Low gold sun driving the load home, in first gear down the arc of the bow of the reservation. Between the two gates, on the longest stretch of open flat land between the field and the feedlot, Flaco is driving too fast. We always drive too fast when we can, especially between the two gates. And this late afternoon, my birthday, it is the last load of the week. Saturday night and Sunday and no hay to haul are ahead of us. The sun is hot as ever and bright but softer now. I am sitting in the middle between Flaco and Acho. Flaco’s left arm is resting on the window and his hat is off and the wind from the open window is blowing his wet hair. Acho’s hat is off too. The sun gold onto Acho’s right arm resting on the window. Acho’s shirt is off and the wind is blowing the hairs in the middle of his chest and the hairs on his arm. Flaco shifts from third gear to fourth gear, and when the gear shift goes into fourth, Flaco’s hand comes down and touches a place on the inside of my leg just below the knee. I doubt if Flaco even knows he’s touched me, but he has touched me. The little square inch of skin on my right leg below the knee.

Everything gets slow and I feel the scared place inside me that I don’t know is scared until it stops feeling scared, and when the scared feeling stops I get a big full feeling in my chest and I love God so much right then. Flaco’s touch on my leg, Acho’s armpit smell, all of our smells really, sweat and hay and dust and the smell of the cab, gasoline, oil, exhaust fumes, cigarettes, mossy canal water, roaring down the road in a beat up old truck. My one arm touching Flaco’s arm on one side and on the other side, my arm touching Acho’s arm. Skin to skin to skin. My exhale settles my body deep into the seat as if the seat is the only thing that holds me up. The seat, and Flaco on one side, Acho on the other. Just the three of us, close, riding in the truck, the wind blowing through. I look over at Flaco and he looks back at me. We are both smiling and then we look at Acho and he is smiling too. The way we are smiling we all know. The sun, the wind, the cigarette, our bodies still wet under our clothes, the roar of the truck, we know, all of us, that this is a moment in our lives. Flaco takes a drag on the cigarette. Acho closes his eyes and stretches his neck. The deep breath inside my chest. Each of us knows, and we know that we know and without a word we bless the moment.

And now, a year later even more, that moment is still with me, riding on my breath, in the pulse of blood, the deepened life line in the palm of my hand. What I have come to know as true. Moments of gesture. To know what it is to love.

Flaco sat slid down in the seat so his body stretched out to the end of his knees. Flaco’s shoulder was touching my hip. He took his hat off and put his long fingers through his curly black hair.

Rigby John, Flaco said, Why don’t you come tonight to our house and visit us? It was the big empty space just down from my throat and my arms got the helpless feeling in them. I thought I was going to cry, but why would I cry, there was nothing to cry about. This was my birthday.