lights on the rides began flashing.
“Can’t we ever go back?”
“Kid, look at us. We’re down to nothing. So no,” he said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. You can, if you want. What happened at the school—you know they’re pinning that on me.”
Seen from Edinburgh’s serenity, the boy who had wreaked such repugnant vengeance was a stranger. Giant waves of shame shook through me. It had been I who had chased Harnett from Bloughton, I who had burned down his home. Harnett let me twist in silence for several minutes, yet I felt no malice. If anyone was inclined to forgive Bad Jobs, it was my father.
“So what about the Gatlins?” I finally asked.
“Until they have my body, they might come after you.”
“Let them.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“I know how to run,” I said. “I know how to fight.”
“The fighting has to end sometime.”
“It will,” I said. “With me, I’m the last one.”
Harnett stretched and leaned against the rock ledge at our back. Pink clouds held back the rain and the air smelled like sugar.
“Everything we learned from Lionel, this is where we learned it.” He scanned the sky and looked more placid than I had ever seen him. I knew instantly that if I returned to the States alone, this was how I wanted to remember my father. “What Boggs said was the truth. We were brothers. We were.” He looked at me, then at his feet. “I should have come for you. I should have found you.”
Regret hurt so badly that my fingers, those that remained, went numb.
“I’m sorry.” As insufficient as it was, it was all I could say. “Harnett, I’m sorry.”
“Hey, kid,” he said. “Call me Ken.”
36.
WE DRANK OUR TEA on the front steps of an old church after awakening from a night in the park and laughing at the patterns the grass had left on our faces. Fog hung close to the ground, smearing the morning streetlights, and so it was a great surprise when a young man emerged from the haze. With his shoulder bag and secondhand jacket he looked like a student, but it was his American accent that all but confirmed it.
“One of you Ken Harnett?” he asked.
We glanced at each other over the steaming rims of our paper cups.
“Oh, that’s awesome,” the man said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Harnett was instantly suspicious. “Really?”
“Really! I’m an American!”
Harnett and I shared another glance.
The guy laughed a little. “I guess that’s probably obvious,” he said. “Anyway, I’m with the Study Abroad program. Engineering. That’s not at George Square, unfortunately. It’s over at the Kings Buildings, couple miles south of city center. You know it?”
Harnett nodded.
“Awesome, awesome. It’s always awesome to meet a countryman! I’m from North Dakota! But anyway, anyway. I have something for you.”
He reached into an inside jacket pocket and withdrew an envelope. It was stained and wilted, as if it had traveled a long distance to reach us.
“I’ve got a little job-type thing at the mail center and a few days back this thing came in, inside a bigger envelope, and it had these special instructions. It said it was for an American guy named Ken Harnett who was over here with his seventeen-year-old son. And it had a list of the places where you might be hanging out. And here’s the craziest part. There was money. Fifty bucks. I’m not kidding, like a fifty-dollar bill just taped to the bottom of the letter. Most guys maybe just would’ve pocketed the cash but I was thinking—”
Harnett’s hand was out. “Give it to me.”
“Oh, right.” The guy looked down at the letter somewhat forlornly. “I’ve been to every hostel and park within like twenty miles of here. The cemeteries, too, for some reason.”
Harnett snapped his fingers. “Give it.”
The guy shrugged. “Not that the British guys wouldn’t have done the same thing, but a fellow American—”
Harnett swiped the letter from the guy’s hand and went about tearing it open. The student was too surprised to be offended.
“I wish we could give you something,” I said. “But you got that fifty, at least.”
“Yeah, hey, no, that’s cool, it’s just awesome I found you, you know? Now I got a story.”
A few more niceties were offered, but it was clear that the conversation was finished. Eventually he made an excuse about classes and scooted away.
Harnett looked like a dying man just informed of a cure. He pushed the note into my hand. In a familiar elderly squiggle, it read:
K./ J.—
Msg. fr. Lahn—Lio. dec’d.