The next day Joe and Jack avoided each other, but they gave each other looks across the room so hot that they would have ignited dry kindling. Miss West, blissfully ignorant of the death glares being slung across the room, continued to teach and didn’t single Joe out again, for which he was grateful. She must have figured out that he was a lost cause.

During lunch he kept to himself, but he stole looks at Jack sitting next two to or three others. At one time, their eyes met, and a line of tension crackled between them. Joe grimaced. The fight may have been paused, but it wasn’t over.

He didn’t wait for Miss West to ring the bell that afternoon; instead he leaped out of his chair and bolted for the door. Before the others were even out of their seats he was gone, sprinting through the trees. But he wasn’t headed toward home. Instead he took to the mountain.

It was only a seven mile climb, a tiny step at the foot of a much larger range, but it was his mountain, and he knew the way up by heart. Joe paused at the bottom of his trail to make sure no one had followed him and then began to climb. After several minutes his mind was empty of everything except the struggle to continue uphill. His legs burned gloriously, and his breath came in gasps, but he didn’t stop. The mountain was one of the few things he could fight against and conquer, and he enjoyed the battle almost as much as the victory when he reached the top and saw Durham spread below like a scrunched up blanket. He slumped against a tree, giving in to his tired body at last, and closed his eyes to let the breeze wipe away his sweat.

This is where I belong. He decided. In the mountains with the sounds of squirrels scolding him for sitting under their tree, not cramped in a town where every time you turned you bumped into someone.

He sat and watched the sun shift closer and closer to the horizon. He could make it back in the dark. Finally, when his shadow had stretched to nearly four times his height, Joe got up and started to climb back down.

~*~

“Where were you?” his ma grabbed him by the shoulders as Joe entered the shack.

“Nowhere.” He glanced around. “Where is…” then he understood her irritation. His pa was gone. Which meant he was out causing trouble.

“Gone. Somewhere, who knows. I got paid today, but he took that. And then you go off running around into the wild blue. Every day I work and cook and clean while you and he do nothing!” her fingernails bit into his shoulder, and Joe squirmed away. But that only made her madder.

“You think you can be without me? Who earns the money in this house? Me! And what do you do, hmm? Nothing! You’re as worthless as he is!” she moved to grab his shoulder again, but Joe sidestepped and left the shack. He stopped himself just before he slammed the door. With his luck it would break.

It was starting to rain, and Joe looked up at the sky. His stomach felt like a waterlogged sponge. She wasn’t mad at him, but her words still cut like a whip. And her whip had hit a nerve. Because he knew that no one would ever see him as anything other than no-good Cal Greyer’s no-good son. For a moment he considered leaving things be, but he knew he couldn’t. If his pa had money that meant he was drinking, and not the cheap stuff, which meant that if Joe didn’t go get him, he’d end up breaking something he couldn’t afford to replace. Joe straightened his shoulders that had slumped forward and started to walk slowly towards town.

No one told him to leave when he entered the saloon. Any other kid would have been kicked out, but they all knew why he was here. The bartender nodded to a table in the corner, but Joe didn’t need the help. He could tell from the noise coming from the table, and by the one voice rising above the rest. Joe pushed through the crowd of men, his frown growing deeper. They were egging him on. They knew that Cal was only a few minutes away from exploding and breaking things he couldn’t afford to replace. Did they care? No. He shoved past the last person and grabbed his pa’s arm.

“Come on.” He said wearily. It always played out the same way, but he hadn’t come up with a better system.

Cal jerked away and the movement nearly made him fall out of his seat. “I ain’t goin’. Go tell that whore she can find another man to bring home her bacon.” He took another drink and Joe resisted the urge to smack the mug away from his lips. Instead he followed the familiar sequence and grabbed his arm again.

“It’s raining. The road will turn into a mudhole in a few minutes.”

“I checked into the hotel. Hear they have some pretty ladies that make sure your room is com-for-table.” The carefully enunciated last word met with laughs all around. Joe sent a glare like a scythe around the circle of onlookers. But it was one against many, and Cal Greyer was good entertainment.

“Come on, Cal.” One of them slapped him on the back. “Buy another beer and tell us about that one gal you’ve got your eye on.”

Joe snapped upright. He’d had it. Normally he avoided confronting an adult, but this was getting old. He shoved against the man’s chest. Hard. The man teetered backwards into the bar.

“You little…”

“Shut up!” Joe snapped. He turned back to Cal, who was buried in his drink. “We’re leaving.” His voice but like a whip, but Cal was too numb to notice.

“Can’t go. Can’t pay.” He mumbled.

Joe dug into Cal’s pockets and pulled out some coins. He slapped them down, not bothering to count.

“Thief! You can’t steal my money!” Cal’s hands met Joe’s chest like a horse kick, and this time it was Joe that went flying. But he didn’t hit the bar.

Glass fell around him, and Joe froze, covering his head with his hands. He could feel blood trickling down the back of his neck, and the glass crunched under his boots as he stood.

“Come on.” This time Cal let himself be led away, having gotten his ire out of his system.

“Kid.” The bartender called, but Joe waved him off.

“I know.” He didn’t want to think about how much the window cost. Instead he let the doors swing shut behind him, blocking him from the view of those in the saloon. But the doors couldn’t block the sound of laughter that followed him out into the black street.