37
Archie stood before Jack with combed, grease-slicked hair and a button-down shirt, rolled at the sleeves, that billowed against his little chest. Below the waist he was still a scruffy kid. Jack asked him about his mole strategy, but he could see the boy was distracted by the goings-on at Gramps’ target range. Now that Jack would be driving, of course, Archie’s mission didn’t matter so much, so Jack made it quick.
“You just gonna lead by example, or are you gonna goad folks into it?”
“Goad?”
“Spur.”
“I ain’t wearing boots.”
Jack took out a kerchief to wipe his face. “Have you tried the stun gun?”
“Not yet. I think I’m up next.”
Across the lot, Jack saw Ben riding toward him on the back of his big, slow mare. The kid raised his hands, showing that he’d brought a pair of slacks. He stopped a few feet short of Gramps’ crowd and handed the reins to one of June’s brothers, who took it and grinned.
“Paco and those men are right down the road,” he said, squinting up at Jack. “I passed them on the way here.”
“Thanks,” said Jack. “And thanks for these. Archie?”
Archie turned from the spectacle and took the pants. He looked at Ben, but said nothing. If there was anyone in town that could be accused of having privilege, it was Ben. It probably made him harder to like. Archie’s name was called, and he disappeared into the crowd, leaving Jack with Ben, who was, like Archie before him, preoccupied with the stun gun.
“You ready for this afternoon?”
Ben nodded, his attention caught by a sudden burst of feathers.
“All you’ve gotta do is stand there, I guess.”
If only he could get a read on this kid. If only Ben betrayed some characteristic singular enough to point in some direction, some way out of the vague morass of impassive youthful pride and fear. Jack thought back to his own ceremony, back then just a small circle of drinking buddies his father had paid in shots of whiskey to show up, stumbling drunk, as witness. He’d made a little speech there, behind the Double Barrel, and it shouldn’t have meant anything to Jack, but when he’d said his piece about how fast Jack had acted, saving his life, how Jack had lightning-quick reflexes, it had brought tears to Jack’s eyes despite himself. In the end, his father had given him a pat on the back, a chuck on the jaw, and had followed his friends back into the bar, leaving Jack to find his way back home alone.
“Watch for my signal later,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Jack left Ben, and watched Larry take the stage as he wandered over to Jo and Micah, who were standing together at the back of the gathering. Larry was wearing a strange outfit and carrying a basket, which he put down in the middle of the stage.
As Jack reached Jo’s side, Larry had just begun to play some kind of recorder, and the sharp sound zigged and zagged through the increasingly interested crowd. Just about everyone knew Larry by name, by his position, but he had few friends, and Jack sensed that people felt they were getting a rare glimpse into the man’s inner life.
Maybe they were.
Jack watched, dumbfounded, as a diamondback slithered into the air above the basket, dancing to Larry’s tune.
“This guy is a serious freak,” Micah said.
Though Jack didn’t disagree, he bristled at the comment. “He’s a good man,” he said.
Jo smiled approvingly, and in a swell of satisfaction Jack was reaching for her hand when Larry’s basket toppled over.
Jack rushed headlong against the general flow of screaming people, and quickly ended up in a large space cleared of everyone but three small children. The snake was ready to strike, both distracted and provoked by their mother’s carrying on, and for the first time all day Jack felt absolutely calm. When he noticed Ben standing at the edge of the crowd with Gramps’ stun gun, it was as though he’d known this would be, that it could not be otherwise. He circled around, called out and leapt, and as he landed above the stunned snake, his foot seemed to find its neck without Jack needing to tell it where to go.
As the danger drained out of the air and the crowd slowly spilled back into the open circle, Jack found that he had a different perspective on the idea of naming Ben. He thought of his father honoring, in his own, palsied fashion, Jack’s passage into manhood. He thought of Jo, and of the box of toys he’d wanted to burn.
After he’d taken the stage with the young man, Jack made a speech.
“Friends and family, I’m truly thankful for having you all here,” he began, for it was, in fact, how he felt. “I feel blessed.”
As Jack spoke, he tried to find Jo in the crowd, but people had shuffled around, and she was nowhere he could see. Still, he spoke to her, for her, feeling certain she must be listening.
“A name is a funny thing. It’s given to you, whether you like it or not, and you end up either fighting against it all your life, or protecting it with everything you’ve got. Either way, it defines you.”
He invited Jesse on stage to stand by her son, and then spoke the new name before a hushed crowd. It felt good to say: Benjamin Lightning. They took a moment to respond, but when they did it felt like sincere approval, and Jack was glad. He looked out fondly over the heads of the gathered people of Arivaca and beyond, and he was happy, he was proud. His father had given him the name under far less honorable circumstances, but he’d done it, Jack knew, with noble intentions. Jack had passed it along with equal sincerity. He shook Ben’s hand, and felt the boy’s grip. He looked into Ben’s eyes for some sign of appreciation or judgment, some kind of recognition, but found none. The young man’s eyes were dark with adolescence, guarded, and Jack rejoiced in his own incomprehension. It meant the boy was normal, after all. It meant there’d be no easy pleasing him. Just as there’d been no pleasing himself.
Then Jesse leaned in close to his ear.
“I knew it was you all along,” she said.
Up on Warsaw Canyon Road, the evening bus blew its horn, and Jack jerked his head out of habit to see it pushing slowly through a group of Indians spilled over from their perch across the street. They cleared the way, but craned their necks as they did, looking down into the festival and onto the stage.
New Dead Families 