He kept his eyes on the trail, watching for any sign of the adults, and he forced fresh snow onto the cut until the bleeding seemed to slow. He put his mittens back on. He retraced his steps back to the trailer, stopping once more along the way to make sure the knife was still in his pocket.

That afternoon, after a lunch of chili and onions, his father cleared the table while his uncle shuffled a deck of cards. They had been trying to teach Timmy how to play euchre all week, a process made more difficult by the fact that they did not have a fourth player. His father was once again explaining trump cards and tricks when he noticed the gash on Timmy’s hand. The cut had scabbed over, a black crust with specks of fluff stuck in it from the material inside his mittens.

“Timmy, what happened to your hand? Let me see that.”

Timmy set down his cards and obediently held out his hand for his father’s examination.

“I don’t know,” Timmy said at first.

A moment passed and then he said, “I must have cut it on a thorn.”

His father looked up at him.

“That doesn’t look like something a thorn did, Timmy,” his father said, peering again at the wound.

“It looks like a knife. Are you sure?”

He raised his head and searched Timmy’s face, giving him one more chance to tell the truth.

But Timmy wasn’t looking at his father. He was looking at his uncle. He was waiting for his uncle to lift his coward’s eyes from his cards and match his gaze. It seemed like he was willing to wait forever.

 

Chad Tracy is a writer and musician based in Austin, Texas. He has spent the last several years sparring with a Texas Golden Gloves Champion, raising his six-year-old daughter, and finishing his third novel, The Governor Of Texas. He plays guitar with the jazz group, “The 34th Street Jazz Band,” and teaches through the Informal Classes program at the University of Texas. Two recent short stories have been published in the May 2012 issue of Poydras Review and the May 2012 issue of Penduline Literary Magazine. Two of his novels, The Governor’s Daughter and Ward and Savannah, have just been released for purchase on Amazon’s Kindle.