Page 13 of Adam's Rising

Peter twisted free. “Stophandlingme. I’m not one of your horses.” He jogged ahead, putting a few yards between them, muttering, “So sick of everyone pushing me around…”

Adam trotted up next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Sorry, bro. There’s a… situation out there.”

Peter looked up at him. “What kind of situation?”

“Lala showed up.”

“Oh, man. That blows.”

“Yeah.”

“So where are we going?”

“Clara Mae’s house.” Adam pointed past a building with four windows and four doors as they rounded the backside of the barn. The long one-story building looked like a four-plex motor lodge. Quarters for four hands, he assumed. Did Clara Mae already have four hands?

When Adam rounded the other side of the barn, crossing a narrow, muddy road toward the house, another ranch hand stepped into his path. He was younger than the older hand, but much older than the one he’d released Bolt to — and tall. The olive-complected man with long curly black hair falling past his shoulders and a handlebar mustache that curled up from his broad mouth looked scary and fascinating all at once.

Arms crossed, the man gave both him and Peter a slow once-over.

“Take a picture, it’ll —” Peter started, but Adam pulled his baby brother close, silencing him. He couldn’t stand that obnoxious jab Peter loved to throw around — the boy was a firecracker. But Peter hadn’t heard all of Dad’s lessons. Right now, Adam remembered one of the important ones:He who speaks first, loses. Dad always said whether it was a negotiation or threat, it was better to keep your trap shut. People might think you’re stupid — but better that than opening your mouth and removing all doubt.

“Peter,” Adam said quietly, keeping his eyes on the man. “We’re in his territory. He has every right to question us.”

The man finally smiled. “I’m Brett. Head hand. Bareback, huh?”

Adam shrugged. “Seemed like the right thing to do. Didn’t think that wild stang was gonna let me throw a saddle on him.”

“You’re right about that.”

Clara Mae stepped into view, snapped her fingers in the direction of the hands’ quarters. “Brett, get that other hand of yours going.” She waved at the sky. “Ain’t even May yet, and locals are showing up left and right.”

Brett winked in Adam’s direction then walked back toward the narrow building. “Frank! Get a move on!” The man’s voice was deep and resonant, the kind Adam would expect to hear at a rodeo. Maybe that’s what he did for Clara Mae when she took her horses to sell.

Clara Mae shook her head, then motioned Adam and Peter toward her house again.

Adam trotted forward, pulling Peter in his wake. Clara Mae didn’t like for people — or horses — to fall behind. After all, that’s how he ended up with Bolt. If a horse wasn’t trainable, he ended up at the butcher. A shiver ran down Adam’s arms.

A few yards from the stoop, Adam released Peter’s hand and rushed past Clara Mae to open the door.

Clara Mae snorted. “Do I look like the kind of woman who needs a man to open the door for her?”

“No, Ma’am,” Adam said but held the door anyway. “But my father would have slapped my rear if I didn’t.”

Clara Mae nodded and stepped inside. She used the toe of one rubber boot to push off one then hooked the other boot on a wood box, tugging it off, then dropped the pair on a black mat. “Take off your shoes, boys. I’ll find you some old rubbers to wear anyway. Mud ’round here’s several inches deeper than that canvas crap you’re wearing.”

Adam and Peter followed suit.

Clara Mae ignored the set of carpeted stairs that led to her upstairs house and pulled out a large key ring, unlocking a door beside them.

Adam and Peter stared forward, but neither moved. Beyond the open door, a narrow set of stairs disappeared into pitch blackness. Their parents — and later Thomas — had warned them about killers likeThe Candy Man, also from Texas. And just recently, Adam had read about boys going missing in Chicago.

“Trust a horse, but not an ol’ woman like me,” Clara Mae muttered as she reached in and pulled a string, casting dim light over the tight stairwell. “Ain’t no bogeymen down there — just a couple of cots and a wood stove.” She didn’t wait for their approval, just clomped her way down. “This here’ll be your lodgings. Simpler than the hands’ quarters, but it’s clean, and I don’t need two teenyboppers bunking near the likes of those men.”

Adam nodded to Peter, then followed Clara Mae into the belly of the house. Peter followed directly behind him, a hand on Adam’s back. For all his brother’s fist-raising and backtalking, he was just as frightened as Adam was. They were two teenagers being forced into the world. Even eagles gave their young a little warning before they shoved them out of the nest.

Downstairs, Clara Mae tapped a socked foot against the concrete slab. “Let’s go, boys. I don’t have all day. I have a business to run. But we need to talk and get our stories straight before we go one step further in this little masquerade, yeah?”

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