9

He fell back into a sound sleep soon after Sadie left. The blanket smelled like her. When he felt up to it, he leisurely got out of the bed. He pulled on his jeans from the night before and tugged on his military grade combat boots, then climbed out of the car and made his way to the nearby creek. There kicked off his boots and rolled up his jeans. The sunlight was warm and reflected in the moving water. He waded into the creek and washed his face and arms, then used the bloody tshirt to try to clean his back a bit. Returning to the boxcar and feeling a little cleaner, he felt around where he could and used the ointment Merle brought, then wrapped the long bandage around his whole torso. He dug around some more in the backpack Merle brought because it still seemed heavy. Lying on the bottom of the canvas bag was a big, heavy-duty hunting knife, complete with holster.

It was a knife that Daryl had seen all his life; it was also his dads. Dallas had taught his boys how to skin the animals they caught with this knife, Daryl had seen this knife end countless wild lives. He knew why Merle gave it to him. It was a message, clear as day.

Sure, Daryl knew how to skin and animal once it was good and dead. It was the final act, the actual mercy kill, that he could never do. The first time Merle plunged the blade into a dying deers heart, their father was beyond proud. He smeared the deers blood under the boys eyes like football players, streaked it across their small cheeks with a wolfish gin. He even gave the then thirteen year old Merle a beer. Only eight at the time, Daryl had been there. He had looked into the deers eyes as its soul left it. It took forever to get the red stain out of his skin. Even now when he was out with his cross bow he would fell the animal, and once he was still a good distance away, line everything up and deliver a clear shot to the brain. Forget the heart. Let it try to think it's still alive and keep pounding on. Forget the heart. Merle put this knife in the bag with a sole message: man up.

Daryl slowly wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the knife and squeezed tighter and tighter, funneling his anger and frustration into the blade. He let out a roar and slammed the knife into the floor boards. Took a deep breath and carefully stood up. The hand that had been clutching the knife was shaking and his knuckles were white. He began to tear around the car like a caged animal. Boxcars aren't meant for people. He scooped his crossbow off the floor and fell instantly into it's comforting stance. The bandage around his body tightened and pinched at his skin as he raised the bow. "Goddamn!" he yelled, hurling the crossbow into the metal wall. They clanging sound that rang out as it hit metal against metal was oddly satisfying. He ran his fingers through his tangled hair and looked up at the sky. As he got his breathing under control, he started to notice the birds singing outside. He took one long deep breath, and began a search for his shirt. Finding it discarded in the corner that he had fled to the night before, he studied it in the light. He cursed as soon as he realized there were blatant stains of dried blood on it from reopening welts. Maybe he did need stitches. He needed clothes. He slipped the shirt over his head regardless, then gingerly stared at Dallas's vest. He tentatively picked it up. He had worn it countless times before, it was practically his. Dallas hadn't fit into it for years, and Merle used to wear it until he outgrew it completely.

It was the knowledge that this vest's original owner had damaged the two who now wore it. He let his finger tips involuntarily trace the white wings and the stitching. He remembered when he was really little and his dad would come home from work, drape the vest over his small shoulders and tell him that the wings were a guardian angels, and kept safe who ever wore it. The cruel irony that the devil used to be an angel was not lost on him.

The inside collar had 'DIXON' sewn messily into it with heavy red thread and there were several little red lines that looked like tally marks sewn across the bottom hem. As Daryl got older his father confessed that the counted-out sewn-in strokes were keeping track of the number of women he slept with while wearing it. When he passed it down to his sons it had eleven tick marks; two sets of crossed over marks of fives and one lone mark. As Merle got older, he informed Daryl that he would play the same counting game as their dad. There were a lot more than eleven lines now. He felt himself sliding into Merle's skin like an involuntary clone as he slid the thin leather over his arms, coming to grips with the reality that Merle had probably used this vest to hide the same things that he was now trying to. He scanned the car one last time, tucked his crossbow under a pile of blankets and bags, and buckled on the knife. Then he headed into town to find Merle.

—-

As he drew closer to town he kept to the woods. He crept around the back of the garage his dad worked at and peeked in between the high chain link fence. His heartbeat increased rapidly when he saw his dads cowboy boots sticking out from under a car. He continued on quickly and thought about where he would find Merle. He had said he was some place that wasn't a place for a sixteen year old kid. So a bar was the only logical answer. The question was, which one? Merle had two favorites, Crazy Ann's and Shotgun Willie's. Daryl knew it was Shotgun Willie's. Merle wouldn't have gone to Crazy Ann's, because the real 'crazy Ann' was Annabelle Beaufort- their mom's best friend. After the funeral they had all gone down to Crazy Ann's.

Willie's made sense, as it was a bar basically running out of someones house. It was the worst bar in town, it was seedy, it was sleazy, it was raunchy. It was an alcoholics bar for the committed, rehab-is-for-quitters individual. There was no music, no talking, no acknowledgement. Glasses would clink and slide down the water stained bar top. Merle had quickly joined the infamous gang around town that was often banned from the main bars. Usually for fighting or over-drinking; usually a mixture of figured it was closed now, but he knew Willie very often let people hang around the house during the day, or from the night he rounded the corner his theories were confirmed when he saw Merle's motorcycle parked by the curb.

He stomped up the front steps and tried the front door. It swung open, and he was standing in the empty downstairs bar. Willie himself was standing by the counter washing glasses.

"We're closed, son," Willie said, not even looking up.

"I ain't here to drink, I'm lookin' for my brother."

Old Willie's head shot up. "You're the other Dixon boy, aren't you?" he asked squinting his eyes.

Daryl sighed because he realized that at this rate, this was probably how the rest of the whole dumb town saw him. "Yeah. Is Merle here?"

The corner of Willies eyes crinkled as he let out a small smile. "Well, I'm sorry, boy, but I don't think Merle's fit to come out and play right now."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Willie shrugged. "All I know, last I saw of him last night he headed upstairs with three girls."

Daryl's eyes fell to the narrow staircase on the far side of the room, and took a step toward them.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," Willie said in a low voice.

Daryl looked the old man in the eye and said, "Fuck you."

He headed up the stairs.