Raising Kane

by Long, Heather

  Rudy snorted. “That’s because she never gets mad at you.”

  “No, that’s because you’re stupid.” Ike grinned, a flash of an expression, and Rudy scowled. He opened his mouth as if to respond, but silenced when Quanto drummed a finger on the table.

  The immediacy of their obedience spoke to a discipline he hadn’t glimpsed before. Then again, that wasn’t true. He’d seen it in how Cody, Jimmy, Noah and Buck handled serious situations or even dinner at the big house. Jed Kane never had to get on them about their manners.

  “You walk through walls.” Kid nodded to Rudy. “And I have no idea what you do.” The last was for Ike and Kid scraped together another mouthful to eat. Every bite helped to assuage the hunger wrapped around his spine and helped with the hollow in his middle.

  Amusement rolled over him, but beneath the humor was a deep sense of peace. The feeling was almost alien since he’d only experienced it around one other person in the past. Ike reminded him of Micah. A blade of loneliness dug into his soul, a small cut, but it bled nonetheless and he paused mid-chew.

  “I make things grow.” Ike explained, his tone easy as though they merely discussed the weather. “Plants, mostly. Anything that grows in the earth—trees, bushes, grass?” A light shrug. “I am good with those types of things.”

  “And I don’t just walk through walls.” Rudy leaned across the table and touched a finger to the end of the spoon Kid used, it phased, and the bite of food it held plopped back to the plate.

  A light laugh escaped, but Wyatt shifted. “Rudy. You have work to do.”

  The pair across the table made faces, but kept their backs to Wyatt. “We’re going.” Rudy pushed his chair back. Fortunately, the spoon solidified once he stopped touching it.

  Ike transferred his attention to Quanto. “Do you want us to stay at the cabin?”

  “For a few days,” the Indian nodded. “There’s not much work that can be done right now, anyway.”

  “Already moved most of our stuff a couple of days ago.” Rudy pushed his chair back in and gave Kid a nod. “Welcome to the mountain.”

  Ike gave Rudy a not-so-gentle shove that his brother returned. Another pang struck Kid. Sam and Micah did that, even as grown and mature as they were, and he’d seen the Morning Stars pound on each other upon occasion. Another wave of warmth spread a balm on his bruised heart, because these brothers genuinely cared about family.

  “Welcome to the mountain, Kid. We’ll see you around.” They left with a noisy stomp of feet, their voices carrying through the house until a door opened and slammed shut. A gust of far cooler air drifted in. Outside the kitchen windows, all Kid could see was snow. It blanketed everything.

  “You’re sending them away because of me?” Already sure of the answer, he took another bite.

  “For you.” Quanto slid his chair back and began to rise, but Wyatt moved and waved him back to the chair.

  “I’ll get it.” The eldest Morning Star removed a kettle from the fat, pot bellied stove in the corner and poured water into another pot. The disparity between the cold, dangerous man and the dainty teapot struck Kid as odd, but he kept any humor at the idea to himself.

  Wyatt returned and set the teapot down in front of Quanto and fetched two mugs. Unlike the metal ones they’d used on the trail, these were different, smoother. Kid knew they were some kind of pottery, but he didn’t recognize them. They had exquisite china services at the ranch, all imported, gifts for his mother, Molly, and they treated each plate, bowl, and cup like a treasure at their father’s insistence.

  “You say that like there’s a difference,” Kid dragged his attention back to the elder at the head of the table. Dressed in buckskin shirt and breeches with a heavy blanket like throw wrapped around his shoulders, the man had an air of both frailty and immeasurable strength.

  Quanto poured tea into each of the mugs and nudged one toward Kid. “There is a difference. If I were sending them away because of you, it would indicate concern for their safety in your presence.”

  Kid nibbled the last piece of bacon and turned the idea over his mind, trying to examine all the angles before he reached for the tea. The mug was warm to the touch, heating his hands, the liquid inside smelling both floral and fruity in different measures. He’d never been much of a tea drinker. Something stirred in the back of his mind—the drink Wyatt gave him on the trail and the addition of sugar. He needed to feed his gift or something like that. “So you’re not concerned I’ll hurt them?”

  “No.” Quanto sipped his tea. His placid expression and utter confidence encouraged Kid to believe him. Only one of his hands were scarred, the mottle skin looked as though it had been melted and fused together—Scarlett most likely.

  He waited a beat, but when nothing else seemed forthcoming, he said, “I don’t understand.”

  “And that is why I am not sending them away because of you.” The repetition of his answer had to mean something. Jed rarely repeated himself to his sons, not unless he thought they were being thick-skulled and missing his point.

  Kid finished the rest of the food on his plate, and finally took a drink of the tea. It was far too sweet, the combinations of floral and fruit almost overwhelming. He grimaced, but swallowed it anyway. “So, you’re worried that they’ll affect me?”

  “Yes.” Damn if the man didn’t use utter economy with his words, doling them out sparingly. “Wyatt, you can leave us now.”

  “No.” Like father, like son apparently. Wyatt continued to lean against the wall.

  “Wyatt,” reprimand a clear sting between the two syllables.

  “No. Work around it.”

  Quanto shifted in the chair to stare at his son. The extremely nonverbal argument fascinated Kid. Aggression didn’t spill into the room, nor did anger, or even disappointment. They maintained the standoff for several long moments and not even the tension rose. The moments elongated and stretched, and still nothing happened. Kid’s insides twisted and pressure mounted, indefinable and nerve-wracking pressure.

  “It’s okay if he stays, at least it’s okay with me.” He blurted the words, hoping to avoid whatever contest the men engaged in.

  Quanto sighed and a flash of something that might have been a smile creased Wyatt’s mouth.

  The eldest Morning Star brother straightened from his casual slouch. “I win.” Pivoting on one heel, he strode out of the room and Kid frowned. He won what?

  Transferring his attention back to Quanto, Kid turned a palm up in silent entreaty. Instead of answering him, the shaman motioned to the mug. “Finish your tea and then we will begin.”

  Confused, and more than a little curious, Kid drained the mug and put it down with a thunk. “I’m ready now.”

  Cool appraisal filled Quanto’s eyes. “Are you really?”

  Kid didn’t have time to answer. Guilt—bone crushing, soul rending guilt—struck him and he couldn’t breathe.

  * * *

  By midday, Kid wanted to crawl back up the stairs. He’d barely gotten past the guilt choking him when anger struck, then impatience, and back to guilt. The emotions pummeled him, squeezed him like a wet rag, and left him limp.

  And they’d never left the kitchen table. Head down against the wood, Kid didn’t have the strength or the will to lift it as Quanto rose and began moving around the room.

  “You are too open to everything,” he said quietly, punctuating the words with the sound of a knife chopping and banging with each blow against the cutting board. “You are like these vegetables. You look tough, but you break—” The sharp slap of the blade to the wood. “—and then you are exposed.”

  Another cut and a louder thud.

  “Bare to the world, you can be bruised.” A jolting bang and Kid finally lifted his head. Quanto held a potato in his scarred hand. The inside of it was blackened at the center. He slammed the potato down again and lifted it up. A portion of the black fell out, but more spread around. “This continues until all that is left is blackened and damaged. You solv
e your problem by carving out the damage.”

  He lifted a spoon and began to scoop out the center of the potato. The glop hit the cutting board, some of it breaking into chunks and scattering. “You think if you carve it all out, you will feel better, but all that you have left is nothing.” He’d emptied the potato down to its skin, the edges curling in and looking shriveled. “So to fill the emptiness, to chase away the memory of the bruise, you fill it up with what doesn’t belong.”

  The shaman picked up an egg and cracked it open, spilling that into the skin, and added vegetables, some oats from a jar, and bread until he’d filled the whole of the skin. Kid blinked slowly at the terrific mess dripping along the potato skin and, if possible, it looked worse.

  “You fool yourself with this, convinced you feel better. But none of it is yours and, like all of it, it begins to go away. So you take in more and more. Soon you are taking the negative because something is better than nothing and, when you are done, all that remains of you…” Quanto tipped over the potato skin and emptied the glop into a bowl before holding out the shriveled skin. “…is a husk. A formless, shriveled, empty, husk.”

  Shoving back from the table abruptly, Kid stumbled for the door and made it three steps out into the frigid cold. The slap of icy temperature helped, but he still doubled over and threw up. Grabbing the porch rail to keep from tipping over completely, he leaned there, head down, and fought the waves of sickness.

  Snow fell in soft, fat flakes riding an almost silent air current to drift against the landscape. Dampness teased his flesh like fragile kisses and deep gulps of the cold, brittle air helped calm his rebellious stomach.

  The creak of wood and the quiet thump of the door closing alerted him to Quanto’s presence. He wanted to ask what the hell he was supposed to do after that demonstration, but instead, “Do you really think that about me?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” came the irritatingly calm response. “It matters what you think.”

  Straightening, Kid slanted a look at him. “I think I’m damaged. A monster. I tried to kill my brother.”

  “Why?”

  He frowned. “Why do I think I’m damaged?”

  The shaman shook his head. “Why did you try to kill your brother?”

  “I—” He wasn’t sure he wanted to look at it too closely. Jason… “He lied to me.”

  “Why?”

  Maybe this was the definition of hell—everyone understood something Kid didn’t. “I don’t know why he lied. He lied.”

  Another shrug. “Then how did he lie?”

  Kid held his hand out in front of him, catching the snowflakes and studying them as they melted against his flesh. Am I really as fragile as one of these? Hit the right surface and I’ll melt? “He knew.” Giving voice to the words sent a fresh wave of resentment stinging through his already ragged system.

  “Knew what?” The shaman didn’t let up, kept pushing and prodding at the wound.

  “Knew what we were, knew what we both were.” Kid bled. Curling his fingers into his palm, he clenched his fist. “He knew I was as different as he was, he knew we were Fevered, even if we didn’t know what to call it.”

  “What does it matter that he knew?”

  “He knew.” Kid repeated it and leaned on the wood of the rail, letting the cold soak into his clothing. He wanted the cold, almost craved it. “He knew he wasn’t alone. And I think I hate him for it.” Bitterness brutalized him. Jason was his brother. Family was everything. His father raised them to support each other, back each other, protect each other— taking care of family was so ingrained in Sam and Micah that Kid knew if he’d asked for help, they would come. Even furious at him, they would still rush to his assistance.

  But not Jason.

  No, Jason abandoned him.

  “So, who helped him?”

  Flexing his fingers, Kid studied the white and red on his flesh as blood rushed into his fingers. “What?”

  Quanto stepped closer and the weight of his gaze was suddenly a tangible thing pressing in on Kid. “I asked who helped Jason? He knew and he kept that knowledge to himself. He left you alone to wander in the wilderness of your gift without guidance. So who helped him?”

  “I…” He trailed off, swallowing the nearly immediate I don’t care, because it couldn’t be further from the truth. “I don’t know. He left the ranch young. Used to go to our grandparents back east. Then he went away to school and stayed away for a really long time.” Something about the thought niggled at him, a quiet reminder, the shadow of a memory on the trail from the ranch to the mountain.

  “But you assume someone helped him.” Patience lined the deep grooves of Quanto’s mouth.

  “He seems to know what he’s doing, he’s pretty arrogant about it.” The bastard. In control. Confident. Knowing. He knew a lot of things the rest of us didn’t and…

  “Seems.” The old man repeated the word. “Interesting.” With that, he turned and walked back toward the door.

  “That’s it?” Kid twisted to follow the shaman’s progress with his gaze. “Interesting?”

  “It is time for lunch and you will freeze if you do not come in.” Quanto disappeared inside and closed the door. Kid stared at the wooden wall of the house and then back over the near silent landscape. If not for the porch he stood on or the scent of woodsmoke in the air—he would think he were utterly alone.

  But he wasn’t alone.

  He frowned. Four men lived on this mountain—Quanto, Wyatt, Ike, and Rudy. Kid didn’t know where their cabin was, but Wyatt hadn’t left the house. He was still inside…wasn’t he? Exhaling a harsh breath, he listened.

  No sounds.

  But beyond that…no emotions, no echoes…no feelings.

  Just a short while before, he’d groaned and all but wept under the onslaught and now…nothing. Spinning around, he stumbled away from the rail and shoved back inside the house. “What the hell are you doing to me?”

  Quanto stirred something on the fat bellied stove. “Nothing.”

  “But I can’t feel you now. I could earlier…but now I can’t. So why can’t I?” He had to understand it, he needed to.

  Wyatt

  “Where is he?”

  “Asleep.” Quanto steepled his fingertips as he sat in one of the two large chairs angled toward the fire.

  Relieved that the old shaman only stared into the flames, rather than dreamwalking, Wyatt took the opposite chair. “Wore him out?”

  “He will be difficult to train.”

  Wyatt lost count of how many conversations began with that phrase over the years. Kid had arrived at the end of a very long line of students. “They are all difficult to train. You’ll manage.”

  “A month ago you did not think so highly of my skills.”

  Admonishment or question? Undecided, Wyatt chose to answer both. “I was angry a month ago and I have never doubted your skills, only your age. You have raised many, trained more. You are entitled to not have to face this battle.”

  Kid’s desire to end his own torment had been one of the few reasons Wyatt stayed his hand during the long ride back, when it would have been far easier to snap his neck and bury him in the desert. His family would grieve, but they were resilient people and they would have moved on. Quanto would not be sitting here worrying how to train a gift left so raw and wild that it defied even the man who possessed it and Wyatt wouldn’t be troubled with actually liking a person he may yet have to kill.

  Yes, it would have been far easier to snap his neck after they left the Flying K Ranch, but he chose not to.

  “He has no true concept of his own ability. What measures of control he’s formed are instinct alone.” Shadows from the fire played across the old man’s face, somehow aging him further. “You may have to work with him more than will make you comfortable.”

  Wyatt shrugged. “It’s not my comfort we need to worry about.” He hadn’t lied when he told Kid touching his emotions wouldn’t be wise. The boy hadn’t liste
ned, not at first, but he’d handled the feedback better than Wyatt expected. Maybe that was something.

  “Tell me of the children on the ranch.” Quanto didn’t have an answer to his own riddle, so he changed the subject.

  “I didn’t spend time with them.” None at all. What few younglings he’d glimpsed fled during the fight. “Surely Buck has told you about them.”

  “It has been a long time since either of us had a wife, but surely even you remember the preoccupation that comes from taking one.” He chuckled and shook his head. “No, Buck has not told me about them. Scarlett has told me some, but she is very preoccupied with her new child…did you at least meet the baby?” There was something almost hungry in the request, but Wyatt shook his head.

  “They were not pleased with me.”

  “Because you attacked them.”

  And so they came full circle and Wyatt frowned. This was the conversation he’d avoided with Quanto since he’d left the ranch. If he didn’t sleep, the old man couldn’t plague his dreams and he’d dozed only long enough to know he was safe. “We do not need to discuss this.”

  “Wyatt, why didn’t you kill the girl?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Unfortunately with Kid asleep—or unconscious if he was as exhausted after one day of being tested as Wyatt suspected he might be—and Rudy and Ike banished to the cabin a mile away, Quanto only had him to focus on.

  “It matters.” The withered old man vanished, his gaze turned hard and uncompromising. “You’ve grown colder and angrier. You left here in a fury, something you haven’t done in decades. So yes, it matters. You went there to kill the siren and you chose not to.”

  “You should get some rest.” Wyatt rose, ending the conversation. “I will keep watch.”

  “Wyatt…” Quanto rose from the chair, his earlier frailty and shakiness not in evidence. “Not tomorrow, perhaps not even the day after that, but shortly the boy will run.”

  He nodded, already expecting it. Keeping him off balance and driving him toward the mountain worked well enough on the trail. But here, when his choice came down to confronting himself or running…everyone always ran at least once.