Tex

  I staggered back in mock amazement, almost knocking Johnny over. "Not that good!" I exclaimed.

  Coach clenched his fists, like he was trying to keep from belting me. Everybody held their breath for a second, waiting for him to do it. I thought he'd do that, or tell me to touch my toes for a swat. He didn't swat you like Mrs. Johnson did. Coach's swats would lift you off the ground. For an endless minute we stood like that, then he said, "Showers."

  Everybody took off. I did, too, but not as fast as most people.

  "Man, Tex, I thought you'd had it," Johnny said later. I dried my hair off and flipped him with the towel. "Naw. He sounds worse than he is."

  "Maybe you shouldn't keep pushing him like that."

  I looked up from pulling on my boots. Johnny's freckled face looked serious. "Hey," I said, "what's with you?"

  Johnny had been edgy ever since he got grounded, and I had put up enough with edgy people. "You're startin' to sound like Cole."

  "Yeah, well what's wrong with that?"

  "For Pete's sake, you've been griping about him for days now. Now it sounds like you're starting to take what he says about the evil McCormicks serious."

  "Just leave Cole out of this, okay? He's my father, I can bitch about him if I want. Bitch about your own, if you ever see him again."

  For a second I really thought I was going to jump up and punch his lights out. It must have showed on my face, because he went charging out of the locker room. I sat there, holding one boot. Having a fight with Johnny was like seeing the sky turn orange. I couldn't believe it had happened.

  We didn't speak to each other the rest of the week. When he got his cycle back he didn't come by to pick me up for school. It was serious. I kept up a good front, at school--if he didn't care if we were ever friends again, I didn't--but at home I moped around a lot. I had plenty of people to talk to at school, but just because you know a lot of people doesn't make them your friends. I felt like I did when I found out Negrito was gone. And I had the weirdest feeling that if Johnny hadn't been fighting with Cole, he wouldn't be fighting with me.

  I was having lunch at school with a couple of other guys when Jamie came up to the table. "I want to talk to you."

  "Sure," I said, ignoring the gibes and snickers from the other guys. If some cute girl walked up to them and said "Frog" they'd have jumped straight up and asked "How high?" on the way.

  We moved over to another table that was almost empty.

  "I want to know when you and Johnny are going to stop being so stupid."

  It was a relief to me that Jamie always said what she thought without hedging around or playing games. But sometimes it took you a little by surprise.

  "I don't know," I shrugged, trying to look like I didn't care, either.

  "Well, I certainly wouldn't let some dumb little argument come between me and Linda Murphy."

  "I thought Marcie was your best friend," I said. Jamie's eyes were so dark that it always came as a surprise to realize they were blue.

  "Oh, that was last month."

  "See," I said. "If I went around switching best friends all the time, maybe it'd be different. This time it matters. To me, anyway," I added, tired of lying about it.

  "And you think it doesn't matter to Johnny? Listen, he's been acting so weird that Mona has started making him take vitamins. Cole let him get the cycle out early because he's just been sitting around with gloom and doom on his face."

  Well, if Johnny didn't want to keep this fight going, and I didn't, you'd think it would be easy to patch things up. But I couldn't see anything easy about it.

  "He's going to be out dirt-biking at the gravel pits after school today," Jamie was saying. I wondered when she had started wearing a bra. "And if you two don't quit being so ... so..." she paused, looking for a strong enough word, "asinine, I'm not going to speak to either one of you."

  I grinned at her. "Well, that's a real inspiration."

  Suddenly she blushed. Turned red clear up to her bangs. I felt my face get hot, and I knew I was turning red, too.

  "You know, Tex, you are really cute," Jamie said. But she didn't say it sarcastic, not one bit. Then she got up and hurried off. I sat there, my face flaming like a bonfire. My heart would stop, then go racing on till I thought I'd suffocate. I had a sudden urge to jump up on my chair and let out a war whoop, but I managed to control myself. For a little while. When Eddie-Joe Cummings came by and cracked a joke, I laughed, and dumped what was left of my chocolate milk on his head.

  I got out to the gravel pits with Roger Genet. Roger wasn't real popular with a lot of people, seeing how he was given to stealing things and beating up on kids he knew he could whip. But me and him always got along okay. Anyway, I needed a ride out to the gravel pits, and he had a cycle.

  There were five or six cycles out there, roaring up and down the hills, seeing how high they could jump, or who could do the longest wheelie.

  Johnny was there but didn't give any indication that he saw me. That bugged me for a second, but then, I knew it wasn't going to be easy.

  After a while everybody got together and talked over an old subject, doing an Evel Knievel jump over the creek. Last year a high school senior had tried it, missed, and broke his back. Since then, a lot of people talked about jumping the creek, but nobody really tried it. A couple of people, including Roger Genet, said they had tried it and made it, but unfortunately nobody had been around to witness it I had always wanted to try it myself, but since I didn't have a bike, I didn't want to take a chance on wrecking Johnny's.

  Johnny was saying something about giving it a go, except he was low on gas.

  "Hell," said Roger, "that little bitty thing couldn't make it across the creek if it was pumped full."

  He had a big old Honda, the kind you couldn't ride legal till you were sixteen. You'd think he wouldn't want to keep reminding everybody he was sixteen and still in the ninth grade, but somehow I don't think Roger ever saw it like that.

  "Sure it could," Johnny said. He looked at his fuel gauge. "Maybe I have got enough to try it."

  I swung off the back of Roger's cycle. "I don't know," I said, looking at Johnny's fuel gauge. "You look awful low on gas, to me."

  I was trying to give Johnny a way to get out of a try, but he looked at me like I was razzing him.

  "It's enough," he said curtly, then started up the hill. I took two long strides and hopped on behind him. He didn't say anything. On top of the hill we stopped. The trail led straight down, right to the edge of the creek, then made a sharp left. On the other side the bank was grassy--there weren't any tire tracks there. The creek sides were steep and it was a twenty-foot drop to the creek bed, at least.

  "You can get off now," Johnny said.

  "Hey, come on," I said. "You don't want to kill yourself."

  We looked down to where everybody was grouped, watching. Roger hollered something, we couldn't hear what.

  "Off," Johnny said. I got off reluctantly. "Johnny..."

  He revved up the engine and took off. I watched him, so antsy I couldn't stand still. Geez, Johnny, faster! I was twisting my fists around like I could change the gears for him. He should have had it wide open by now, full throttle, unless he wanted to be able to stop, unless he thought he'd change his mind ... he's going right off the cliff, dammit! I thought He's going to be dead and I could have stopped him, I should have stopped him ... I started running.

  Johnny realized he didn't have enough speed, not enough to make the jump, but too much to stop. I felt like I was running in a nightmare; I was going as fast as I could but not covering any ground. Everything was happening in slow motion. Johnny slammed on the brakes and the cycle skidded, turning, but moving right toward the creek. Johnny laid the cycle on its side and they both slid to the edge.

  I didn't stop running, even when I saw he wasn't going over.

  Johnny was looking at his leg. Most of his jeans and part of his leg was in shreds from the gravel. His jacket had protected his arm, but his knuck
les were skinned up, too.

  Everybody else buzzed up. Roger had the decency to pause, making sure Johnny wasn't really hurt, before he said, "Run out of gas?"

  Johnny didn't look up from picking the rocks out of his leg. I could tell he was wishing he had gone over the bank rather than have to face everybody.

  I went over and picked up Johnny's cycle. "Shoot," I said, catching my breath. "He just hit a bump. Anybody could hit a bump. But seeing how he can't give it another chance, I will."

  I started up the cycle. I wasn't worried about wrecking it. If that cycle didn't go across that creek bed, for everybody to see, Johnny'd never ride it again anyway. I drove back up the hill, turned, and paused. Everybody was standing to one side, even Johnny had limped out of the way. I saw them for a few seconds, then I didn't see anything but the creek.

  When I used to ride in junior rodeos, before money was such a problem, I had the same thing happen to me. You think the crowd is so loud you can't hear yourself think, then you climb in the chute and everything disappears except you and what you're up against. I wouldn't have cared if there were five guys down there, or five hundred, or nobody. I was going across that creek.

  I started down the hill, changing gears fast. I didn't even hear the roar of the engine. I kept my eyes on where I wanted to land. A motorcycle needs speed to jump, where it's mostly impulsion with a horse. A horse can tell where you're looking, and head that way, and care if he makes the jump. A horse is a partner, but on a cycle you're all by yourself. Still I leaned and steadied that hunk of machinery like I would a horse coming to a scary jump. When I left the bank and the air whistled around me, and the rocky creek bed floated out behind me, I thought, "Good boy!" and I wasn't talking to myself.

  I came down where I'd planned to, but harder than I thought I would. The cycle bounced hard, and we parted company--the cycle going in one direction and me in another. I've had a lot of practice at being thrown from horses, so I know how to relax and roll. And I still got the wind knocked out of me. That sure is a sickening feeling, waiting for air and not really sure you'll get it again.

  Somebody came scrambling up the creek bank. I got a mild shock when I looked in that direction. I hadn't cleared the creek by as much as I thought. In fact I'd barely made it.

  "Tex?" Johnny crawled over the edge and sat down on his heels beside me. "You okay?"

  I nodded, still needing all my air for breathing. Then I tried sitting up. Everything spun around, then settled into place. I waved at everybody watching from the other side. They all cheered and waved back.

  "Well, I did it." I felt like I'd won a war, single-handed. "Me and this little bitty thing."

  Johnny was getting some color back in his face. He'd been white as a sheet a few minutes before.

  "I thought you didn't have any competitive spirit," he said finally.

  "I just wanted to see if I could do it," I said.

  "It was really great. You looked like a stunt rider or something. I guess..." He looked away. "I shouldn't have let Roger psych me out like that. But he thinks that Honda is so cool--"

  "Shoot," I said, "I don't see him jumping over here."

  Sure enough the others were all driving off in different directions.

  "Johnny, there are people who go places and people who stay, and I think we stayers ought to stick together."

  He grinned at me. Then he said, "Your jacket's ripped."

  I took it off to look at it It was an old sheep-herder jacket of Mason's, but the only coat I had. Ripped was an understatement. It looked like somebody had rubbed a giant piece of sandpaper across the back. Then I looked at the cycle. It lay like a turtle on its back, the wheels still spinning.

  "I hope the cycle's okay." I started to get up, then caught my breath. My back was really sore. Johnny got up and gave me a hand up. I was tottering around like an old man, holding my hand on my lower back.

  "Are you okay, that's the question. I can get a new cycle," Johnny said.

  "I'm okay."

  We got the cycle upright and Johnny tried to get it started, but it'd just splutter and then die. We took turns pushing it home. Johnny limped a lot, and my back ached terrible. We both felt fine.

  5

  When I got home that evening, Mason was standing against the kitchen doorway, trying to mark off how tall he was. That doorway was full of marks like that He turned around and measured the distance between the last two marks, scowling.

  "Ain't you growing fast enough to suit you?" I asked. I tried to take my jacket off without him seeing it--I didn't need a lecture about how I wasn't going to get a new one. Luckily he was too busy writing on the wall to notice me.

  "Shoot," I said, "you're over six feet tall now. You don't want to turn into a freak."

  "I'd turn into the bearded lady if it'd get me into college," he muttered. He turned to me. "You think I've stopped growing?"

  I looked at him for a minute. You can tell how tall a horse is going to be by the length of his legs when he's young; I figured that'd work for humans, too. "Naw. You got a few inches to go."

  Mason sighed with relief.

  "Okay, I told you something, now you tell me something. How do you think I look?"

  Mason choked on a laugh, then really looked at me for the first time that afternoon. "Well, you look pretty messed up right now. What happened?"

  "I jumped the creek on Johnny's cycle and didn't land right. I mean, do you think I'm good-looking?"

  "The creek? You jumped the creek? The same one Joe Taylor smashed himself up on?"

  "Yeah, but I made it okay."

  "You hare-brained idiot, you're not going to make it to sixteen if you keep doing dumb--"

  "Okayokay. But Mace, just imagine, man, how it's going to freak everybody out at school, that I jumped the creek and made it. They are going to go nuts."

  I was thinking about what Jamie would say. She already thought I was cute--dumb word, but girls used it...

  "I am the one who is going to go nuts. Goddammit, Texas, you could have ended up in the hospital for the rest of your life!"

  He broke off suddenly, like he was too mad to even talk. He stalked off into the kitchen. In a little bit I followed him.

  "Hey, look, I won't do it again, okay?" I said.

  "No, but you'll do something else just as stupid. Sometimes I don't even know why I try."

  A flinch ran across his face. I slunk off into the bathroom to wash up. I really didn't mean to get Mason upset like that. Pop wouldn't be upset when he heard. He'd probably think it was really cool.

  I wished I could ask Mason if he thought I was good-looking. It's hard to tell about your own face, since you see it all the time. I do have really good hair. It's probably my best point. It's a light bright gold-brown, the same color as my eyes. It sun-bleaches even lighter in the summer.

  I stared at the mirror, trying to see what somebody else would see if they didn't live in that face. A chipped tooth. That scar over my left eyebrow that Mason had given me. I have kind of a boney face, like Mason, but where he looks like a proud hawk, I look more like a surprised antelope. I've taken too much razzing about my dimples not to know I have 'em, but I can't tell if they're a good thing to have or not.

  "Nobody's going to mistake you for Robert Redford, if that's what you're worried about."

  Mason's voice made me jump. He was sitting on the bed changing into his jogging tennis shoes. I felt myself get red.

  "I ain't worried about it."

  "You ought to get your hair cut." Mason had cut his short last summer, and now a lot of kids in his class started cutting their hair shorter, too. If Mason wore a pickle behind his ear, there's people who'd do that, too. I can tell he gets a kick out of that, even though he never says anything about it.

  "Jamie likes my hair just like it is."

  Mason raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything. He looked like he was pretty much over being mad at me.

  "I'm going into the city Saturday," he said. "You need
anything?"

  "Hey, I want to go, too," I said. "Come on."

  "Okay, okay. But you'll have to get up early, I got a nine o'clock appointment."

  "Sure," I said, thinking about how I could talk him into letting me drive some. Mason wasn't too bad about letting me drive, not bad at all considering I didn't even have a beginner's permit, but right after jumping the creek wasn't the right time to bring it up. I'd let him drive in and pester him to let me drive back. He'd probably be ready to let me; city traffic always made him nervous. It didn't bother me none.

  "Maybe we can go to a movie," I said, getting excited. I hadn't been to the city for months, except for going to the Fair.

  "Maybe," Mason said.

  "And McDonald's."

  "Sure," Mason said. "Sure."

  Saturday morning I got up even earlier than Mason. It was pitch black outside. He was awake, but he didn't seem to be in any big hurry to get up, which was funny after the way he'd pushed me to bed the night before, carrying on about how he couldn't be late. I wasn't sleepy like I was on school days. I fixed some coffee and scrambled eggs and burned three pieces of toast before I finally gave up on it. I heard Mason splashing around in the tub, but I'd taken a bath the day before. I wasn't about to take another one.

  "Hey, let's go to Westmall," I said, as Mason came into the kitchen. Westmall was a neat shopping center, all enclosed like a giant cave. I loved walking up and down looking in all the stores. Mason hated it. He always said the place made him feel like a hick because we couldn't afford to buy one single thing there. That wasn't true--there was a big discount store at one end of the mall where we'd bought jeans and shirts and stuff lots of times. Mason could get the weirdest ideas in his head.

  Sure enough he said, "I don't want to."

  When I opened my mouth to argue, he went on, "You can go by yourself while I'm at the hospital."

  "What you goin' to the hospital for? Visiting Charlie Collins?"

  I figured Charlie might be recommending him to some college or something. Charlie knew a lot of people.

  "I'm going in for some tests."

  For a second I thought he meant tests like school tests. Then I realized he meant tests like a doctor gives you to see what's wrong.

  I set my coffee down so hard it splashed out and burnt my hand. Mason got up and started washing the dishes. He hadn't eaten a bite of anything. I just sat and stared at him, my insides quivering. Finally he looked over at me, "Good God! What's the matter?"