Read Online No Mercy by Lori Armstrong - Free Book Online Page A

run, shrieking and crying until the screen door slammed behind her.
    I don’t remember stuttering any poignant last words to Rufus. I hadn’t been tough enough to look in his bright blue eyes as I’d aimed the barrel at his head. I braced the buttstock on my shoulder, and pulled the trigger.
    The whimpering quit.
    I traded the shotgun for the shovel. Digging a hole took an eternity when I had to stop every shovelful to wipe my tears.
    That night when Dad finally came home, he hadn’t said a word. He’d rested my head on his strong shoulder as we rocked together on the porch swing, in silence, listening to the familiar sounds of a summer night.
    But that day had been another turning point in my life.
    “Aunt Mercy?”
    I blinked away the bad trip down memory lane. “Yeah?”
    “Did you cry? You know, afterward?”
    “Like a baby.”
    Surprise registered on his face. “How come you never told Mom you cried?”
    “It wouldn’t have mattered. I did what had to be done.” And in doing the right thing, once again I’d widened the gap between my sister and me.
    “How old were you?”
    “Twelve.”
    He nodded. “When I was twelve, I had to shoot my cat Mooshu after a skunk bit her. Grandpa let me use his gun. Mom freaked out. Like, freaked out for days.”
    “Did you cry?”
    “Yeah. But it would’ve been worse to watch Mooshu suffer.”
    “That’s true.” I took another drink. “Doing the right thing isn’t always the easiest thing, is it?”
    “Nope. But now… I don’t think I could shoot Shoonga.”
    “Because Grandpa gave him to you? And now Grandpa is gone?”
    Levi shrugged. “Mostly. Shoonga is the one thing in my life that’s just mine.”
    Silence.
    We seemed to have lost our momentum. I could let the conversation die, or I could take it to the next level.
    “You can tell me to take a flying leap, but I have to know why you really broke into Mr. P.’s place.”
    His shoulders slumped almost as if he’d known the question was coming. “You swear you won’t tell my mom or no one else?”
    “Absolutely.”
    He squirmed. “Because of Albert, I’d been trying to hang with Moser and Little Bear and them guys. They was always teasing me that I was a white kid and all the Lakota classes in the world wouldn’t make me more Indian.”
    Levi wanted to be more Indian? Why? Most days he could pass for a full-blood Sioux, with his tawny skin and brown eyes. What a bizarre reversal. Most Indian kids tried to be white, or—in the case of clothing and music—black.
    “They asked me if I’d ever seen something I’d wanted but couldn’t have.”
    “I suppose you told them something specific?”
    “I told ’em about the knife Mr. P. showed me once when I was with Grandpa. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. They said they’d let me into their group if I stole it. And if I didn’t, it just showed I was too white to hang with them.”
    “The sheriff didn’t list the knife as one of the things you stole.”
    “He don’t know about it.”
    No judgment. Just let him continue. Let it unfold at his pace, not yours.
    “The pills and booze and other stuff was to throw Mr. P. off. Even after I was caught, Mr. P. wouldn’t press charges. Moser and Little Bear said it proved I was too white to be in their club, because if a real Indian kid woulda broken into Mr. P.’s house, his red ass would’ve been tossed in jail.”
    True. “That’s what you were fighting about?”
    “Yeah. I did what they told me to for initiation, and now they still won’t let me be part of the club.”
    “Was Albert in the club?”
    “We had a big fight about it when I found out Albert didn’t have no say in who could join. He wouldn’t tell me why they were trying to keep me out. Some friend, huh? He claimed Moser is in charge, even when some other person is the main leader.”
    “Who?”
    “Don’t know. Don’t get to meet them until you pass the Warrior’s Challenge. Which means I probably