The Benders Read Online Free PDF

holler. You got no idea what these people can do. He could’ve had a gun.”
    Ethan frowns. “Clay says I need to learn to defend myself. How’m I gonna do that if I never get the chance to fight?”
    I glance at Clay, who’s been listening all this time. Suddenly he’s real interested in the dead man’s pockets. I blow out a breath. “You don’t need to go looking for a fight. Fights seem to come to us.”
    Ethan says nothing. I grab his shoulder. “Look at me.” He glances up and then back at his knees. “Look at me, Ethan. Do you think Mama would be happy if something happened to you?”
    He sniffs. “Mama’s dead.”
    It’s like a punch. I suck in my cheeks. “She died saving your life. Don’t throw it away pretending to be a man.”
    Ethan stares up at me with tear-filled eyes. “You’re acting just like dad when you wanted to go into town. He didn’t want you to learn how to fight, but look what happened.”
    “I was sixteen.”
    Ethan stares into my face, his eyes hollow and his chin trembling. “Doesn’t matter when someone’s trying to kill you.”
    I take a breath, but he turns, opens the passenger door, and slips out before I can stop him.
    “Ethan!” I call as he runs over the yard and up the porch.
    A hand on my arm stops me from going after him. Clay slides into the truck beside me.
    “I’m not his Mama,” I say. “I can’t do this.”
    Clay puts his arm around my shoulder. “Ri, there’s nothing you cannot do.”
    I sigh and lean my head into his shoulder. “If only that were true.”
    ***
    That day we sleep inside my parents’ farm house. Ethan holes himself up in Mama and Arn’s room upstairs. Through the cracks in the floor, I hear him crying. Maybe stopping here was a bad idea. Clay and I decide to let him have the house for a little while and take refuge in the barn. It’s cooler there and the animal smell has faded.
    Before we settle down, I poke around Arn’s workbench and find a few of the tools no one wanted. The broken chair’s still upturned on the workbench, waiting to be fixed. I touch his rags and his stool, worn smooth by him sliding on and off all those times.
    “Hard to face the past, ain’t it?”
    I turn and Clay’s standing beside Arn’s shelves, peering into them. All the useful stuff’s gone, but Clay touches the few items that remain—a broken saw handle, a rusty screw driver, an empty glass jar.
    “I met Arn only once, but he seemed like a right decent fella.” Clay sets the glass jar down and looks at me. “What was he like?”
    “Arn?” I ask, running a finger along the rough wood of the desk. “Quiet. Hardworking. Good at fixin’ stuff. You know, like most men out here.” I swallow over a giant lump in my throat.
    “He wasn’t like most men,” Clay says, leaning against the work bench. “He hid three women under the noses of the Breeders and my pa. Had guts.” Clay thumps his fist against the desk, one corner of his mouth lifting. Then he goes quiet. “I ever tell you how he died?”
    I lower my eyes to the dirt and slowly shake my head. “Do I wanna hear?”
    Clay rubs a hand along his neck and sighs. “I don’t have to if you don’t want.”
    I take in a deep breath. “Tell.”
    Clay nods, running a hand down my arm. “When I got back from lockin’ you and Ethan in the cellar, they’d already overtaken your parents. Had ’em pinned down behind your kitchen table. My pa called out, sayin’ if they came out easy, no one would be hurt. But Arn seemed too smart for all that noise. He walked your ma and Auntie out, and just when he was about to hand ’em over, he lunged at my pa. Almost got ’im with a knife. My pa was so shocked he stumbled down the porch and fell on his ass.” Clay shakes his head. “That’s when he told his boys to shoot Arn.”
    “That’s an awful story,” I say, rubbing a hand over my mouth.
    “What I meant to say was, Arn never stopped fightin’. Until the last.”
    I say nothing, just