“The village. The pets here are owned by everybody.”
I grin, find that idea pleasant. “Can I see it?”
Duncan looks at me a moment too long.
“What?”
When he doesn’t reply, I grow annoyed.
“Tell me!”
He laughs, and there’s a flash of awkwardness in his features, a break in the confidence. “I just think you’re a really pretty girl.”
I flush, don’t know what to say, and so try to ignore it altogether. “Where’s the cat?”
“Come on,” he says, leading me. “It’s fine, don’t worry, there’s nothing to be afraid of here.”
“What about snakes and stuff?”
“I’ll keep you safe,” he tells me. “Come on.”
We walk off toward the tree line together, and Duncan starts calling out a name. It sounds like ‘dye’ but with an ‘s’ instead of a ‘d’.
“Just hold on, she’s probably spying us.”
“Spying?”
“She’ll climb a tree,” Duncan says, shrugging. “Sit there and watch us in secret.”
Sure enough, a few moments later, a tabby cat comes bounding through the jungle, it’s brown-and-black tail sticking up through the underbrush.
The cat meows, rubs against Duncan’s feet, and then turns to sniff my shoes. I bend down, but the cat recoils, back arched.
“She’s not good with newcomers,” he says. He lifts her up gently, and then holds her out to me.
It’s not exactly the world’s most beautiful cat – her eyes are too small and ears too big – but she’s cute nonetheless, and I pat her, scratch the top of her head, draw a purr from her.
He puts her back down, and after staring at both of us in turn for some inscrutable feline reason, she slinks off back into the jungle.
“Why does she stay in the jungle?” I ask. “Why not in the sun?” I think of all the photos of cats I’ve seen stretching out in sunlight.
“Oh, she’ll go into the sun later. It’s still early.”
“Do you get wild cats here? Like tigers and stuff?”
“Not here,” he says. “Not outside the parks. All tigers here are endangered and very rare.”
“Oh.”
We meet eyes, and I feel zapped by electricity, look away instantly.
“Why are you training out here?” I ask him, using the question as an excuse to turn back to the village. “I mean, this place specifically?”
“Glass told me that guy was one of the best former kickboxers in Thailand.”
“You mean the monk?”
“Yes.”
I glimpse at the man, a little confused. He’s short and small with a thin-frame. He looks nothing like what I imagine a fighter to look: Buff-as-hell and missing teeth.
“He doesn’t look it,” Duncan says, as if reading my mind. “But he fights like the fucking devil. Quick as shit, too. Very skilled.”
“Why do you have so many bruises?”
Duncan’s eyes don’t leave me. “We spar,” he tells me, matter-of-factly.
Dad’s angry voice floats over to us, and we both turn around. Duncan puts his hands on his hips, and I find my eyes going to his naked back. Beads of sweat dot it, and they shine in the sunlight.
“What are they arguing about?”
“Payment, probably. For my training.”
“But what are you training for?”
“Glass says when I get back to the States, I’ll work for him. I’ll fight for him in underground MMA. Until then, I need to train in different techniques. For now, it’s Muay Thai. Later, I’ll learn Judo, which is a defensive art, and Taekwondo, which focuses on speed kicking. When I get back to the States, Glass’ll teach me to box and strike with my fists.”
“You’re doing all of this just so you can be a fighter?”
He turns back to me, squints against the sunlight. “Yes.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Why?”
“Why risk yourself? You could get hurt.”
With that, he surprises me with a long exhale, almost a sigh. “I had nothing before. Your father is giving me something.”
“What do you mean you had nothing before?”
“I…” he begins, but his voice trails off. “Don’t have any family. I… don’t have a home, really.”
“You’re an orphan?”
“Yeah.”
“So where did you live before? A foster home?”
“No. Group home.”
“Oh. Like with other kids?”
“About thirty other boys, yeah. Some nights more, some nights less.”
I regard Duncan, and think about what he’s saying. Dad took him all the way to Thailand to train? There must be good trainers back home.