Don't Turn Your Back on Me
December 2, 1897
Race looked up and frowned as Spot walked towards him. He pursed his lips, but didn't mention the eye so swollen that it no longer opened all the way or the dried blood caked in the creases of Spot's lips. Race knew by now that calling attention to the injuries only served to put Spot in an even fouler mood than had become his customary one. So he merely nodded when Spot called out a greeting and gestured to the bench where he sat.
"Have a seat," he said affably, eyes narrowing as he watched Spot walk, clearly favoring his right leg.
Spot shook his head. "Can't."
"Why not?"
Spot lifted the stack of papers in his left hand. "Not finished selling."
Race rubbed his cheek. This could go badly for him, but a fella had to offer. "Hand them over, I'll finish for you."
Spot bristled. "The hell you will!"
"Don't be stupid, Spot."
"I don't need your help," Spot bit out.
"Yeah, you do." Race took a deep breath, in for a penny, in for a pound, right? "No one's gonna buy papes off you. You look like you crawled out of your grave this morning."
"There ain't nothing wrong with the way I look," Spot said defiantly.
"I hate to disagree," Race replied causally, "But you look like someone used your face for a punching bag." He held his hand out for the papers. "You know as well as I do that your busted puss is bad for business. So hand 'em over and stop your bellyaching."
"I ain't bellyaching," Spot grossed, but he handed over the papers anyway. He sniffed and then settled himself on the bench gingerly.
"Take it easy," Race said, standing up. "I'll be back before you know it."
"Rub it in, why don't you?" Spot said bitterly, working his jaw like talking hurt.
Race shook his head, "You ought to take my advice."
Spot gave him a filth look and awkwardly got to his feet. "You ought to know when to leave well enough alone," he growled. His hand shot out and he took back the papers.
"Don't be a fool," Race said angrily, taking hold of the stack.
"Let go." Spot tugged them free again.
"Just sit yourself on that bench and let me finish up for you," Race barked. A woman walked past them and sniffed derisively. Race gave her a big smile and she turned up her nose. Race waited till she was out of hearing range and then turned on Spot. "You're making a scene," he hissed.
Spot crossed his arms and tilted his chin up. Race bit back a curse at the sight of Spot's tell. "Don't go getting your back up," he warned.
"Don't tell me what to do," Spot snapped.
Race sighed. "Fine," he said resolutely. "Sell them yourself. It's no skin off my nose." He dropped down onto the bench and swung his arms up over the back of it, making a show of how comfortable he was. "I'll be right here, enjoying the fine weather."
"It's freezing out," Spot said with a snort.
"The sun's out and the snow's packed down. Perfect winter day, if you ask me," Race commented as if his hands weren't blocks of ice and his nose wasn't burning. Spot made a disbelieving sound and Race gave him a cold look. "You've got some papes to sell, don't you?"
Spot made a face. "Think you're funny, don't you?"
Race waved him away. "Sell those damned papes, would you Spot. I don't fancy sitting out here all day."
He sat on the bench and watched as Spot began to call, wondering when Spot was going to face reality. Life was not treating him kindly and it didn't look like things were going to change any time soon.
Race sighed. He had warned Spot. He had told him not to stay on Lefty's hit list. But Spot wouldn't listen, and now he was paying for it.
In the month since Mouse had left to go work for Big Tim, Spot had shown up with three black eyes, two split lips and what Race was certain was a cracked rib. His knuckles were perpetually raw, and he had a haunted look that Race easily recognized as coming from not sleeping at night.
But Spot steadfastly refused to admit that things were out of his control. Instead, he was full of talk about banding together and rallying points. Race snorted. Stupid. Just plain stupid. Lefty was in charge. Lefty, while being the world's biggest bastard, had a solid base of support. And Spot was an undersized loudmouth that no one liked, even if they did grudgingly respect him.
So, the way Race saw it, Spot had two options: get on Lefty's good side or leave Brooklyn altogether. Since Race was more likely to see it rain cigarettes than Spot sucking up to Lefty, Race had been doing his best to convince Spot of the latter. Not that it had done a lick of good.
A half hour dragged by and Spot only managed to sell two papers. Race sucked on his teeth as a man walked past Spot without making eye contact. "That's it," he muttered to himself, standing up. He stomped life back into his feet and then trudged over to where Spot was standing. "My stomach's eating itself," he growled as he pulled the papers out of Spot's hand.
"So feed it." Spot jutted his chin out.
"Sit down and shut up." Race glared at Spot, wondering if he would have to walk off with the papers in order to win the point. Spot couldn't keep up with him on a good day, and lately Race had been forcing himself to walk at the pace of a snail so that Spot wouldn't do himself an injury trying. Spot surprised him by simply shaking his head and making his way back to the bench.
Race tried not to wince at the painfully slow progress Spot made and muttered something nasty about Lefty's parentage.
Once Spot was settled on the bench, Race turned his attention to problem at hand. This late in the day it was hard to get passersby interested, but Race had a few tricks up his sleeve and wasn't above using the pity card when it served his interests. He made his eyes as big as they would go and called out feebly to a group of women decked out like they were going to the opera instead of slumming at the tracks.
They clucked over him, tousling his hair and crooning about "the poor plight of the street arabs" as they each bought a paper. Race smiled wanly up at them, thanking them with a faked cough. They clucked some more and gave him a sympathy tip, which he tucked into his pocket with more thanks.
Race privately wondered how much longer he would be able to pull that sort of a stunt. He was small for his age, and his face seemed determined never to mature, but he wasn't as young as he once was, and the bigger you got the less interested in your plight the well-meaning matrons of the city would be.
He worried about what his future would be like when he got too old to sell the papers. Race didn't really have any marketable skills, other than a certain affinity for numbers, and he couldn't see how that particular ability would ever come in useful. Silently promising himself that he would cough up an extra penny each day for his savings, Race pushed the matter of his future aside.
Race picked his marks carefully and within an hour he was finished selling Spot's papers. He smiled widely as he crossed the courtyard. "Sorry I took so long," he said to Spot as he joined him on the bench.
Spot gave him a cross look and blew on his hands. "I'm freezing here," he muttered.
Race held out the money for Spot to take. "Here." Spot slapped at his hand. "Take it."
"I didn't earn it," Spot said bitterly.
"Oh for the love of--" Race rolled his eyes and shoved the money into Spot's coat pocket. "Stop acting all noble."
"Get your filthy hands off me." Spot scowled.
"Keep that attitude and tomorrow I won't help you at all," Race warned.
Spot sniffed and said, "Good, I don't want your help."
"Shut up," Race said without any feeling behind it. "And let's get something to eat. I'm starving."
"I ain't hungry."
"Spot, don't make me soak you."
"You think you can?" Spot cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes.
Race eyed Spot and sighed. "I'd be one cold son-of-a-bitch if I did."
Spot's face hardened. "I ain't no pity case."
"I didn't say that you were," Race soothed, standing up. It wasn't pity that filled Race when he looked at Spot's battered face. It was rage. He plopped back down on the bench, closer to Spot but Spot shifted, putting more space between them than before.
"I can take care of myself," Spot said darkly.
Race nodded. "I know you can." He rubbed his hands against his legs and then blew on them. "Come on, let's get out of the cold."
Spot glowered at him. "I know what I look like, Race."
"I didn't say nothing about how you look."
"You don't have to, it's written all over your face." Spot made a disgusted noise. "But I didn't come out the worst of it. It took four of them to pound me this time, and I'm damn sure I broke Poole's leg."
"His leg?' Race shook his head. Breaking a fella's leg could cripple him for life. "That's a bit much, don't you think?"
Spot gave him a hard look. "I've been taking beatings for the past month and I'm damn well sick of it. If breaking Poole's leg means that the rest of those bums will think twice before they come after me, then so be it." He lifted a shoulder, grinned sheepishly, and added, "I didn't do it on purpose," in a lighter tone.
"How do you break a fella's leg on accident?"
Spot laughed. "Well, you got a point. Better to say that I didn't set out to break his leg. It just sort of happened, you know."
No, Race really didn't. He scratched his head through his hat. "How'd it happen?"
Spot grinned. "I popped him good in the hip with my cane right after he split my lip. He kind of twisted so I kicked at his leg. Brought him right down. But his foot must have been caught 'cause when Poole fell his leg didn't. Made this awful cracking noise. Christ, I've never heard anybody scream the way Poole did."
Race flinched. "What happened then?" he leaned towards Spot, bracing his arm on the back of the bench.
"Well, Fagan and Natty went to help him up and Kipling ran for the doctor and I hightailed it out of there. I haven't seen Poole since, but I heard that something is wrong with his leg and that the doctor won't see to it without payment first."
"Lefty's going to be out for blood after this." Race gave Spot a pointed look. "You know how much them doctors charge?"
Spot scoffed. "What else can he do? He's already got his boys gunning for me. And like I said earlier, they are going to be thinking twice after this. A black eye is one thing, but a busted leg? No one wants to be a crip for real."
Race thought Spot's logic was screwy, but let it go. "You're taking a mighty big risk there. I told you before and I'll say it again – you ought to just cut your losses."
"I know what you think."
"Spot," Race began, but Spot cut him off.
"I'm not in the mood for another one of your lectures, so just shut up, would you?"
Race gave him a dirty look but let the subject drop. He leaned back down on the bench and realized that the day actually had turned out fairly nice. The sun was warm and the wind, which had been blowing all week, had finally stopped. "I got an idea," he said slowly. "Let's blow off the afternoon edition and head on out to the docks. We can stop by a deli on the way and have ourselves a bite to eat out of the wind."
For a moment it looked like Spot might object, but then he nodded his head and carefully stood up. Race joined him and together they made their way slowly out of the races.
Spot sat with his back against one of the support beam holding up the second level of the dock and smiled. The movement tugged at his split lip, which made it hurt, so he dropped the expression and tried to move so that he would be more comfortable. His back hurt. So did his eye. He shifted again but it didn't do any good.
He eyed the half a sandwich sitting on butcher paper just slightly out of his reach and debated leaning forward to grab it. His stomach growled and he frowned, which made his lip hurt again.
Spot winced and cursed. Everything hurt, damn it. He was starving and he would have to bend over to get to his food, which would make his back feel like someone was stabbing it. Then he would have to actually take a bite and chew, and that would hurt both his lip and his jaw. Plus, one of his teeth was lose and he didn't want to run the risk of losing it.
So he had to sit here and stare at the food in front of him all the while knowing he couldn't eat it.
"You gonna eat that or what?" Race asked.
Spot frowned at him, which, of course, made his mouth hurt. "I'll eat it when I'm damn well ready to," he snapped, happy to have something to vent his anger on.
Race gave him an amused look. "Well, I can hear your stomach rumbling over here, so I would say that you are damn well ready to now." Race hooked one foot on top of the other and grinned.
Spot made a rude hand gesture at him and Race laughed. "What's it to you whether I eat or not?"
"Your mouth that sore?"
Spot gave him a dirty look. "Who said anything about my mouth being sore?" Race raised his eyebrows and said nothing. Spot leaned forward quickly and snatched up the sandwich, making a show out of taking a big bite.
His back felt like it was on fire and the dampness on his chin no doubt meant that his lip was bleeding again. It was taking all of his willpower to keep chewing when what he really wanted to do was spit the food out and curse a blue streak. But chew he did, and eventually he swallowed, forcing himself not to wince.
"Well that showed me," Race said sardonically as he handed over a napkin. "Press that against your lip or you'll be throwing up from swallowing too much blood next."
Spot snatched the napkin and held it to his mouth, happy to have a reason not to take another bite.
"I don't know why you put up with it," Race said with a shake of his head.
"I didn't ask for your opinion." Spot shifted again. He didn't want to listen to Race's lectures again. He knew damn well that things were bad. He was the one getting beat every day, wasn't he? He scowled, thinking that things would have been easier if he had never met Race in the first place. Then he never would have had a reason to spit in Lefty's eye. Not that he needed one, come to think of it.
"No, you didn't."
"So stop giving it to me." Spot wasn't about to turn tail and run. Not when it meant leaving Brooklyn, the only home he had even known. He was born in Brooklyn and, by God, he was going to die in Brooklyn. And no pissant bastard like Lefty was going to change his mind on that subject.
"Can't do that, Spot." Race laced his finger behind his head. "You know I pride myself on always speaking my mind."
"Since when?"
"Since you stopped using yours."
"I use mine plenty," Spot grumbled.
Race chuckled. "Then something's gone wrong with it."
"Says you."
"Says anyone." Race closed one eye and squinted at Spot out of the other one. He frowned and then darted forward and snatched the cap off of Spot's head.
"Hey!" Spot glared at him. "That's mine."
"So?" Race grinned lazily at him, as he arranged the cap on his head to his liking, blocking the sun. He leaned back on his arms and let his head drop back.
Spot stared at the long line of Race's neck and swallowed, his mouth going suddenly going dry. He frowned, the motion once again tugging at his split lip and giving his voice an edge when he said, "What happened to your cap, anyway?"
"I think Skittery took it."
Race opened his mouth but Spot wasn't interested in anything that Race might have to say about the Manhattan newsies, so he kicked at Race's legs. "Don't even think about keeping it. That's my favorite cap."
Race snorted. "It's your only cap."
Spot touched the tear in his lower lip tentatively with his tongue. It stung a little, but nothing too bad. "Even more reason for you not to get attached to it."
Race made a face. "I ain't no thief, you'll get it back." Spot nodded, which make his head feel like it was splitting open. He tried to control his reaction to the pain, but he must have failed because Race said, "You still hurting?"
"Not much," Spot lied.
Race gave him an amused look. "Which is Spot speak for 'a whole hell of a lot.'"
Spot laughed. "Damn it, Race, don't make me do that!" he pressed a hand to his side.
"Those boys worked you over," Race said flatly. "I don't care if you did break Poole's leg."
"So what if they did,"
"You ain't going to survive to see next winter at this rate."
"Sure I will."
Race balled up the butcher paper resting in his lap and tossed it over the side of the dock. "You know how I feel about this."
Spot wondered why, when Race already knew what Spot thought about how Race felt, he didn't just find something else to talk about. Because there were plenty of other things Spot would rather talk to Race about. "Yeah, I do. And don't go saying it again. I ain't leaving Brooklyn."
"Don't be such a pigheaded fool," Race snapped.
"I'm not."
"The hell you ain't."
"Just 'cause you don't like my choice don't make it a bad one." Spot folded his arms over his stomach and glared at Race.
Race gave him wide eyes. "You can't honestly believe that," he said incredulous.
"It just so happens I do."
"Christ. You really think you are going to be able to ride this out, don't you?" Race took a deep breath and adjusted the cap on his head.
"Things ain't that bad," Spot said defensively. "I can hold my own in a fight."
"Which is why you keep showing up with a busted lip and a pair of shiners."
Spot knew Race had a point, but he wasn't about to admit it. Brooklyn was his home, and he wasn't about to let some bum chase him out of it – especially over who he was friends with. He cleared his throat. "It's only a matter of time before things come around for me. Lefty, he's already making mistakes. He sent Mac and Butcher over to the docks without back up and the pair of them got roughed up pretty bad. Couple of toughs trying to move in on our turf. And Lefty, he didn't do a thing about it. Stupid. You don't send your boys out unprotected and then let the bastards who soaked 'em get off without a word of protest."
Race cocked his head to the side. "That's your plan? Wait until Lefty makes a mess of things and then lead some sort of mutiny?"
Spot didn't like the way Race made his plan sound like something out of a dime store novel, but he nodded anyway. "More or less. You got a better one?"
"Having a couple of angry kids on your side is nice and all, Spot, but does it actually do anything for you when you're getting soaked?"
Hell, at this point Spot would give anything to have a couple of angry kids on his side. Right now all he had was bitter mutterings and the hope that sometime soon things were going to brighten up for him. Not that he was going to be telling Race that.
"You got to look at the long view," Spot insisted. "Things will start off small, but then they will grow. A couple of kids is all I got now, but give me time. You'll see. I just need Lefty to make a few more mistakes and then I'll make my move."
"Make your move?" Race scoffed. "You can barely walk." He shook his head in disgust. "By the time Lefty fouls up bad enough for you to make any use of it, you'll be dead."
"Naw." Spot pressed his back firmly into the support beam and glanced out over the water. "Lefty ain't going to kill me."
"You don't know Lefty like I do," Race muttered darkly.
"You're making too much of this."
Race gave him a pointed look. "Am I?"
"Lefty ain't going to kill me," Spot repeated forcefully. He was tired of this conversation, sick of Race's badgering, and not being able to talk about anything that mattered as far as Race was concerned.
"What makes you think he ain't?"
"Why would he? All I ever did was rub his nose in the fact that I don't like him. You don't kill a body over something like that."
"He damned well tried to kill me over something just as pointless." Race balled his hands into fists.
"You took his money." Spot lifted a shoulder. "More than one person has been found with his head bashed in over money."
"It was fifty cents. A lousy half dollar." Race's face was dark with emotion. "And I counted Lefty as my friend before I fleeced him. Who would try and kill a friend over a measly fifty cents?"
"Fifty cents?" Spot stared at him in utter amazement. "That's what was behind all your trouble with the bum?" he shook his head. "Hell, I figured you'd taken him for at least two dollars."
"Well, now you know." Race picked at a lose thread on the cuff of his britches. "And you have to see my side of it."
"I don't have to see nothing."
Race sighed. "I was telling Jack…"
"You were telling Jack what?" Spot cut in, angrily. He didn't like the idea of Race babbling about his personal problems to anyone, let alone Jacky-boy. Spot could just picture the two of them sitting in some corner somewhere wondering what they ought to do to help out poor Spot Conlon. He felt a sharp burn as his lips lifted into a sneer and for once welcomed the pain.
Race gave him a beseeching look. "Look, you are having a hard time of it in Brooklyn. I know I've told you to leave before and you're right when you said you didn't have no where to go. So I talked to Jack about it, and he said that it would do us all good to have a fella like you around." Race paused and held one hand out in supplication. "Come to Manhattan, Spot. The boys all like you and you'd have a place to sleep without worrying about what might come at you during the night."
For a moment Spot was tempted. The idea of living with Race held a lot of appeal. But leaving Brooklyn wasn't an option. He had too much invested here. This was where he planned on making his name for himself. Brooklyn, not Manhattan. Even if Jack wasn't the de facto leader, he still wouldn't want to head over the bridge. And he certainly wasn't going to make the trek over to Manhattan with his hat held out, begging for shelter like some sort of helpless street kid.
Spot narrowed his eyes at Race and tilted back his head. "What makes you think I want to come to Manhattan?"
"Nothing." Race lowered his hand and ran a finger along the graining of the wood. "I won't expect you to just up and leave Brooklyn for no reason, but even you have got to admit that things ain't sweet for you and Manhattan, well, it's a nice enough place, once you get use to it."
"Get use to it?" Spot gave Race a skeptical look.
Race shrugged. "Sure, you get to know you way around the boys and what's the best way to get what you want, and before you know it you are one of the group."
"I don't want to be one of the group," Spot sneered.
Race looked up at him and shook his head. "Fine, then don't be. You can be your typically pleasant self and see what that gets you."
"I don't think you are hearing what I am saying," Spot said slowly. "I ain't going to Manhattan. Not now, not never."
"What's wrong with Manhattan?" Race glared at him.
Nothing, really, other than the fact that it wasn't Brooklyn. Not that Spot could say that. Spot made a show of crossing his arms over his chest. "Manhattan ain't got no backbone," he pronounced each word deliberately. It was true, in a way. The Manhattan boys seemed to be willing to do whatever was easiest.
"The hell it doesn't!" Race flared up, just like Spot knew he would.
Spot was spoiling for a fight, and he knew that Race would oblige him. He was sick to death of getting beat all to hell and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. But Race, he could shout at Race. He could scream till he was blue in the face, and Race wouldn't do more than curse right back at him.
He let his mouth twist slightly down and studied his nails. "No leader, no rules. Never bothering to sticking up for itself or staking claim to what belongs to it. That's not a group I want in on."
Race jutted his chin out and glared at Spot. "We don't need no bully boy bossing us around. We don't need no list of cans and can'ts. We damned well stick up for ourselves. And you're damned lucky to be offered the chance to be one of us."
"I don't want to be one of you. Don't you understand that?" Spot gave Race a cold look. "I got to look after myself. I ain't like you, Race. I don't run from my problems."
Race lurked to his feet, hands clenched at his sides. "Take that back," he hissed.
Spot gave him a lazy grin. "Don't think I will."
Race tugged off Spot's cap and threw it at him. It smacked into Spot's cheek, stinging more than it should have, and fell into his lap. Spot flicked the brim of it, his eyes never leaving Race's.
Race's face got steadily darker and his voice was strained when he said, "I didn't run away from anything."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Spot's tone was cavalier. "He gave you a hard time and Mouse didn't want to deal with the hassle of having you two going at it."
"You don't know squat."
Spot smirked at Race. "I know enough."
"Think so?" Race took a step forward and dropped to his haunches, his face inches away from Spot's. He ran his tongue along the bottom of his teeth and gave Spot a hard stare. Spot blinked, suddenly finding it hard to meet Race's eye. Race nodded as if he had proved a point and said, "Lefty came after me with a lead pipe. Split my head open." His hand went reflexively to a spot near the nape of his neck, fingers running up and down. "He caught me by surprise. I didn't know what had happened. One minute I was walking down an alley smoking my cigar and the next I was waking up in Manhattan with a boy I don't know telling me not to sit up."
Spot's mouth was suddenly dry. He shifted his gaze, studying the stitching on Race's shirt.
Race continued in the same flat tone. "I was out for three days. Jack said that not even the doctor thought I would make it. And Mouse, who I thought was my friend, had me dragged over to the Manhattan lodging house when I was so out of my mind I didn't even know what was happening. He left me there with nothing more than a warning not to come back."
Spot cleared his throat. "So when you say that Lefty tried to kill you. . ." he trailed off at the bitter look on Race's face.
"He left me for dead. Over fifty cents."
"And Mouse just. . ."
"Yeah, Mouse just let him."
Spot's brow furrowed. "Then why did he let you sell at Sheepshead? If he warned you away from Brooklyn, why let you come back at all?"
Race lifted a shoulder as he straightened. He walked over to the edge of the pier and stared across the water at the Manhattan shoreline. "Guilt, I guess."
Spot gave a wry laugh. "Guilt." He shook his head. "Not much a leader after all, was he?"
Race's hand went back to the spot at the back of his head. His shoulders hunched and Spot wished that he could see Race's expression. "A leader ain't nothing special."
Spot shook his head, not caring that Race couldn't see him. "You're wrong about that."
Race whirled around and pinned him with a stare. "Oh yeah? Tell me, Spot, what has a leader ever done for you?"
"Mouse took me in." Spot winced, that sounded weak even to him.
Race's lips twitched up in a cruel smile. "Odds are you had something he wanted."
Spot picked up his cap and studied it, trying not to think of Race bleeding in an alley and the fact that no one was around to send him off somewhere safe to recover. He touched his split lip with his tongue, feeling the damage as best he could, and carefully placed his cap on his head.
"Mouse kept you alive the best way he knew how," he finally said.
Race snorted. "Mouse didn't want to have to deal with a dead body on his hands."
"I didn't say he had anything other than his own skin in mind when he did it."
"You bet he didn't."
Spot went on as if Race hadn't spoken. "But he kept you alive all the same. And you owe him for that."
"I don't own the bastard anything," Race shot back.
Spot shook his head. "You can say anything you like but that don't make it true." Race said nothing, staring out over the water and Spot scowled. "So Jacky-boy took you in when Mouse chucked you out, did he?"
Race nodded and then frowned. "Not Jack, Kloppman. He's a good man, Kloppman. He gave me a bunk and made sure that I had someone to look after me. And he didn't ask for a cent the whole month it took me to get back on my feet."
"A saint, for sure," Spot injected some of his pent-up resentment into the words. Well, that explained why he was so damned loyal to Manhattan.
Race's eyes narrowed at him. "Why you in such a foul mood?"
"Why do you think?" Spot exploded. He thought about all the little comments Lefty's boys dropped as they pounded on him, the way Race's name got bantered around the Brooklyn lodging house like a bad headline, and the resentment he felt every time Race started in on him again.
He pushed himself to his feet, cursing loudly at the way his body protested the movement. "I'm black and blue and can't do a damned thing about it. My papes are like rats, ain't nobody want one, and every time I see you you're harping on me to turn tail and run. So excuse me if I'm not whistling Dixie."
"I told you to get on Lefty's good side," Race said with a knowing expression. "I told you life would be hell if you kept giving him guff."
"Ah, for the love of . . ." Spot threw his hands up in the air. "Don't start giving me a ration, Racetrack."
Race raised his eye brows and pursed his lips. "I'll do what I damn well want to."
"Then you damn well better want to shut up."
"Or what?" Race jeered.
Spot took a step towards him, ignoring the pain that shot up his leg. "Or I'll make you."
Race laughed, his head going back so that the sunlight hit his neck and threw his jaw into sharp relief. A vein pulsed at the base of Race's neck and something deep in Spot went tight at the sight. He swallowed, forcing his eyes away.
"Sure you will," Race replied, still chuckling. "And I'll make sure to stand still so that you don't hurt yourself in the process."
Spot wanted to wipe that smug look off of Race's face and so he struck out with the thing he knew would upset Race the most. "At least I fight my own fights," he said nastily. "I ain't a coward like you are." He didn't think for one minute that Race was a coward, but he knew calling him one would get his back up faster than anything.
Race's eyes flashed and for a moment Spot thought that Race would soak him. He shifted his weight, bracing his feet apart, readying himself for the attack. But instead Race just shook his head and turned his back on Spot.
"You ain't worth it," Race muttered as he started to walk away.
This wasn't at all going the way Spot had planned. Race wasn't supposed to be walking out on him. Race was the closest friend he had. He couldn't afford to lose him. Sure, Race was angry with him, but that was the point. They would spar a little, maybe roll around on the pier a bit and then –
His brain stuttered, refusing to let him finish that thought.
"I ain't done with you," Spot called after him, his thoughts running in circles. Race ignored him and Spot took a hesitant step in Race's direction. "Damn it, Race, don't you walk away from me!"
Race kept on walking on down the dock and, no matter what Spot yelled after him, he never once looked back.
