Strange Country Day by Charles Curtis Page B

actually somebody’s farm, but I’ve never seen the owner come here.”
    “No bears?” I asked.
    “I saw one once.” She looked at me and shook her head. I think I got the message—maybe she had used something extraordinary to scare it away.
    Dex wasn’t listening. Instead, he examined one of the trees.
    “You guys ever try to climb one of these?”
    “No way.”
    Dex ran his hand over the bark and looked up again. “Wait a minute. I bet I can.”
    Before either of us could protest, he grabbed at a low-hanging branch and found a foothold. He started moving up the tree quickly. It looked to me like there weren’t too many places to grab, but he somehow found nooks and crannies.
    “Dex! You’re gonna fall!” I called out.
    “Don’t worry! I do this all the time!” He was over halfway to a huge branch.
    With the same speed as his dart up the bookcase on Fresh Meet Friday, he reached the branch and shimmied onto his stomach while holding on with his arms and legs, like climbing the rope in gym class.
    Instinctively, I rubbed the auto-splint covering my pinkie, thinking what could happen to Dex would be much worse. “You don’t want to be kicked off the team for messing around and getting injured, do you?”
    He ignored me and pushed himself up so he was straddling the branch. “Watch this, guys.”
    To our shock, he stepped up on the branch and balanced himself. He stood triumphantly, his hands on his tiny hips, grinning with every one of his teeth. He didn’t even wobble.
    Sophi actually turned away, refusing to watch. “Come on! How are you going to get down?” I called out.
    “I’m fine!”
    CRACK.
    The branch started wobbling under Dex’s weight. He looked around to figure out his next move. Sophi screamed.
    CRACKKKKKKKK.
    The next thing we knew, the branch snapped. And Dex fell, back first, his arms waving uncontrollably.
    But in mid-air, he stuck his arms out and somehow got his feet to point toward the ground.
    A second after the branch landed; so did he: on his feet, his knees bent, hands barely touching the ground.
    I wanted to run over to him to see if he was okay, but I was too freaked out to move. I looked at Sophi and recognized the expression on her face. I got it a second later.
    He was one of us.
    “Guys, I’m fine,” he said, dusting off his jeans, almost too casually.
    “Dexter!”
    That wasn’t one of us. It was someone emerging from the thick woods behind Dex. The soldier in fatigues we’d seen last night dropped his rifle on the ground and came up to Dex, who turned around. He pulled off his helmet and goggles to reveal a dark-haired man with a scar across his left cheek.
    “Dad?” Dex asked.
    “You’re okay? Are you hurt?”
    “What are you doing here?”
    “That doesn’t matter. Are. You. Hurt?“
    “I’m fine! Why are you here? And dressed like that?”
    Dex’s dad let go of him. I could see he was visibly shaken up. “It’s a really long story.”
    Dex looked at all three of us with his eyes more open than I’d ever seen them. His dad snapped into action. He reached out a gloved hand to me.
    “Alex, really nice to officially meet you.” His squeeze nearly broke bones in my other hand. “And Sophi, right? Call me Frank.”
    She nodded. We were both in a daze. He motioned toward the stump. “Guys, would you mind sitting?”
    All three of us did, soundlessly.
    He stood in front of us with his hands behind his back, pacing.
    “Sophi, Alex, I know you’re aware of some of this, so bear with me, will you?”
    “You know what he’s talking about?” Dex accused us.
    “Dex, just listen,” Frank said.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    I spent four years in the Marines, with the last two spent mostly in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. A roadside bomb shot shrapnel into my knee, left me with a scar across my cheek, and ended my tour of duty. I came home to Dex’s mom lost and aimless, sentenced to a life working behind a desk.
    Through the grapevine, I heard about a