Carnal Innocence

could live in that fine, big house, trading your father’s life for a soft bed and a life of sin.” His eyes flattened like a snake’s as he shook Cy off his feet. “You got the evil inside you, boy. With Daddy gone, it’s up to me to crush it out.”
    His arm reared back. Even as Cy was covering his face in defense, Jim was leaping. He grabbed Vernon’s arm with both hands and hung on, kicking. Between the two of them, they were still fifty pounds short of Vernon’s weight, but fear and loyalty added sinew. Vernon was forced to drop Cy in a heap so that he could buck Jim off. The minute he dragged Cy up, Jim was on him again, agile as a ferret. This time he hitched on to Vernon’s back, hooking an arm around the thick neck.
    “Run, Cy.” Jim clung like a leech while Vernon struggled to yank him off. “Run! I got him.”
    But Cy wasn’t going anywhere. After shaking his head clear, he got back to his feet. His nose was bleeding a little from his last fall, and he swiped a hand under it. He thought he understood now what Jim had meant when he’d said he’d been numb. Cy was numb. His ears were ringing—either from the blow or from adrenaline. Inside his thin chest his heart was banging against his ribs like a spoon against a kettle.
    The lights were all on him. Beyond the circle made by him, his brother, and Jim, all was shadowy to his vision. The music of the calliope had slowed to a funeral dirge.
    He swiped more blood away, then fisted his smeared hands. “I ain’t going to run.” He’d run from his father. It felt as though he’d been running all of his life. And here and now was the time to take his stand. What was left of his innocence had fled, and he was a man. “I ain’t going to run,” he repeated, and hefted his bloody fists.
    Vernon shook Jim off and grinned. “Think you can take me on, you little shit?”
    “I ain’t going to run,” Cy said again quietly. “And you ain’t going to whip up on me anymore either.”
    Still grinning, Vernon spread his arms. “Take your best shot. It’ll be your last.”
    Cy’s fist snaked out. He would think later that it had been as if he’d had no control over it. His arm, his clenched hand, and the fire behind it had been something apart. And its aim was deadly keen.
    Blood spurted from Vernon’s nose. There was a roar from the crowd that had gathered, that blood-lust roar that humans seem unable to prevent when one of their kind wars with another. Cy heard it as a tidal wave of satisfaction even as the power of the punch shot pain up his own arm.
    “Well, well.” Tucker stepped out of the shadows misting Cy’s vision, and stepped between them. “Y’all putting on a side show? What’s the price of admission?”
    Blood dripped down his face as Vernon bared his teeth. “Get the hell out of my way, Longstreet, or I’ll cut right through you.”
    “You’ll have to, to get to him.” There was a trace of that lust in Tucker’s eyes as well. The midway lights glinted on them, turning them gold as a cat’s. “Taking a page out of your father’s book, Vernon? Slapping down what’s smaller than you?”
    “He’s my kin.”
    “That’ll always be a mystery to me.” Tucker threw out an arm when Cy started to move around him. “You just hold on, son. I’m not going to tell you twice.” He could feel the air tremble between him and Cy. Not with fear; fear had a different rhythm. This was energy. The boy would have gotten a few good shots in, Tucker mused. Before Vernon broke him to pieces. “You’re not laying another hand on him, Vernon.”
    “And who’s going to stop me?”
    The thought of having his face battered again made Tucker sigh. The last bruises had barely faded. “I reckon I am.”
    “And me.” Sweaty and far from steady, Dwayne stepped beside his brother.
    One by one, men moved out of the crowd and ranged themselves beside the Longstreets. Cy had been wrong—there were more than a few who would havecome forward, and they did now. Black and white, forming a silent wall that spoke eloquently of justice.
    Vernon flexed frustrated fists. “He can’t hide all the time.”
    “He isn’t hiding now,” Tucker said. “I think he’s proved that. He may be half your size, Vernon, but he’s twice the man you are. And he’s under my protection. Your mother signed a paper that makes it so. You’d best leave it alone.”
    “Whatever you paid her to sign him away, he’s still my blood. You got too much of my blood