Family Sins(61)

Bowie lengthened his stride and soon came up on Aidan and Jesse cleaning squirrels.

“Look at all my squirrels,” Jesse said proudly.

Aidan looked up. “He nailed five...all clean head shots. I can’t do that.”

“I’m a good shot,” Jesse said. “Just like Daniel Boone.”

“I see that,” Bowie said, and then gave Jesse a big hug of relief. “You know, Mama is worried about you.”

Jesse frowned. “I know how to take care of myself,” he muttered.

“Did you tell her you were leaving to hunt?” Aidan asked.

Jesse frowned but didn’t answer.

Bowie took out his phone to check for a signal, then made a call to Leigh. Her voice was shaky when she answered, “Hello?”

“Mama, it’s me. Aidan and I found him. He’s fine. We’re cleaning squirrels, and then we’ll be home.”

“Thank goodness,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay. Hey, Mama, is Talia there yet?”

“No.”

Bowie frowned. “Okay. I’ll give her a call.”

He disconnected and then made a quick call to Talia. The phone rang and rang until it went to voice mail. He left a brief message for her to call and hung up.

It took another fifteen minutes to clean the last two squirrels. They washed the blood off their hands in the creek and headed home.

Jesse’s stride was long and sure. His head was up, and there was an expression of satisfaction on his face that Bowie hadn’t seen in a long time. He wondered what it felt like to be Jesse now, a grown man and yet a boy again.

*

Leigh was standing on the back porch watching for her sons to come out of the woods, and when they finally appeared she said a quick prayer of thanksgiving, then went back into the house and cried.

By the time they all came in the back door, she was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee between her hands.

Jesse looked at her, and then ducked his head and plopped the field-dressed squirrels into the sink, got out a big dishpan and ran it full of water to clean them again.

“Thank you, Bowie. Thank you, Aidan,” Leigh said, and got up and hugged them both.

“You’re welcome, Mama,” they echoed.

“Do you need us to stay?” Bowie asked, wondering what was keeping Talia.

“No, and I’m sorry I called you away from what you were doing.”

Jesse’s shoulders slumped. He might have lost some of his acumen, but he still knew enough to know he was in trouble. And when Leigh turned around and took the gun he’d left in the corner and headed out of the room, he was instantly wild-eyed and worried.

“What’s Mama doin’ with my rifle?”

His brothers shrugged.

“You need to be asking her that,” Bowie said. “I told you she was upset that you left without telling her. That’s called running away, Jesse, and Youngbloods don’t run away from home.”

Jesse’s eyes welled.

“I didn’t run away. I wouldn’t ever leave Mama.”

“Well, she didn’t know that, buddy,” Aidan said.

Jesse took a shaky breath.

“I gotta go say I’m sorry, don’t I?”

“That’s what a man would do,” Bowie said.

Jesse straightened his shoulders and dried his hands. “I am a man,” he said, and left the kitchen.

“Lord,” Bowie said.

“Glad you were here to help,” Aidan said.

“I need to check on Talia,” Bowie said. “She should have been here by now.”

“I’ll run out and get the brake fluid,” Aidan said. “Meet you out front.”

Bowie called Talia again and got her voice mail again, and now he was worried. She’d said she was coming. If something had changed that plan, she would have let him know. He went through the house to find his mother. She was sitting on the bed with Jesse, letting him apologize because it was important for him to acknowledge he was wrong. Bowie hated to interrupt, but he didn’t want to leave without telling her goodbye.

“We’re leaving now, Mama. I’ve got to go get the truck, but I’ll be back. And I’m worried about Talia. She should have been here by now.”

Jesse stood abruptly.

“I’m a good tracker. If she’s lost, I can find her,” he said.

Bowie smiled. “I know you are, Jesse. I don’t think she’s lost, but she might have had some kind of trouble.”

“Uh... Bowie...” Leigh hesitated, as if debating with herself about what she was about to say, and then she blurted it out anyway. “Like the trouble you had coming here?”

The idea startled him. “What made you say that?”

“There wasn’t anything wrong with Stanton’s pickup before. If it had been leaking fluid for a while, we would have seen it on the ground where he parked. There’s nothing there, and there’s nothing where you’ve been parking. I went to look after you called.”

“Why would you do that?” Bowie asked.

“Because Justin threatened to get even with us. Once you make an enemy of that family, you always have to watch your back.”

“Well, hell,” Bowie muttered. “But when could he possibly have done that?”