Sunday morning dawned hot and dry on the autumn-colored prairie, but the leftover sweet smell of alfalfa still hung in the night-cooled air, and in the dim parlor, the last "Hail Mary" settled into the silence. Mama caressed the worn leather of the old catechism as she placed it on its shelf, Papa stood the willow-switch in the corner, and with the agility of bullfrogs, Elizabeth and Edward, the ten-year-old twins, sprang from their aching knees and scrambled into the dusty brightness of the August morning.

"Cmon, slowpoke. Hurry up." Liz, angry that Papa made Eddie kneel with the boys that morning, tugged at her brother's shirt sleeve with more than usual fervor as they zig-zagged through the tumble-weeds that had already begun their fall migrations across the manure-scented barnyard.

"Lemme go. Stop pulling," Eddie struggled to keep up as he tugged against his sister's grip.

Liz, being three hours older, ten pounds heavier, and in her eyes, much wiser than her brother, knew that it was smart to be out of sight on a Sunday morning. Chores were waiting.

As they neared the bunkhouse, Liz put a grimy finger to her lips. "Sshhh. The bale. I'll push, you pull. Under the window," she whispered.

Eddie's nose twitched in the cloud of dust and straw chaff that floated around his head. "Achooo." His sudden sneeze resounded in the silent morning air.

Liz grabbed him, dove to the ground behind the bale, and slapped her sun-browned hand over his mouth. "Sshhh. What if they're awake."

Eddie struggled to free himself, but Liz kept his head pinned to the ground while she peeked over the bale. "Doesn't look like they heard you," she whispered. "C'mon. Let's hurry."

"Dunno why you wanna look at 'em," Eddie grumbled as they shoved the bale under the window of the thresher's unpainted quarters.

"Whatsa matter with you," Liz hissed. "Last Sunday, it was your idea." She scrambled upon the bale, and pressed her sun-crusted nose against the dusty glass while Eddie scowled at her back, his arms crossed his chest.

Liz peered inside the bunkhouse. The ranch-hands' unshaven, greasy heads looked as if they had been tossed onto the rumpled cots. With callused knuckles, they grubbed at the sleep in their yellowed eyes and sucked air through tobacco-stained teeth. They were drifters, for the most part -- bored, uneducated, and unattached. During harvest time they'd hire out as grain threshers on the homesteader's ranches around the alkali divide at the foot of the Black Hills. They'd earn a little cash money for poker and the Deadwood whores, then travel south for the winter. The twins feared them as they did the Gypsies and the Sioux that travelled through the ranch now and again.

"Sshhh. Harry. He's waking up. Let's get out of here." Liz again snatched Eddie by the sleeve and bolted for the barn and the safety of the hay-loft.

Eddie pouted as he pelted grains of corn at the horses tied in the stalls below. "When you gonna stop treating me like a baby, Lizzie. I'm 'most as old as you, and 'sides, I'm a boy."

"Makes no difference that you're an ol' boy," Liz answered from her perch in the high loading door of the loft. "Who'd take care of you if I didn't?"

"Who says I need taken care of? Not Mama and not Papa. Only you think that, and you're just a girl."

Liz figured out a long time ago that, since God had made her the biggest, he meant for her to take care of her brother. So, whenever he fell, she'd run to help him up. When anyone picked on him, she was ready to fight. And when he was caught in mischief, she'd take the blame. For the past few weeks, her need to protect him blinded her to the petulance with which he accepted her care.

"Liz, look. He's out there. He's looking at us." Eddie had grown tired of pestering the horses and was sitting in the loading door on the opposite side of the loft.

Harry was leaning against the corral rail, his red eyes squinted to slits in his weathered face. Liz felt a revulsion against all threshers, but Harry in particular. She'd seen the way he leered at the older girls with a look that scared her, although she couldn't quite say why. She also felt loathing as she peeked at him cussing and peeing against the barn in the moonlight after a Saturday night in town. He wasn't like Papa, with his teasing smile, or even like any of her gentle big brothers. So when Harry called to her, her first inclination was to run.

"Hey . . . you . . . twins."

Liz grabbed Eddie's shirt. "Quick, down the ladder," she hissed. "Out the back door."

"Hey, girlie, wanna make some money." Harry called again.

Liz dug her heels in the dust at the word money. Wooed by fantasies of store bought candy, she pushed Eddie to safety behind her and edged toward the door facing the corral and Harry. She glared at Harry, her face as mean as she could get it, and edged closer, pulling Eddie behind her.

"Come on. I ain't gonna hurt you," Harry said as he shoved a dirty palm toward her. "These are yours. All you have to do is fight."

Liz couldn't will her eyes away from the coins in his hand. "Fight? Whad'ya mean, fight?" she asked.

Harry shoved his hand into the pocket of his filthy overalls and jingled more coins. "You two, I mean. Fight each other. I seen you do it, dozens of times. Just a few punches and these are all yours." He again shoved the coins in his hand toward her. "Winner take all."

"Me and Eddie? Few punches? We wouldn't... , I couldn't...," Liz stammered.

The threshers had surrounded the twins, grinning, browned teeth glinting in the hot sun.

Before Liz could recover, Eddie snatched his sleeve out of her grasp and took a stance facing her, hands on his hips and boots set apart in the dust. "S'matter, Liz. You 'fraid?" Then he pulled back a skinny right arm and swung it wide. It grazed Liz's cheek, and he began a timid tiptoe around her with bony fists raised to shield his freckled jaw.

"C'mon kid, throw another one. She's just a girl." With their hangovers forgotten for the moment, the men leaned forward, their unsteady bodies closing the circle.

"Hey Sis, you're bigger'n him. Show him who's boss." They threw a few pennies as bait, slapped their filthy overalls, and goaded with whiskey-bloated tongues."

Liz had been caught off guard by Eddie's boldness, but she put her hands up and growled a tiny growl. She liked the showing-off, but wished it was anybody but Eddie. She could beat him too easily, and he'd be shamed. It wasn't her wish to shame him. God expects her to protect him. She'll let him win. She could do that. He wouldn't hurt her. Not Eddie. She'd swing and miss. He'd get in one punch, and she'd fall down. He'd win. They'd share the money, half and half.

"Ok, Eddie, let's show'em." She pulled her arm back and swung wildly at his cheek. Eddie ducked, and the blow missed.

"That's a way, kid. Duck and swing. You're learning." And another handful of coins hit the dust at their feet.

Liz failed to notice that Eddie's eyes were set in a dead-serious squint as he again pulled his fist back and swung at her face. It struck square, and she reeled with the violence of the blow.

Anger blinded her and swelled in her throat as she swung out and caught his shoulder. Then her other fist bruised his cheek, and a third blow landed flat on his nose. The blood gushed, and the coins hit the dirt. She moved in close with wild punches, and they fell to the ground, she on top. Blood and dirt smeared his face and neck, and she continued to pound his skinny chest, and more coins sailed at them, into her hair and down her overalls. And she kept swinging. Tears stung at her eyelids, and still she pummeled him until they held her to make her stop.

When her struggles finally stopped, Liz gaped at her bloody brother in the dirt at her feet. The men let her go, and she fell to her knees and gathered Eddie into her arms. She wiped the blood from his face with her grubby hand, and rocked him. "I didn't mean to hit so hard, Eddie." She could feel the tears burning ditches in the mud of her cheeks. "I got mad. I just got so mad."

The show was over, and the threshers shuffled back to the leaning rail, cussing and laughing, leaving the shaken twins in the bloody dust of the make-believe boxing ring.

Eddie pulled himself out of his sister's arms, stood up, brushed at his dirty overalls, and turned toward the house.

"Wait, we'll share the money, half and half. Here, Eddie, here's some for you. We'll share." Liz scrambled at the pennies and nickels in the dirt and offered them to her brother.

"I don't want your money," Eddie said. "You won. It's all yours."

"No, wait. C'mon. It's always been you and me, together, against the rest," Liz pleaded, begged. She'd never begged before, and she didn't like it now.

"Let me be. Just stay away from me." Eddie turned and stumbled toward the house.

Liz, still on her knees on the coin-strewn ground, watched her twin disappear behind the back gate. She sat back on her feet and stared at the money scattered in the dust. She picked up a nickel. She'd never had a whole nickel to herself, and now look at them, all around her. She picked up three pennies, and another nickel and shoved them deep into her pocket. A dime. Could it be possible? A whole dime. She'd never even held one in her hand. She was smiling now. She must be sure not to leave any behind. She'll put them in her yellow box Papa'd made. Maybe there'd be a whole dollar. A dollar. She was rich.

"Eddie could just kneel with the boys after this," Liz said aloud. Somewhere way off, a sadness threatened, but she willed it away, and searched for, maybe, another dime.