33 The Return of Bowie Bravo by Christine Rimmer Page A

to push the door carefully closed until the latch clicked. After that, he simply stood there, with his back against the door, wearing an expression that said he’d rather be just about anywhere else.
    Bowie said, “You can hang your coat on that peg there.” He pointed with his roughed-out piece of basswood.
    “It’s okay.” The boy didn’t move. His hair was still wet from his bath, slicked down close to his head. Bowie would have bet good money that he smelled of soap and toothpaste, but he doubted the kid would get close enough for him to know for sure.
    Bowie lowered his head and went to work again, putting his concentration on the small job between his hands, telling himself that he wasn’t going to push. Not now. If he looked up and Johnny was gone, well, so be it. There would be other bedtimes.
    This wasn’t his only chance. Even if it felt like it.
    One step. Two. In his peripheral vision, Bowie could see Johnny’s rubber boots. Come on. It’s okay.…
    There. No doubt. The smell of toothpaste.
    “What are you making?” Johnny asked.
    “A train set.” Bowie kept shaving away at the wood.
    Johnny was maybe three feet from Bowie’s chair. “You mean a whole train set, with cars and an engine, a caboose and everything, all out of wood?”
    “Yes, that’s what I mean.”
    “That’s a funny-looking knife. What kind of knife is that?” Johnny reached out a hand.
    Bowie sent him a warning glance. “Don’t touch it. It’s very sharp. It’s called a bench knife.” He held the knife up—but out of the way. “Nice rounded wooden handle, a short, stable blade, tapered so that the tip can get into tight spaces, but wide at the base, so it’s strong enough for heavy cuts.…”
    Johnny’s eyes kind of glazed over. Bowie almost grinned. Okay, the wonders of his bench knife were a little over the head of a six-year-old.
    But a train set sure wasn’t. “How many cars?” Johnny asked.
    “Well, I think at least ten. More, if I feel ambitious.”
    “More than ten.” Eyes wide as saucers. “Will you paint it and everything?”
    “I sure will.”
    “That would be good.”
    “I’ll remember you said that.”
    “Who will it be for—I mean, when it’s finished?”
    Bowie set his knife on the table by his chair and reached for the mug of coffee he’d mixed up a while ago using the water he kept going on the stove and a jar of instant he’d picked up at the grocery store yesterday. He sipped, trying to think how to tell Johnny it was for him without making some big deal of it.
    But he never got a chance to say the words he was so carefully choosing. In the split second he had glanced away, Johnny had reached for the knife.
    He must have got it by the blade.
    Out of nowhere, blood was spurting.
    And Johnny dropped the knife to the floor and let loose with a long, loud, terrified scream.

Chapter Six
    I n the kitchen, Glory heard Johnny scream. She flew out the back door and raced for the barn, shoving back the door to the workshop so hard that it banged against a workbench, rattling a bunch of tools hanging on a pegboard above.
    She saw Johnny by the stove, holding his right wrist with his left hand. Blood poured from right palm. He turned and looked at her. “Mom,” he said. He seemed calm now. There had been only that one terrible shriek. “I cut myself.…”
    Glory wanted to run to him, but something held her back. Maybe that he seemed so calm. If she got all over him, he would only get upset again.
    Plus, Bowie was there, beside him, with a white T-shirt in his hands. As she watched, Bowie ripped a strip off the shirt and wrapped it quickly—and tightly—around the wound.
    “Make a fist of your hand and hold it up,” Bowie said, “over your head.…”
    Johnny’s T-shirt-wrapped fist shot into the air. “This way?”
    “That’s it. Just right. The blood doesn’t pump so hard when you keep the wound up above your heart.”
    “Above my heart,” Johnny repeated in a dazed and