it had. For a single long moment he could remember no sound at all.

He unhooked his heels and slid from the chair and stood at the screendoor.

The red-and-white Hereford cows along the fence had bolted away into the irrigated pasture. Sprays of hoofstruck water rose and hung in the air about them. They bunched at the pasture's north corner, milling, their calves bawling and nuzzling their mothers' bags. A row of red-winged blackbirds lifted from an electrical line and flapped in the air, then settled farther downwind in a stand of cottonwood.

"Your father cannot tolerate crabgrass," his mother said.

He looked over his shoulder to his mother. He still stood at the screendoor. She began to giggle and couldn't stop.

His grandmother scowled and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Crabgrass?" she asked.

"Gardening," his mother said. She had stopped laughing. She stood and carried her dishes to the sink, and pressed her fingers to her temples and turned. Her pupils had come large in her eyes. "Migraine," she announced. She could as well have said, "Sunrise."

His grandmother snorted and took up her spoon and scraped at the rind of her truck-ripened grapefruit. They heard the back door open and close and his mother settle into her chair on the back porch.

"My ancient ass," his grandmother whispered, but she wasn't trying to be quiet.

It was as though there had been an argument, and now the argument was done.

His father stood on the lawn. He stared at the ground. He was dressed in his single suit. A wool serge, dark blue, the trousers worn pale at the knees and seat, the jacket at the elbows. The suit had been McEban's grandfather's. It had come with the ranch. Handed down like work and debt and weather. He'd seen his father wear the thing to funerals, and weddings, and on these occasional acts of emotional disobedience.

His father took a step toward the barn, shook his head, and thrust the pistol into the waistband of his trousers. He blinked into the cloudless sky and turned and looked back at the house.

McEban stepped away from the screen to let him in and the man poured a mug of coffee and leaned against the counter and sipped the coffee. His hat was tipped back from his face. The face appeared drawn. It was unshaven. The belly of his shirt bunched above the pistol's wooden grip.

"You about done with your breakfast?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," McEban told him.

"You get all the way done I'll want your help. We need to move those bulls in with the cows."

"He's helping me today," his grandmother said.

His father turned and stared plainly at her.

"For how long?" he asked.

"For as long as I need him," she said. "There's a garden to put up. And I bought flats of fruit at the IGA. They'll spoil."

His father nodded and sucked at his teeth.

"I better get out of these clothes," he said.

He paused by her as he passed. He kissed the top of her head, and when he was out of the room the old woman said, "He gets his good manners from your grandfather."

She crimped the halved grapefruit rind in her fist, held it above her upturned face, squeezed the last of its sour juice into her open mouth.

She gripped the sides of her chair and stepped it back from the table. Right side, left side, right, hefting and releasing separately the weight of each considerable buttock. She stacked their breakfast dishes and carried them to the sink. McEban stood by his chair. His bladder ached and his ears rang.

"You learn anything useful this morning?" she asked.

He looked up at her, pinched his nose, and blew hard to clear his ears. "I learned to stay out of the yard when Dad's dressed up."

Copyright © 2002 by Mark Spragg. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, Putnam.