Free Keeping Promise Rock by Amy Lane

February wind. “Man—what the hell’s wrong?” Patrick shook his head, unable to speak, and Crick started to panic.
    “Oh God—Patrick, is it Deacon? Has something happened to Deacon?”
    Patrick passed a hand in front of his eyes and shook his head again—
    this time a definite “no.”
    “No, boy—I was hoping you’d seen him, that’s why I came by. I….” He looked apologetic, but it was clear his heart was broken, so Crick was ready to forgive him anything. “This is a hell of a way to tell you, Crick, but I’m so worried about Deacon, and I wanted him to tell you himself, but now I just want to know he’s okay!”
    Crick knew this feeling—oh sweet Jesus, he knew this feeling. “Oh God, Patrick… what happened?”
    Patrick swallowed and nodded absently at Crick’s art teacher, who had come outside to see what the deal was with the stranger on campus.
    “It’s Parish, Crick—he was working Evening Comet this morning and he just….” Patrick’s voice broke completely. “He just dropped. I called the ambulance and Deacon got there and there was his father, and…
    Crick, he was dead—hell, before I got to him he was dead. Just gone.” Crick’s vision went sort of an icky pewter gray, and he heard Ms.
    Thompson talking to him from the bottom of a well. “Where’s Deacon?” he asked from that same well, and Patrick’s weathered hand clamped on his arm and sat him in the open side of the truck.
    “That’s why I’m here, Carrick—that boy…. You see, the coroner got there, and they got Parish on the gurney and Deacon….” More tears.
    When he was nine, Crick would have said this man couldn’t cry, but he sure could laugh. Now he wasn’t sure if Patrick would ever laugh again.
    “Deacon said ‘Daddy?’ and it was the same voice he used when his mama was put on that same damned bus. Then he… he was just gone. Jumped on Keeping Promise Rock

    the back of that three-year-old. Damned horse was just milling around the yard, I was so tore up. It’s been an hour. Crick… I’m so worried.” Parish? Deacon’s dad—the first person to ever stand up for Carrick for anything at all? The man who’d greeted him every morning with coffee and breakfast—hell, even just Pop Tarts—and asked him what he was doing that day?
    And to watch him and Deacon talk—about horses, about movies, about the state of the world—it was like a textbook on hope, about what family should be to each other.
    “Oh Jesus,” Crick mumbled, climbing out of his own misery for the first time in his life. “Deacon. Patrick, we’ve got to find him!” Lucky for Crick, he had an idea of where to look.
    Patrick had a key to the gate of the adjoining property, and as the truck jounced along the rough track towards Promise Rock, Crick tried to man up for whatever he might find there—even if what he found was no Deacon.
    But Deacon was there.
    They saw the horse first, and Patrick shoved the truck keys into Crick’s hands as they walked around the irrigation stream toward the narrow end, where a little bridge sat for convenience. Since Crick had been there mostly in the summer, he couldn’t remember ever using the bridge—when it was a hundred and five degrees in the shade, it was easier just to swim across—but he sure was grateful for it now.
    “I’ll take Comet back,” Patrick murmured. “He’s going to need you.”
    Crick doubted it. Deacon needed a grown-up. A mother or a father or… hell, anyone but Crick, who had been successfully fucking up his own wet dreams since he’d been having them.
    Still, Deacon looked happy to see him when he hoisted himself up to the top of the boulder and plopped his ass down on the cold granite.
    “Hey, Crick,” he said with a faint smile. “Getting out of school again?”
    “Yeah.” Crick swallowed, hard. “You know—slacking as usual.” Deacon nodded, still staring off into the vacant field on the other side of the swimming hole. It was green with the