by Cheree Alsop
“Its guardian?” I asked.
He sputtered, then glared at me again. “Did you hear a word I said?”
“Did you just call me Sparrow’s guardian?”
“And hero,” Martin spat, “but you hardly deserve that title, do you?”
I fought back a smile. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
Martin’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t deserve any feet.”
I chuckled. “What does that even mean?”
Martin searched for words. Finding none, he settled on, “You know what it means.”
I leaned against the black-painted fence surrounding the farm exhibit. “Martin, you’re a reporter, and I appreciate your passion when it comes to Sparrow. But . . .” I held up a hand to stop his interruption. “A reporter needs to assess all the facts, and I feel you haven’t done that. Hence the need for our little conversation.”
Martin was silent for a moment. He finally nodded. “All right. Explain.”
I was happy to oblige. “Don’t you think it’s strange that I would attack Joe’s store when I worked so hard to protect it from the Bullets?”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that I would suddenly carry bats and knives when I never fought with weapons before?”
“Yes, but—”
I crossed my arms. “Don’t you think that someone who has fought and bled for this town the way I have wouldn’t succumb to petty crime and property damage as some sort of cry for attention?”
Martin watched me without speaking.
“I think I deserve the benefit of the doubt, after all I’ve done,” I concluded quietly.
He was silent for several seconds, then asked, “What are you saying?”
“That there are two copycat Black Riders in the sheriff’s custody, and I have no idea how many more are out there,” I replied in a level tone.
“Why would they copy you?” Martin asked, his voice subdued.
“That’s what the sheriff’s trying to figure out.”
“Sounds like someone has a vendetta against you,” Martin mused, warming to the idea.
“Yeah, splendid,” I replied dryly.
Martin tipped his head to one side. “How do I know I can trust you? Maybe all the crimes are you, and you’re just covering it up.”
“How do I know I can trust you?” I asked.
He held up the recorder and clicked the off button. I took a steeling breath as I reached up and slowly pulled off my helmet.
Martin blinked at me in the dim lighting. “Kelson?”
I nodded. “I told you I was busy at night.”
He cracked a smile. “I almost had you when I saw those bruises on your chest at laser tag! I thought it was you, and then at the race . . . Hey, who was the other Black Rider?”
I shrugged. “I’ve got to keep some secrets.”
He grinned. “Yeah, I guess so.” His smile faltered. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“You’re a reporter,” I reminded him.
He nodded. “Why tell me now?”
“I need a reporter’s help to clear my name. I need you to find evidence at the crime scenes to prove that there are copycat riders. I can’t help this town if everyone’s afraid of me, and I’m worried there’s something more to these attacks than meets the eye.”
Martin’s expression practically glowed. “See, I knew you weren’t bad.” He glanced at the recorder in his hand. “How do I give proof to my readers that I spoke to the real Black Rider?”
I was prepared for the question. I lifted my shirt and showed him the knife wounds covered in bandages. Martin’s eyes widened. Blood showed through in a few places. Cassidy would be upset with me. “I got these fighting the copycat riders the other day at Bailey’s. One of them had a knife and was very good with it.”
I gritted my teeth at the memory of metal cutting through my skin. It was something I didn’t want to feel again in the near future. I continued, “Sheriff Bowley will verify that my DNA matches the blood on the knife. Give him a call. I’ve already spoken to him, and he’ll have the evidence ready if you need to see it.”
Martin smiled. “I think I’ll take his word for it.” He nodded at my chest. “Does it hurt?”
I nodded. “A bit, but your brother’s a good doctor.”
“Adam knows who you are?” he asked in surprise. At my nod, his gaze darkened. “And to think, all this time he could have let me in on your secret.”
“Doctor/patient confidentiality,” I reminded him. “My secret was safe.”
He shook his head. “My own brother.”
I laughed. “He’s a good doctor. He’s saved my life a few times.”
“Well, you’ve saved mine and everyone else’s at the school and at the fair, so I guess it works out,” Martin said.
I pulled my helmet back on. “I’ve got work to do. Can you get an article out tomorrow morning?”
Martin nodded. “Your secret’s safe with me, and I’ll see to it that the town knows the Black Rider is still on our side.”
I held out a hand. “Thanks.”
He shook it. He turned back to his car, then paused. “Is that why the principal is so keen on you graduating?”
I nodded. “I blew my cover ending a fight that looked like it was going to get nasty. The principal was outnumbered, and I hate bullies.”
“So I’ve heard,” Martin said. He turned away with a smile. “Stay safe, Black Rider.”
I started the motorcycle and watched Martin drive away.
I ARRIVED AT HOME early enough to catch dinner. Deputy Addison and Mom were feeding Trouble when I pulled in on the four-wheeler.
“Kelson, you’ve got to try this,” Mom said.
I was about to wave her away, but the eagerness on her face held me in check. I walked over with a slight feeling of trepidation. Deputy Addison held out the bottle. The little calf mooed at its absence.
I took the bottle from him and forced a smile.
“Just put it in his mouth. He’ll take care of the rest. He’s a good eater,” the deputy said.
I did as he instructed. Trouble immediately latched on to the bottle and began to drink eagerly. He butted his head forward and almost knocked it out of my hands.
“If you grab it in a football hold, he won’t be able to do that,” the deputy suggested.
I fought back the urge to throw the bottle down and walk off. The deputy looked from me to Mom. I studiously avoided her gaze.
“Kelson doesn’t like football,” Mom said quietly.
The deputy smiled. “Maybe you just don’t know how to play. It’s an excellent sport.”
“I know how to play.” I kept my tone steady. He didn’t know he had walked into a hornet’s nest and a source of arguments between my mom and me when she tried to get me away from motorcycles and more involved in school. Settling for mixed martial arts was the best compromise I could make.
“Okay,” Deputy Addison said, dropping the subject.
The silence was broken only by the sound of Trouble’s enthusiastic drinking. Mom cleared her throat. “I’m going to see if Lauren needs any help with dinner.”
I listened to the screen door close. Long strings of drool dripped from Trouble’s mouth. He butted the bottle again. I adjusted my hold, gripping the bottle in the crook of my arm like a football. Magnum would have been proud. Guilt flooded me. I felt like I owed the deputy an apology.
“Sorry about that. There’s some history there,” I said.
“I guessed as much,” the deputy replied, his attention on the calf.
I glanced at him. “My dad was a big sports buff. First string in high school and college, and he expected me to follow in his footsteps.”
Deputy Addison nodded. “So you avoided sports entirely?”
“Except mixed martial arts. I was captain of the team back at my old high school.”
He chuckled. “That explains the bruises on your victims.”
“You mea
n the criminals I stop,” I replied.
He smiled. “Same thing.”
That brought a laugh from me. “I guess they don’t have much of a chance.”
“Except that last copycat. I hear he was a good hand with a knife.”
I glanced at him. “Did you tell Mom about that?”
He shook his head. “Martin Carrison called, like you said he would. The sheriff confirmed your story about the knife.” He lifted an eyebrow. “And your DNA on the blade. Care to talk about it?”
“Knife wounds are uncomfortable?” I said as more of a question than a statement.
That brought a smile to his face. “Yes, they are.” I was surprised when he pulled up his sleeve to show a long, jagged scar from his shoulder across his bicep to his elbow. “I broke up a fight in a bar. One guy got lucky with a broken beer bottle. Took forever to heal from that one.” He pulled his sleeve back down. “I didn’t take it easy, and I had to get the stitches redone.”
I chuckled. “Tell me about it.” I gingerly leaned down and lifted my pant leg.
The deputy whistled at the scar that ran from my knee to my ankle. I had gotten it racing Magnum’s bike. Wrecking it into his truck would have been a much better idea if it hadn’t ended with me bleeding.
I stood up and winced at the pull to the Steri-Strips along my back.
“Gotcha good, did they?” the deputy asked, his gaze sharp.
“Let’s just say I need to improve my knife skills.”
“If you need a sparring partner, I could set something up at the station. We have some pretty good hand-to-hand combat fighters,” he offered.
It wasn’t a bad idea. Touched, I said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He tipped his head toward the calf. “Looks like Trouble’s done eating.”
Trouble butted the bottle again, anxious to continue. “Should I get him more milk?”
The deputy smiled at my concerned tone. “I think he’d eat all day if he could. He’ll be fine until morning.”
I ran a hand across the calf’s curly black hair. Trouble tried to lick my arm, but I moved it out of the way in time.
The deputy leaned against the fence. “My dad used to buy calves when I was young. We’d bottle-raise them and then sell them for beef. I remember telling my cousins that cow drool was poisonous. The little girls would run screaming whenever a calf tried to lick them.”
I laughed at the thought. “This isn’t a bad way to grow up,” I conceded, smiling at Trouble as I rubbed his big ears. “Raising cows, cutting hay—a person could get used to this.”
He glanced at me. “You sound like you kind of like it out here.”
I shrugged. “Kind of.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
Aunt Lauren stepped out to ring the dinner bell. The deputy winced at the harsh clanging sound. A few seconds later, Cole and Jaren came running from the barn.
“They’ve got the skeleton up!” Cole said excitedly.
“It’s the frame,” Jaren corrected.
“Either way,” Aunt Lauren scolded, “you boys shouldn’t be playing in there. If you knock it down, I don’t think they’ll rebuild it.”
“Yes, Mother,” both boys called over their shoulders as they ran into the house. The screen door slammed behind them.
Aunt Lauren shook her head. “Boys.”
“You know you’re raisin’ them right when every day is an adventure,” Deputy Addison told her.
She gave him a kind smile. “Then I suppose I’m doing okay.”
He held the door open and motioned for her to go in ahead of him. Her smile deepened and she stepped inside. The deputy winked at me. “Sometimes it’s good to remind women that we’re not all bad. Keeps them from killing us off completely,” he said in a loud whisper.
I chuckled and followed him into the house.
“WHAT DID YOU THINK of the article?” Martin asked when I walked into the classroom.
I set my books down. “What article?”
“The headliner in the Bulldog Bulletin,” he said with exasperation.
I sat down. “My uncle refuses to get the Internet.”
“What about your cell phone?”
I shook my head. “It barely accepts calls. I’m pretty sure if I try to do anything else, it’ll implode.”
Martin blew out a frustrated breath. “Seriously, man. You need some better technology in your life. I’ll print you out a copy and you can let me know what you think.”
“Thanks.” I opened my books and we began reviewing problems.
A few minutes later, Martin glanced at the door, then stood and shut it. When he came back to me, there was a worried expression on his face. “My dad’s bar got hit by one of the copycats last night. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you now or wait for school to get over, but I can’t help it.”
Heat ran through my veins. “What did the rider do?”
“Roughed up a few of the customers, threw a chair at the mirror behind the bar, and destroyed all the bottles he could find.” His gaze tightened. “My dad got hit by a bottle. He has a black eye, and Adam put four stitches in his eyebrow.”
“What time did the copycat hit the bar?”
“Around nine, I think,” Martin replied.
The thought of riding again made my stomach twist. I tried to keep the bitterness from my voice when I said, “I’m through being the Black Rider.”
Martin stared at me. “This town needs you. Obviously.”
“Did you see how fast they turned on me?” In a quieter tone, I continued, “Did you see how fast you turned on me?”
“Because I didn’t know,” he protested. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have written those things.”
“You knew what I did to save this town. Everyone knew.”
“And we got thrown for a loop when the copycats showed up. What were we supposed to do?” he asked, his gaze pleading.
“Have a little faith in the Black Rider,” I replied.
“I’m trying,” he said.
“I’m done, Martin.”
He shook his head. There was a hint of panic in his eyes. “But my dad’s bar got hit. You’ve got to find out who’s responsible! My dad had to get stitches, Kelson. We can’t let them get away with it.”
“It’s the sheriff’s job. He’ll handle it. This town doesn’t need me.” It killed me to say the words because I wanted them not to be true.
“You didn’t see the letters,” Martin said quietly, his eyes on the desk.
I was silent for a minute before I asked reluctantly, “What letters?”
Martin let out a small breath and pushed his glasses up his nose. “The hundreds of letters that flooded my house and the school when I wrote the first article about the Black Rider crashing my grandfather’s store.” He looked up at me. “There were threats against me for writing what I did. They didn’t want it to be true.”
“And then?” I asked when his voice faded away.
He turned his gaze back to the textbook, but I could tell he didn’t see it. “The more articles I wrote, the fewer letters I received. They stopped writing because they couldn’t protest facts.”
“They weren’t facts,” I said quietly.
He looked at me. “Do you know how happy they’ll be just thinking they have the real Black Rider back? How they’ll write and rub it in my face that I was wrong?” He gave a smile as though he looked forward to just that. “Are you going to take their hero away as soon as they’ve found him again?”
I asked the question that had been bothering me. “What if he’s just as lost as they are?”
Martin was quiet for a moment, then he asked, “What do you mean?”
I turned away from his searching gaze. He suddenly seemed too knowing, as if the scrawny blond kid who hid behind his thick glasses and spoke as the voice of the people in black-and-white print could see through me. I felt exposed.
“Off the record?” I asked.
He nodded, and I saw him give a smile o
ut of the corner of my eye.
“What makes all heroes the same?” I asked. It was rhetorical; Martin kept silent until I said, “They are the good guys. They have a clear vision of what’s good and bad. They know who they’re fighting and why.”
I frowned at the wall across from us. “Me? I’m fighting myself half the time. My world isn’t black and white; it’s so full of gray that I wonder if I’ll ever see color again. I want to fight; I want to hit people because that’s what I’m good at. Sometimes it feels like it’s the only thing I’m good at, and that scares me.”
I thought of the night I almost jumped my bike off the ridge; it was the same night I slept over at Magnum’s and found out what drove him. I fought armed men in gas stations, dove my bike through a high glass window into a building filled with armed gunmen, and charged into an auditorium of gang members who were looking to kill students and teachers out of revenge.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t have the best sense of self-preservation,” I said quietly. “I don’t feel like I deserve to be alive, and that spurs me to do things others wouldn’t. That doesn’t make me a hero.”
Silence filled the room. Martin broke it a moment later. “It does when the things you do save lives. Being a hero isn’t your perception of yourself, but what others think about you.” He was quiet again, then said, “You may not feel like you deserve to be alive, but you protected people who had families waiting at home for them. You placed yourself in danger’s path so they can keep on living. To them, you are a hero.” He held up his phone, revealing his article. “This town needs their hero now more than ever.”
The worry on his face brought back Jagger’s words. Perhaps the loudest were the most afraid. There wasn’t anyone in Sparrow who had a louder voice than Martin. I couldn’t deny his fear for his dad. I couldn’t walk away from the heartache in his eyes, from his need to know that someone was working to keep them safe. He wanted to reassure Sparrow that their hero was back and would protect them against the copycats. I couldn’t turn my back on the town I had bled for.
