Melinda looked at the five-inch blade in a leather sheath. “Do you think I’ll need it?”
“I don’t think so, but …” Madeline shrugged. “You’re always doing this—going off into dangerous parts of town by yourself, after dark. I wouldn’t do this, but that’s never stopped you before.”
Melinda looked at her sister in shock. Sure, she knew Maddie had probably always thought that—but she’d never actually said it out loud. She must be really worried. “Says the woman who came out to the rez all by herself—this is the least safe place I’ve ever been!”
Madeline tried to sneer at her, but she didn’t pull it off. Not this time. “Just … be careful, okay?”
Melinda pulled her shirt back on. “I will. Besides—he’s wounded. What’s he going to try?”
“I have no idea. No one does. Not even Rebel.” Then her bossiness took back over. “The walkie-talkie has a ten mile range, so it won’t work if you get too far away. But if you get into trouble, there’s a button on the GPS you can push that will send up a distress signal at your coordinates, okay?”
“Okay—but it’ll be fine. I’ll try to be home for dinner, all right?” She grabbed the pack and slung it on her shoulder.
The next thing she knew, Madeline had her in a fierce hug. “You better be.”
“I will.” Then she hurried outside.
Rebel had gotten Nobody up on a beautiful red horse—Red, of course. And he had his hat back on—Rebel must have found it when he’d gotten the horse. However, she could see the strain on Nobody’s face. “How is this going to work?”
“Here—climb up on this stump.” Rebel motioned to a two-foot tall hunk of wood. “Then put your arms around him and hold onto the horse’s mane, okay?”
“Sure.” Because it sounded just that easy.
She got up on the stump and Rebel wheeled the horse around so that she could slide on behind the wounded, shirtless man. Right. No big deal, that whole putting her arms around him thing. Gotcha.
Moving slowly—it seemed like the thing to do—Melinda slipped her arms around Nobody’s side, working extra hard not to hit the bandages. Finally, after what felt like a long time, she was able to tangle her fingers in the horse’s mane.
Nobody’s back against her chest was so warm as to be downright hot. Was he running a fever? Hell, what she wouldn’t give for a little bit of Maddie’s medical know-how. She’d have to try and get the antibiotics into that man.
Maddie came out, looking pissed. “Do not let him fall asleep up there. No matter what, keep him talking.”
Both Rebel and Melinda turned to give Maddie a look. Even Nobody turned his head in her direction. Melinda wondered what was worse for him—talking to her or being stabbed.
“Yeah, that won’t be hard at all,” she replied.
Rebel chuckled as he patted the horse on the flank. “Get gone, Nobody. Don’t be seen.”
Nobody grunted. “Never am.” Melinda felt him touch his legs to the horse’s side. Red began to walk.
She didn’t know where they were going. She didn’t know how she’d get back, either. Within ten minutes, they’d left anything familiar behind. She’d normally try to memorize the landmarks, but there were none. No house, no road. Just grass and, off in the distance, hills with trees on them.
She wasn’t sure if she should be touching Nobody or not, but it wasn’t like it was an option at this point. Every part of her front was pressed against every part of his back—thigh to thigh, chest to back, calf to calf. If she hadn’t had to hold onto the horse’s mane, she could have leaned back at least enough that she’d have some place to put her face. But as it was, it was difficult.
She managed to put enough distance between them that she wasn’t resting her chin on him, but that just gave her the full view of his back. Had she thought his arms were scarred? Had she really been surprised by the damage on his chest?
Because his front had nothing on his back. Huge, inch-wide scars were scattered around at intervals that looked almost regular. Some of them were nearly circular, but others looked more like maybe they’d gotten infected. And that didn’t even include the jagged scars, what looked like an exit wound on his shoulder and God-only-knew what else.
The scars … they looked a lot like the cigarette burns on his arms. But bigger.
Cigar burns.
She realized that they’d been on the horse for close to fifteen minutes and she had not kept him talking. Oops. Maddie would have her head on a platter if Melinda let him fall asleep—and fall off the horse. “Tell me about these,” she said.
Nobody grunted—but didn’t reply.
“You’re supposed to talk, you know. Madeline said so.”
She didn’t get a response.
Oh, so that’s how it was going to be, huh? “I will make you talk.”
“You don’t scare me.” But the way he said it, with just a hint of nervousness in his voice, told her otherwise.
“Fine. We’ll do this the hard way.” He snorted at this challenge, but Melinda leaned forward and pressed her lips against the round scar closest to her mouth.
He jolted, but didn’t make a sound.
She tried again. “Who did this to you?” As she asked it, she circled the scar with the tip of her nose.
“Don’t.” It was half an order, half a plea for mercy.
This qualified as talking. Sort of. “Oh, I will. I’m going to keep asking until you tell me.” Then she kissed the scar again.
This time, she let her lips linger over his marred skin, let her mouth kiss over the edge of the scar onto a small patch that wasn’t damaged. It was a very small patch.
“Please,” he said, and this time, there was no ordering about it. Just begging.
“Talk. Tell me who did this.” When he didn’t immediately respond, she leaned forward again, ready to kiss his bare back a third time.
He tensed and tried to lean away from her, but then sucked in air. The movement must have hurt because he leaned back, his shoulders drooping in resignation. “Don’t remember his name. They never had names.”
“Who?”
“The men my mom brought home. No names. Just fists.”
It’s not like it wasn’t obvious that that was exactly what had happened, but it still hurt to hear it. She tried to imagine what Nobody Bodine had been like as a boy, but she didn’t do a very good job. “Why didn’t she do something to stop them?”
“Because.” The words seemed to take a lot out of him. “She … She thought it was funny.”
“What?”
“She burned my arms. Liked to try and make me cry.”
“Oh, my God.” How could a mother do that to her baby? “When did it start?”
“Dunno. Just … was.”
“Did you cry?” Because she was pretty sure she’d heard a try in there.
“Sometimes. If she snuck up on me. But I got good at not crying.”
“You got good at not feeling the pain.” That explained why he didn’t want pain killers for surgery, for Christ’s sake. He’d trained himself not to feel. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard a sadder thing in her life.
“Yeah.”
“So these?” She leaned forward and traced the tip of her nose around the scar again. “When did these happen? How old were you?”
“Thirteen. I tried not to go home, but I had to. No where else to go. They were waiting for me.”
“Jesus, Nobody.” He sucked in a deep breath. At first she thought he was dealing with the horrific memories—but then he reached over and slid her arm away from his wound. Oh, yeah. She probably shouldn’t squeeze him that hard. “Sorry.”
“Didn’t hurt,” he said without a trace of emotion.
She was afraid to keep asking questions—afraid to find out more. But overriding that basic instinct of self-preservation, she felt like she had to know more, for his sake. No one person should have to carry this sort of weight alone. Plus, he was actually talking to her. She was performing h
er duties as ordered. He hadn’t fallen asleep and hadn’t fallen off the horse.
“What happened?”
“They had a bet. He said he could make me cry. She said he couldn’t.”
“Did you?”
He didn’t say anything for a while. Red took a left in the middle of nowhere. Melinda couldn’t tell if the horse knew where she was going or if Nobody was somehow guiding her. How, she didn’t know. But she didn’t know how he did anything.
He was quiet enough that she was afraid he might be falling asleep. So she leaned forward and kissed his scar again.
He jolted. Yeah, he could be all impassive and unfeeling, but he was fully aware of what happened on the surface of his skin. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Just … don’t.”
“Then keep talking. So you were thirteen, you came home, they were sadistic bastards who trapped you and he—what, he tried to see how many times he could burn you before you cried?”
“Yeah.” Again, no emotion. No feeling.
She leaned back as far as she could and started counting. Eleven scars that were roughly the same shape and size. A few others that might be from the same time, but might have been something else.
“I was this big kid, but I’d never fought back before. I didn’t know I could. I didn’t know how. Then …”
She leaned forward again, trying not to picture him being held against his will, someone probably sitting on him, using his back as an ashtray. “Then?”
“I didn’t cry,” he said defensively. “But he started to pull my pants off. He was gonna make me cry, he said.”
“Oh, God, Nobody. I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know what kind of person would burn a kid on his back, but to go for private parts? Even if the guy had just been going to burn his butt, that was terrifying. But …
“My mom was laughing …” he said, his voice quiet. It sounded as if he were talking from very far away—but he was talking. “When the guy stopped sitting on me and started pulling on my jeans, something just snapped.”
“Yeah?”
“I hurt him,” he said in a small voice—which was impressive, given his size. “He wasn’t ready for it. I kicked him, I punched him. I broke things. His nose, maybe his jaw. Ribs, probably his arm.”
She could see it, too. Her mind easily substituted the fight last night for the fight so long ago. “Good for you. You had the right to stand up for yourself, Nobody. No one has the right to treat a kid like that, no matter how big he was for his age.” Her thoughts turned to Jamie, the disappearing boy at the center. She couldn’t save Nobody from his mother. Was there anything she could do for that boy?
Nobody was silent again. He’d said a lot, she figured—probably more than he normally did in a week. Maybe he needed to recharge a bit. But she couldn’t risk letting him fall asleep on her. Plus, she had the sinking feeling that wasn’t the end of the story. “So you fought back?”
“Yeah.”
She swallowed, knowing she wasn’t going to like this answer. “Then what happened?”
He swung his head in a funny manner. At first she thought he was blacking out, but then his braid flopped down over his other shoulder. “My mom … she grabbed me by my hair and dragged me into the house. She locked me in a closet—barricaded it shut with a dresser. Then she left. I was so hurt, I couldn’t get out. I … I lay down to die.”
Everything about him seemed to shrink in on itself. Melinda was sure that if they were near some of the trees that never seemed to get any closer, he’d find a shadow and melt into it and she might never find out what happened.
“You didn’t, right? Madeline says you’re not dead.” She didn’t know if she was asking to make him feel better—or to reassure herself that he wasn’t just a very warm ghost.
“Guess not,” he admitted.
“How long were you in the closet?” He had to have gotten out. At some point.
“Three days, maybe.”
“Three days? That’s flipping insane! Why didn’t she let you out?” Although maybe she’d wanted him to die, too. Nobody Bodine’s mother was quickly rising to the top of her Worst Moms Ever list.
“Because.” He took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. The morning was still cool, but the sun was rising higher and there were no clouds. If they didn’t get to where they were going soon, they were going to fry on the back of this horse.
“Because why?”
“Because she and that guy went to a bar and got drunk and rolled her car on the way home. They died. And no one knew where I was.”
For one of the very few times in her life, Melinda was completely, utterly speechless. Those horrible people had deserved nothing less, but … “Three days locked in a closet, burned like this, with no food and water? If I weren’t looking at the scars …” Then the light bulb went off in her head. “That’s why you don’t like to be inside.”
He nodded his head once, but didn’t say anything else.
“Well, how did you get out? What happened next?” She was desperately searching for the silver lining and she knew it, but there had to be a bright spot in this story somewhere. He’d lived. He’d grown up and they hadn’t.
When he didn’t respond immediately, she kissed his scar again, letting her lips linger as if that could siphon some of the pain away from it. “Don’t you dare fall asleep, Nobody Bodine.”
“Not gonna happen with you around,” he said with what sounded like a smile. Was it possible? Was he cracking an actual joke up there?
She leaned forward, but this time, instead of kissing him, she rested her chin on his shoulder. “Then tell me how you got out.”
“Albert found me.”
“Who’s Albert? Why didn’t Rebel come get you?”
“Rebel’d gone away. Albert was his grandfather.”
“Oh.” That didn’t explain much but she’d rather not waste his valuable talking on information she could get from Rebel later. Rebel could explain where he’d been and who Albert was. “So Albert found you and nursed you back to health?”
He nodded.
“But that can’t be the end of the story. You have so many scars. And how do you do that thing where you disappear, almost? Why couldn’t they see you before you attacked them last night? And where are we going?”
“You talk a lot. More than your sister,” was all he said.
She got the distinct feeling that story time was over and that she wouldn’t get much more out of him—at least, not about what happened when he was thirteen. But, hell yeah, she talked a lot. “Where are we going? Where do you live? You don’t live in that same house, do you?” She couldn’t even imagine that—having to return to the scene of so much pain all the time.
“No. It burned.”
The way he said it—had he burned it? She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. Actually, she should probably be more surprised that he’d elaborated on anything at this point. A new thought occurred to her. “Who else knows about these? I mean, knows the how and why?”
He didn’t answer her, but he didn’t really have to. A man named Albert who was Rebel’s grandfather probably knew most of it. But if Rebel hadn’t even been here—wherever he’d been—then she wondered if he knew about the attack.
“So why did you tell me?”
He tilted his head to one side, as if he were really thinking. “Don’t know.” Then, after further reflection, “You asked.”
“Well of course I asked. I mean, you’ve got some hellacious scars going on here.” But what he said sunk in. “Why hasn’t anyone else ever asked? Not even Madeline?”
His back stiffened. “I ain’t a good man. You saw what I did last night.”
“What a load of crap, Nobody. You had a rough life and you survived. That doesn’t make you a bad man. Just a …” she almost said broken. Almost. But for once in her life, she got the brakes slammed on. “Just a scarred one.”
He shook his head a time or two, as if he thought this stat
ement to be woefully incorrect, but he didn’t disagree with her. At least, not out loud, she mused as Red took another unmarked turn and finally the trees on the hills got closer.
They’d been riding for about forty minutes now—more than enough that she was going to be a bit bowlegged after this. After a lifetime in a small city like Columbus, she couldn’t believe that there was this much untouched space in this country. Out East, there were just so many people and cars and buildings. Who would have thought that there were still places that existed where you could ride for an hour and never see another living being, much less a car or an electricity pole?
As the horse began to climb up a gentle incline, holding on to Nobody got a lot harder. His breathing seemed more labored. To think, this stubborn man had wanted to do this himself—and, given the way Maddie had talked about being surprised he was still in the living room this morning, he usually did.
She had to actively counterbalance her weight to keep from slipping off—or letting him slip. “Are we almost there?”
He grunted, which was probably a normal thing but made her nervous. He’d managed a decent amount of talking, for him anyway, but the ride was clearly taking its toll and he was fading. If they didn’t get there soon, she didn’t know if she’d be able to keep him awake without doing a hell of a lot more than kissing.
She looked at the body underneath the scars. No, no—none of that. This man was wounded. In more ways than one.
Plus, the ride was taking all her attention now. Each step was a full-body workout. “Talk to me, Nobody. Don’t fall asleep.”
He grunted again, which was probably as good as it was going to get.
“How much longer?”
“Soon,” he said, the strain obvious.
“Why do you fight so much?” She was digging, but she needed him to keep awake. He probably weighed at least two hundred pounds—far beyond what she could heft. No yoga class in the world could get her to dead-lift two hundred pounds.
“Good at it,” he got out through what sounded like clenched teeth.
The fight last night replayed in her mind. “Okay, yes, you’re extremely good at it. But that doesn’t mean you have to. We could have called the cops last night. I didn’t want you to get hurt.” Again, she thought as she looked at his back. Again.
Nobody (Men of the White Sandy) (Volume 3) Page 10
