Chapter 5
Chapter 5
J ack recognized his son’s voice instantly; Gideon was bursting with rage, out of control.
The words being shouted back and forth between the combatants were unintelligible from that distance, but the message was clear enough; here were two young boys bent on taking each other apart, stitch and seam.
Trey’s anxious bark underscored the urgency of the situation.
Jack bolted in the direction of the ruckus—it was coming from behind the line of game booths nearest the carousel—and when he arrived, closely followed by Harper and a throng of other people, he saw that Tom Winter Moon had gotten there first.
Tom was holding the two boys apart, with a firm grip on the backs of their dirty shirts, and when he saw Jack, he relaxed his hold only slightly, because both kids were still straining to get at each other.
Gideon was a head shorter than the other boy; blood dribbled from the side of his mouth, and a bruise was already blossoming under his right cheekbone, but his eyes stormed with fury, barely contained.
Here we go, Jack thought grimly. So far, dealing with his son had been fairly easy, but now there was a definite hitch in the process.
What he did next would matter, he knew that, and the thought was sobering.
He had virtually no experience as a father—suppose he got this wrong?
There was no time to consider the question. He went directly to his son, facing him, torn between anger and an unreasonable need to send the other kid packing, tell him to get off the ranch and never show his face there again.
Of course, he didn’t do that.
Tom let go of Gideon’s shirt and moved away, but at the periphery of his vision, Jack noticed Harper standing nearby. Before he could speak, she reached out, laid a hand lightly and briefly on his right forearm.
“Breathe,” she said softly, and through the blood pounding in his head, he heard her.
He sucked in a breath, let it go slowly.
“What just happened here?” he asked Gideon, his voice very quiet.
Gideon didn’t answer; instead, he scrambled to get around Jack, clearly intending to pummel his opposition to the ground.
Jack caught him by the back of his shirt and pulled him back again.
“I asked you a question, son,” he said evenly.
Having gotten a closer look, he could see that the small cut at the edge of Gideon’s lower lip wasn’t serious; no stitches would be needed. And he realized that what he’d thought was his own anger had actually been alarm, fear that this little stranger he loved so much might be badly hurt.
Gideon spat in the dirt, narrowly missing Jack’s boot. When the kid lifted his gaze to his father’s face, his expression was defiant, and his eyes blazed a fiery blue.
It was at that moment that the other boy threw himself in Gideon’s direction.
Young as the kids were, it took both Jack and Tom Winter Moon to restrain them and keep them apart.
“That’s it,” Jack said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “Head for the house, Gideon. Right now. ”
Tears welled in Gideon’s eyes then, but they were plainly tears of frustration, not shame or regret.
As he and Gideon passed through the concerned crowd, Jack murmured apologies to those looking on, and reminded them to enjoy the party.
For the bystanders, at least, the drama was over.
For Jack and Gideon, it was just beginning.
When they entered the house through the back way, Jack let the screen door slam behind him. He’d seen Loreen’s temper in action, and he wasn’t going to let Gideon go down that trail.
“Sit,” Jack ordered, in a near growl.
Gideon obeyed, but he made a lot of noise scraping a chair back from the table.
Trey, who hadn’t been able to keep up, probably because there were so many people out there, pawed at the screen door.
Jack let him in, then went back to the drawer he’d just wrenched open and rummaged for bandages and disinfectant cream.
“I’ll ask you again,” he said. “What happened out there?”
Gideon said nothing, but the tears were still flowing, trickling between the flecks of sawdust on his face.
“You can stonewall all you want, bucko,” Jack said, peeling a half dozen paper towels off the roll and wetting them under the faucet. “But you won’t be able to outlast me, I promise you that.”
Gideon was silent while Jack dabbed at his cut with the paper towel, patted the area dry, and then applied a dab of disinfectant.
The kid winced.
Jack applied a bandage, then handed Gideon the wet paper towel, and the boy wiped his eyes.
“I hate that kid,” Gideon announced, after a few moments of fast, shallow breathing, and Jack realized then that he couldn’t lay all the blame for Gideon’s temper at Loreen’s feet. He himself came from a long line of stubborn men and women.
Jack pulled back a chair, sat astraddle of it, and kept his gaze fixed on his son. “You don’t know him well enough to hate him,” he said. “Talk to me, Gideon.”
Gideon bit his lower lip, winced again. It was starting to swell, and the bruise on his cheek was streaked with purple and green, with an odd glow about it.
“I’m in trouble,” he replied, his gaze dropping to Trey, who was keeping a vigil beside his chair. “Go ahead and hit me.”
Something plummeted deep inside Jack, and never hit bottom. He felt the now-familiar burning behind his eyes.
“I’m not about to hit you,” Jack replied.
Gideon looked up, clearly surprised. “Really? I just got in a fight and wrecked your fancy party. If Tom had stayed out of the way, I would have whipped Riley Carlisle’s butt!”
“You’re giving yourself too much credit,” Jack said matter-of-factly, fighting back a grin. “You’re not badass enough to wreck this party all by yourself.” A pause. “Just listen. Hear the music? The laughter? The clanging of the horseshoes against the iron pipes Tom drove into the ground yesterday?”
Gideon slumped a little. Nodded grudgingly.
“You realize,” Jack went on, when the boy stayed mum, “that you and that Carlisle kid will probably be in the same class at school, come next month?”
The kid straightened his spine, jutted out his chin. “Yeah,” he said, with lots of bravado. “And if I can’t tear him a new one today, I’ll do it on the playground, first time I see him.”
“So,” Jack said, in a speculative tone, stretching the word a little, “I guess you want to grow up to be like—what was his name again? Your mom’s boyfriend? Oh, yeah. Brent. You want to be like that guy. A thug.” Here, he heaved a heavy sigh. “Poor old Sam O’Ballivan must be rolling over in his grave.”
Gideon’s eyes widened, and color flared in his cheeks. “ No!” he protested, with a vehemence that pleased Jack, though he didn’t let it show. “Brent’s a jerk, and he’s mean!”
Jack raised his eyebrows, pretending to be confused. “Well, son, if you go around hating people, and looking for chances to knock their lights out, you’re going to wind up like Brent and a few other guys you’ve probably gotten to know, living with your mother.”
“No way !” Gideon practically howled the words.
“Way,” Jack replied.
“Are you saying you’ve never been in a fight?” Gideon challenged, leaning forward a little in his chair.
“No,” Jack answered. “I’m not. I will say, though, that unless a man’s defending himself or somebody else, fighting is wrong. It never leads anywhere good—jail, maybe, or the emergency room at the nearest hospital.”
“I was defending myself,” Gideon said fiercely. His color was still high, and his eyes flashed.
“And?” Jack prompted, with hard-won patience.
Gideon shuffled his feet back and forth, kicking the legs of his chair. Damn, but he was a bull-headed kid. Turn all that hard-headed will in the right direction, and Gideon O’Ballivan would grow up to be a fine man, a force for good in the world.
Finally, he opened up. “He said it’s all over town that my mom is a whore and you probably aren’t really my dad. So I said he was stupider than a clod of dirt and couldn’t find his own ass with both hands if he tried.”
Jack felt his heart fracture. Again. “Is that what started this row? Riley calling your mom names? Saying I’m not your dad?”
Gideon shook his head, looking forlorn now. “No,” he said. “I told him I was getting my own horse, and you were going to teach me to ride. That’s all. But he got real mad and shoved me and said some kids have all the luck. Then he told me him and his mom live in a shack on the other side of Copper Ridge and he never gets anything but hand-me-downs and grub from the food bank. I told him what it was like living with Mom—you know, to show him it wasn’t just him going through hard stuff, and that things can change, like they did for me. That was when he hauled off and popped me one in the face. Then I got mad, too, and we started hollering and swinging at each other.”
“I see,” Jack said thoughtfully. This was the most Gideon had ever said to him at one time, and he didn’t want to staunch the flow by saying too much.
“So, like I said, I’m in trouble, even if you aren’t going to hit me?” Gideon asked. He didn’t shrink from the answer; his manner was forthright and, at the same time, innocent.
“Not this time,” Jack replied. “But if you go after the Carlisle kid when you see him again, you’ll be grounded until three weeks after the Second Coming.”
“What’s that?” Gideon wanted to know, wrinkling his nose comically. “The Second Coming of what?”
Jack wasn’t about to attempt an explanation, not then at least, but he made up his mind in that moment to start attending church again, and see that Gideon got to Sunday school.
He needed to set a good example for his son, and it wouldn’t hurt him to up his spiritual game a little, either.
“Can I go back to the party?”
Jack answered with questions of his own. “You want to? You’re ready to show some manners, act like a host instead of a brawler?”
Gideon shrugged his narrow shoulders. “As long as Riley doesn’t come at me again. If he does that, I’m going to punch him out. You can’t expect me to just stand there and let him wail on me.”
Not for the first time, Jack had to suppress a grin. “Just stay clear of him, and remember one thing.”
Gideon was on his feet. “What’s that?”
“I am your father.”
“I know,” Gideon replied, somewhat to Jack’s surprise.
“You do?”
“Sure.”
They hadn’t had a DNA test done yet. “How?” Jack pressed quietly.
“Look in a mirror, man. We’re the same, except you’re big and I’m little. Everybody says so.” The kid grinned his slanted O’Ballivan grin. “Except Riley Carlisle, anyhow.”
Jack had to look away for a moment, and his voice was hoarse when he spoke. “Go and wash up,” he said. “You look like you’ve been rolling around in the barnyard. Which, of course, you have.”
Gideon was out of his chair, and halfway across the kitchen, heading for his room, when he suddenly stopped, turned, and ran back to Jack.
The boy threw his arms around Jack’s middle, squeezed once, and then left the room, with Trey trotting happily behind him.
After splashing his face with cold water at the kitchen sink, Jack went outside again. There, he circulated, greeting people, shaking hands, and keeping an eye out for Riley Carlisle, in case he had to get between him and Gideon.
He was filling a plate at the buffet line when a woman came his way, herding a reluctant boy along in front of her.
It was no great leap to guess the kid’s identity; his clothes were covered in dirt and sawdust, and there was a first-class shiner blooming around his left eye.
Jack stepped out of line, acknowledged the woman with a nod. He didn’t know her personally, though he’d seen her before; she worked nights at a gas station/convenience store in town, where he usually stopped to fill the truck.
He waited politely.
“This is my son, Riley, and he has something to say to you.” The woman gave the boy a little shove from behind.
“I’m sorry,” the kid croaked out, and when he lifted his face, it was flaming with embarrassment. “For getting into a fight with your son, I mean.”
Jack didn’t acknowledge the apology, since it didn’t precisely belong to him. “You like horses, Riley?” he asked presently.
The boy caught his breath, and Jack thought, Bingo!
“Yeah,” Riley said earnestly. “But I’ve never been on one.”
“Maybe you’d like to come out here again one day soon, and give it a try,” Jack suggested. “Riding, I mean. Lots of people around who could show you the ropes.”
Now, Riley’s bruised face was alight. “For sure?” he asked, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
“For sure,” Jack confirmed, and Riley’s mom smiled at him over her boy’s head. “I’m Shannon Carlisle,” she said. She offered her hand, and Jack juggled his plate to shake it. “Thank you,” she added.
Then she smiled again, turned, and walked away.
The boy followed, but he kept turning around to look back at Jack in happy amazement.
Jack returned to the buffet line, made a few more selections, and scanned the picnic tables for Harper.
She was finished eating, he guessed, since the plate in front of her was empty, except for plastic cutlery and a crumpled napkin.
Jack drew a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, and headed in her direction.