“Okay,” he said in a good-natured tone. “You suckered me, kiddo. What are you, Outpost’s jump-roping champion?”

Loup shook her head. “No.”

“Loup.” Tommy cleared his throat, suddenly anxious. She gave him an oblique sidelong look. “That was a good trick, huh? You fooled everyone. Think you can teach me?”

She nodded.

“So you lied?” Floyd Roberts asked softly. “You’ve done this before?”

“No, sir.” Loup might have lied well, but without prompting, she tended to tell the truth.

“Yes, sir!” Tommy said hastily. He took the limp rope from his sister’s unresisting hands. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. Do you want me to put it back?”

The old coach’s considering gaze rested on Loup. She returned it without blinking. “No,” Floyd said slowly. He waved one hand in dismissal. “Go on, Tom Garron. You’ve had your first lesson and you’ve found your first teacher. Go home. Learn to skip rope. Let your little sister teach you.”

“Yes, sir.”

They beat a retreat. At the door, Miguel Garza moved to block their way. He was big and broad, thick with muscle, and looked older than his nineteen years. He moved heavily in the ring, but he punched harder than any man there. Tommy had overheard the coach say privately once that Miguel had as much potential as any fighter he’d ever trained anywhere, but he was lazy.

“I just remembered,” Miguel said in a casual tone. “Garron. My brother Danny used to go with your mama.”

“Long time ago,” Tommy mumbled.

“Yeah.” Miguel stabbed a thick finger at him. “She threw him over for some chango, some fuckin’ deserter. I seen him once.”

“Oh?” Tommy licked his lips.

“Yeah.” Miguel nodded. “I threw a punch at him. Felt like hitting a rock.” One hand shot out with unexpected speed, reaching past Tommy’s shoulder to grab Loup’s hair. Or at least that was what he meant to do. Even as she skipped out of reach, her slim left arm flashed in a quick overhead arc to deflect his grabbing hand. “Fuck!” Miguel rubbed his bruised wrist.

“Miguel.” Floyd’s dry voice interrupted. “Punching drill.”

“Coming, Coach.” Miguel eyed Loup dourly, but he stepped aside. Tommy reached for Loup’s arm and propelled her through the doorway. She went without protest.

“Psst!”

Tommy looked back. Miguel put one forefinger on his own face, pulled down his lower right eyelid. “I’m watching you, boy,” Miguel whispered. “You and your freak-ass punk brat of a sister. ’Cause something ain’t right here.”

Outside the gym, Tommy broke into a run. Loup followed at his heels, trotting steadily. He came to a halt in the dusty, sun-beaten town square, breathing hard. Loup stopped obediently. Parties of strolling soldiers ignored them.

“You can’t do that.” Tommy dropped the skipping ropes he carried and squatted in front of his baby sister. He gripped her shoulders, fingers flexing against her too-too-solid flesh. “You can’t let them see what you are, what you can do. You just can’t, loup-garou. Otherwise someone will talk. And then they’ll come for you; they’ll take you away. Understand?”

“You’re scared,” Loup observed.

He shook her narrow, rigid shoulders. “For you! Think, Loup. Do you want to be taken away? Do you want to hurt me that way? To hurt Mommy?”

“No,” she murmured.

“So, okay.” Tommy sighed and released her. “Pretend for me.”

Loup dropped to squat on her own heels, her child’s body folding with boneless effortlessness. She bowed her head, tracing the coils of the fallen rope with one finger. “I like it, though. Fighting. Like you do. But I’ll do what you say, Tommy.” Her head lifted, a shock of black hair falling over her bright, unblinking eyes. “Can I still teach you to skip rope?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course. Coach said so.”

She stood. “Okay. Let’s get something to eat.”

NINE

For Tommy, the years that followed were heaven.

For Loup, they were purgatory.

She liked the gym. She liked the smell of sweat and antiseptic. She liked the myriad rhythms that permeated it—the dull thudding of men working the heavy bags, the boppita-boppita of the speed bag, the clanking weights, the skip and scuffle of feet on the mats, the steady pace of feet running on the treadmills. It lulled her and made the tedium bearable. It was the tedium that was hard.

She liked listening to Floyd train the men, telling them over and over that boxing was a science, that a smart fighter with a box full of tools could beat a less skilled fighter any day.

Some of them believed him.

Some of them didn’t.

Miguel Garza didn’t and that was a problem, because Miguel was good. And Coach had refused to give him a prize match until he took his training seriously.

“They’ll eat you alive, boy,” Floyd said. “You know what kind of boxers Bill recruits for this?” He poked Miguel in the chest. “Olympic champions. You know what that means?”

“No,” Miguel said sullenly.

That gave Floyd pause. “It means they’ve beaten the best amateurs in the world,” he said in a gentler tone. “And if you think you’re going to beat them without training until you drop, you’re sore mistaken, boy.”

But Miguel didn’t; didn’t do all that Floyd asked of him, didn’t push himself. He didn’t have to push himself to hold his own against the others at the gym, so he didn’t. And it was disheartening to the ones who tried.

Miguel made good on his threat and kept his eye on Loup. She made good on her promise to Tommy and kept her head down. She made herself unobtrusive and tried to remember to move slowly and carefully. Careful, always careful.

A year passed and Tommy turned fourteen in earnest and had a growth spurt. He was a tall, rawboned youth and he could skip rope like nobody’s business. Coach taught him to shadowbox.

“Coach!” Tommy pleaded. “At least let me work the bags.”

“See this?” Floyd took Tommy’s knobby wrist and held up his right hand, showing him the protruding knuckles. “You’re still growing, boy. You start hitting the bags, hitting the weights too hard, you’ll make your bones brittle. Sure way to ruin a fighter.” He dropped Tommy’s hand. “Give it a year. Sixteen’s soon enough.”

And so for a year, Tommy did nothing but shadowbox. Even that was a slow process. For a solid three months, Coach wouldn’t let him throw anything but a straight jab, concentrating on foot-work and guard positions. Step inside, jab. Step outside, jab. Circle left, circle right. Peekaboo, crouch. Tommy fought imaginary opponents, contenting himself with the knowledge that in a year’s time, he’d be fifteen and a year ahead of the coach’s schedule.

Except for cleaning the bathrooms, Loup took over most of her brother’s duties in the gym. It helped pass the time. When there was nothing to be done, she sat in an out-of-the-way place and watched Tommy train.

She watched the long, dull regimen settle into his bone and muscle, habit slowly turning into ingrained instinct. She watched Floyd’s face and knew the exact moment when he made the decision to introduce a new element into Tommy’s training. Crosses, uppercuts, hooks—including the left that came so naturally to him. Bit by bit, his repertoire grew. By the end of the year, Coach began teaching him combinations.

And she watched Tommy grow away from her.

He didn’t mean to. It was the rough camaraderie of the gym that absorbed him. Tommy worked hard and trained hard. For that, he earned the coach’s respect. The serious young fighters like Kevin McArdle respected him for obeying the coach without complaining. The Real Men respected him for scrubbing toilets without complaining. Miguel didn’t respect him, but that was to be expected. At least he respected the coach enough not to make trouble.

Tommy turned fifteen—sixteen in the coach’s eyes. He started weight training and working the bags. He kept growing, but he was adding solid muscle to his lengthening bones.

After much begging on Tommy’s part, Carmen Garron eyed her near-grown son and agreed to let him attend the Saturday-night fights with Loup in tow.

“I guess it’s in your blood, huh, mijo?” she said sadly.

Tommy squirmed. “I guess.”

She stood on her toes to kiss his forehead, then bent to kiss Loup’s. “Be careful.”

It was a spectacle Loup never forgot. The packed square blazed with lights, all centered on the ring. There was a throng of soldiers, half of them there to curry favor with the general, half of them there for the fight. A full half of Outpost was there, some to root on the hometown underdog, most for the free beer. Salamanca’s men were circulating through the crowd taking bets. No one was betting on who would win or lose. They were betting on how long the fight would last.

Loup cocked her head and considered the fighters.

Roberto Hernandez was fighting for Outpost. He was one of the Real Men. At the age of thirty-three, he worked as a caddy, lugging golf bags under the blazing sun for eight to ten hours a day for soldiers on leisure. When he was done, he trained for hours. He had a wife and three children. He stood flat-footed in plain black trunks, lean and stringy, waiting patiently for the bell.

This year’s army middleweight champion was new. He was a few inches shorter than the challenger, but he sported a body thick with exquisitely conditioned muscle. He jogged in place, tossing his shaved head. His trunks were red-and-white-striped. He was already sweating in the desert air. His dark skin gleamed and his chest heaved as he breathed deeply, substantial pectoral muscles rising and falling.

Loup nudged Tommy. “Got any money?”

He looked down at her. Since he’d turned “sixteen,” Floyd had begun paying him a small stipend for his work. “A little.”

Loup jerked her chin. “Roberto’s going to go the distance.”