Reaper's Salvation: A Last Riders Trilogy Jamie Begley (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📖

all. They were deleted. Only one member is born in a generation with Freddy’s gift, and usually toward the end of the previous generation’s lifetime. When Fynn’s gifts became apparent, Freddy knew it was a matter of time before he passed on.”

Reaper stared down at Suki as he continued stroking her fur. Gavin understood why Silas was describing Freddy’s gifts. “Freddy knew you were being abused.”

“One Friday he came to pick me up. When we got to the house, as I was getting out of the car, he asked if I wanted to go for walk before dinner. We walked to where Moses’ house is now; there’s a big rock not too far from there. He said, ‘let’s rest before we head back.’ So I sat down on the rock with Dad, thinking we were taking a break before heading back to the house. As we sat there, he looked down at my shoes and asked why I wasn’t wearing the new tennis shoes he bought me.”

Reaper heard Greer begin to cough. “You okay, Greer?”

“Yeah,” he rasped out, handing him the joint.

Silas waited until Greer stopped coughing before continuing his story. “I told him that the whole class had been making fun of the way Greer’s shoes smelled. Freddy asked me if I was one of the kids making fun of him. I told him I was. Then I told him how Greer followed me into the bathroom and stole my shoes when I was taking a shit.”

Reaper took another hit of the joint. He wasn’t stupid; he knew the men were trying to steer the conversation into him sharing what had happened to him. He had no intention of giving in to the sneaky maneuver. Still, his interest was caught as Silas’s story unfolded.

“You swapped shoes with Silas?”

“I was pissed.” Greer glared at his cousin. “He was always on my fuckin’ back.”

“We were both dicks.” Silas gave a crooked smile. “I grew up. I’m still waiting for Greer to. Looking back, most of it was acting out because our home lives were shit. I hadn’t told my mom about my shoes, because it would give my mother another excuse to punish me.

“I expected my dad to tell me that he would get me another pair. Instead, he told me it wouldn’t hurt for me to walk in Greer’s shoes for a while. I started crying because I knew my mother would see Greer’s old shoes before we went to church. Freddy started crying, too. ‘Son, no matter how hungry you get when you miss dinner or miss lunch, you’re never going to feel true hunger until you experience it yourself. You have a girl in your classroom whose father was laid off from the mines and hasn’t had anything to eat in two days. No matter how sorry you feel for her, you don’t understand the hunger pains that eventually go away because your body has given up hope of being fed. When I look at Greer’s shoes, I see his parents don’t have enough money to buy him a new pair. I also see parents refusing to take a handout. The sole is worn down on them. It’s a chilly day. Are your feet cold?’ he’d asked me.

“I admitted they were freezing and my socks were wet. Then my father asked, ‘So, you understand how Greer felt when he was wearing them?’ When I nodded my head, Freddie added, ‘Wearing those shoes, you now understand how he felt, but most importantly, you feel a small portion of what Greer’s life is like. As a father, I want to say let’s go to the store and get you a new pair, but that isn’t what Greer’s father would do, is it?’”

Silas took a hit of the joint and stretched his long legs before continuing. “When I said, ‘No,’ he said, ‘Then, since you’re walking in his shoes, you should fix the problem, shouldn’t you?’ Damn I wanted out of those shoes so bad. My toes were freezing off, my ass was freezing off on that rock, and Dad was still crying.”

Reaper saw the sheen of tears on Silas’s cheeks in the firelight.

“By then, it was getting dark, and I told him I was cold and wanted to go back to the house. He said he was waiting for the stars to come out. It took me for my ass to go numb before I figured out what he was doing. Dad told me he could read the stars to see what was going on in people’s lives. That’s when something clicked, and I scrunched up my legs to sit better on the rock. Dad could read the stars, like he had me looking at Greer’s shoes to find the details of Greer’s life. He wasn’t buying me a new pair of shoes, because he wanted me to solve my own problems.

“I told him about my stepfather and my mom and what she was allowing. When I told him, he quit crying. He didn’t get angry at Mom or her husband; he just sat there and listened without making a noise, even when I told him that my stepfather would kill us because I told.

“Freddy said he was going to call the sheriff, and I wouldn’t be going back to my mom’s house to live. Then he got off the rock, took out his pocket knife, and said, ‘Come here, Son.’ I got off the rock, and Freddy pointed at it. ‘This rock doesn’t have any feelings. No matter how hard you beat it without your fists, it won’t break or chip,’ Freddy went to the rock and used his knife to scratch the surface to make a mark. ‘Is the rock different now?’ he asked, and I told him it was, because he gouged it.

“He said, ‘This rock has sat here untouched for years with storms passing overhead, yet I made a mark when a tornado hasn’t. The mark will always be there because of what I did. If