Page 38 of Brother's Keeper

At half past ten, Donovan and I sat on the Bronco’s tailgate on the shoulder of a remote highway. Donovan smacked loudly through a bag of beef jerky while I nursed a can of beer between drags on my cigarette.

The convenience store stop had been the most successful part of our outing and was necessary to ensure my brother’s company. After making a meal of roller grill hot dogs and potato chips, we drove aimlessly. There were no designated hunting grounds in the city, and tracking wildlife was not a skill either of us possessed, so I pulled off near the first wooded area I found, and we started walking.

Maggie proved to be a model citizen, holding my hand and humming to herself while we wandered. That was an hour ago. Now, we were miles down the road, parked and defeated, watching the zombie girl peelpieces of a squashed raccoon off the pavement.

“It’s a miracle,” Donovan said, his cheek packed with half-chewed jerky. “We’ve finally found something youwon’tkill.”

Pinning the cigarette between my lips, I laid back in the truck bed and let a long breath ease out. “Shut up, Donnie.”

My brother chortled a laugh. “Took us forty-five minutes to find that stupid deer, and you just stared at it. Totally choked.”

It had been a grueling near hour of dragging through mud and decaying leaves in crisp, New England air. Weather I was not equipped for in a thin button-down shirt and slacks—the new ones Nash bought, now smeared up the shins with wet dirt. That was without mentioning my only pair of dress shoes, soaked through and squishing mucky water out the sides.

By the time we reached the clearing, it was dusk. The whitetail doe stood like a statue with its ears pricked and big, black eyes dialed in on our approach. It stared, unmoving, and so did I. Blame it on Disney movies in my youth, but I was not prepared to orphan Bambi.

When Maggie gurgled a sound of sudden salivation, the deer bolted. It disappeared into the trees while Donovan howled with laughter. He hadn’t stopped grinning since.

Propping up on my elbows, I glared at my brother’s back. “I didnotchoke,” I said. “I made a conscious decision—”

“To chicken out.” He glanced back at me; his dark eyes creased with humor.

“I was studying its anatomy,” I replied. “Didn’t want it to suffer unnecessarily.”

Donovan punched my leg. “You’re full of shit.”

Taking another draw on my cigarette brought the ash end dangerously near the filter. I slid the new pack out of my pocket and rested it on my stomach in preparation. It was a chain-smoking kind of night.

“Don’t sweat it, though,” Donovan continued. “It’s good to know where you draw the line. People yes, animals no.”

Finishing the cig, I flicked it out the Bronco’s backend. I had already kicked off my soggy shoes and socks, so my bare feet swung alongside Donovan’s as we languished in quiet.

No other cars came by, so the only sounds were owl hoots and Maggie’s enthusiastic munching. I reposed once more, staring at the headliner while mentally clicking the dome light on and off.

Donovan’s cell phone buzzed. I felt the vibration but didn’t think much of it until he pulled it out and muttered, “Ripley. Finally. Two days later. Guess he wasn’t very worried.”

That spurred me to sitting. I snatched the phone in the middle of his typed response.

The splintered screen was open to a message chain that started with Donovan’s all-caps announcement about Maggie’s unexpected visit and ended with a succinct reply.

meet lazy daze motel. room 145. fitch with you?

I squinted at the message. “That’s barely English. Much less the queen’s English,” I said, more to myselfthan Donovan. “Does Rip usually text like that?”

Scrolling further back found Ripley predictably precise in his communications. The guy even had proper comma usage. The only thing vaguely formal about this recent text was the addition of “motel” after Lazy Daze.

Donovan’s response was spelled out and ready to send, so I pushed it through.

Yeah why?

Seconds passed before bubbles bounced along the reply line, then the phone buzzed again.

bring him too

Donovan crushed in beside me, straining to see the tiny screen. “What’d he say?” he asked, his head fully eclipsing my line of sight.

I pressed the cell into his chest and grabbed my can of beer. “That’s not Ripley.”

Sliding forward off the tailgate, my bare feet hit the scrubby, still-warm asphalt. I downed the last of the beer, then tossed the can into a stand of tall grass just off the road. A few feet away, Maggie crouched with the raccoon’s ragged tail hanging from her mouth. She turned toward my approach, her face caked with gore.

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