Keeping Promise Rock, page 19
A couple hours later, after Benny and Deacon had heard the whole of Crick’s walkabout from the point of view of the guy being hauled around the desert, Deacon couldn’t remember when he’d laughed so hard or felt so proud of Carrick.
“Jesus, Private….”
“Andrew, sir.”
Deacon rolled his eyes. “Deacon, Andrew—anyway, that’s not the version we got from Crick.”
“No,” Benny added, “but we did get a whole lot of Crick wanting to shoot, strangle, or bludgeon Private Jimmy to death—and now we know why!”
She poured Andrew a glass of milk, since that was what they were drinking, and they all took a collective breath. Parry Angel gave a little squeal from her high chair. She was eating pasta and vegetables, only mashed, and was wearing an attractive little halo of it around her fat, pink cheeks and even mashed into her fuzzy brown hair. Benny looked at her and sighed.
“You know, I was going to feed her, but no, Uncle Deacon had to let her play with her food!”
Deacon blushed. He was pretty damned indulgent, and he felt bad. “Here—I’ll clean her up before I go feed for the night….”
Benny slapped his hand and laughed. “Stop it—I like bath time! Besides, you took her three nights running. She’s going to forget she has a mama!”
Parry Angel gave another squeal and started banging on her high chair shelf, excited by all the by-play, and Benny gave Deacon another shooing motion with her hand. “Go! If Comet doesn’t get his extra carrots, he starts getting cranky!”
Deacon held up his hands in mock surrender and moved toward the entryway to get his coat.
“Sir… Deacon,” Andrew said, rising, “can I come out and see the horses?”
He did more than see them—he helped feed and asked about care and, in the end, leaned over the half-door and fed Comet his carrots. Deacon let him—their last muckraker had needed to move on to college, and Deacon had yet to find another lonely kid to help them out with the small stuff. Muckraking was like laundry—it never stopped, and it only got uglier if you let it pile up. He moved around in Shooting Star’s stall for a bit, getting rid of the horse crap in the wheelbarrow they took out to the compost pile out back. They sold the compost to a local fertilizer company—another one of the small ways the ranch made money. Horses took a lot of food and a lot of care. Everything from boarding, breaking, and training other people’s animals, winning show prizes, giving riding lessons, and regular donations from Even Star’s wonder-cock helped to keep The Pulpit in the black. The animals they bred and broke themselves made up the bulk of their income, but it was all part and parcel of a successful business, and it was a life that Deacon wouldn’t trade for the world.
Deacon pushed the wheelbarrow out of the doorway and closed the door behind him, turning around to find Andrew holding out a couple of carrots. Since Deacon had been heading for the carrot bag anyway, he took them thankfully and offered Shooting Star her treat. She took it and tried to take a couple of Deacon’s fingers with them. Deacon shoved her head away with authority.
“Greedy old bitch—that shit doesn’t play with me, never has.”
Deacon moved to take the wheelbarrow then, and Andrew grabbed the handles instead. “Where do you need it, Deacon?”
Deacon was a little surprised—helping to feed was one thing, but hauling horseshit was something completely different. Deacon was quiet for a moment as they walked out to the compost pile far behind the barn, and his “Crick sense” started to kick in.
“Private Carpenter, is there something you’d like to talk about?”
Andrew dumped the wheelbarrow, after having—apparently—proved that his prosthetic wasn’t going to hold him back from any chore.
“Sir….”
“I’m just a guy, Andrew—Crick’s the officer.”
“You’re a CO, sir—anybody can see it. Please, just let me…. I’ve been in the military for two tours, right out of high school. That’s three and a half years, sir, and they just cut me loose. I’m….” Andrew put the wheelbarrow in its customary spot, leaning it against the stable wall.
“I’m at a loss, sir,” Andrew said at last, looking at Deacon in the dark. “I… I had nothing going for me in my hometown, even less now.” He indicated his leg. “Crick—he came by and visited when I was getting ready to be moved out, and… he just made this place sound perfect. And he’s right. It’s perfect. And I’m lost.”
Deacon blinked. “Andrew—are you asking for a job?”
Andrew shrugged. “I know you can’t pay much—I saw some cots and rooms in the stalls, and a little shower cubicle back behind them. If no one’s using them….” He shrugged and looked away, the gesture showing Deacon how very much he needed a place, a haven, and Deacon wanted to oblige. But first, a little bit of truth.
“Look, Private….”
“Andrew.”
“Andrew—we’re short a muckraker, and I’ve got no problem feeding you and giving you a place to stay and a meager-assed salary, but first….” Oh God. Deacon had always known Crick was fearless, but coming out to a stranger was a first for him. He took a few steps out toward the nearest open pasture and looked up at the full November moon powering its way out around the big, dense gray clouds that had dumped on them all day.
“Andrew, Benny’s got Crick’s old room, and Parry Angel’s got mine. It’s a three-bedroom house. Where do you think Crick’s going to sleep when he gets back?” Well, that was one way to approach it. Deacon kept his eyes on the moon for a while, wishing Levee Oaks wasn’t quite so close to Sacramento so he could see more stars.
He heard Andrew grunt when the situation sank in. “I assume he’s going to sleep in your room, with you, sir.”
Deacon turned and looked over his shoulder. “Our room. The kid painted it for us before he left. Still want that job, Andrew?”
Andrew met his eyes and nodded, no doubt whatsoever. “Absolutely, sir.”
“Kid, you’re going to have to stop calling me sir.”
DP @Crick—Met a friend of yours today. Had a totally different take on wandering around the desert.
Crick @DP—Lies, all lies. How is Private Blood-loss?
DP @Crick—Helping your sister with the dishes and getting ready to move into our stables.
Crick @DP—That’s damned nice of you, Deacon.
DP @Crick—He’s a nice young man. And he’s apparently very liberal.
Crick @DP—Liberal?
DP @Crick—He knows where you sleep.
Crick @DP—That was brave of you.
DP @Crick—You taught me everything I know.
Crick @DP—Bullshit. I model everything you taught me.
DP @Crick—Go away. I have to find a space heater and a sleeping bag.
Crick @DP—Say it first.
DP @Crick—I love you, Carrick James. You make me proud every day. I miss you enough to scramble my brains—howzat?
Crick @DP—Incredibly humbling. Love you back. Crick out.
“Dammit, Deacon, you’re losing weight again!” Crick was appalled—it was their Christmas computer visit, this one landing square on Deacon’s birthday, and Deacon looked like hell.
Deacon gave him a tired smile. “Sorry, Carrick. I… It’s been a rough month.”
“Where’s Benny and the baby?” Crick hadn’t realized until this very moment how much he’d wanted to see the baby smiling, active, in something besides the myriad twitpics that Deacon sent to him on a daily basis.
“They’re at the hospital, getting fluids—I’m sorry, Crick—I told you we were getting sick… it got bad this morning.” Deacon scrubbed at his face with a hand that shook so badly Crick could see it through the computer. Off range, a voice said, “Deacon, dammit….”
“He’s got a half-an-hour, Drew,” Deacon said with grim patience. “I’m not going to waste it.”
Crick felt his helplessness at the far end of the world. It hit his chest like a posthole digger hit hardpan, and he got a terrible surge of fear and adrenaline. This must be how they worry about me all the time.
“What do you all have?” he asked, and he noticed that Deacon didn’t deny that he was just as sick as the girls.
Deacon shrugged. “Fucking flu. It’s gotten a little less virulent since you left, but….” His whole body shuddered—Crick assumed it was with fever and fear. “The baby—it hit her the worst. It’s….” Deacon’s voice choked and he squared himself up. “If you don’t mind making a little peace with a higher power, Crick, this might be the time for it.”
“What about you?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re AMA, asshole!” Andrew barked from off camera. “Don’t lie to him, dammit—he should know.”
Deacon shot him a glare that was weakened with illness and worry. “They’re gonna turn me loose tomorrow anyway,” he snapped. “I may as well be here now.” He turned back to the camera. “Don’t listen to him, Crick. He’s worried, that’s all. He’s gotten sort of attached to us this last month. It’s sweet that he doesn’t want us to leave.”
“I should be there,” Crick said numbly, the weight of the last eighteen months crashing on his head.
“You’re goddamned right you should be!” Deacon said harshly, almost out of nowhere, and Crick’s head snapped back in shock. Deacon scrubbed his face again. “I’m sorry. Dammit—I’m sorry—I don’t want to yell. I… you know, it doesn’t matter if you’re home or there in the middle of the fucking desert, Crick, if you’re not here to hash it out, we’ve got to make it all good. So it’s all good. You understand?”
Crick’s face was cold, and his stomach was knotted. He’d had a bad feeling when Benny and Deacon’s texts had gotten terse. They’d said there was illness, but they hadn’t mentioned the fucking apocalyptic plague there in his home.
“You should have told me how bad it was,” he said at last.
“We didn’t know until this morning,” Deacon told him, and Crick had no doubt he was being honest. “Besides, Carrick, there’s not much you can do anyway. I’m just as glad you’re not here to get it, if you must know the truth.”
They talked some more, and Crick promised to try and get a hold of another time slot so he could see the baby. At the end, he could do nothing—he could only look at Deacon, haggard face and bleary eyes, mouth “I love you,” and hope nobody saw. Deacon mouthed the words back, and Andrew’s dark hand appeared to haul him physically away. Crick staggered out of the tent feeling like shit twice and practically ran over Lisa on his way.
“Hey, Crick, how’s the family?”
Her chipper voice sort of tapered off as she saw his shell-shocked face, and when he rasped, “Sick as hell,” she grabbed his arm and took him to the commissary for an ear and a beer.
To say that they “waited” for news during the next two days was like saying that the guy on the roof of his house during a flood “waited” for rescue. When Crick didn’t get any texts at all the next morning, Lisa found him huddled in the ambulance as it sweltered in the truck bay, his arms wrapped around his knees as he rocked himself back and forth.
“Whatcha doing, Lieu?” she asked cautiously.
“Praying,” he muttered. “I suck at it.”
“You’re doing it wrong,” she said flatly. “I’m not big on church, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to do it with a friend.” And she sat across from him for a half-an-hour in the broiling heat while he muttered, “Please, God, let them be all right” and not much else into the echo of the bus.
The next afternoon, Crick’s phone buzzed for the first time in nearly three days.
Benny @Crick—Me and the baby are back at home and fine.
Crick @Benny—Thank God. Deacon?
Benny @Crick—Hospital won’t let him out. He’s conscious now though.
Crick @Benny—CONSCIOUS?
Benny @Crick—Dumb bastard shouldn’t have snuck out. Christ he’s stubborn, Crick—only listens to you.
DP @Crick @Benny—Bite me, litle sister, Im fine.
Benny @DP—I’m not talking to you until you’re home, asshole. Dammit, Deacon, you should be asleep.
DP @Benny @Crick—Din’t want Crick to worry.
Benny @DP—Tough. We’re all worried. Drew’s worried, Patrick’s worried, Jon and Amy’re worried.
DP @Benny—KEEP AMY AWAY—she’s pregnant!
Crick @Benny @DP—Was anybody going to tell me?
DP @Crick—busy wk ere notim e
Crick @DP—Sign off, dammit. Sleep. Get better.
DP @Crick—wan seeu gain
Crick @DP—I promise. Deacon, I promise, okay? Go to sleep.
DP @Crick—night.
Crick @DP—Night, Deacon. Love you.
They got another chance to talk at Christmas, and Deacon did what he could to not look like death warmed over. Christ, the flu had leveled them all this year. He’d sent Patrick to his sister’s place for the month because the elderly man hadn’t gotten it, and Deacon wasn’t sure if he’d survive it if he did.
Deacon and Benny had been too wiped out to do more than decorate (with a lot of help from Andrew), so thank God for the Internet. Deacon had given her a credit card to play with, and she’d invited him in on the fun. Between the two of them—with some help from Crick, who had his own money to play with—they bought out half the Toys-R-Us catalog, and they’d spent a whole lot of time in the last two weeks wrapping the packages that had landed on their doorstep. Deacon had also spent a little bit of time spoiling Benny rotten—T-shirts with her favorite movie, a Jack Skellington book bag, a gift certificate to someplace girly where they could dye her hair instead of having her dye the entire bathroom.
Between Benny, Crick, Jon, Amy, Patrick, and Andrew, he’d answered “What do you want for Christmas?” about six thousand times a day. He’d finally asked for an iPhone and music because it would give them something to spend money on, and he couldn’t say the only thing he really wanted, because everybody knew that anyway.
What he got—besides the iPhone—was a laptop, which was pretty awesome in its own way, because he used it in the living room to show Crick the baby. She was sitting determinedly up, her wide, smiling mouth open and drooling, and playing devotedly with something pink, plastic, and noisy.
Crick was appropriately charmed. “She looks like she’s doing okay,” he said over the sound system. “She’s… God, Deacon, she’s really big.”
“She’s put on some weight since the hospital,” Benny said earnestly. “We were worried—none of us ate for, like, days.”
“Except for me,” interjected Amy dryly from the back of the room. Deacon looked at her and grinned—she was pretty round for two months along, but Jon couldn’t stop doting on her. It was damned cute.
“And you, Deacon?” Crick asked anxiously, and from behind him—hard to see in the shot—came a female voice.
“Oooohh… make him take off his shirt and see!”
Deacon blushed, probably to his toes, and Crick said, “Um, no. That… that’s for me.”
“You must be Lisa,” Deacon said dryly, setting the laptop down on a cleared spot of the kitchen table. “Pleased to meet you.” Amy and Benny had cooked for days, and the residents of The Pulpit had done their best to eat, in spite of still catching up from the flu. A cute, round, freckled little face with blond bangs escaping a perky ponytail peered around Crick’s shoulder.
“You’re Deacon,” she said back. “Crick’s been so worried.”
Deacon blushed some more. “Well, the baby and Benny had it pretty rough there,” he dodged. “I’m glad Crick had someone to lean on.”
Lisa tapped her wrist, and Crick nodded and then said, “Deacon, take me into the other room, would you?”
He’d spent a long time watching the baby play and talking to the family—they both knew that, so nobody objected, and the chatter kept going as Deacon took the computer into the bedroom and propped it on the dresser by the still-empty wall.
“Did you get the….”
“Yeah, Deacon, I got the care package and the presents. No worries, okay? I just need to see that you’re okay.”
Deacon shrugged. “I’m tired, but that could be just staying up late and wrapping presents,” he tried with a grin, and Crick shook his head.
“Look—Lisa’s got the media guys outside with some eggnog—take off your shirt and sweater!”
“Crick….” Oh God. That blush was all the way back.
“Please, Deacon—I just need to see you’re not like… you know. Like you were when Benny got there.”
Deacon sighed. He wasn’t—but not by much. The shirt and sweater came off, and Crick sucked in his breath, and Deacon sighed in the now-cold room, unable to look Crick in the eyes. “I’m not much of a pinup,” he said with an attempt at humor.
Crick murmured, “Deacon, please look at me.”
Deacon looked up, and across the ocean, across the so-so picture quality, and across the nineteen months of separation, he saw Crick’s eyes, those brown, open, sweet eyes, on his body. “That’s mine,” Crick said now, gruffly. “That’s mine. You promised it to me—you need to take care of it. You hear me? You eat good and you drive safe and you watch yourself on that mean-assed mare of yours, and you make sure that’s waiting for me, you hear?”
Deacon smiled—the soft smile, the one Crick said he only used in bed—and Crick smiled back. There was a ruckus from behind Crick, and Crick said quickly, “I love you.”
“Love you back.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
And then he was gone.
DP @Crick—Dammit, now I’m all horny.
Crick @DP—All my stuff’s in the drawer.
DP @Crick—Can’t use it. It’s yours.
Crick @DP—That shit have a shelf life?
DP @Crick—Maybe I should throw it out and not test it.
Crick @DP—Only if you’re going to replace it!
DP @Crick—I’ll wait until you get home.
Crick @DP—Hold on, baby. I’m coming.
DP @Crick—And sadly, I’m not.
Crick @DP—Not yet, anyway.
DP @Crick—Heh heh heh heh heh…
