“I’m afraid that’s a little harsh.”
“Right,” Daegan said sarcastically. “We’ll save the whip for his old man.” To hear Jon tell it, Carl Neider spent too many nights drinking down at the Plug Nickel. If he escaped a brawl at the tavern, he usually came home mean as a wounded rattler and ready to strike. His primary target was his son. In turn, the oaf of a kid took out his frustrations on smaller boys, primarily Jon.
Swanson smiled at the thought of whipping one of the regulars he had to lock up on Saturday nights. “Neider’s a mean cuss when he’s had a few too many, but he’s had a hard row to hoe, what with his wife walkin’ out on him when Todd was barely two.”
“Doesn’t make it right, Swanson. Lots of people raise kids alone these days.”
The sheriff promised to look into matters but Daegan wasn’t satisfied. “Not exactly a ball of fire,” he remarked once they were back in the car and headed to the veterinary clinic on the edge of town.
Doc Martin, a short balding man with a horseshoe of snow-white hair and freckles on his pate, took one look at Houndog and scowled fiercely. “Who did this?” he asked, taking the shivering pup from Jon’s hands.
Kate exchanged glances with her son. “We’re not sure yet.”
“Well, whoever it is, he’s one sick individual, isn’t that right, Houndog?” Running expert fingers along the dog’s body, Doc Martin poked and prodded gently, took Houndog’s temperature, looked into his eyes, and pronounced him none the worse for wear.
“He’s traumatized, naturally. Who wouldn’t be? Just because Houndog here is an animal doesn’t mean he doesn’t realize when he’s been mistreated. Isn’t that right, fella?” He stroked the pup behind his ears. “Boy, I’d like to get my hands on the jerk who did this.” Shaking his head, he looked over the tops of reading glasses. “I might just get out my own razor and can of paint.”
Daegan grinned. “Not a bad idea,” he said.
“Just leave this little guy here overnight and we’ll clean him up and make sure he’s all right,” the vet suggested.
By the time they returned to Kate’s, it was nearly noon. Daegan parked his truck and turned off the ignition. Over her protests, he walked them to the house, pausing at the pump house where he stood in the wet mashed-down grass and read the graffiti hastily sprayed on the graying siding. His jaw hardened and Kate watched as a transformation took place. No longer the affable rancher, Daegan, eyes narrowed, muscles tensed, appeared dangerous, even deadly.
His gaze moved to the ground surrounding the old building and to the garden before settling on the horizon. “You know, Jon,” he finally said, as if he’d come to some inner decision, one that made Kate’s blood run cold. “If you’d like, you can come over to the house and I’ll teach you a few things.”
“Yeah?” Jon was interested.
Kate didn’t like the hard glint in Daegan’s eyes. “Like what?”
“To ride a horse, for one.” That seemed safe enough.
“Would you? Really?” Jon’s black-and-blue face split into a grin.
“Yep, but we’ll start with Loco before we move on to Buckshot.”
“Why couldn’t your horses be named Midnight and Scout? I’d feel a whole lot better,” Kate said, still nervous. A soft mist had begun to fall and a breeze stirred her hair.
“That’s the way they came.” He glanced over at Jon again. “I’ll also teach you how to shoot a rifle.”
Her gut clenched. “Wait a minute, I don’t like guns. Not even BB guns.” She couldn’t let this man—this stranger—start running her son’s life.
“Neither do I,” he admitted, turning his gaze back to her and staring hard. She felt as if a raw wind had rushed past her soul. “But living out here, Jon needs to learn to respect how guns work and what kind of damage they can inflict.”
“I don’t know,” she said, still caught in his mesmerizing steely eyes.
“Mom, come on!” Jon insisted, seeing a chance to work with weapons as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Daegan wasn’t finished. He dragged his eyes from hers and motioned through the trees to his house. “I was thinking about putting up a punching bag in the old barn, too. Do you have weights?”
Jon shook his head.
“You might want to start with those at first.”
Kate felt as if she were losing control, of her son, her life. Aside from the outside forces physically attacking Jon, there was this man who was working some kind of magic on him and her. Maybe he could be trusted, but maybe he couldn’t. The jury was still out on Daegan O’Rourke, and even though he’d acted in her and Jon’s defense with nobility in the past few days, she wasn’t convinced that she could trust him. Not completely. Not yet. “Let’s just slow down a minute, okay? I’m not letting you turn Jon into some kind of…Rambo.”
“Ah, Mom—”
“Shh!” she said. “This isn’t how we live our lives, Jon. We’re not survivalists or—”
“Maybe you should be.” Daegan was serious and she felt a frisson of cold fear slide down her spine. “This”—he motioned to the ugly words scrawled on the wall—“won’t end here.”
“Oh, God.”
“It’s just the beginning.”
“How do you know?”
“I was a kid once, too. Had my share of fights. Knew guys like Neider.” His eyebrows slammed together and his eyes thinned to a distance only he could see—a distance that looked past time. “Jon just needs to learn to defend himself, that’s all.”
“Yeah, Mom, why not?”
“No guns,” she said firmly. “If you want to teach him about wrestling or boxing or whatever…that’s okay, but no firearms.”
“Mom,” Jon protested.
“Don’t argue with me, Jon. Go on in and clean up and I’ll make lunch—”
“But I want to—”
“Now!” she said, at the breaking point. With the anxiety she’d felt over Houndog, the fear for her son’s safety when it came to Neider, the worry about his dreams, and now these new frightening emotions that gripped her every time she was with Daegan, her patience was running thin.
For once Jon didn’t push the issue, and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, he turned on his heel and headed for the house. When he’d rounded the pump house and was out of earshot, she said, “You’re scaring me, you know.”
“You should be scared.”
“Because of Todd Neider or because of something else?” she asked, the words tumbling after each other. She felt the cool mist against her face and the wind tug at the hem of her jacket. He stared at her long and hard, as if weighing what he knew about her in his mind. His gaze flicked to her lips and she realized in a heart-stopping second that he was going to kiss her.
The back of her mouth turned to cotton and she licked her lips as his head lowered and his breath caressed her skin. “I’m just telling you to be careful, Kate. You can’t go around being a Pollyanna, believing that everything will turn out right just because you want it to.”
“I’m not.”
“Then give the boy a chance. Cut the apron strings, let him learn to defend himself.”
She swallowed hard. He was so close she could see the streaks of blue in his eyes, noted when his nostrils flared with a breath or when his pupils dilated as the day grew darker. Unspoken questions hung between them and that raw, restless energy that was part of him seemed to pulse. It was all she could do to step away and clear her throat. “I—I should go in. I promised Jon lunch. Would you like to—I mean, I have plenty. Oh, for the love of God, listen to me. What I’m trying to say is would you like to eat with us?”
A shadow crossed his face for a second as if he were wrestling with some inner torment, but he nodded curtly and shrugged. “Sure,” he said, turning away from the damning obscenities. “Why not?”
A dozen reasons, you idiot, his mind scolded, but he ignored that harsh, irritating voice. His son had been through a lot; he just wanted to make sure Jon was
okay. And besides, the more he knew about Kate and her deal with Tyrell Clark all those years ago, the better. Right?
Wrong. Right now Daegan felt as if he were treading water and getting nowhere fast. It was coming up on decision time and he’d have to figure out just what he was going to do. He could tell Kate the truth, warn her about the Sullivans, admit that he was Jon’s father, but if he did, she’d never trust him again. Of course that shouldn’t matter. But it did. It mattered a helluva lot.
Carl Neider’s place made old Eli’s homestead look like a palace. The house was a shabby single-wide mobile home that was thirty years old if it was a day. With a rusted trailer hitch still attached, as if the owner were contemplating a quick escape, the aluminum home stood on concrete blocks drenched in rust and surrounded by weeds. Two skinny cats were huddled in the corner of a small lean-to porch of tarpaper and silvered wood. Scattered throughout the yard were pieces of old cars—rusted-out radiators, wheels, dashboards, and stacks of bald tires. Long grass going to seed was clumped around the two rickety steps leading to the front door.
Daegan slid his toothpick to the corner of his mouth as he observed the arid acres Todd Neider called home. Patches of scotch broom, tansy, and sage brush were interspersed with a few thin-barked oaks and jack pines whose naked branches danced in the wind.
The sky was an ominous shade of gray, and Daegan could almost smell the scent of disenchantment that had settled into the cold earth on these few rundown acres.
Daegan felt a pang of pity for the kid—this place was every bit as disheartening as Mary Ellen O’Rourke’s old apartment over the Cat O’Nine Tails Tavern in South Boston had been.
Well, it was showdown time. He parked his truck behind a massive black pickup with huge tires and a string of lights mounted above the cab. Two rifles rested on the gun rack mounted over the seat. One mean machine; probably owned by one mean hombre. Good. Daegan had been ready to take on Old Man Neider ever since he’d seen Todd trying to beat Jon to a pulp.
Now or never. Since Daegan didn’t have much faith in the local law, he wasn’t about to let matters lie.
He rapped hard on the door and waited until the giant of a man, six-four and pushing three hundred pounds, appeared in the frame. Dressed in a tight T-shirt and dusty jeans, he loomed above Daegan, the same roughneck who had shown up in the café that day, but this time Daegan got a better look at Todd Neider’s old man. His face was messed up—a broken nose and scar under one eye, the result of one too many fist fights, Daegan guessed. A tattoo of a snake wrapped around a heart decorated one meaty forearm and a wad of tobacco filled one cheek.
“Yeah?” Neider growled, crossing both arms over his chest.
“You Todd’s father?” Daegan asked without preamble. The guy didn’t look much for small talk, which was just fine with Daegan.
“Who’s askin’?”
“Daegan O’Rourke.” Daegan thought about extending his hand, but didn’t. This wasn’t exactly a social call and they both knew it.
The behemoth stared down at him and shot a stream of tobacco juice into a cluster of weeds. “So you’re the bastard who threw my kid’s keys into a field of cow shit?”
“That’s right.” Daegan didn’t even wince at the name. Neider couldn’t guess how close he was to the truth and it really didn’t matter. This was Jon’s battle and Daegan was going to savor fighting it.
“Whaddaya want?”
“You to keep your boy from picking on other kids, including Jon Summers.”
“That little piece of faggy shit? He’s a fuckin’ retard, not worth botherin’ about.” Neider waved, as if shooing aside a pesky horse fly.
“Just tell Todd to lay off.”
“Or what?”
“He’ll have to answer to me again.” Daegan managed his cruelest smile, one that had been known to worry bolder men than this hulking beast.
“What’s it to you, O’Rourke? None of your business.”
“Jon’s a friend of mine.”
“Ha! Sure. You’re just out for a piece of his ma’s ass, like half the men in the county. She’s a cold bitch, that one. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my time.”
Daegan’s teeth clamped over his toothpick. Every muscle in his body tensed. His right hand fisted, and for one quick second, he thought about throwing the first punch. Instead he pinned Carl Neider with a look as cold as ice. “If I were you, I’d be worried sick that a mean son of a bitch might nail my boy the next time he tries to make trouble.” He crunched the toothpick into two halves and spit them out on the steps. “As for Mrs. Summers, all she wants is her boy left alone.”
“Then maybe she shouldn’t raise such a pansy. Christ, that kid’s weird. He hears voices or sees visions or some such crap. Probably speaks in tongues and handles snakes, too. It’s freaky, just out-and-out freaky. But that’s not the worst part. That kid doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut—keeps botherin’ Todd at school.”
“That’s not the way I hear it.”
Neider grinned, showing off stained, tobacco-flecked teeth in sad need of a dentist. “Then he’s a lying son of a bitch.”
“Carl, honey?” a woman’s voice slid through the open door.
“In a minute,” he shot back.
“I haven’t got all day,” she pouted.
“I said ‘in a minute.’” Turning his attention back to Daegan, he continued, “You got anything else you want to say?”
Daegan’s smile was grim as death. “I’m just here to warn you, Neider. Tell your boy to ease off, ’cause if he doesn’t, I won’t wait for the law; I’ll handle him myself, and next time it won’t be just a quick kick in the butt and a game of hide and seek with his keys.”
Neider made a sound of disgust but his tiny eyes narrowed.
“I’ll haul his ass to the county jail myself and make sure Swanson deals with him. Then I’ll call social services, see if they think Todd needs help or more supervision or maybe a father that doesn’t try to beat the living tar out of him when he’s tanked up.”
“You scrawny fuck, get off my land!”
“Just tell Todd he better stay away from Jon, his mother, and his damned dog.” Daegan glared up at the ugly ox. “Believe me, Neider, I’m not just screwin’ around. If I hear of him botherin’ anyone—anyone—I’ll take it personally.”
“Christ, you’ve got a bug up your butt.” Carl’s thick brows drew together as if they’d been pulled by a purse-string, and his breath, smelling of stale beer, drifted over Daegan’s face as they squared off. “Oh, I get it,” the bigger man said with a leer. “You’ve got the hots for the kid’s old lady, don’t you? So you’re out stirrin’ up trouble about her boy. Trying to look like a damned hero to her. It won’t do no good. She don’t let anyone near her. Likes to keep to herself. Better men than you have tried, O’Rourke, and no one’s ever landed in her bed. There’s a running bet down at the Silver Horseshoe, the first son of a bitch who fucks her wins two hundred bucks!”
Daegan nearly jumped out of his skin. He rolled onto the balls of his feet, his fingers curled, his muscles itching to pummel the sick bag of wind.
“Don’t get yourself all worked up about a piece of ass you can’t have and a kid that’s a crappy little misfit,” Neider advised. “What’s going on between the boys, that’s their business. You stay out of it, O’Rourke.”
“No way,” Daegan said as Carl lumbered down the two steps and poked a thick finger at Daegan’s breastbone.
“My boy fights his own battles. If someone’s giving him shit, he gives it right back, only a little harder. That’s the way he was taught, that’s what makes him tough, and that’s why that whiny little Summers kid is such a wimp. Now take a hike. You’re trespassin’ here.”
“Just so as we understand each other, Neider.”
“Carl? You comin’?” A tall willowy woman leaned against the door frame. Wild blond hair framed a face that had once been pretty. Long legs were covered only by the hem of a T-shirt that was big
enough to lop over one tanned shoulder. “You got a friend?” she wheedled holding a cigarette between long, slim fingers.
“He was just leavin’, and no, he ain’t no friend.”
“Too bad,” the woman said, looking longingly at Daegan, her soulless eyes sliding down his body and resting for a moment on his fly. With a sigh, she said, “See ya around, sugar.”
“Go back into the house, Flo,” Neider ordered, his face flushing to an ugly purple color. “And you, O’Rourke, get the hell off my property before I kill ya.”
Cold steel presses into the shoulder blade—the gun.
The weapon’s brutal potential freezes him in place. He’s going to kill me. He’s thinking about it. The man’s thoughts are clearly transmitted through the nose of the pistol.
Just kill the boy now and be done with this…
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jon tells him in a voice that sounds as aloof as the snowflakes that drift past them. “Kill me now and you’ll never be done with this. You’ll be paying for the rest of your life.”
How do you…? Stop messing with my head!
“Just shut up,” the man says with a low growl, but keeps the gun stabbing into his back. Still prepared to pull the trigger, still tempted to end it all now. A hand clamps hard on Jon’s left shoulder as the man presses closer, cloaking Jon in his evil.
“You left without your jacket, son.” The man’s voice oozes with paternal concern, loud enough now for other people to hear. The two women decked in hooded jackets and boots cannot smell Jon’s panic as they walk right by and duck into the door of a boutique strung with white lights. “You can’t run around out here without a coat,” the man says, performing for passing shoppers. “You’ll catch your death of cold.”