Chapter 7
“Like this?” Easton asked, holding the large shears in both hands as he struggled to angle them just the right way and nipped away the newly sprouted branch.
“Exactly like that,” Travis said, taking off one of his gloves and ruffling the boy’s hair before tiredly turning away and glancing in the distance at his other two nephews about to beat each other to death in the distance.
He shook his head as he turned his head toward Scotty. “Can’t you do something with them?”
“Hey, what do you want from me? At least one of them is interested,” Scotty said.
“Do the other side the same way?” Easton asked.
“That’s right. Everything below the limb line we marked, you nip off so it doesn’t take nutrients from the rest of the tree and it keeps growing the limbs it already has fuller,” Scotty said.
“Okay. I understand,” Easton said, looking up from where he knelt beside the Scotch Pine tree looking for new limb sprouts that needed to be removed from its trunk. “I’ll do this row, then I’ll start on the next!” he said excitedly.
“It takes longer than you think. Let’s just see how many you can get done and then we’ll make a plan for the rest,” Travis said.
“But I can do it! I’ll do them all!” Easton said.
“I know you can. But we’re really just learning here today,” Travis said.
“Okay,” Easton said, his voice a little deflated.
“You know what, Easton? I’m proud of you. You’re over here wanting to learn about the family business, eager to do it right and putting in the time. That means a lot to me,” Travis said.
Easton nodded as he snipped another errant branch. “Yep. Because without the family business, how would they ever eat?” he asked, his voice sarcastic and dismissive as he cast a glance toward his brothers, one younger and one older.
Travis laughed.
Scotty couldn’t help it and chuckled a little himself. “They’re just being kids. There’s nothing wrong with them running around and jumping on each other.”
“How are they going to know how to do this when the time comes? They won’t! They’ll say, Easton will do it. Let’s go wrestle and see who wins. Whoever loses will help him,” Easton said. “I’ll be done by then.”
Travis raised an eyebrow and looked over at Scotty again. “This is the smart one. The other two? Good luck, brother.”
“Uncle Travis, what are we doing next?”
“I thought maybe we’d go in the greenhouse and I’ll show you how to start a seedling.”
“Okay, give me a few minutes and I’ll get this one finished. Or maybe two or three finished just to make sure I know how to do it.”
“You got it, bud. Let me know when you’re ready.”
“Where’s Harper? Doesn’t she want to be here with us?
I mean, it’s her business, too,” Easton said, not looking up at either male watching him work.
But his question said more than most would notice.
He was aware that they were four of them, and four of them would benefit, not just Harper, not just himself.
Travis’s face tightened as he pressed his lips into a tight line. “She’s playing with the horses down the road,” he said coldly.
“Travis…” Scotty said, his voice a little subdued, but still with a gentle warning.
“What? She is. Your boy is here, wanting to learn, wanting to work and proud of it, and where’s mine? Playing with the damn horses that aren’t even ours and have no bearing on our family’s future.”
“It’s important to her,” Scotty said with a shrug.
“Yeah, well so is this, whether she acknowledges it or not. What was it Easton just said? Without the family business how would they eat? It feeds her, it feeds us all,” Travis said.
“She knows that. She’s just got other interests for her future. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about this place, too,” Scotty said.
“And what would you do if your kid didn’t give a damn about the place that’s sustained us since our grandparents’ time?” Travis demanded.
Scotty’s eyes widened and he threw out an arm to point at his other two sons currently snarling and growling at each other as his oldest son held his youngest son — his Tiger that is — in a headlock.
“I got two like that! Just be glad between the two of us and four kids between us that one of them feels a connection to the land. It’s not fair to force them into something they don’t want to do anyway.
Their lives are their own. They don’t have to live what we did, or do.
Between all of us giving a little here and there, we’ll make it work, we always do.
She’s feeling something different, let her. ”
“You don’t understand what I…” Travis started angrily.
“Pride! That’s what I understand. You have too much of it,” Scotty said.
“It’s not Pride, it’s a matter of principle,” Travis said.
“Whose? Yours or hers?”
Scotty’s two other boys charged into the area Easton was working in while his father and his uncle watched over him and taught him the right way to prune a Christmas tree so that it would grow into a perfectly shaped tree.
They ran as quickly as they could, snarling, swiping at each other and doing their best to trip each other as they ran.
Dillon of course, did trip, rolling head over toes as Evan’s Tiger used his front paws to send him into a tumble, nimbly sidestepping him as he went down.
Dillon bellowed with rage as he came back up and kept running.
Evan darted right past Easton, but Dillon, however, saw an easy target to let out some aggression and frustration and dove onto Easton’s back rolling him two or three times before Easton started swinging on him and then ended up in a flurry of fists and teeth.
“Alright! That’s it! Don’t bite your brother!” Scotty yelled, grabbing Easton by the shirt and pulling him away from Dillon.
Travis grabbed Dillon and yanked him up off the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you?! Don’t you see Easton trying to work?”
Dillon’s feet were swinging in the air, frantically searching for purchase so he could go after Easton again. “He bit me!”
“Because you attacked him!” Travis said.
“I was mad!”
“At Evan, not Easton. You want to fight somebody, fight the one that made you mad!”
“Let me go!” Easton demanded, trying to pry his father’s hands off his shirt so he’d let him go and he could go after his older brother.
“No! You two stop it! Now! Or I’m calling your mother and you know what she’ll do when she gets here!” Scotty threatened.
“I didn’t do nothing! I’m trying to learn!” Easton shouted angrily.
“Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, though, you can’t bite your brothers.”
“They’re idiots,” Easton spat.
“Any other day you’d be right in there fighting with both of them,”Scotty said.
“It’s not fair!” Dillon yelled. “He always wins!”
“I do not!” Easton yelled back.
“Not you! Him!” Dillon said, pointing twenty feet away to where Evan’s Tiger sat relaxedly licking his paws, lazily flicking his tail as he waited for his father and his uncle to release either or both of his brothers so he could whip their asses again.
“He’s the youngest, how does he always win?” Travis demanded.
“He’s got a Tiger! He uses it against us!” Dillon said.
“And why do you think he needs to do that?” Scotty asked. “Maybe because the two of you gang up on him and he has to so he can even the playing field.”
“It’s not fair he’s got a Tiger,” Dillon said again, less angrily and more sullenly.
“You have a Tiger, too. And the sooner you learn to listen to it the better off you’ll be,” Scotty said.
“I can’t turn into a Tiger!” Dillon said.
“Turning into one doesn’t make his Tiger any stronger than yours. Or yours,” Travis said, shooting a glance toward Easton. “You just have to learn to hear him. He’ll help you, make you stronger.”
“Can I just finish?” Easton said.
“Yeah, finish this tree, then we’ll go work with the seedlings and the saplings,” Travis said, almost dropping Dillon to the ground before holding back. “If I let you go and you jump on either of your brothers again, I’m going to let my Tiger out. You hear me?”
“And then I’m calling your mom,” Scotty said.
“Fine,” Dillon said.
“What was that? Was that a yes, sir?” Scotty demanded.
“Yes, sir,” Dillon said begrudgingly.
“No more fighting,” Travis said, letting Dillon down, and watching as he strode off toward the back of the tree farm.
Scotty put Easton down and he scowled at both of them as he reclaimed the shears he’d dropped and knelt beside the tree he was focusing on again.
Scotty and Travis shared a roll of the eyes as they shook their heads.
Travis looked over toward Evan, still in his Tiger form, lounging on the ground with his feet in the air.
“He don’t even care.”
“Not at all. He only shifts to fight them both off.”
“Take a walk… I gotta open the greenhouse for Easton,” Travis said.
“Honestly, if only one of them could shift, I’m glad he’s the one who got it,” Scotty said as they walked away.
“Why’s that?” Travis asked.
“The other two always pick on him, the shifting is what saves him most days. And he’s a lot more level headed, he won’t use it if it’s not necessary.
Dillon’s the hothead, the last thing we all need is him shifting and whipping some human’s ass.
And Easton, he’s not really concerned about it either way, until Dillon riles him up over it. ”
“Did it ever bother you?” Travis asked, as he finally unlocked the door and left it open as he stepped inside, followed by Scotty.
“Sometimes. But only when I wanted to be seen as an equal to other shifters, and I thought I wouldn’t be because I couldn’t shift. Other than that, I usually moved in human circles anyway until Riley moved to town. I didn’t need a Tiger.”
Travis shook his head. “But that’s what I was talking about to Dillon. You do have a Tiger inside. You just don’t shift into him. He can still guide you, still makes you strong, still has heightened senses. You just can’t walk in his form. Doesn’t mean he’s not there.”
“I know that, and he’s saved me on more than one occasion. Took me a while to realize it when I was younger, but then I didn’t have two brothers to fight with all the time either.”