Stoney watched Dwayne’s taillights recede, then turned to his uncle. “That boy’s dumb as a damn snail shell. He’s been smoking dope so long, he ain’t got but three brain cells left, and they don’t all work at the same time.”
“That’s okay,” Rockhouse said, and spit into the night. “All he’s got to do is get Bronwyn Hyatt back under his thumb.”
“Why don’t you let me do it?” Stoney said. “Hell, ain’t a girl out there I can’t get on her back.” He wasn’t bragging; in his entire life, he’d never had a girl refuse him. Most Tufa girls knew not to go anywhere near him, but there were plenty of others around.
Rockhouse glared at him. “Yeah, you can git ’em, but you leave ’em useless, so eat up with love for you that they wither up and die.”
He shrugged. “Ain’t my fault.”
“That ain’t what I mean. I want everyone to see the little Hyatt whore bring herself down, not have her be took down by one of us. I ain’t making no martyrs.” He spit again, then shook his head. “She shoulda died in that damn desert. She left here, she took herself and her song away from us, she shoulda fucking gotten her brains blown out. Instead she comes back a hero.”
Stoney said nothing. Now he understood why Rockhouse hated the Hyatt girl so much. Like Rockhouse himself, she’d gone away and found disaster, but unlike his uncle, she’d come back a hero. Even if she’d been part of their clan and not Mandalay’s, the old man would’ve hated her.
“She’s home now,” Stoney said at last. “She’ll be back to her old habits soon enough.”
“Damn well better be,” the old man muttered, and slapped his keys into Stoney’s hand. Then there was a rustle of large age-battered wings, and Stoney stood alone in the dark. He hummed as he walked to his uncle’s station wagon.
18
The sun touched Bronwyn’s face through the window. She blinked and frowned as she awoke; there was no way the sunrise could come through her bedroom window at that angle. She rose on her elbows and squinted into the glare before she realized she was still on the couch, and the light was reflected from a car’s windshield. At the same moment, she comprehended whose car it was.
The excitement was almost too much for her as she struggled to get the Velcro straps in place around her leg. When that was done, despite the protests of her sleep-stoked bladder, she grabbed her crutches and hobbled toward the front door. “Kell!” she almost screamed.
She blinked into the dawn as she emerged onto the porch. Chloe and Deacon sat with her older brother, all of them looking at her. It was the first time she’d seen Kell in two years, and he looked broader, older and more mature. His black hair hung in unruly strands to his shoulders, and his chin was fashionably stubbled. When he stood, she swore he was a good two inches taller. She hopped toward him and he met her halfway with a big wraparound embrace.
“So this is the big war hero,” he said.
“Nah, there’s some lots bigger than me,” she said into his chest. She grabbed a handful of his T-shirt and anchored herself for the fiercest hug she could manage, pressing herself into him. For the first time, she felt like she was truly home, and that everything would be all right.
She pulled back and looked up into Kell’s face. The maturity in his eyes was different, much more like Deacon’s than it had ever been before. She tucked his hair behind one ear. “You need a haircut, mister.”
“And you need dancing lessons,” he said with a grin, then picked her up and twirled her around. She laughed, the first time she’d done so without an edge of bitterness since she’d been home.
He put her down, kissed her on the forehead with a loud smack, and said, “I was beginning to think you weren’t ever going to wake up. Let me see the leg.”
She extended the plastic-sheathed limb for him.
“Ouch,” he said. “Weren’t you also shot in the arm?”
“That was nothing,” she said with a dismissive wave. The gesture toppled her off balance, and Kell caught her. Both laughed and hugged again.
“You better sit down so you won’t have so far to fall,” Deacon said dryly, and pushed a chair out for her.
“Wait, I’ll be right back, I really have to pee.”
“Holler for your brother while you’re in there,” Chloe said.
Bronwyn used the bathroom quickly, yelled for Aiden to get out of bed, and returned to the porch. As she settled into a chair she said to Kell, “I thought you were coming home Saturday.”
“I pulled an all-nighter Friday night to get ready for my last final,” Kell said. “I was too tired to drive Saturday night, and then Sunday morning I got a call from the warehouse that one of the other stockers drove his ATV into a tree. So I worked an extra shift, then got up early this morning and headed home.”
“You could’ve called.”
“He did,” Chloe said.
Bronwyn scowled. “Well, no one told me.”
“Has she been like this all week?” Kell asked.
Deacon nodded.
The door opened and Aiden emerged, rubbing his eyes against the light. “Nobody woke me up,” he slurred. “I’ll miss the bus.”
“You can stay home today,” Chloe said.
“Yeah, you can help me unload my car,” Kell added.
At the sound of his big brother’s voice, Aiden squealed and jumped into his lap with such force that, had the chair not slammed back into the wooden porch rail, he would’ve knocked them both over. Everyone laughed.
“Nice to be missed,” Kell croaked as Aiden hugged him.
“Aiden, let your brother breathe,” Deacon said.
“Let’s all play something!” Aiden cried. “C’mon, we’re all here, let’s do ‘John Barleycorn.’”
Kell looked at Bronwyn. “What do you think? You up to it?”
Sweat beaded along her spine at the thought, but she managed to sound casual when she replied, “Sure, why not?”
Kell got his banjo from the car, and Aiden fetched Magda for Bronwyn. The others gathered their instruments, and for a moment the morning air filled with various tunings and adjustments. Then Deacon said to Aiden, “You’re the one who wanted to play, hotshot, so you sing it. And count us off.”
Aiden grinned happily. He lightly slapped the guitar as he counted four, and then the Hyatt family played together for the first time in over two years.
Aiden sang,
The others joined in:
Bronwyn held to her mandolin like a life preserver. She played tentatively, sneaking peeks at Aiden’s chording to see if she was both remembering correctly and putting her fingers in the right places. She sang softly as well, her voice tight and thin. But she was singing, she was playing, and she felt the stirring of her long-neglected wings in the music.
And then it happened. First her injured leg began to tingle, that maddening itch sensation that signals healing but makes you wish you were still injured. She flexed her toes and felt the muscles work more strongly than they had in weeks. Her calf, weakened from disuse, ached a little in protest but didn’t give out. And despite the rigid support of the temporary cast, her bare heel began inexorably tapping against the wooden porch.
At first she didn’t even notice it. After all, according to legend, Tufas were born with their feet tapping. But then Deacon lowered his fiddle, looked at her with his slightest smile, and winked. He resumed playing before the others noticed, and she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling.