SPIRIT WALKER

Chapter 5: Threads of Iron (part 2 of 2)

"You ungrateful dog!" Jenks shouted, staggering back in surprise, as if he'd never heard such words before. His arms knotted into cords and his eyes glazed. "Don't you talk to me like that in my own house! I gave you everything! I'm still man enough to kick the shit out of you!"

"The way you'll kick the shit out of Wayan?" Tull asked.

Jenks seemed astonished at the accusation. For a moment his anger collapsed in on itself. "Why, uh, I love the boy! I wouldn't really hurt him. He's my own flesh! I was just having fun. We were both having fun!"

"Oh, you'd hurt him all right. You just wouldn't kill him. And he wasn't having fun. You and me-We. Never. Had. Fun!"

Jenks looked around the woodshed as if at a total loss. Perhaps I've done it, Tull thought. Perhaps I've pierced through that thick skull of his. Maybe he'll go easier on Wayan than he did on me. Wayan cringed and began to cry loudly. I should go now.

"Good-bye," he said.

"What? What?" Jenks shouted. "But . . . you can't leave yet! You . . . you shit! You ungrateful little shit. What's going on here?"

Tull watched Jenks's face redden with rage again. He sputtered curses, and Tull was unsure if he should turn his back on the old man, so he backed away, Wayan still clinging to his neck. Jenks shouted, "Don't you close the door on me!" Jenks began advancing toward Tull, kicking logs from the woodpile.

Tull slammed the woodshed door between them. Jenks shouted curses, while Tull's mother stood at the table, still idly spooning soup into the tiny cup, ignoring what was happening.

Through all the years, every time Jenks had beaten Tull or Wayan, the woman had stood like that-frightened into inaction. Like a dead thing, Tull realized.

His father and mother were both dead inside, dead to the hate and anger that seethed within these walls, dead to the fear that Jenks engendered in his own children.

Tull didn't bother to say good-bye to her. As a child he'd wanted to save her, but as he grew, he'd realized that she should have been the one to save him. He'd given up caring about her years ago, or at least he'd tried. Even now, he fought back the desire to ask her to come away with them.

He stepped out the front door, listened as Jenks kicked open the back door and overturn the kitchen table.

Outside, a crowd of Neanderthals had gathered, come to see the commotion.

Tull walked down the street toward home, Wayan clinging to his neck. Tull stopped on the corner and found he was shaking with rage. Wayan whimpered, and Tull bounced him on his hip. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. A drop of blood dripped from his nose.

Jenks had broken Tull's nose when he was ten, and since then Tull always got a nosebleed when he became too angry. Moon Dance Inn was on the corner, not far away, and when Tull turned that corner he always felt a sense of freedom, felt the tightening in his chest diminish.

"Don't cry," Tull whispered to Wayan. "Things will be better up here around the bend." He laughed in pain and let the anger leach out of him, then continued around the corner.

Caree Tech was still in her yard, stirring her cooking pot. She crooned, as if speaking an incantation:

Threads of iron have sewn me to this world.

Threads of iron have sewn me to this shore.

Threads of iron have sewn me to this town.

Threads of iron have sewn me to this street.

It was an old slave chant. Tull glanced at her and jiggled Wayan in his arms, bouncing him as if the child were an infant, even though he was nearly three.