The boy was standing on the catwalk around the inner palisade wall, a piece of straw between his teeth as he gazed out over the land spread before him.
“Mind if I come up?” Ryan called.
Dean looked down, startled. “I can come down.”
“Rather come up if you don’t mind,” Ryan said. “Been inside these walls all day. Be good to look out some.”
Dean nodded.
Ryan scaled the ladder easily and clambered up beside his son. “See anything you like?”
“Everything. I haven’t gotten out much in the time I’ve been here. Field trips occasionally, camp-outs overnight even less. Still not used to having walls around me all the time.”
Ryan grinned and tousled his son’s hair. “Know how you feel.” He stood beside Dean and looked out over the world, feeling the wanderlust calling to him, making him want to roll on to see what he could see. “We’re clearing out of here tomorrow morning.”
“I thought it would be sooner.”
“If we hadn’t been through everything like we were, might have been sooner.” He looked at Dean. “Got to ask you what you want to do, though.”
Dean returned his gaze, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”
“I talked it over with Brody. He says you’re welcome to stay here if you want. Instead of kicking you out of school for prowling, he’s willing to work out some other punishment that’ll allow you to stay in your classes if you’d rather.”
Dean looked a little disappointed. “Good to know.”
“He says you’re a good student, showing some real potential.”
“I’ve been studying hard.”
“I know that, too.”
Dean looked deep into Ryan’s eyes. “What if I asked to come with you?”
“Then you’d have to have all your gear packed and be ready to move out at daybreak.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate, then a broad smile lit Dean’s face. “You mean it?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t do the whole year.”
“You did enough,” Ryan said, “for now. You want to come back later, we’ll see about that, too. I just thought right now it might be difficult for you to leave with Phaedra hanging around and such.”
Dean shook his head. “She knows, Dad. She told me that I’d be leaving soon as I could. Said she could see it in my eyes. Went on to tell me I’m not a domesticated bird. I’m born to the wild. But that doesn’t mean I can’t come see her if I get back this way.”
“Sometimes a woman knows a man’s heart more than he knows it himself, son. Man gets too used to living by his wits, and stopping to feel things slows that down.”
“I guess so,” Dean agreed. “You mind if I go tell Phaedra?”
“Go ahead,” Ryan said.
Dean grabbed the sides of the ladder and wrapped his feet around them, creating just enough friction to let himself slide safely down the ladder. When he hit the ground, he took off running.
“Dean!” Ryan called.
The boy turned around, eyes full of mischief and a big grin on his face.
“One other thing.”
“What’s that, Dad?”
“When I get up in the morning,” Ryan said, “I don’t want to hear about you being caught on top of the dorm in the middle of the night again.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Dean called back. “Nobody’s going to catch me.”
Ryan turned quickly, before his son could see him start to laugh. He saw Krysty out in the vegetable gardens, going through plants and vines with students, her hair flame red in the bright sunlight.
He thought about her and him, and how things might be if they had a place of their own. Krysty would love the children they had, bring them up in gardens like the one out there, be content in a small house.
Ryan couldn’t see it happening any time soon. But the thought was pleasant enough. After a few more minutes, he went down to join Krysty, to share in one more peaceful afternoon before they once again took up their journey through Deathlands.
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