Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(48)

“The humane thing would be a cool shower followed by a soft cot with an electric fan blowing,” Kerwin says. “But thanks for the smoke.”

Rio notices Frangie looking at her and says, “What?”

“Nothing.” Frangie shrugs. “It doesn’t come off.”

“What doesn’t come off?”

“You looked at your hand after you shook mine. The black doesn’t come off on you.”

Rio feels a flush of embarrassment. “I wasn’t . . . I was just . . .” And concludes with, “Sorry.”

“I’m going to guess that you haven’t met many colored folks.”

“No,” Rio admits. “I mean, I’ve seen colored people in movies.”

“You like movies?”

“Sure I do. I go whenever I can afford it.”

A silence follows and stretches until Frangie says, “Have you seen Casablanca?”

“No, I missed it! Last movie I saw was called This Above All. I saw it right before I enlisted. I saw it with . . . a friend.”

“She means her boyfriend,” Kerwin offers. “Haven’t met him myself, but he’s a Handsome Fly-Boy.”

Rio rounds on Kerwin. “How do you know . . . Jenou. Of course.” She curses Jenou under her breath.

“Yep, Private Jenou Castain. She’s much more talkative than you, Richlin, plus I’ve seen you pull his photo out when you think no one’s looking.”

“He’s not exactly a boyfriend,” Rio grumbles. “He’s just a friend. Who’s a boy. A man.”

“You kiss him?” Frangie asks.

“That’s not exactly your business,” Rio huffs.

Kerwin says, “I swear I would sell my mother to pirates in exchange for a cool shower.”

Rio laughs, trying to lighten the mood after her sharp and defensive remark. “Pirates? A lot of pirates are there where you come from, Cassel?”

This leads into a general discussion of hometowns, home states, all the usual get-acquainted things. Cassel is from Teays, West Virginia, of course, coal country, as he has told Rio many times. That’s about six hundred miles from their current location, a bit closer than Frangie’s home. Rio has traveled the farthest to reach this miserable spot: twenty-five hundred miles.

“How you ever going to get home on leave?” Frangie asks.

“I’ll walk if I have to,” Rio says fervently.

“Maybe Handsome Fly-Boy will come fetch you in his airplane,” Kerwin teases. “You got a man . . . um, Private Marr?”

“Nope. I got me two brothers and parents. And sometimes some sick animals.”

Mention of sick animals intrigues Rio. “What kind of animals? You have livestock?”

“Naw, Tulsa is a city, no one’s got more than a chicken or two, but I tend to strays I find that are busted up.”

“Like a vet?”

“More like a bad vet,” Frangie says, and smiles at the memory. “But I do what I can with clean rags and iodine.”

“Maybe you could put in for cavalry. They still got horses and mules and such,” Kerwin says, and picks a praying mantis off his neck.

“There aren’t any black cavalry, not anymore.”

“Was there?”

“Back in olden times. Buffalo soldiers, that’s what the Indians called them on account of their nappy hair making Indians think of buffaloes.”

“Huh. My old granddad always says . . . ,” Kerwin begins. Then he stops. “Anyone else hear that?”

“Probably a proctor coming to get us,” Frangie says.

Kerwin sits up suddenly. “Uh-uh, city girl.”

And with that there’s a wild crashing sound of something bursting through vines and branches and—

“Run!”

The three of them launch from the log like someone’s set off a hand grenade, leaving their rifles behind.

“What is it?” Rio yells.

“It’s a tusker!” Kerwin yells back, leading the way toward a tree whose lower branches just might barely be within reach.

Rio shoots a look over her shoulder and sees something that looks like a small bear, but with a pig’s snout, a rat’s hair, and two curved tusks.

It’s not huge, but it sure is angry.

Cassel leaps, grabs a branch with the dexterity of a monkey, and swings himself up. Rio is right behind him, blessing her push-up-strengthened shoulders as she scrambles and hauls, gasping for breath. Lying flat on the branch, feet and hands dangling, she sees that there is no way short of sprouting wings for the diminutive Frangie to make it.

Rio yells, “Grab my hand!”

Frangie grabs Rio’s hand and Rio—with some help from Cassel—manages to pull Frangie up and out of range of the boar.

They are now six feet above the enraged pig. They gasp for breath, shaking, and then, suddenly, laughing.

Malevolent pig eyes stare up at them, and the pig circles, snorting and huffing, still furious at some imaginary insult. They edge closer to the trunk of the tree, finding more stable spots, not trusting the branch not to break.

“I shot one of his distant relations once,” Kerwin says. “I reckon that’s why he’s so worked up.”

“You’re a hunter?” Rio asks.