Campbell (27 page)

“I need you to come back, and to be you, Goose,” he replied, unusual desperation in his voice. “You’re it. I don’t know how to run things, and no one else does either. Not like you.”

“I’m coming back,” she assured him, stroking his cheek like she had when they were young. “I know I can’t leave the lost boys to their own devices.”

“We need our Wendy-lady,” he said, chuckling low. “Chloe wasn’t happy with me coming here for you. She said it was too romantic.”

“She knows better than that,” Lucy whispered, rolling her eyes. “Can you imagine her here?”

“She would hate this place.”

“Too much fun.” Lucy pulled her hand back, as Bull’s lips brushed her palm, perhaps accidentally. “So, Cole.”

“Cole,” he mumbled, tensing up immediately.
 

“Tell me?”

She could see the hesitation in his eyes as he determined what to tell her. “Just some new pictures and the same demands. We’ll look at them when we’re back. I didn’t bring them. I wanted to make sure you were okay before we worried about him. He looks like you probably did right after whoever took you was done with you.” His hand reached out to brush her cheek. “He’ll have to be strong.”

“He can be strong sometimes,” Lucy said, though she was unconvinced. “Maybe this will make him strong.”

“Maybe,” Bull whispered doubtfully. “Maybe’ll figure out what he’s made of.”

“Or maybe I really did get the balls in utero,” she said with a sigh.

***

Lucy and Tal stood off in the distance the next morning as Bull said his goodbyes to Red Cloud, each patting the other heartily on the back before Bull climbed into the driver’s seat of his truck and unlocked the passenger door for them.

“Twenty-seven hours back,” he announced. “We’ll stop for a night in Montana.”

“We should make it to Great Falls,” Lucy said with a nod to Tal as she straddled the oversized stick shift awkwardly. “We’ve got friends there. Montana is—”
 

“Part of Campbell,” Bull interrupted. “Pretty much.”

“Good farms,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “And the sugar beet factory. And Cara and Paul.”

“It’s been a while,” Bull smiled over at her, looking almost sharkish with his pearly white teeth. “I thought of stopping on the way down, but I kept driving because I wanted to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid.”

Tal took in their friendly banter with interest. He still believed, without a shadow of a doubt that Bull was in love with Lucy, but love almost seemed too simplistic when it came to describing their relationship. They finished each other’s sentences. Knew exactly what would make the other laugh. Tal felt like the ultimate third wheel.

“Why are you Goose?” he asked Lucy, when they passed Wichita.
 

“Because I hate it,” she replied, glancing at Bull with a half grin. “He used to call me Lucy Goose when we were kids.”

“She was always squawking,” he chuckled. “Like she does.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” she glanced at Tal as he smiled at her thoughtfully. “He’s the only one allowed to call me that. Him and his sister.”

The drive to Great Falls was lively. They encountered a roadside house fire, a herd of deer, one of which ended up on the back of the truck by way of Bull’s perfectly executed handgun shot, and a flash rainstorm that forced them to pull over for a half hour until they could see the road. Conversation didn’t lag, however, with Bull and Lucy filling Tal in on many of their adventures together over the years.

“…and I said, who wants to spend the night in an igloo, just to see the lights?”

“I wanted to see the polar bears too!” Lucy shrieked, smacking his arm. “And so did you.”

“It was a long drive.”

“But worth it.”

Bull nodded, beaming at her. “Yeah, it was. Tal, it’s your turn.”

Tal turned his head at his name. He wasn’t prepared to contribute. “What?”

“Tell us some of your stories. You must have some.”

He rested his elbow against the window and stared out thoughtfully, trying to think of something nearly as interesting as the stories they’d shared. “I got stabbed in Mexico about five years ago.” He moved and pulled his shirt up, revealing a jagged scar about an inch above his hip. “It was kind of a mistake. I was pissed off because of this guy, and Leah, my cousin...” he paused, remembering his confession to Lucy, who, if she remembered, didn’t acknowledge the connection. “He was hitting on her obnoxiously, and I’d had a hell of a lot of tequila, so I socked him, and one of his boys stabbed me. I was on my back for almost two months.”

“Where was your boy, Connor?” Bull asked, a smug look on his face.
 

“He had the guy roughed up pretty bad when he found out,” Tal admitted sheepishly. “It wasn’t my idea. I was happy to let it go.”

“You must have a better story than that,” Lucy said, raising her eyebrows. “Something happier?”

Tal thought long and hard, and Lucy and Bull waited with anticipation splashed across their faces.

“I live a pretty quiet life,” he said with a shrug. “What about before? Does that count?”

“You haven’t had any fun in the last ten years?” Lucy looked at him with disbelief as she cocked her head at him. “Bullshit. Come on. Think of something.”

“I mean, I’ve had fun, but I didn’t go polar bear hunting or anything. I bike around a lot. I do the money stuff. That’s fun. Last night was fun.”

Bull grumbled incoherently in the driver’s seat.

“It was fun,” Lucy acknowledged with a grin.
 

“You’re one of those kids whose life was better before,” Bull said thoughtfully, about a half hour later after Lucy fell asleep on his shoulder. “Aren’t you?”

Tal nodded unapologetically. “Oh yeah. Absolutely. Without a doubt.”

“You need to let that shit go,” Bull replied, shaking his head. “It’s never going to be like that again.”

Tal didn’t feel angry at the judgment regarding his upbringing—he felt sympathy for Bull. “Don’t you miss your family?”

“My alcoholic father and my doormat mother? No.” He shook his head gently, careful not to disturb Lucy. “My life is better now than it ever would have been. My little sister’s too. People like us,” he nodded at Lucy. “We didn’t have a chance in hell before.”

“You have a sister?”

He nodded. “Chloe.”

“How old is she?”

“Thirteen. She’s at Lucy’s now, giving Andrew a hard time.” Tal didn’t miss the pride in his voice. “Had a little brother too, but he…he got sick early on. Didn’t make it.”

Tal nodded. “I had a little cousin that got shot the first year.”

“That first year was the hardest,” he commiserated. “Fucking little shits and their chaos.”

“At least you’ve got everything under control now,” Tal admitted. “We’re two shitty movies away from an uprising most of the time.”

“Dude, all your movies are shitty,” Bull cracked a grin. “You must know it’s not enough.”

“You two are very good at stating the obvious.” Tal raised his eyebrows, and glanced at Lucy, mouth was parted as she slept. “It’s been enough, but I know. As they start having more kids and want more security, it’s going to be a problem.”

Bull nodded. “Yeah. Kids will take a lot, but it’s different when you have a family to consider.”

Tal thought of Rachel and Leah. “A responsibility beyond yourself.”

“We can’t all be as pious as Saint Campbell here.”

Lucy began snoring gently, her mouth slightly more ajar.
 

“I need to call Connor.”

“Why would you bother?” Bull scoffed. “That guy’s a dick.”

Tal tensed. “Because he’s my friend.”

“He’s not your friend. If he was your friend, he would have picked you up in Oklahoma,” Bull said, matter of fact. “Like I picked up my friend.”

“I didn’t call him to pick me up,” Tal muttered. “I will.”

Bull looked up thoughtfully and snorted. “Okay.”

“Do you have something to say?” Tal snapped. “Because you should just say it.”

“I can’t sleep for twenty minutes without you two getting into it?” Lucy sat up and rubbed her eyes. “What?”

“Connor Wilde is a useless piece of shit, and if you choose to associate with him, then you’re—”

“Bull!” Lucy admonished, her eyes wide. “Give it up!”

Both boys glared out the windshield. “Butt out, Goose. Me and West were having a nice conversation.”

Tal frowned at her. “I don’t need you sticking up for me. Connor’s a piece of shit. But he’s the only thing keeping any semblance of order on the west coast for now, and that’s that. Everyone knows who he is, and what he does, and it may not get the same respect and admiration that seventy per cent maternity leave coverage gets but he’s what’s there, and until there’s another option, that’s that.”

“Lucy’s a better option,” Bull said, pride thick in his tone.

“I don’t want West or Mexico,” Lucy groaned. “And I don’t want the drugs, and I don’t want a bunch of privileged brats fucking up what I’ve started with their unrealistic wants. Bull, I appreciate the support, but I’ve got my hands full at the moment.”

Tal shut up after that, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what happened when he got home. What he’d learned in the past decade, and what the one to come would bring.

Perhaps most importantly, he wondered how he’d be remembered, when contrasted with the two people he shared the cab of the truck with.

***

Cara and Paul were two of Lucy’s favourite people. They were twenty-two, older than most, and Paul, from Chicago, had been one of the first emissaries she’d received, eight years earlier. Their house and things were modest, and they’d give the clothes off their backs if someone needed them more than they did.
 

Even at nine at night their house was a hub of activity. Lucy opened the door and came face to face with a tiny girl clutching a cat.

“Are Cara and Paul around?”

“Momma Cara!” the redhead screamed. “There’s some people here.”

Ten minutes later they were all seated around a massive table with soup and sandwiches spread from one end to the other and about fifteen kids, all various ages under ten, running around in organized chaos, sitting where they could to make room for Bull, Tal, and Lucy.

“We did pasta last night, Ce. You should have timed your kidnapping better,” a woman with a small waist, enormous hips with the ass to match, cooed as she swayed into the room. “You look terrible, Love.”

No matter how long had passed, it always felt like minutes since Lucy’d seen her old friend, and she beamed as they embraced. There weren’t a lot of people like Cara and Paul, Lucy thought to herself as they sat down to eat and they began telling the three of them about the new kids they’d taken in recently and others that had passed through their house and out into the world.
 

After a while, Lucy stopped listening to Cara’s stories and started watching Tal, who was less interested in what was being said and more interested in the little girl seated next to him. She couldn’t have been much older than four.

“My mom died,” she told him, without much coaxing on his part. “I live here now.”

“It’s good here?”

She nodded eyes wide. “Like a real family.”

Bull and Lucy did their best to stay out of the way while Cara put the girls to bed and Paul the boys, which took a great deal of negotiation. Tal vanished after dinner and Lucy found him outside, sitting on the back step thoughtfully looking up at the stars.

“She looks a little like my cousin,” he said when she sat down beside him. “The cousin that died.”

“Ah,” Lucy said thoughtfully, not sure what to say. “Cute little girl.”

“What if they weren’t here? What would happen to her?”

“I guess someone else would have taken her in?” Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know. You know what happens sometimes. It’s good they’re here.”

They’d both seen kids too young to make it on their own, unable to take care of themselves, and the terrible realization that it was impossible to save everyone had dawned on each of them more than once.
 

“We’re too old for that to happen anymore,” Tal muttered. “I mean, I always knew that, but it’s hard.”

“I know,” she nodded. “I’m guilty of it too.”

Tal stared up at the stars. “Will they take money, or things, if I sent them some?”

“For the little girl?”

He shook his head. “For all the kids,” he replied. “I’m…I’m doing all right, you know.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows and wondered how much all right was. “I’m sure you are.”

“And I do give where I can, but it’s not easy to know it’s going somewhere good. This feels like somewhere good.”

“Cara raised Bull’s sister for quite a few years when he couldn’t. She’s…this is her thing. She’s a natural. Since she was twelve. Paul’s the same.” Lucy rested her head in her hands and looked over at Tal in the porch light. “It is somewhere good. The kids they turn out are the kind you want around.”

“Not the
Soldier of Fortune
kids,” Tal recalled.
 

“Not the
Soldier of Fortune
kids.” Lucy nodded at the door and patted his shoulder. “We should get some sleep. You’re on the couch and the little ones get up early.”

“Night,” he said, as he awkwardly put his hand up to pat her on the back, or hug her, she wasn’t sure.
 

“Sleep tight,” she replied, swallowing a request for him to spend the night with her. “I guess I’ll…see you tomorrow.”

He gave her a nod and a grin. “I guess so.”

Chapter 16

July 2002

Los Angeles, West

“So we’ll pay you this much,” Tal pointed to a figure with very few zeros. “And one per cent of the net income from the film.”

Ella Cunningham batted her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at Tal. “Can you get me a little more? I used to make more with Disney.”

“Disney’s gone. This is what we can offer. There’s an opportunity for more in the future—”
 

“Fine,” she muttered, signing on the dotted line. “But I’m not blowing Connor Wilde.”

“That’s certainly not in the contract,” Tal assured, pissed that she had to demand that. “And you can let me know if you have any problems working with him. I’ll handle it.”