William Evans

William remembers when he was younger, he used to like the Fourth, the parades with the veterans from the Revolution and the War of 1812. It was nicer when they lived farther East, Mark was sick but the Fourth felt lighter somehow. Once the War started, every Fourth got tougher as the casualty lists got longer and then there was Gettysburg. By the time his father came back and the War was over, the Fourth was weighted down by too many deaths to be happy about it. After Contention, it was lonelier but he got better at hiding how all the talk of heroes drew his thoughts to his father dead and forgotten in the dust. Dan Evans was a hero who sacrificed for his country but in Bisbee, he was a man who didn't know how to properly manage his land.

In Bisbee, everything's smaller and noisier and harder, he knows his mother enjoys the baking and contests. There she gets a chance to shine and she even smiles a few times while Mark spends his pennies on rock candy and sticks close to William.

The parade's not that long but there are still veterans who march as the miners and railroad men start getting drunker. When Tom Hollander starts bragging about his new school and how one of his teachers is a real hero, William can feel his temper start to rise. Mark tries to help by talking about new dime novels and how their mother will win for one of her pies. When Hollander asks if Dan was really a hero, William takes a breath before asking, "You want to do this?"

Tom laughs and starts taking off his jacket, "Yeah, I do, Evans."

William takes off his jacket and goes after Tom in the schoolyard. No one pulls them apart because all the attentions on the rest of the fair and a crowd of boys and girls circles around them cheering as neither one comes out ahead. There's a holler from someone in the crowd and Hollander's off and laughing as William lies in the dust as he feels his left eye start to swell, checks his teeth and tastes blood on his lips. He can't count all the bruises as he looks up to Mark and his mother and considers closing his eyes to hide from the disappointment in their faces. Mark kneels down and helps him up as their mother frowns and whispers, "Oh William."

They spend what's left of the day on the edges before heading back before darkness falls and once he's been cleaned up and scolded, William goes to the barn. Up in the loft, he looks at the sketch of his father Wade did and wonders if anything can ever be as simple and good as it once was as Horus sleeps on his leg.

Because your daddy wasn't supposed to die.

The words keep running through William's head as he goes to a room upstairs. He knows Wade meant it, doesn't make sense for him to lie. He ends up on the bed with his head in his hands and wishing he'd gone home, at least there he could find that drawing, the only thing left from that day.

Wade saw something in his father, they just understood each other. Then it all fell apart at the train station and now there's this other place, but it doesn't feel like a beginning.

Milliways seems like it should be, there's books to read and folks who care, but William just doesn't know. He hasn't had a good night's sleep in about three nights so he ends up falling asleep as his thoughts keep turning on Wade and his father.

In the darkest part of the night, he wakes up sweating from a nightmare of bullets and coughing that ends with burying Mark. This isn't the right room and his brother isn't there and he cries in frustration and then can't stop. When the tears exhaust him, he sleeps again and doesn't wake until the sun slants through the curtains and he lays in bed, trying to feel like a man before he faces the world.