“It’s beautiful here.” Amir pulled his towel tighter around his narrow shoulders.
I nodded. I felt very proud of Horseshoe Cliff and was happy to share it with him. We dug in the sand for a while, building a web of rivers around a fortress with windows of broken white shells. I knew it would be time to leave for school soon, but with the sounds of the waves filling the air, and the sand slowly warming below me, and Amir for company, I did not feel like moving. Amir sat back on his heels and looked up. I watched his eyes follow the curve of the cliff that hugged the cove.
“That’s where my mother died,” I told him.
His mouth opened. “She fell?”
“Or maybe the cliff crumbled beneath her feet.” It did not pain me to talk about her. My father had told me that the dead never really left us, and I had taken his words to heart. “I feel her watching me when I’m on the beach. Bear hates to come down here. I think it makes him sad. But it makes me happy. Anyway, Bear will never follow us here.”
As the sun lifted in the sky, it hit Amir’s ears and made them glow. I looked at him and smiled.
When our hunger set in, we trudged back up the path. We decided we would fry eggs for our breakfast. But when we approached the chicken coop, Bear was standing outside the pen. He held one of the chickens.
The blank look on his face made me feel as though I’d swallowed a fistful of stinging nettle. On Bear, whose expression seemed so often shadowed by sullenness, that blank stare took on a semblance of pleasure. The muscles of his arms bulged. The chicken was silent and still in my brother’s grip, frightened into a kind of trance.
Suddenly, the hen released a panicked squawk and began to writhe. Bear must have been squeezing her, but his blank expression did not change.
I took a step forward, intending to intervene, but Amir’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“Hey!” he yelled to Bear.
Bear blinked and looked in our direction. His lips twitched oddly. When he threw the chicken away from him and she landed safely on the dirt, I felt a moment of relief. But then I saw that my brother was walking toward us, and he had those knives in his eyes. Without a word, we dropped our towels and ran. I was faster than Amir on land, too, and I led the way, racing toward the eucalyptus grove. I knew each turn in the path, each knot of exposed root below. Pal ran along at my side. I could hear Amir running behind me, and behind him, the heavy steps of Bear.
And then Amir was gone.
I turned and saw that he lay on his back with Bear heaving above him. I raced back to them.
Bear had one foot pressed into Amir’s chest. Amir squirmed like a cucumber beetle flipped onto its back.
“Let him go!”
My brother ignored me. I rammed my body into his, but he didn’t move. Pal’s hair stood on end and he barked frantically, looking between us in confusion.
I pulled Bear’s arm. “Let him go!” I yelled again.
“Why should I?” Bear shoved me so hard that I stumbled backward.
“Because if you don’t,” came Amir’s voice from below, as cold as the ocean we’d just swum in, “I’ll tell your father how you hit me.”
I looked down at him, surprised.
Bear’s lips curled toward a smile. “And?”
“And I’m not the one who complains about my chores. I don’t eat much. I don’t steal his beer.”
Amir’s words, coolly delivered, hung in the air. I wondered how he managed to radiate so much anger while appearing so calm.
“Don’t fool yourself,” said Bear. He ground his heel into Amir’s chest. “This isn’t your home. Who are you? Some strange Indian kid with no parents.” He bent down, pushing his face near Amir’s. His lips curled. “I’mhis son.”
Amir seemed to have clamped his teeth together to stop himself from crying out at the pain of Bear’s weight on his chest. He narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
“You’re really hurting him!” I yelled.
Amir didn’t speak.
I sank my teeth into Bear’s arm and made him howl. He struck my neck and I sunk to the ground beside Amir, coughing and trying not to cry. My brother looked down at me. His face was twisted and dark.
“If he’s ever worth really hurting, believe me, he’ll know it.” Bear gave a funny-sounding laugh, lifted his foot from Amir’s chest, and walked off toward the house.
