Valknut: The Binding Read Online Free PDF

straightening, its
ragged end growing sharp, until it became a spear so large the
squirrel couldn’t possibly hold it in its tiny paws. Yet it lifted
the spear and threw. A sharp pain lanced Lennie’s side. Before she
could cry out, her weight fell hard on the rope about her neck. Her
spine cracked with a red bloom of agony. The air burst into flame
around her, and the tree, the ravens, the squirrel, even the very
light were gone.
    She dreamed no more.
     
     

Chapter 2
     
    The knots in Junkyard’s shoulders eased when
he heard Lennie crawl into the dark interior of the boxcar. He
rolled to his back, stretched, and resumed his cross-legged
position by the door. Despite what he had said, he had no intention
of sleeping.
    Another murder. The victim, Tin Can Petey,
was an old hobo with a dopey, gap-toothed smile and sheepdog hair.
A bit eccentric, maybe, but harmless.
    As harmless as my brother.
    Junkyard tried to picture Tin Can Petey as he
had last seen him, playing spoons by the fire in an Owatonna
jungle, but he couldn’t separate Petey’s face from his brother’s,
murdered the same way a year before. He closed his eyes, succumbing
to the memory that had looped endlessly through his head on so many
sleepless nights since Austin’s death.
    Back then—a lifetime ago, it seemed—there was
no Junkyard Doug. Just Captain Douglas Harding on his last day of
leave. He could still hear the ring of the early-morning phone call
that had started it all. He had reached for the phone, certain the
caller was Lieutenant Matthew Patterson, who had stopped by for a
few beers the night before. Doug had just found Matt’s wallet
behind the toilet.
    “Hey, Matt,” he said, smiling. “What exactly
were you doing in my bathroom last night?”
    The other end was silent for a moment. Then a
deep voice said, “Captain Harding, this is Colonel Norton. I have
some bad news, son. Can you be at my office at 0830 hours?”
    An hour later, the Colonel’s adjutant showed
Doug into a large, sparsely furnished office. As soon as Doug saw
the somber face of the Chaplain seated next to Norton’s desk, he
knew.
    Something had happened to Austin.
    The Chaplain told him that an FRC railroad
detective had called. They’d found a man’s body on a freight train,
on the platform of a grain car. The wallet was still in the back
pocket of his jeans. Austin’s wallet. Doug had put Austin on a
train just two days before.
    Doug moved through the next few hours in a
stupor. He felt gutted, robbed of the ballast that had given him a
sense of place, of duty. After his father had died years before,
Doug had tried to be as much a father as a brother to Austin. It
was for Austin that Doug had forgone college scholarships and
signed with the army, sending his paychecks home to give Austin the
childhood Doug never had. Where Doug had spent high school working
at a scrap yard, Austin played sports, went on dates, even ran for
school president. Doug had shaved his head, survived basic, and got
his butt shot at, all so Austin could grow a ponytail and join the
flannel and denim brigade at the University of Minnesota.
    And now Austin was gone. Murdered. Doug was
to fly to Topeka to ID the body.
    Doug packed without thinking, shoving a
mismatched assortment of army and civilian clothing into his duffle
bag. Out of habit, he stood before the mirror to don his dress
greens for the flight. Cleaned and pressed, pants tucked neatly
into his jump boots, the uniform looked perfect. But the face that
looked back at him belonged to a stranger—too pale, already too
haggard to fit the uniform.
    When the Humvee arrived to drive him to Pope
Air Force Base, he grabbed his bag and reached for the beret
hanging on the coat rack. Next to it, his brother’s jean jacket
hung from a hook, forgotten in Austin’s rush to catch a train. Doug
lifted it down and held it like a baby. It clinked with buttons
that encrusted it like barnacles, a lifelong collection obtained
anywhere from