Mark Spragg - Bone Fire

“Nice night, isn’t it,” the man said, and Kenneth agreed with him. Along the horizon, the stars were brighter.

“I’m not going to give you a cigarette if that’s what you’re after. You’re too young for ’em.”

Kenneth thought the man probably needed glasses because of how he was holding his head. “No, sir. I’m never going to smoke.”

“Good for you. I hope you’re right about that.”

“I’m just waiting for my mom. She got real sick and then she had to go home to get her medicine.” He looked at his wristwatch for effect. “She was hoping it would make her feel better.”

The man dropped the butt on the ground, rubbed it out with the toe of his boot and shook another cigarette out of the pack, then tapped the filter against the edge of the pack. “I’m not about to go looking for your mother, either,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve got the time for it, and I don’t want you standing there thinking I’ll make the time.”

“No, sir.”

The man lit the cigarette, cupping his hands around the match. They were scarred and thick and plenty used. “Maybe you ought to call her.” He pointed toward the building. “I imagine they’ve got a phone indoors there.”

Kenneth nodded and walked a few steps toward the door, trying to think of what to say next. He looked up and down the street. “I called her one time already and she said she was too sick to get out of bed.” He tried to remember something that might make his eyes well with tears. Something sad. “She said I probably shouldn’t call her back.” He was thinking of when a colt kicked him in the knee, but it just made his leg ache.

“Well, I guess it’s up to you,” the man said. “If it was me I’d try her again.”

His mother had told him that specific lies were better than general ones, that people felt more comfortable if you gave them little bits of information. “I’m supposed to meet my cousins in Sheridan,” he said. “They’ll be waiting for me.”

“How many cousins have you got?”

“I’ve got three. They’re all younger, but we get along okay.” He pulled the money out of his shirt pocket and held it toward the man, who bit down on the filter and reached out to take it.

He thumbed his hat back, turning so the light from the window fell across his hands as he riffled through the bills. “This here’s a hundred and four dollars.”

“Yes, sir. That’s how much she said it was. She said it was the price of my ticket.”

The man took the cigarette out of his mouth. “So what you’re asking me to do is walk back in there and buy you a ticket for Sheridan, Wyoming? Is that right?”

“They won’t sell one to a kid.”

The man nodded. He still held the money. “What’d you say was wrong with your mom?”

“She had a migraine headache. She gets them sometimes.”

“And you’re how old?”

“I’m ten.”

He flicked the ash off his cigarette with the nail of his little finger. “I wouldn’t be helping you run away, would I?”

“No, sir.”

He took a drag, looking away from the town lights toward where the night sky ground down against the darker horizon. “I used to get them damn migraines,” he said. “I haven’t for some time.”

“My mom says it’s like she’s been kicked in the head.” He was still thinking about the colt.

“Well, she’s right about that.”

“She said on the phone if she was too sick to come back I should just walk up and ask somebody to buy me the ticket.”

“And you picked me?”

“You look like a man I met once.”

“I do, do I?”

“Yes, sir.”

The man was staring back through the window of the office like he was concerned they were being watched. Then he dropped the butt and ground it out too. “If I’m helping you run off, I don’t want to know a thing about it. Not one thing, you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If that’s what I’m doing, you just keep lying to me.”

Kenneth bounced the basketball and caught it, holding it against his hip again.

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“No, sir.”

“All right.” He nodded toward the basketball. “You any good with that thing?”

“Not so far.”

“I never was neither.”

He put the money in his shirt pocket, and took out a handkerchief and tipped off his hat, staring down at the boy as he wiped the sweatband clean.

He waited until the woman passenger was getting on and stepped up close behind her, and when she turned down the aisle he handed the driver his ticket.

The man just stared at him, then looked at the ticket again. “This kid with you?” he asked.

The woman turned in the aisle. She looked sleepy and stood shaking her head.

“I can’t let you ride,” the driver said, and handed the ticket back.

“What’s the holdup here?”

Kenneth turned and the driver rocked forward in his seat to look past him.

“This boy yours?” he asked.

It was the man who’d been smoking. He was standing with a foot up on the first step. He said, “You’re probably thinking he’s too good looking to be related to me.”

“That ain’t it,” the driver said. He smiled but wasn’t friendly, more like a mean cop. “What I was thinking is this boy’s a little dark to be yours.”

The man stepped up into the front of the bus, and Kenneth wondered why he hadn’t looked so big when they were standing out in the lot. It was like the bus was suddenly too small for him. The driver noticed too.

“I probably didn’t hear you say what I thought you did,” the man said.

“I don’t want any trouble,” the driver said.

“Then I guess you ought to take your hand away from my boy’s shoulder.” He was whispering, but it was like he was yelling his lungs out.

The driver brought his hand back into his lap, staring out the windshield like he was watching something in front of the bus. Kenneth looked too, but there was nothing to see.

“Why don’t you go find yourself a seat,” the big man said, and Kenneth turned away and walked halfway to the back and took one by the window.

The man stopped in the aisle and bent down over him. “I didn’t know your name or I’d have used it.”

“It’s Kenneth.”

“Well, get some sleep if you can, Kenneth. Mine’s Jerry.” Then he moved a couple rows back, lifting his bag up into the overhead rack.

When the bus pulled out he lay over against his backpack, drawing his legs onto the empty seat beside him, and when he woke it was still dark and more people were getting on, and when he woke up again Jerry was shaking his shoulder. He didn’t really remember walking off the bus, but they were standing on the street, the buildings rising up around them.

“Is this Denver?”

“Mile-high,” Jerry said, handing him his backpack and basketball, dropping his own bag to the sidewalk and lighting a cigarette. “Your next ride leaves from the Amtrak station, but that ain’t for two hours.”

“Where are we now?” He turned in a circle, searching the faces of the tall buildings.

“You’re at the Greyhound terminal. I guess they’re trying to make this as hard as they can, bringing you all the way down here before starting you back north again. You hungry?”

“My mom packed me a sandwich.”

“That must’ve been before she got her headache.”

“She packed two, but I ate half of one already.”

“You like eggs?”

“Yes, sir.”

They walked up Twentieth so the boy could see the outside of Coors Field, then turned down Wazee to a restaurant Jerry said he’d always wanted to try. It was still early, so they were almost the only ones there. They took a booth by the window, and their waitress brought coffee and a glass of milk for Kenneth while they studied the menus.