“You know, zap!” Bryan demonstrated with a pointed finger and cocked thumb.
“No, about Sheriff MacKade, and my mom.”
“Jeez, he’s really stuck on her.” The hot dog was thoroughly burned. Concentrating, Bryan blew on the end before biting it and filling his mouth with charcoal. “He hangs around her all the time and brings her flowers and junk. That’s what my Dad did with Mom. He’d bring her flowers, and she’d go real dopey over them.” He shook his head. “Screwy.”
“He comes around because he’s looking out for us,” Connor said, but the sweet taste in his mouth had gone sour. “Because he’s the sheriff.”
“Sure, he looks out for you.” Involved with his hot dog, Bryan didn’t see the panic in his pal’s eyes. “Maybe that’s how he got stuck on her in the first place, but man, he’s gone. I heard my mom and dad talking the other night, and Mom said how she got a kick out of seeing the big, bad sheriff—that’s what she calls him—out of seeing him cow-eyed over Cassie. Cow-eyed.” Bryan snickered at the term. “Hey, if they get married, we’d be cousins and blood brothers. That’d be great.”
“She’s not getting married.” Connor’s voice lashed out so fast and furious that Bryan nearly bobbled the rest of his dinner.
“Hey—”
“She’s not going to marry anyone, ever again.” Connor leaped to his feet, fists clenched. “You’re wrong. You’re making it up.”
“Am not. What’s your problem?”
“He comes around because he’s the sheriff, and he’s looking out for us. That’s it. You take it back.”
He might have, but the martial glint in Connor’s eyes sparked one in his own. “Get real. Anybody can see Devin’s got the hots for your mom.”
Connor was on him like a leech, knocking Bryan back, rolling over the dirt. Surprise and panic gave him the first advantage as his fists pummeled at Bryan’s ribs. But it was his first fight, and Bryan was a veteran.
Within a few sweaty moments, Bryan had Connor pinned. Both of them were scraped and filthy and breathing hard. In reflex, Bryan bloodied Connor’s lip, snarling like a young wolf. “Give up?”
“No.” Connor jabbed an elbow out and had Bryan grunting. Into the brambles they rolled, gasping out threats and curses.
Again Bryan pinned him, and again he raised his fist. He stopped, froze. He would have sworn he heard something, something that sounded like a man dying, but it didn’t sound of this world.
“You hear that?”
“Yeah.” Connor didn’t loosen his grip on Bryan’s ripped T-shirt, but his eyes darted left and right. “It didn’t sound real, though, it sounded like…”
“Ghosts.” The word came through Bryan’s cold lips. “Jeez, Con. They’re really here. It’s the two corporals.”
Connor didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t hear it anymore, just the owls and the rustle of small animals in the brush. But he felt it, and he suddenly understood. That was what war was, he thought, stranger against stranger, brother against brother. Fighting. Killing. Dying.
And he was ashamed, because Bryan was his brother and he’d raised his fist to him. Raised his fist, he thought as tears stung his eyes, as Joe Dolin had done to Mama, and to him.
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t stop the tears, just couldn’t, not even when Bryan stared down at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, it’s okay. You hit good.” Uncomfortable, he patted Connor’s shoulder before he levered himself to his feet. Systematically he tugged aside brambles and picked thorns out of his clothes and flesh. “You just got to work on your guard, is all.”
“I don’t want to fight. I hate fighting.” Connor sat up and curled himself into a ball of misery.
Bryan cast around for something to say. “Man, we’re a mess. You’re going to have to come up with a good story for how we got our clothes torn and stuff. Maybe we could say we wer
e attacked by wild dogs.”
“That’s stupid. Nobody’d believe that.”
“You come up with one, Con,” Bryan coaxed. “You’re real good at stories.”
Connor sighed, kept his head on his knees. He didn’t want to lie. He hated lying as much as he did fighting. But he didn’t think he could stand seeing disappointment in his mother’s eyes. “We’ll say we lost the baseball in the blackberry bushes and got all caught up in the thorns.”
It was simple, Bryan decided. And sometimes simple was best. “How about your lip? It’s going to puff up real good.”
“I guess I fell down.”