Explore "Lone Women" by Victor LaValle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
New man gets the worst task. An old rule and there was no point in arguing. Not even if that means you're fifteen years old and left alone to watch a dozen horses overnight.
Delmus Mudge wouldn't have tried to get out of the job even if he could. He wasn't like Joab, who was so much like their mother, the kind who could see three opportunities ahead and position themselves to enjoy them all. Delmus did the work. That's always how he'd been. And in the past, there had been value in such a role. Joab was the planner, and their eldest brother, Edward, had charisma. The second eldest, Jabez, had a way with violence; he'd been the wolf their mother sent when it came time to do the worst. And then came Delmus.