He shoves his hands into his pockets. “Even more than most. If I think I hear one coming, I take off. I know that makes me sound like a coward…” Another glance in the direction Dalton went.
“Eric would think it made you smart.”
His expression says he’s not listening. Or he hears, but it doesn’t make him feel better. He turns back to me. “You need to know if hostiles could do this. If they could take a woman captive and…” He inhales. “I know what this guy would have done to Nicole. I know … I know it happens. Even out here. Maybe especially out here. Not that I know what happens down south or … What I’m saying is that it does happen. And I … know that. There was this guy, when I was a kid, maybe fifteen, sixteen. A settler from the first community. I had skins he wanted. I’m good at curing. But what he wanted to trade…” He takes his hands from his pockets. Kicks snow off his boot. “He wanted to trade me for a woman. A hostile. He said he could catch one, and I could—But I didn’t. As soon as I realized what he was saying, I told him to get the hell away from me. I wouldn’t have anything to do with him after that.”
“This guy—”
“He’s gone or I’d have put him at the top of my list. His father went back down south, and he followed a couple of years ago. The point is that I got the impression he did that, and he didn’t think it was a bad thing, that those settlers didn’t consider hostiles human. So it happens out here. The question is whether hostiles would do it.”
Val’s story answers this, but before I can comment, he continues with “They would. I know they would. That’s why I panicked when you wanted to consider them as suspects. That’d mean talking to them. You shouldn’t. At all. They could do it. I know that. From experience. Which is why I stay away. Far away.”
He’s holding himself still, tense, waiting for me to make him explain. I just say, “Okay.”
He looks over.
“I get it,” I say. “That’s why you asked Eric to leave. You don’t want him to know.”
“I—I was a kid. It was even before that guy … offered … But the question is whether hostiles could take someone captive and do that. They can. They do.”
He’s got his hands shoved into his pockets so far his parka bunches. When he sees I’ve noticed, he relaxes and says, “I’m fine. It was a long time ago.”
“I understand why you don’t want to tell Eric, but I’m going to suggest you need to tell someone.”
A humorless quirk of his lips. “Just did, didn’t I?”
“It’s a start.”
“And an ending. Sorry. I don’t—I just don’t have anything more to say about it.”
“Okay.”
He looks over, and I check for signs that he’s hoping I’ll push. There are none. When I don’t prod, he relaxes, and I say instead, “The guy—or guys—who did that, are they—”
“He’s not around.”
“And you’re sure of that?”
“Very sure.”
Jacob means he killed him. I can tell. I just can.
“That’s all I have,” Jacob says. “I can tell you that it’s possible, but I can’t tell you anything more about them. You do need to stay away from the hostiles, though. I was serious about that. Just stay away. Please.”
FORTY-TWO
As I expect, Dalton and I barely get out of Jacob’s earshot before Dalton says, “What was up with that?”
“He wanted to apologize.”
“And…?”
When I don’t answer, he shoulders up beside me, pushing aside vegetation to walk in tandem.
I glance over at him. “You are an awesome brother. You know that, right?”
A look passes over his face. Guilt. Worry. Fear.
Before he can speak, I say, “You don’t know that. I get it. You worry about what you might have done wrong with Jacob. What happened this fall only makes that worse. He has residual anger over what felt like abandonment. But that wasn’t your fault—you were taken from him. Kept from him. He understands that when he’s not pumped full of drugs. You didn’t have a choice, and once you did, you reconnected, and you’ve done everything you can for him. Everything he’ll allow.”
A few more steps, and I say, “You do remember that I have a sister. An older one.”
He says, “Yeah,” but there’s a hesitation first.
“You forgot that. Understandable, because I don’t talk about her. I have no relationship with April beyond blood. I’ve been gone four months, and when I told her I was leaving—and might not be in contact for years—she acted like I’d interrupted her work day to tell her what I had for breakfast. You are an awesome big brother. The problem is that you can’t be everything else for Jacob.”
“I know that.”
“Maybe, but you still want to be. That’s not your job. There are things that he needs other people for. Things he can’t share with you, and if he chooses not to, then you need to accept that.” I look at him again. “Do you trust me?”
He nods. “Course.”
“Then do you trust that if Jacob confided anything that would endanger him, I’d tell you?”
Another nod.
“Jacob’s fine, Eric. And like you said, I’m just glad he’s actually talking to me.”