Diamond Buckow Read Free Page B

fit.
    Aloud he said, “You might have a point there, Buckshot, but it don’t change the facts none. Gerald’s still got you dead to rights, so you’d best not get his ire up no more. Go on home, now, boy, but come see me as soon as you can. We’ll talk again, and maybe go fishin’.”
    Pete bit his underlip, trying not to cry again as he shuffled the short distance home. Above all, he decided as he reached the cool darkness of the woodshed, he didn’t want his stepfather ever to see tears on him, no matter how hard he hit him. Nor his sister, either, whom he had just glimpsed playing with a ball in the front yard. It would shame him for Rebekah to know he couldn’t take a whipping.
    Halfheartedly, he began to look for a paddle, but then he questioned himself. Why should he? If Hamm was going to be that mean, let him find something to beat with on his own.
    The faint light in the small shed grew suddenly even dimmer as a large figure imposed itself in the doorway. Pete glanced up sharply to see his stepfather staring at him. A short, thick plank already waited in his hand. The boy backed into the farthest corner of the shed, turning his face to the wall. Gerald, without so much as a word, grabbed him and brought blow after blow down on his buttocks.
    After a time Hamm stopped the punishment long enough to take a look at Pete’s white, but stonelike, face.
    â€œThink you’re too big and brave to cry out, do you, boy?” he challenged. “Well, we’ll just have to see about changing your tune.”
    Sweating, he began to beat harder and faster until Pete couldn’t stand any more, started shrieking, and couldn’t stop.
    â€œThere, that’s better,” Hamm grunted in satisfaction. He grinned, dropping the plank as he wiped his hands on the sides of his pants and wheeled around to leave.
    Pete sank to the earthen floor, sobbing, grateful to be alone in the quiet mustiness of the woodshed. Then he was abruptly aware of the door creaking open again, and this time the shadow cast was from someone not much taller than himself.
    â€œBrother?” a high, sharp voice demanded. “Brother, I know you’re in here. I could hear you screaming from ’way up in front of the house. What’s the matter?”
    â€œRebekah!” Pete breathed harshly, his humiliation now complete. “Just leave me alone. Don’t ask any questions. Go away, Sis. Please.”
    The door squeaked softly, and the light shifted. “Thanks for being here,” he muttered bitterly at the girl, who had already gone.
    Pete Buckow was unknowingly alone in his misery. “You make me feel like hell. Thanks, Sis.”

Chapter Three
    â€œThanks, Sis. You just can’t know how much that cool water helps.”
    In the summer Sunday twilight, the fifteen-year-old shifted his bruised body against his bed. A pallet on the back porch of the house where he and Rebekah lived with their mother and stepfather.
    â€œI sure did take a beating this time,” Pete said ruefully, wincing as he moved.
    His sister’s cold gray eyes traveled without emotion from Buckow’s torn clothes to his battered face.
    â€œWho were you scrapping with, Brother? It’s easy to see you got the worst of it.”
    He tried on a grin, but it hurt. “Well, believe it or not, Sis, it was on account of you.”
    â€œMe? What do you mean?” Rebekah’s lithe, slender body tensed as she knelt over him with the dipper from the well in her hand.
    Pete was aware of her tautness, even in her firm small breasts that mounded just above his head.
    â€œTell me more,” she demanded, giving him another gulp of water. “Because I certainly don’t need anyone to fight battles for me.”
    â€œOh, yes, you do. Especially when it’s a lowlife like that Jim Gates you’ve been seeing.”
    Buckow ignored her gasp of astonishment.
    â€œSis, you’ll have to