Page 75 of So Far Gone

“Stay near the house, okay?”

“Can I go play by the creek?”

Grandpa Rhys looked back at the house, as if wondering if he should ask Asher’s mom, but then he said, “Sure. Just don’t go very far, okay?”

“Can I jump over it again?”

“Well.” His grandfather made a face. “I guess.”

General Kinnick took another look around, then settled his eyes on the brave young scout, perhaps knowing that he might be seeing him for the last time. “But come inside if you get wet.”

“I will.”

And with that, the general went back inside the fort.

And so Six-nut moved slowly into the woods, hiking along the raging river. One wrong step and it would be over for them all. Four braves had been put under his command by Standing Water, surely the first time a nine-year-old had ever led a war party. Asher explained to them the difference between cutbanks and point bars, and they were all amazed. He said they needed to find a good point bar on which they could cross the horses to the other side.

Then he saw a rock that looked a little like a chess piece, a bishop, and Asher bent over and picked it up. It wasn’t flat on the bottom like a real bishop, and it was kind of uneven, but it could pass. Bishops were his favorite pieces (even though they couldn’t really do very much, and he suspected they would ultimately be his downfall, once he rose to the level of grand master, because he would always rather sacrifice hisknights than his preferred bishops) and he wondered how you went about flattening the bottoms of rocks anyway, to get them to stand up, and whether he could find a whole chess set among these rocks. Maybe he could build a board from a log and then find enough rocks to teach the men in his war party to play chess.

Doubtful. He’d need to find sixteen light rocks and sixteen dark rocks, half of them in pairs. And the other sixteen would have to be pretty much the same, for pawns. Maybe these little round pebbles. He bent over and picked one up. For some reason, he had the urge to put it in his mouth, which he did. It was cold and dirty and... rocky. He spat it out.

He looked back at the house. Smoke was coming out of the chimney. Grandpa Rhys had built a fire. Maybe for coffee. Was Leah drinking coffee now, too? He didn’t like that she was getting to be in the grown-up conversations, while he still got sent outside to play. What was the big deal? So, Leah and Davy had kissed and Davy was friends with someone who was a bi, which apparently meant that you thought boysandgirls were cute, which he didn’t see why that was a problem. Wasn’t that howeveryoneshould be?

He found himself back at the same corner of the creek where he’d tried to jump before. He set his rifle down on the ground. The other side would be a perfect place to bring the tribe’s horses. But, first, it needed to be properly scouted. The last time, his boots had messed him up. So, he took them off and set them in the grass high above the cutbank. He stood in the wild grass in his socks, watching the creek water burble around this corner. He eased forward a step, to the edge, crouched, bent his knees, and jumped.

He landed perfectly on the inside corner, on the dirt of the point bar, just like his grandfather had suggested. “Hey!” he said.

But look, now his boots were on the other side. He wondered if Indian scouts ever went barefoot.

That’s when a noise in the woods behind Asher startled him. Heturned. From behind a tree stepped a big bald man, dressed all in black, black gloves on his hands, a cool utility belt around his waist, a holstered handgun on his right side. He had a little tube in his hand, a small telescope, like the one that usually went on a rifle.

“Brother Dean? What are you doing here?”

Brother Dean put his finger to his lips.

Asher whispered: “What are you doing here?”

Brother Dean whispered back. “Who’s inside the house, Asher? Is that cop in there with your grandpa?”

“No, he got shot, remember?” Asher whispered. “He’s at this lady’s house. We stopped and saw him. It’s just my mom and my grandpa and Leah and David Jr.”

Dean looked at the house. “You’re sure there’s no one else in there?”

“Yeah,” Asher whispered, “I’m sure.”

Brother Dean pulled a small walkie-talkie from his utility belt. He pressed the button and said into it: “All clear. We are a go. Repeat. We are a go.”—Asher wishinghehad a walkie-talkie like that.

***

Inside the house, Bethany patted David Jr. on the arm. “Look, I know this is scary, and hard, but you need to talk to your parents about it, Davy. They want to help.”

“Are you kidding? They want to deprogram me!”

“We’ll talk to them. Your mom seemed very understanding. And your dad—” She didn’t finish the thought. Davy’s dad probablydidwant to deprogram him.

Davy stood and walked to the window. “Where do they get off saying I’m gay, anyway?” He turned back. “It’s not like I’ve even done anything! How are they such experts on what I want whenIdon’t even know?”

Leah opened her mouth, as if to reassure Davy about the kiss they’dshared last night, but she seemed to think better of it. She’d explained to her mother that they’d talked all night, gotten blankets from Kinnick’s room upstairs and spread them on the floor, among all the books. At some point, Leah had offered to let him kiss her, to see if he liked it. Bethany felt so conflicted. Here, her daughter experiences her first kiss, and they’re not talking about that, but about conversion therapy and bisexuality and whether wearing women’s clothes had anything to do with one’s sexuality.

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