They battled more of the vine and climbed a small incline. Jack looked behind them but could not see any sign of the men. "Boy, you sure are accident prone," he told Cody as they started down the other side.

"Me? The ER staff … knew you by name." 

Well, yeah; that's because it was on all of the charts, genius."

"It's because you're the one … who paid for summer vacation for … half the hospital staff."

"No need to exaggerate, little brother." Jack glanced up at the sun and wished for some sign of clouds to break the intense glare and heat. Even through his sunglasses his eyes felt strained and dry. He thought of the water they carried in the two canteens he'd grabbed. He could wait and Cody would have to. Sparing the water was literally life and death now.  

"No need to exaggerate ...  because it's the … the truth. You broke your arm..."

"Lots of kids break their arm skating."

"On the roof?" Dried blood was making Cody's face itch and he squinted to relieve some of the irritation.

"I still say I should have landed on the trampoline." He studied the terrain ahead of them, mentally plotting their path. "My calculations were perfect."

"As perfect as … as you can get … with a C in math."

"Right." Jack swished his canteen to check for water level and tried not to frown. His body was screaming for the cool liquid. He thought about taking a long, satisfying drink, thought of the look on Cody's face when he was offered one, too. And, he reasoned, they still had Cody's left untouched. But they weren't halfway, or at least, he didn't think so. He slung it back over his shoulder and put the thought out of his mind, licking his lips to put at least a bit of moisture there.  And actually, he realized, his body was screaming about everything. 

He put his left arm around his brother to support him and closed his right hand into a fist and opened it wide a couple of times, stretching the tight muscles to relieve the cramping. His hand felt as if it had never moved from its iron grip on his brother's belt loop, and that before too much farther, he would find his hand frozen, unable to move, at all. He looked at the blue, cloudless sky, shifted Cody to get him ready to walk and grabbed hold of the belt loop again. Cody clutched him around the shoulder their break, over.

"The next summer," Cody continued through clenched teeth, "you tried to ramp … a parked truck and crashed … into old lady Garcia's car. Good thing she drove like … a snail. That one landed you a couple of days … in the hospital. Gave Mom her first gray hair."

"Yeah, well, that one was stupid," Jack admitted. 'And Mom would've gotten gray hair eventually, anyway."

"Glad ... we got that ... settled."

"Anyway, that was all kid's stuff." Jack smiled at Cody, trying to feel like this was just a normal conversation on a normal day. "You really are accident prone."

Cody grunted.

"Remember when you fell out of that tree?" Jack helped him step over a patch of rock.

"Tree?"

"At the park. You were about nine, I think."

"Falling out ... of a tree really is ... kid's stuff." The strain was showing more in his voice. "You ... talked me ... into skipping school."

"Hmm. I don't remember that part," Jack lied.

"Getting hurt twice … in 25 years doesn't ... make me ... accident prone."

Jack ignored his protest. "Geez, you must have hit every branch on the way down, and then landed square on my bike." He paused. "Leg busted, all tore up ... you never even cried."

"Didn't want you to think ... I was a baby," Cody panted. He was barely hanging on now, and knew he couldn't keep going much longer. Each step felt more difficult than the last. Each movement brought a fresh assault on his body.

Jack stopped again to mop the sweat off of his forehead, and wiped Cody's face as well. "I'd never think that. You're one of the strongest people I know. Always have been." Jack changed his hold, trying to grab  more around his brother's waist, wishing Cody'd had the foresight to wear a belt. His fingers were numb. "Man, was my bike trashed."

"Backside, too," Cody reminded him, "when Dad got home."

Jack smiled. "Yeah, but my backside recovered."

"You were mad," Cody remembered.

"Scared, Cody. I'll never forget the look on your face when I left to get help. I was scared."

"Me, too." Cody coughed suddenly, his knees buckled from under him and he stumbled. He grimaced and clung to Jack, catching his balance only after the spasm passed.

Jack held him and waited, concerned that a rib might have torn a lung. He wondered what he could do differently if that had happened. "You okay?"

Cody nodded and took a shallow breath. "Guess I swallowed ... a bug."

"You having trouble breathing, Code?" Jack studied his face. Cody looked far beyond exhausted.

"Hurts."

The situation was getting worse, Jack knew. The cut on the side of Cody's face had begun to bleed again and a tiny stream of blood ran down Cody's jawline to drip off his chin. The gauze strips holding the makeshift splint together were stained red. His eyes were closed, his steps faltering. If his back was bleeding again or the bullet had shifted, if the rib injury had involved a lung ... He found a shady, inconspicuous spot and headed that way. "We're going to stop again, man."

This time Cody allowed Jack to lower him to the ground with no argument. He leaned, exhausted, against the tree Jack sat him beside.

Jack knelt next to him, pushed a lock of hair out of Cody's face and helped him drink, then poured a bit of the precious water over his brother's head, watching it drip around Cody's face and onto his neck. It left tiny rivers in the dirt on Cody's cheeks . Cody moaned, this time a low, satisfied sound of gratitude. Jack studied the area around them as he took a swig out of the canteen, swished it around his parched mouth and swallowed. The late summer sun had stolen their energy as deftly as a burglar, and Jack squinted into it as he searched their surroundings for pursuers. He sighed, the dry air already destroying the cool trace of water on his lips.

"Listen," he said, rummaging through the backpack. "I'm going scouting for a minute. I won't be long. I want you to take this." He pulled his brother's gun from the front pocket of the backpack and placed it firmly in Cody's hand. "Think you can fire it if you have to?"

Cody looked up and nodded briefly. He let his eyelids fall shut and leaned further back onto the hard bark of the tree. "Jack ... you need to go—"

"I'm going to go see what's around us," Jack said firmly, cutting Cody off. "I'll be right back. You have the gun. You stay alert and use that if anybody but me comes close."

"Yeah."

"And, Code."

Cody looked up, the effort of even that simple act showing on his face. "Yeah?"

"Don't shoot me." Jack smiled.

"All the times ... I wanted to ... and now I have a gun."

"You had a gun all along, moron."

Cody frowned slightly. "Oh, yeah."

Jack turned and walked the distance to a tree tall enough to suit his purpose, with branches down low enough he had a prayer of climbing. He scaled the tree quickly, looking carefully in every direction. He saw nothing. Only once, as he stared intently in the direction from which they'd come, did he see any movement at all. A deer and her fawn broke through a ridge of trees, running toward the west. Jack watched the spot for several minutes before he moved on, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever had spooked the pair.

On his way down he lost footing. His heavy boot, not intended for tree climbing, slipped off a too small branch and his frame spun in midair, suspended from his right arm. He felt his fingers slipping and scrambled, grabbing desperately for something to latch onto, scraping the fingernails of his left hand along rough bark before he finally managed to snag another branch. He pulled his feet under him, toed a limb thick enough to hold his weight and stood atop it, gasping for breath, cursing himself for his clumsiness. Just what Cody needed, he thought; a crippled rescuer. He caught his breath and made his way to the ground carefully, sprinting back to the small grove where he'd stashed his brother.

As he moved through the thick foliage he imagined the hit men ahead of him, stepping into the tiny area where Cody lay. He pictured the one he'd seen earlier kneeling down, drawing the knife across Cody's throat, smiling. His heart pounded as he pushed through the brush to find his brother.

Cody lay unmoving, head lolled forward, slumping to his right. Jack could detect no movement, no breathing at all. He squatted at Cody's side. With one hand he checked for a pulse, with the other took the gun from his brother's limp hand. "Cody?"

Cody moaned softly and frowned. "Still alive?"

"Yeah, man. You wouldn't feel this bad if you were dead."

Cody swallowed and took a shallow breath. "Could be in Hell," he said softly.