Sticks & Stones

  “It’s definitely a tire mark of some sort,” Ty murmured as he looked up and over his shoulder, peering into the woods in the direction the track headed. Motorized vehicles of any sort were illegal up here. Even bicycles weren’t allowed. So it was a concern to find a track like this. His eyes scanned the trees and underbrush, looking for signs of recent passage. An ATV trail wasn’t hard to follow, but Ty could see no broken twigs or brushed leaves in the area, much less any more tracks.

  “This is a pretty old track,” he finally decided as his brother and father waited for him to speak. They knew his abilities, and they were willing to defer to him even though both men had been raised in these mountains as well. His father had been used as a tracker in Vietnam because of his skills, and he had taught his boys everything he knew. Ty had merely had more opportunity to hone the talent.

  “When was the last heavy rain up here?” he asked his dad.

  “Been about two weeks, to my knowledge,” Earl answered thoughtfully. He gently replaced the fronds of the little fern he’d been holding back, and he and Ty both cocked their heads in the same manner as they looked down at the track beneath. “It was made before the rain,” Earl realized as Ty nodded in agreement. “Plant protected it from being washed away,” he told Zane as he stood and stretched his back.

  “We’ll report it when we hit the ranger station, all the same,” Ty told them as he stood as well. “Person on an ATV up here is either up to no good or they’re gonna get hurt,” he said with a sigh.

  “I don’t see how a four-wheeler would get up here at all,” Zane said. “So much of the woods, the paths are too narrow.”

  “If you don’t care about trampling the underbrush or getting clotheslined by the occasional low-hanging branch, you can do it,” Deuce told him wryly as he stood with one hand on his hip. He looked over at Ty. “Are you worried?” he asked.

  Ty frowned thoughtfully but finally shook his head. “Marijuana, probably. Could be moonshine, but I don’t know. We’ll stop in at the ranger station, give them a location.”

  “They’ll just kick it off to you Feds,” Earl pointed out.

  “Dad, if I call Dick with a case, even something like this, when I’m supposed to be on vacation, he will skin me alive,” Ty pointed out. “Besides, what do you want me to do? Track them through the back country and take them on with Deuce’s walking stick?”

  “Don’t be a smartass,” Earl warned as he turned away and headed toward his pack. “Watch out for the snake,” he added as he went.

  “Snake?” Ty asked in confusion, glancing at Deuce and then Zane, who was shaking his head as he walked away.

  Chapter 7

  “WE’RE a few hours behind schedule,” Deuce informed the group as Ty and Zane hunched over the fire and warmed their stiff fingers. Ty looked up at his brother and snarled quietly.

  Zane knew it had gotten much colder than they had anticipated, and it was sapping their energy at a dangerous rate. It was only the second night, but they were all dragging a little. The last ridge they’d topped before stopping for the night had revealed snow on the highest peaks, and Ty had gone so far as to tell Zane he was beginning to fear it would get worse before they could find the appropriate shelter. That wasn’t reassuring.

  At least it was cold enough that surely no snakes would be out at all.

  “I’d like to scout ahead a little,” Earl told them. He was screwing the top onto a Thermos of hot coffee he’d boiled over the fire and looking off into the woods that awaited them. “Get clear of the roof and smell what the weather looks like,” he went on as he looked up at the thick canopy of trees.

  Zane looked up as well, only catching glimpses of the gray evening sky between the layers of colored foliage barely illuminated by the fire. He’d almost gotten used to the feeling of being underneath a huge tent that happened to move and sway with the wind.

  “If we can’t get to the next shelter in a day’s trek, we might think about turning back,” Earl was saying. “Keep to the lower elevation and familiar ground. Ty, load up.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ty murmured as he stood again and began to extract things from his pack quickly.

  “Catch up,” Earl instructed as he headed off into the woods with his flashlight and canteen.

  Ty glanced up and sighed in exasperation. “Damn fool, can’t even wait for me to lighten my damn pack,” he muttered under his breath as he knelt and moved faster. “Familiar ground, my ass,” he grumbled.

  Zane watched him, wondering about the relationship Earl Grady had with his sons. He seemed pretty good-natured and easygoing, and so did Deuce, for the most part. Although he wouldn’t describe Ty that way on the whole, they all seemed to get along just fine and have a great deal of respect for each other. But when Earl gave an order, both Ty and Deuce jumped to obey it as quickly as possible. Easygoing or not, somewhere along the way Earl Grady had taught his sons to do as they were told without questioning it. Zane wasn’t sure what he thought of that, and it was definitely odd to see Ty like this. Ty mumbled something to them Zane didn’t quite catch before heading off into the dark woods after his father.

  Zane leaned back against a rock that lined the clearing where they’d made camp for the night and stretched out his legs with a wince. He was in really good physical shape—lots of hours in the gym to offset all the sitting at a desk—but the hard hiking wasn’t like running on a treadmill or lifting weights. He had kinks in his back from carrying the backpack that were bugging him.

  The fire was putting out good heat now, so he pulled off his heavy jacket and set it to the side, not wanting to get overheated. Grumbling to himself a little, he twisted carefully from side to side to pop his back and then his neck.

  He was tired. Bone tired, even. Maybe he’d be able to sleep more than a few hours tonight. He yawned, but movement to his side drew his attention. Zane flicked his eyes to his left to see Deuce rambling across the campsite. He was carrying an armload of small sticks and brush to fuel the fire, and he happily dumped them onto Ty’s bedroll as Zane watched him.

  He straightened and turned to meet Zane’s eyes, and he cocked his head curiously when he saw him sitting there. He glanced off in the direction Ty and Earl had gone and began moving toward him. Deuce knelt beside Zane with a smile and then allowed himself to fall into a seated position in front of the fire.

  “Tired, huh?” he asked knowingly.

  Zane let himself smile a little as he slumped. “What gave me away?”

  Deuce shrugged. “You have that ‘please carry me’ look to you.”

  Zane snorted. “Seen that a lot?”

  “I have a mirror,” Deuce answered with a laugh. He unscrewed the cap to his canteen and gave Zane a measuring look. “Why’d you come up here with Ty?” he asked.

  Holding Deuce’s eyes, Zane silently acknowledged the talk that had been pending. “He asked me to.”

  “I’m betting he asks you to do a lot of things,” Deuce wagered.

  Zane shook his head briefly. “You’d lose.”

  “Really?” Deuce responded in genuine surprise. “Interesting,” he murmured as he again looked out to where Ty and Earl had disappeared down the trail. After a moment, he shook his head and looked back at Zane. “You like your job?” he asked suddenly.

  Zane was still amused by the now-trademarked “interesting.” “Sometimes. Not as much as I used to.”

  “Pain can color a lot of things,” Deuce pointed out with a nod.

  Zane nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed.

  “If you hadn’t been hurt on the job, would you enjoy it more?” Deuce asked thoughtfully.

  Zane considered whom he was talking to. This was Ty’s brother, after all, not just some random bureau psychiatrist. “No,” he admitted quietly.

  Deuce pursed his lips and nodded. Then he leaned toward Zane slightly. “Is Ty a good partner?” he asked.

  “You were there when I told your mom about Ty being a good partner.”

  “That’s what you
told my mom,” Deuce pointed out. “I’m asking for the real answer.”

  Zane frowned slightly, not sure what Deuce wanted to hear. “Why would I lie about that?”

  “So he’s a good partner,” Deuce concluded with a nod. He looked at Zane unflinchingly, studying him. “Are you?” he finally asked.

  Zane was a little surprised by the question. “I hope so. “

  “Of course,” Deuce agreed with a shrug of one shoulder and a smile. “But are you?”

  “I don’t know,” Zane answered defensively.

  “Sure you do. You know what it takes. Are you someone you’d be comfortable putting your back to in a fight?”

  Zane caught himself pausing. He’d been wrestling with his fears a lot in the form of nightmares, especially the fear of losing someone close to him. In the past, it had been Becky. Right now, it meant Ty. “I don’t know.”

  “So you’re not a good partner,” Deuce translated for himself. “Very interesting.”

  Zane pressed his lips together, embarrassed and at a loss for words. “Has anyone ever threatened you over saying that word?”

  “Not that I recall,” Deuce answered sincerely. He was still smiling at Zane thoughtfully. “As a shrink, we’re trained to listen and ask the relevant questions, not so much give advice,” he confided in Zane.

  “I thought you didn’t like to be called a shrink,” Zane said with a weak smile.

  “It comes and goes,” Deuce admitted carelessly. “And I’m going to offer advice to you now despite being a shrink, okay? It’s good to be honest with yourself. And harsh, to a point. After that point it gets unhealthy,” he said with a wince and a shrug. “But sometimes the cold hard truth is very effective in helping yourself. I tell Ty all the time, just admit that you’re an asshole and make life easier.” He went on, seeming to enjoy the line of conversation and rambling happily.

  Harsh truth. Zane figured the worst of his nightmares was that sometime, somewhere, he wouldn’t be able to protect the people he cared about—and that they’d be taken away from him as a result. As to how to fix it? God only knew, because Zane sure didn’t.

  “Once you admit to yourself that you are or aren’t something, then you can begin searching for the reason why,” Deuce went on. “And once you’ve found that, you can begin to take steps toward making it better. So, tell yourself you’re an asshole, stop being an asshole, your problem’s solved,” Deuce said in a pleased voice. “He usually glazes over on me at that point,” he added with a frown. “Kinda like you are.”

  “That’s because he’s an asshole,” Zane said with a small smile before he huffed quietly. “He just seems to blow things off so easily. It makes me fucking crazy.”

  Deuce was frowning harder and shaking his head. “Ty takes things to heart,” he told Zane, his voice losing the light, carefree tone and becoming more serious. “Most things he takes hard for about a minute, then he’s moving on. Other things, they take him longer. Especially issues of fault. Failures hit him hard, but he processes them well. They don’t stick to him. See, some people, they’re sticky like Velcro. You’re sticky. Your problems stick to you like fuzzballs from the laundry; you take them everywhere with you and people can see them plain as day. Ty, he’s like spandex. Nothing sticks to him, and he’s shiny on the outside.”

  Zane knew he was staring at Deuce oddly, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You know, I don’t know what’s worse, that you just said that or that it actually made sense.”

  Deuce winked at him and grinned. “You just have to pick off the fuzzballs,” he advised.

  “I never was really good with laundry,” Zane said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Not really good with dealing with ‘things’, either.”

  Deuce hummed in response. “Maybe if you tried doing the laundry more often, you’d be a better partner.”

  “Are we continuing the laundry analogy for the laugh factor?” Zane asked as he wrinkled his nose. “If we are, I’ll say I’d rather dump it all at the dry cleaners and forget about it.”

  “You don’t want a tiny little Oriental guy dealing with your fuzzballs,” Deuce argued, barely restraining a laugh. “It’s one of my better analogies,” he went on, his grin widening as Zane did laugh. “I should write it down.” He paused for a long moment. “Am I making any headway here?” he asked seriously.

  “I hear what you’re saying. But it’s nothing I didn’t already know,” Zane said. He knew what was wrong. He just didn’t know how to fix it, so he’d taken to ignoring it.

  Deuce nodded in understanding. “So what you’re saying is you don’t mind being a bad partner to a man you claim is a great one.”

  Zane’s face went very still as a flash of pain streaked through his chest. “I’ve been a good partner when it counted.”

  “It always counts, Zane,” Deuce murmured gently.

  Zane sighed, dropped his eyes, and then closed them for good measure. “Yeah,” he whispered.

  Deuce reached out and patted him on the foot. “We went over the whats. You ever want to get into the whys, you know where to find me,” he offered.

  After managing to get a breath into his lungs, Zane looked up at Deuce. He thought he should say something, but there just wasn’t anything to be said. He settled on nodding and smiling weakly.

  Deuce smiled lopsidedly at him. “Good, now help me up,” he requested as he held out a hand. “Leg’ll let me get down, but it’s no damn help getting back up. I just roll around like a turtle on its shell ’til somebody shoves me with a stick.”

  Zane couldn’t help but snort and smile. “I’m not sure I’m in much better shape,” he admitted. “Your dad sets a fast pace.”

  “He always has,” Deuce acknowledged.

  Zane snorted, got to his feet fairly easily, and then offered Deuce an arm. Deuce clasped his wrist in a hard grip, and he pulled himself to his feet with Zane’s help. He clapped Zane on the back and turned to head for the tree line again to gather more firewood.

  Zane watched him limp away. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?” he asked impulsively.

  Deuce turned and looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. “What happened to my leg, you mean?” he asked to clarify. He patted his thigh as he turned back to face Zane. “I went over the handlebars of a motorcycle,” he answered with a slight smile. “Got pinned between the bike and a tree. Broke all kinds of bones and tore some tendons below the knee. Couldn’t be fixed to where I don’t limp.”

  Zane nodded slowly. Sounded like normal dumbass kid stuff; he’d done his share. It just didn’t end very well for Deuce. Then something clicked. “That’s why Ty hates motorcycles, isn’t it?”

  Deuce nodded. “He gave me the bike when he went off to join the Marines. I was sixteen. He blames himself. You know the drill.”

  Zane nodded. It fit what he knew about Ty. “Yeah, he must. He doesn’t like me riding my Valkyrie. And he’s made it very clear he never will.”

  Deuce clucked his tongue. “Ty’s got to place blame. He’s a very black-and-white type of person. He needed something to blame for it, and instead of accepting that I was going ninety miles an hour on a dirt road and it was my fault, he blamed the bike. And himself,” he explained. “But it all worked out for the best,” he claimed, remarkably cheerful as he spoke about what had to have been a devastating, life-altering event. “I wouldn’t have been a very good Marine,” he mused. “And that’s the route I would have taken, right down the path he did.”

  “You love him a lot,” Zane murmured.

  “He’s my brother,” Deuce answered, as if that should be obvious.

  Zane nodded. “Of course.”

  “Do you?” Deuce asked without looking away.

  Zane held Deuce’s gaze as his lips quirked into a wry smile, and he had to go with his honest, gut answer. “No,” he said softly, a slight tinge of regret in his voice.

  “Huh,” Deuce responded in genuine interest. “I would have guessed otherwise,” he admitted to Zane.
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  Zane shrugged uncomfortably, unsure of how to respond to that. It was something he consciously avoided thinking about. “I do like having the asshole around,” he offered.

  “That’s more than can be said for most,” Deuce commented in amusement.

  “So I’ve been told,” Zane agreed. He rolled his shoulders slightly, trying to shrug off some of the tension. Deuce just watched him closely, narrowing his eyes and smiling. “You look very happy with yourself,” Zane observed.

  Deuce glanced off into the woods again and then took a step closer to lower his voice. “Try to be a better partner,” he advised softly.

  Zane held his gaze for a long moment. Finally he sighed. “I want him around.”

  Deuce merely nodded again. He glanced to his side, listening briefly. “We’ll talk again later,” he promised as he looked back at Zane and smiled.

  “Yeah,” Zane said as he acknowledged Deuce’s help. Deuce had zeroed in on what bothered Zane so much in under five minutes—either the man was that good, or Zane felt that comfortable with him. Probably both.

  He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard Ty and Earl conversing and tramping through the underbrush, coming closer. Deuce turned and limped back toward the tree line to continue his gathering.

  “I don’t smell dinner cooking,” Ty observed after he broke through the tree line in a different spot than where he’d gone through. He tromped closer to the fire and glanced at Zane, giving him a quick second look over. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

  Zane blinked and shook himself. “Trying to recharge.”

  Ty looked him up and down dubiously, but then he nodded and unshouldered his pack. “All righty,” he said agreeably.

  “What’d you find?” Deuce asked them as he brought over another armload of wood and dumped it into Ty’s bedroll.

  “Hey!” Ty shouted with an accusing point at the firewood.

  “What?” Deuce asked innocently.

  Ty pointed his finger after Deuce threateningly. “I will beat you like a rented mule next time Daddy ain’t watching!”