Keeping Promise Rock (20 page)

“Oh joy!” Jimmy called from the other side of the curtain. “I can hear him get all gay over ‘Pastor’ or whatever his name is!” Crick might have panicked a couple of months ago, but now he was fairly sure it was just Jimmy being a world-class moron. “Better gay than stupid, jackass!” he called back, and Captain Somers actually laughed.

“Amen to that, Soldier. Hey—when you write your family, be sure to tell them we’ll be rigging up the big-screen and the satellite near the holidays. It won’t be private, but if your family has a computer, you’ll have a chance to see them. We’ll be picking time slots by rank, so you’ll have a good one.”

Crick stared at the big manila envelope that had Deacon’s letter and what looked to be some photos in it, feeling his throat lump up. “I’ll ask them,” he rasped, swallowing his absolute yearning to see Deacon again.

“I’ll ask him when a good time to call will be.” The captain nodded and went to leave, but he remembered something else. “Son, your leave is coming up after Christmas as well—

you get a month of it altogether. Now, I know your first instinct is going to be to want to go home, but” —as Crick looked up at him, his heart in his eyes—“I wouldn’t.”

“No?” Crick’s voice felt like it came from far, far away.

“No.” Captain Somers’s face got oddly gentle. “I’ve seen boys like you—the ones who want to go home so badly they can taste it. Very often, when they get there, they can’t come back—and if you do that, you fuck yourself, son. You never
can
go back if you just go AWOL in the States.

I’d suggest you take a week, go to Germany maybe, and put the rest towards early release—you think about it, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Crick muttered, swallowing hard on his disappointment.

But still, he had a letter….

Crick,

I’m sorry—you’re right. I haven’t really been all there for you, and I should have….

Crick read for a while, lost in the letter, and then he went back and read it again and tried to see the things Deacon wasn’t telling him, and then he opened Benny’s packet of photos and tried hard not to cry.

Most of the pictures were of Deacon.

A close-up of Deacon, rubbing noses with Crick’s horse, Comet.

Deacon’s eyes were half-closed, his lashes fanning his cheeks, and oh God, there was that smile as he looked at the horse. It was the same smile he used in bed with Crick—the gentle, sweet smile that made him look young and a little vulnerable. Crick turned the picture around, and Benny had written,
I asked him to think of you.

Crick closed his eyes and savored the pain—the pain of knowing Deacon felt like he failed, the pain of his little sister setting up to make a difficult life even harder, the pain of knowing that Deacon had stepped in when he couldn’t and helped her out. But mostly, the pain of having Deacon right there in the picture, not quite close enough to touch.

When the pain had worked its way into his bones and sat sweetly on his tongue, he looked through the others, just as slowly.

Deacon, working Lucy Star in the ring, his fierce, tight grin of concentration back, his UC jersey flapping around his body like a sail. The caption read:
It’s the only time he looks happy.

Deacon, standing next to Benny—her arm was around him tightly, and she was looking impudently at him as though she’d coerced him into the shot, and he was smiling at her with an exasperated roll of the eyes.

Her stomach was swollen—Crick guessed she was around four months now—and Deacon looked dwarfed by his tiny sister and her uninvited little guest.
He really is my hero, you know.

Deacon, standing between Jon and Amy. Crick didn’t know what the conversation had been, but Deacon was scowling, Amy was challenging back at him, and Jon was looking obstinate. There was another picture in the sequence, when they were all relaxed and laughing, but still, there was something wary about Deacon’s eyes that Crick couldn’t figure out. And then, on the back,
They threatened to show you how much weight he’s lost.

He didn’t like that—he doesn’t want you to know.

Oh. Oh fuck. Crick was such an idiot—so damned blind. He sorted the photos back to where Deacon was wearing the UC jersey, opened his lock box, and took out his “Deacon” sketchbook.

It had been risky bringing it—he knew it was risky. The pictures were all of Deacon—and none of them were gender-preference neutral.

But if he was going to be six zillion miles away for two years, he was damned if he was going without his sketchbooks—and that included the one filled with the person he loved the most.

And now it paid off, because after only a little bit of flipping (he had the pictures memorized), he had it. A picture of Deacon wearing the UC

jersey while sitting on Shooting Star’s back. He was fighting to keep his seat as the horse got uppity.

It was a sketch, and Crick’s hormones had been raging, but Deacon’s shirt still stretched slightly across his chest.

It most certainly did
not
flap around his body like a sail.

Oh geez… how much weight
had
Deacon lost? Crick picked up the photos—glossy from the processing—and continued looking. Deacon, asleep in front of the television, his wrist bone prominent as he leaned his head on his hand.
He watches your favorite shows, even though I don’t
think he likes them.

Deacon, leading Lucy Star to the water trough, a child getting lessons on her back.
He’s as good with kids now as he was with me when I
was little.

And then, pay dirt: Deacon, sitting on Promise Rock, elbows leaning on his knees, looking pensively into the sun-dappled-green-shadows overhead. It was almost the exact same pose Crick had sketched him in when Deacon was a teenager, with more sadness and less sun.
He doesn’t
know I shot this one. He’s gained about ten pounds since I moved in, but
you should know how bad things got before I came along.

Crick caught his breath. Oh God. Deacon.

Let’s just say that any alcohol is too much.

He wasn’t just lean or rangy. He wasn’t “thinner.” He was emaciated. He’d been six-feet, two hundred pounds of solid, lean muscle, and now he was prominent clavicles, countable ribs, a sunken stomach.

And he’d gained weight?

Oh Deacon—what have you done to yourself?

Crick had no idea how long he sat there, staring at the photo and dashing his cheeks. Jimmy’s voice broke into his reverie, and for a moment, he honestly wanted to strangle the kid.

“Lieutenant—you okay? I was only kidding about the going gay thing—there’s nothing wrong at home, is there?”

“Nothing I can fix from here,” Crick said back, hating that his voice cracked. For a second, he thought about pouring his heart out, going next door and showing the pictures, just to have someone else look at them and know what he was feeling.

But Jimmy wouldn’t do that—Jimmy might get him a dishonorable discharge, but he wasn’t going to look at the pictures of Deacon and know, just by looking, that this was the mess you left when you broke someone’s heart.

I’ll be mad when you’re gone,
Deacon had said. Crick hoped so.

Crick hoped Deacon was kicking the furniture and cursing his name, because this… whatever was in these pictures, it was worse.

Deacon,

I think you should know that you saved my life this last week—a couple of times, actually. I was literally wandering the fucking desert, facing poisonous snakes and a private who needed shooting more than any man I’ve ever met, and the whole time, you were in my head, saving my ass.

You and your damned maps were the only reason I knew where I was. Your internet research kept us from snake bites and attracting enemy fire, and your goddamned common sense kept us from drinking all our water on the first day and not setting watch and a thousand other things I can’t even put a name to. It was your voice in my head for three days telling me to watch out for the snakes and only fire a gun if I have to and that dangerous things come out at night. It was your voice talking to a wounded man and telling him to stop fussing about dying and start fussing about living goddammit and it was you—swear to god it was you, Deacon—who kept me from shooting the asshole next to me for just being an asshole.

And when I get back, I find out that you’re not just saving my life, you’re saving Benny’s—I haven’t seen her look that happy since she was three. She’s made a mistake and fucked up, and I bet you haven’t told her she’s a fuck-up, not even once, because you don’t do that. You don’t judge people on their fuck-ups. You just have faith in us for the shit we do well.

Stop being mad at yourself for whatever you think you fucked up. The drinking hurts me—not because you did it, but because I wasn’t there to help you through it. I know you’re probably comparing yourself to your mom right now—because you never talk about it, but it probably lives 136

inside you, and it took me a while to know how that shit lives and breathes inside you when everyone thinks it’s gone. It’s not. I can’t imagine what it was like to be you, when she was sick and after, alone with her in the house after she’d passed away, but trust me, Deacon—you haven’t done that to us. You’re still hanging on for us.

You’re telling yourself that you let me down—I let me down, and I broke your heart and I’ll have to live with that, but it’s not your fault. You’re telling yourself Benny was your fault when she’s probably the first one to admit it was her own damned fault—you taught her the facts of life same as you taught me, when she was a little girl on the back of a horse. Don’t think I don’t remember—your blush didn’t fade for days.

You told me the only thing you wouldn’t forgive me for would be not coming back. The only thing I can’t forgive you for is if you’re not there to come back to. Please, Deacon—take care of yourself while you’re taking care of Benny. And for Christ’s sake, eat something. You’re scaring the shit out of me.

I love you.

Crick

The Name of the Thing

DEACON was starting to be very, very glad that he had chosen a man to love for the rest of his life, because he was pretty sure living with a woman would have been the end of him.

“Good God, Benny—what the hell is this shit? It looks like someone got shot and died in here!”

“Oh geez… sorry, Deacon!”

Benny stuck her head inside the bathroom, and Deacon hurried and zipped up. There was a bathroom with full bathtub and shower adjoining Parish’s room—Deacon thought he really needed to get in the habit of going in there to take a leak. Benny had no respect for personal boundaries, and if Crick had “gayed up” their room, Benny had “girled up” this entire half of the house.

Deacon moved to the sink to wash his hands. “Seriously—what is this shit? It’s even on the walls.”

Benny grinned from underneath a towel turban on her head, and then pulled the thing off. “It’s ‘blood-garnet burgundy’—I’m dyeing my hair!” Deacon blinked and looked at the red streaks on the walls. “That’s hair dye? Benny—what are the odds of that shit getting off the walls if it dries?”

Benny blinked. She had big blue eyes under dark (okay, “blood-garnet burgundy”) hair, and the effect was gamine and appealing. It was always disconcerting to see the bulge in her belly that meant she had gone past “gamine” adolescence and straight into adulthood.

“Oh crap… I’ll go get the towels and the cleaner right now, Deacon.

I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was all over. I swear, I’ll get it to come out or I’ll paint the walls again or….”

“Don’t sweat it, Shorty!” Deacon called before she blew a lung or something. She talked as fast as Crick had at that age, and she was so eager to please.

The afternoon he’d showed up to get her from her parents, she’d been sitting outside their front door with a pillowcase full of clothes, an old ragdoll Deacon happened to know her brother bought for her with money he’d borrowed from Parish, and a black eye.

Deacon had seated her in the car with Amy and told Jon to wait for him in the truck and then went to knock on the door.

Bob Coats opened the door with a sneer on his face, and Deacon cold-cocked him and shut the door. He stalked back to the truck without looking at anybody, hopped in, and told Jon to drive. When the cars had started and Benny couldn’t really see from the car to the truck, Deacon moaned in pain and massaged his shoulder. He didn’t have the weight to hit like that anymore, and he was still weak, sleepy, and shaky from the Valium regimen that had helped him pull through the worst of the DTs.

He’d expected more of Benny’s stuff, and he hadn’t been in any shape to drive, which was the reason he’d given Jon and Amy for having the two cars.

The reason he’d given Benny was closer to the truth.
It’s not just me
there for you, Shortness—I’ve got back-up in case I let you down.
She’d started crying and thrown her arms around his neck, saying,
You showed
up, Deacon. You’re already my hero.

Which was funny, because her hero had to roll around in the front of the truck in pain for a good ten minutes, but he still resolved to stay a hero for her. That resolution—plus Jon and Amy’s help—had made the first week work just fine.