Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(17)

“But you’ve gotta know something.”

Gonzalez sighed. He pulled off his helmet and ran his fingers through his sweaty hair.

“Look, the way I see it—me and my guys? We’re Su-per-man and the Justice League. Okay? We do what we do for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Martinson Vine? They’re more like Heroes for Hire.”

“And what were they hired to do?”

He shook his head and scuffed his boot through the dirt.

“Gonzalez?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But if I had to guess? It was to make a problem go away.”

“What problem?”

He took a breath. “This whole damn place,” he said. “Black River.”

Whatever strength I had left flowed out of me. I dropped down next to the streambed. The water raced by, overloud, like crinkling cellophane. I rubbed at my temples, trying to get at an ache that had started deep inside.

“How?” I heard myself ask.

“I wish I knew, man. I really do.”

I pulled off my mask and craned my neck to look up through the trees. The way the wind bent the upper branches made it seem as if the whole earth was shaking. Like we were caught in an earthquake that wouldn’t stop.

There was a nudge at my shoulder. Gonzalez was holding out his canteen. I took it from him but just sat there with it in my lap. Gonzalez slid down to sit beside me.

“I would have told you about all this sooner if I’d known,” he said. “I promise.”

I nodded. There was this rawness in my throat. I unscrewed the cap on the canteen and took a drink, but it didn’t help.

“It just seems like every time we get used to something . . .”

“Yeah. I know.”

Gonzalez leaned over the stream and stared down into the dark water.

The first time he came up to Lucy’s Promise, the kids were so sick of seeing me and Greer that a new person was like a gift from God. Most anybody else would have run screaming the other way. Not Gonzalez, though. He just tightened the straps on his gas mask and played Santa, handing out bits of his equipment. Makela took apart and reassembled his radio. Ren played with his compass. Astrid found a tube of woodland camo face paint in his pack, and he showed her how to use it. If one of us had asked for an arm, he would have sawed it off and handed it over.

“Guess this means you’ll be able to make it to Comic Con this year.”

Gonzalez nodded, his head still down.

“You gonna do the portfolio review?”

“Don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” I swatted him on the shoulder. “Come on. Let’s see the goods.”

He looked up from the water. “Seriously?”

“You got it with you?”

Of course he did. He hustled the backpack off his shoulders and pulled out a big sketchpad.

“Who all did you end up putting in it?”

“Cloak and Dagger. Luke Cage.” He snorted. “Wolverine, if you can believe that.”

I rolled my eyes. “Everybody draws Wolverine.”

“I know,” Gonzalez said. “But I figure you gotta show the powers that be that you can draw the big boys. You sure you don’t mind taking a look?”

“Yeah, but I’m telling you, it’s not like I’m an expert or anything.”

“Are you kidding me? Dude, you’re—”

He cut himself off, but I knew what he was about to say. You’re Derrick Cassidy’s son. He recovered pretty quick.

“—someone who knows his stuff. Everybody back at the barracks, they go see a couple Captain America movies and they call themselves comic book nerds, you know?”

Gonzalez clicked on his flashlight and trained it on the pages as I moved through them. I’d never seen his drawings before, but he’d been talking about going to the Comic Con portfolio review practically since the day I met him. I have to say, I was impressed. The drawings were solid. More than solid. The faces were expressive, and he had this cool, sketchy style that made all his characters look like they were bursting with motion even when they were standing still. Kind of Ronin-era Frank Miller or maybe Bill Sienkiewicz.

“Don’t be afraid to be honest, man. Brutally. Tear my guts out.”

I flipped through the drawings. Wolverine. Luke Cage fighting the Absorbing Man. Cloak and Dagger right before teleporting. A really good Kitty Pryde with Lockheed. I made it all the way to the back and then turned to the last page. What I saw there froze the breath in my lungs.

Gonzalez reached for the sketchbook. “Oh. Crap. Right. Dude, I was going to mention that. I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s fine.”

“You sure? I had a colorist take a whack at it since I thought it’d be my big finale and all.”

His last drawing was of Cardinal. Of course it was. He was in a classic Cardinal pose, arms and wings outstretched as he soared over Liberty City, the noonday sun shining off his armor and the towers of the city below him. His wings extended out beyond the edge of the page, each feather meticulously detailed. His colors of scarlet, black, and white were rendered perfectly, deep but bright. The only real difference was that where Dad usually drew Cardinal as a kind of burlier Iron Man, Gonzalez had gone the other way. His drawings made Cardinal look leaner and more graceful, like a dancer.