Page 24 of Down in Flames

“Sure thing, Miz Bonnard.” He plucked another gnome from the box and handed it to her before focusing on the sacks of rabbit feed behind the counter. Something popped and twanged in his shoulder as soon as he hefted the first bag. He grunted, and the sack slipped from his suddenly numb fingers, hitting the floor with a thud.

The men looked up from their card game.

“Butterfingers,” August said with a chuckle, but Gus didn’t laugh. He watched West closely, eyes shrewd behind the split lenses of his bifocals.

“Something wrong with your arm, son?” he asked.

West clenched his teeth, wiping at the sweat on his upper lip with the back of his wrist. His expression was stone when he finally heaved that first bag onto his shoulder, but it cost him. His injury was on fire. It felt like someone had funneled gasoline right into the joint and struck a match.

“Just pulled something unloading that shipment down in California,” he said tensely.

“Those deliveries have been getting rough,” Gus said dryly, tossing a pair of sevens onto the counter and ignoring the warning side-eye West directed his way.

“You’ve got no business running the boy all over creation like that,” Flo scolded, digging a set of keys from her purse and skittering toward the door on West’s heels. “What would his mother say?”

“Can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind,” Gus admitted, stroking the silver whiskers on his chin.

“I won’t tell her if you don’t,” West said, forcing out a chuckle despite his strained breathing. “You got the schedule for today?”

Gus grunted and removed a sheet of paper from the clipboard beside the register, saying gruffly, “Only a few local deliveries today. Nothing I can’t handle.”

The effort it took to turn back with the pellet sack on his shoulder was nothing compared to his irritation when Gus tried to crumple the list into his pocket before he could grab it.

“Give me that, old man,” he said tightly, holding out his hand and wiggling his fingers in a ‘cough it up’ gesture. “I handle deliveries.”

“Usually,” Gus agreed, “but you’re a wreck.”

“I’m fine.”

Gus scoffed and said pointedly, “Son, you look like you’ve been stomped by a wild horse.”

“Yeah, but you’re eighty.”

“He’s got a point,” chortled August.

“Seventy-nine last birthday,” Gus shot back irritably.

“Give me the damn list,” West said, pain sharpening his voice into something harsher than he’d intended.

Gus gave him a wary look. West stood there, hand out, refusing to budge. Whatever the old man saw in his expression had him sighing, and he reluctantly forked over the list.

But as his fingers closed around the paper, West didn't feel victorious. He felt tired. Weary down to the bone of fighting for every step he took out of the living grave he'd been stuck in since birth.

Men like Calvin Craig and Tucker Grace had shown up mangled, banged, and bruised their whole damn lives, and no one said a word, not even when they should have. But it was an argument any time West broke a sweat.

Most of the town had forgotten the circumstances of his birth, or maybe they had never known in the first place. But old folks had long memories. Maybe they were fuzzy on details, but they remembered the sudden trips to out-of-state hospitals. They remembered the bill collectors, and the way Derek and James used to beg for under-the-table work after school. Gus had never treated West differently than the other boys, and he’d covered for him too many times to count once he clued in to how West was spending his free time most summers.

But he was getting softer with each passing year, more cautious and more worried, until he’d finally broken down and tattled to Michael over a few bumps and bruises.

One look at his anxious face, and West knew he’d lost his only ally.

He glanced at the list in his hand. Way down at the bottom, Gus had added Michael’s name in a spidery scrawl, and beside it, an order for nearly one ton of forage seed.

“Jesus,” he growled, exasperated. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack, old man.”

“Same goes for you, son,” Gus muttered under his breath. “Kade Keller might be invincible, but you and I aren’t.”

“Who’s Kade Keller?” August asked, staring at them blankly.

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