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shoulders back, and said, “No, ma’am.” Then he looked back up the yard toward the driveway. “Maybe a little,” he confessed.
    “I won’t tell if you won’t. C’mon.” I grabbed his arm, his muscles tensin’ beneath my grasp. Doin’ somethin’ so many would see as wrong was exhilaratin’. I pulled him through the fields, through the line of trees that edged our property, to the creek that ran right through the outskirts of town. Maggie and I had spent hours there when we were young, throwin’ leaves in and followin’ them downstream as they drifted in the water.
    We walked in nervous silence, until we could no longer see the roof of my farmhouse. I pushed away Daddy’s warnin’. My excitement about talkin’ with him was not hampered by fear of what might happen if we were caught. In fact, just the opposite. Elation danced within me! For once I wasn’t standin’ by Jimmy Lee’s side, wonderin’ who he’d hurt next. I didn’t feel as though I had to hide my face, like I did when I ran into old friends from highschool, because I’d found a dead body. This man was fightin’ for our country. He wasn’t fightin’ against our own men. He already knew that I’d found his uncle, and he didn’t look at me like I was somehow tainted because of it.
    “My name is Alison,” I said as we walked by the creek.
    “I’m Jackson,” he answered. He walked a careful distance from me, and I appreciated the space. Each time I glanced at him, he was lookin’ either down or straight ahead. He had a gentle face and full lips. Every so often, lines would form on his forehead, like he was thinkin’ of somethin’ important. I wondered how scared he really was, and I wondered why I wasn’t.
     
    When we reached the “Y” in the stream, where it bloomed in one direction and narrowed in the other, I leaned against a tree and watched him.
    “I’m really sorry about Albert,” I said.
    Jackson sat down on a big rock near the water’s edge. He picked up a stick and poked it in the water. “Yeah,” he said, shakin’ his head.  A bead of perspiration spread across his brow.
    “So you want to work for Daddy?”
    “My family needs the money. I’m home for a week, so—” he shrugged.
    I hadn’t thought about him goin’ back. “What’s it like? The war, I mean? Vietnam?”
    He turned to me and somethin’ changed in his eyes. They grew darker, more serious. “It’s like havin’ a million guys all chasin’ you at the same time, only they have guns, and so do you, so you can kill them before they kill you. And every day you realize you’re damned lucky to have survived.” He turned back toward the water and tossed the stick in. “As a matter of fact, it’s a lot like livin’ here, only here, you’re not the one with the guns.”
    I sat down beside him. He inched away, stiffened. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
    “Sorry about your uncle,” I whispered. I realized how much death this man must have seen, and it sent a shiver down my spine.
    “Me, too,” he said. “He was a good man.”
    “Do you know why he was killed? I’ve heard rumors about his wife’s—indiscretions—but in this town you never know what’s true.” Rumor had her sleepin’ with Jimmy Lee’s uncle. I had no proof of the truth of that situation, but everyone in town believed it. I leaned on my elbow, watchin’ him fold and unfold his hat.
    He nodded, glanced my way, then turned back toward the water.
    I waited; each second drew my curiosity about him further toward the surface. I felt my cheeks flush. I was slowly becomin’ more upset with Daddy, with this town, and with the way people treated one another. This was life. This was what we were given. I knew that if Daddy was here, he’d ask me who I thought I was to think things should be any different, and I wondered what Mama would say. I thought of her face when she came back to the car behind the furniture store, her eyes fastened on the road like it was a path