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Three




The response was immediate. Mike came charging out of the bedroom upstairs, Davy from the downstairs. “Good Lord!” Mike gasped, taking in Micky’s features.

Peter turned, his face contorted into a mixture of rage and panic. He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a strangled moan.

Mike lifted Micky from him and carried him to the chaise lounge, barking out orders to Davy and reassurances to Peter.

“Is he . . . ?” Peter whispered, gesturing helplessly to Micky.

In reply, Mike nudged Micky, making him moan. “No.”

They set to work silently, removing Micky’s torn clothing and cleaning the blood from his arm and face. Once clean, Micky’s battered body looked somehow worse, the darkening bruises glaring up at them like angry red eyes, demanding to know why they hadn’t been there to protect him.

Davy lifted his arm and poured peroxide over it, making Micky hiss. “Sorry, mate,” he whispered as he tied a bandage around it. “Somebody used a shiv on him.”

“And size twelve motorcycle boots by the look of it,” Mike said.

“How could this happen?” Peter asked. “Micky can take on any punk with a knife!”

“Any punk, yeah,” Davy agreed, shaking his head in bafflement.

Mike looked up at Peter. “ANY. One on one. What if we’re not talkin’ ONE punk here?”

Peter frowned. “More than one? That’s possible, but . . . we all know how to fight against more than one opponent!”

Mike nodded. “And when we’re outnumbered, we band together.” He looked at Micky’s battered, sleeping form. “Unless one wind decides to blow alone.”

Peter got up, pacing over by the windows. When Davy went over to him, Mike heard a few hissed words and saw the fling of Peter’s arm as he shook the shorter man away.

“Peter . . . ” Mike gestured at Davy, pointing to Micky; the meaning was clear—“watch him while I talk to Peter.”

For a moment it seemed like Peter would shake Mike off as he had done Davy, but then he lowered his head, his words fast and forced. “This isn’t supposed to happen, Mike. Last time . . . it was a surprise, you getting hurt. We’re supposed to be more careful now, more alert. How could Micky just walk right into . . . that?”

“I don’t know, Peter.” Mike sighed and leaned against the window frame. “I should have gone after him.”

“You didn’t know, Mike,” Peter said. “How many times has Micky gone off on his own before and always been okay?”

“Too many,” he sighed. “But we assumed. *I* assumed. And look what happened.”

Peter turned and looked out the windows. “We all assumed.”

“And Micky paid the price.”


~~~~~




The next few days passed slowly for the residents of 1334 Beechwood. Micky stayed on the couch, slipping in and out of delirium, his body wracked with fever and soaking through clothes faster than Mike could wash them. Keeping Micky fed and hydrated became a daily battle, the drummer behaving as if the spoons and cups were attacks.

After four days with no improvement, Mike started to retreat, leaving most of the care to Peter and Davy. Peter seemed most able to calm Micky down when he woke, mumbling incoherently and struggling against his blankets, and Davy was as determined a caregiver as any mother, leaving Mike with nothing but time to think.

Peter entered Mike’s bedroom, slowly closing the door behind him. The lanky Texan was sitting across the room in half-lotus, facing the wall. Peter stared at his friend’s narrow back for some time before speaking.

“You’ve been in here all day.”

“I know,” was Mike’s quiet reply.

Peter opened his mouth to talk; to tell Mike once again that what had happened to Micky was not his fault, to stop blaming himself and trying to carry the world on his shoulders, but Mike interrupted him before he could form the first syllable.

“We jumped in too early, Peter. And we left it too late.”

The cryptic statement caught Peter off guard. “Jumped into what too early? And what did we leave too late?”

Mike turned, his stoic face even more dour than usual. “Us. The Four Winds. Righting wrongs and leaping into battle without a clue what we’re doin’.”

“I don’t think that’s quite fair, Mike. So far we’ve NEVER just ‘leaped into’ anything.”

Mike shrugged. “Maybe. But we got into this without any kind of experience. That’s why Micky’s lyin’ downstairs lookin’ like he got trampled by an elephant.”

Peter sat down on the edge of Mike’s bed. “I’m still not quite following you.”

“Think about it, Peter. We have the skills of people who have been studying how to fight all their lives. There are grandmasters in Japan who’ll never be able to do what we can . . . and they’ve been working and training all their lives. We got our skills . . . probably overnight.”

It slowly dawned on Peter what Mike was talking about. “So . . . ”

“We have the knowledge without the experience. It’s like knowin’ every damn thing about baseball without ever havin’ played a game.”

Peter just stared. Why hadn’t it ever occurred to him? It was so obvious. “It’s amazing that none of us thought of this before now.”

“It’s not amazing,” Mike said. “It’s unfortunate. In the worst possible way. Micky got hurt because I couldn’t see the plain truth before it was too late.”

“Mike,” Peter said, giving the Texan one of his own no-nonsense looks. “For the very last time—what happened to Micky was not your fault. You’re no more responsible for controlling Micky’s temper than I am. He went out and got himself in trouble. What’s important now is that we get him better and make sure this never happens again.”

Mike nodded, apparently content not to argue with the truth of Peter’s words. He stretched, sliding his legs out of the half-lotus, and stood. For a moment he startled Peter by leaning over him, but Mike’s right hand slid underneath the mattress and pulled out a plain blue notebook. He sat next to Peter and handed him the book without a word.

Peter opened his mouth to ask what it was, then closed it. Opening the cover, he skimmed through Mike’s even script, an occasional word catching his eye—bushido, samurai, ronin. “What is this, Mike?”

“I’ve been studying,” Mike said simply. “Takin’ books from the library and writin’ down everything that seemed relevant.”

“Why’d you take the books, Mike? You’re only supposed to borrow them,” Peter said.

“What did you—” Mike began, stopping when he saw the smirk on Peter’s face. “You’re still way too good at that dumb act, man.”

“Thank you!” Peter said, grinning broadly.

“Anyway,” Mike said, sobering, “I only wrote down the stuff about the mentality of the warrior. Y’know, the spiritual stuff. The stuff that tea couldn’t give us.”

Peter nodded, curling his legs under him as he settled in and began to read.

The concepts were cognitively foreign—Peter knew he hadn’t encountered them before and yet they seemed to jive with something inside. “This is what we should have been focusing on,” he murmured, coming to a passage by which Mike had put an asterisk. “That rushing into hazards and jeopardy is mistaken as courage.”

Mike nodded slowly. “We have the skills. We need the focus.”

“It’s not too late, Mike,” Peter said. “Micky’ll get better, and we can teach him. We can teach each other.”

This time Mike began to smile. “Might as well learn from the best, huh?” he teased lightly.

Peter grinned, his hand snaking behind Mike and seizing a pillow. Bringing it up, he gave Mike a gentle yet firm smack on the back of the head. Mike chuckled, gesturing at the book. “I’m gonna keep researchin’.”

“I’ll help you,” Peter offered. “We all need to learn, too.”

“Thanks, man.” He leaned against the headboard and let out a tired sigh. “I think first of all, we need to get Micky well.”

“Well, he hasn’t had any delirious rambling today,” Peter said with a hopeful smile.

“Yeah? That’s good, I guess.” He sighed. “Best get out there, see how they’re doin’.”

“Yeah.” Peter stood, unfolding his legs and sliding gracefully onto the floor. Mike followed with the same grace, stretching and putting the book away.


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