Roland West, Loner

by Theresa Linden

  Go inside, already!

  He must’ve known Peter planned on retrieving the box. Having found the key, if he’d found it, he’d probably searched the house for the box and realized it was hidden somewhere else. Maybe that’s when he started following them. It probably burned him up when he lost them in the woods the other day—if he was the one following them. Now he would leave nothing to chance. For whatever reason, he considered that relic valuable, so valuable he would do anything to get it.

  Peter leaned his weight against the house. What a waste of time. He should’ve taken off during dinner. He should’ve gone to his room to do homework and tossed the rope ladder down. Mr. Reinhard had eaten dinner inside. He would’ve never known.

  With a sigh, Peter headed to the front of the house. He hadn’t called Dominic yet. He could do that. And he could hunt for the key again, just in case, and sneak out later. Maybe Mr. Reinhard and Aunt Lotti would go out somewhere . . . on a date.

  His skin crawled. Maybe he should warn Aunt Lotti about her new boyfriend.

  He yanked open the screen door and stomped inside.

  The dishwasher swished and chugged. Mom scurried about the kitchen tossing dishes into the sink, stooping, standing up with plastic containers . . . “Hi, Peter. Your father should be here soon.”

  “That’s nice. I’m gonna use the phone.” He snatched the phone and started pushing buttons as he steered around the couch. He kicked off his shoes and plopped onto the recliner. The footrest shot out on its own.

  Dominic answered the phone on the third ring. “Hola.”

  “Hey, Dominic.” He reclined the chair the rest of the way.

  “Hola, amigo.” Dominic sounded as cheerful as ever. “Que onda?”

  “Whatever that means. Hey, can you guys go to the last Mass tomorrow?”

  “No se.”

  “Okay, go see.”

  Mom shouted from the kitchen, something about shoes.

  “I can’t go see,” Dominic said. “Nobody is home.”

  “Don’t talk Spanish to me, man. I don’t know what you’re saying. Look, you’ve got to go to the last Mass ‘cuz we’ve got something planned. It’s important. Hey, think you can go into the woods with us? We might need to do that, if I can’t—”

  “The woods? Sure. So long as I stay on a fairly-smooth trail. I don’t see why not. That would be fun. I need to hang around the parking lot right after church, though. You know Foster wants his football back. He is being a real idiota. So, what do you have planned?”

  “I don’t want to say. You’ll see. Just make sure you’re there.”

  “Sale vale!”

  “Which means?”

  Dominic laughed for a good ten seconds. “Okey dokey.”

  After clicking the phone off, Peter wrestled with the recliner until he got the back up and the footrest down. He returned the phone to the cradle.

  Mom wiped down the countertops.

  “Hey, Mom, are you sure that key you found in the laundry room was mine? The one to my box?”

  “I’m pretty sure. I never got a good look at the key to your box, but the one I found didn’t look like an ordinary key.” She rinsed out the washcloth and draped it over the ridge between the sink basins.

  Peter rested his forearms on the counter, the sloppy wet counter. With a disgusted groan, he jerked back. “Well, what do you think could’ve happened to it?” He dried his arms on his shirt.

  “I don’t know, Peter. Shouldn’t you be getting your shoes on?”

  “My shoes? What do you do with all the junk you find in the wash?”

  “I put it in the little dish in the laundry room until somebody misses it. I don’t know. Maybe the key slipped into the laundry basket. Did you check through your clothes?”

  “Yeah, I checked every pocket of every one of my jeans, and I ransacked the laundry room. I even cleaned up my bedroom.”

  “You what?” Mom did a double-take.

  “Well, sort of. You might have a different opinion if you saw it.” He grinned.

  “Your father will be here any minute.” Mom grabbed her purse and pushed past him. “I’m going to let Lotti know we’re leaving.”

  “Leaving? Where’re you going?”

  Moving at a speed that caused a breeze, Mom flew through the glass doors to the guests’ side of the house.

  Peter sighed. He made a quick scan of the junk on the countertop by the phone.

  Pens, a notepad, loose change, a scarecrow beanbag, and a pile of coupons. Nothing of value except his receiver. He should probably take that up to his room . . . later.

  Where hadn’t he looked? He drifted back to the living room to check the bookshelf and coffee table. Sometimes people stored junk in the pottery dishes or stuffed things between decorations. Maybe—

  Dad’s truck rumbled up the driveway and rattled after the engine shut off. Two car doors slammed.

  “Go bowling.”

  Toby spoke in such a high and whiney voice that Peter’s ears strained to shut.

  Dad said something in a soothing voice. Then the screen door flew open and Toby stomped inside.

  “Where’s your mom?” Dad said. “We’ll go in her car.”

  “Mom went to find Aunt Lotti, who’s probably sitting out back with—We? What do you mean we? You don’t mean me. I’m not going anywhere. I have stuff to do.”

  “We discussed this earlier. Weren’t you listening? Tonight is family night.”

  “Family night? Where’re we going?”

  “Go bowling.” Toby flung himself onto the couch and whimpered.

  “Toby, get in Mommy’s car. I already told you we’re going bowling.” Dad raised his voice. He’d had Toby with him as he ran errands for the past couple of hours. He had probably reached his breaking point. “Peter, get your shoes on.”

  Defeated, Peter dragged his feet to the pile of shoes by the door. “Wonderful. This is just wonderful.” He snatched up his Reeboks. “I’ve got people counting on me. Something big is supposed to happen tomorrow. But if I can’t find that lousy key . . .”

  Chapter 51

  Toby arranged one-inch bowling pins in a perfect triangle, laid his head on the carpet, and closed one eye to look at them.

  “You really like bowling, huh?” Peter clicked together the last sections of the HO scale railroad track and sat back to admire his accomplishment.

  Track wound through clothes hills, made a loop around block and book towers, then ran under Toby’s bed.

  “Go bowling again,” Toby whined but without the same intensity as when he hadn’t been bowling for a while. “Peter knock ‘em all down.” He rolled a little green ball toward the pins. The two on the end fell over.

  “Yeah, that was fun. I didn’t think I wanted to go, but maybe Dad was right, and we needed to do something together as a family.” Peter crawled to the train. “I got a few strikes, didn’t I? You did good, too. You crack me up with your follow-through. I didn’t know you could hold a pose for so long. You reminded me of those guys in the bowling videos you watch over and over and over.”

  Toby’s head bobbed up, his brown eyes turning to the TV.

  “No, let’s not watch TV,” Peter said. “You’ve been begging to play trains and here it is.” He worked on getting the engine’s wheels on the track. “Aren’t you even going to look?”

  Toby rolled the green ball toward the little pins that remained standing.

  Peter attached the train cars and pushed the engine back and forth to get all the wheels lined up. “Come on. Aren’t you even interested? This was a lot of work.”

  Having successfully placed the entire train on the track, Peter leaned against the bed and yawned. “You wouldn’t by chance be getting tired, would you?”

  Still lying on his belly, Toby set the pins up again.

  “Because, you know, we’ve been playing all night. First bowling, then casting off the front stoop, then a movie, a boring movie that you’ve seen a hundred times, but a movie none the less.
” Peter’s head fell forward and his eyes closed. He could sleep right here. “Are you ready for bed?”

  “No.”

  So he was listening. “Let’s run the train around the track a few times and get some sleep.” He yawned again. Maybe he could sneak up to his own bed and let Toby conk out on his own. No. Bad idea.

  The last time Toby was left to fall asleep on his own, Mom found him fishing in the kitchen sink and the floor flooded. Another time, he had removed all the light bulbs from the light fixtures and lined them up on his dresser. Then there was the night he left the house.

  Toby rolled the little ball. “Knock ‘em all down!”

  “Good job.” Peter cracked an eye open to see. “Now let’s run the train.”

  Toby pushed himself up and wrapped his fingers around the remote for the train. The train came to life and lurched forward, chugging around the track.

  “I’ll pick up a few things.” Peter stood and stretched. He gathered at least twenty pocket notebooks and a dozen loose crayons and went to shove them in a dresser drawer. When he pulled the dresser drawer open, his heart leaped.

  “What’s this?”

  Amidst the balls and playing cards, fishing lures and crafts from school, sat a box of assorted keys.

  “You’ve got a key collection?” Peter rifled through them. “I can’t believe it.” His eyes grew wide as he dug. “Why didn’t I think of this? You love keys. You probably found my key in the laundry room. I bet you were fishing in the deep sink again. I should’ve guessed when I saw your fishing pole—”

  In the bottom of the box, he found it. The key!

  “Toby, this is unbelievable!” He slammed the drawer shut with his hip and dropped onto his knees by Toby. “My key! You found my key!”

  Toby’s forehead wrinkled, and he grasped at it. “Toby’s key.”

  Peter gave Toby a big smooch on the forehead. “Thanks, Toby. I owe you one.” He wrapped his fingers around the key and flopped down on the bed.

  Toby giggled and returned his gaze to the train as it chugged under the bed. He lined his face up so the train would come right at him.

  “You know what?” Peter hung his head off the bed. “You’re coming with us tomorrow. Yeah. Father Carston said this relic might-a come to me for a reason. And maybe that reason is you. You know what? I think God wants to heal you.”

  Chapter 52

  Roland walked alongside Caitlyn through the woods. They were so close their hands touched every now and then. Peter and Dominic trailed a few yards behind, Peter grunting and struggling to push Dominic’s wheelchair through the tall weeds.

  “Why you did not have Mr. Summer drop us at the vehicle access?” Dominic said. “Isn’t it just half a mile up South River Road? The vehicle access, it runs along the river. Are we not headed that way anyway? Where does this path go? Where’re you taking me?”

  “All right. I get it. It was a bad choice.” Peter grunted. “How was I to know weeds took over this path?”

  Caitlyn glanced over her shoulder, giggled, then looked at Roland. Their hands brushed.

  Roland smiled. The mystical calm he’d experienced at Mass had nearly faded. He’d spent half the Mass gazing at the altar, the words of the prayers lingering in his mind and stirring his soul like fall leaves in a swirling wind.

  Reverencing the memory of Mary, Joseph . . . Thy Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul . . . and of all Thy saints, by whose merits and prayers we may be guarded by Thy protecting help . . . Deliver us, O Lord, from all evils . . . by the intercession of Blessed Mary . . . together with Thy Holy Apostles . . . and all the saints, mercifully grant peace in our days . . .

  Strange, how he’d never paid much attention to the words of the prayers before. Now they took on real meaning, and he felt close to the saints, especially Saint Conrad. He recognized a mystical bond between the living and the dead, if you could call them dead for they lived in the presence of God.

  Peter’s inheritance spoke to Roland more than any antique ever had. Somehow, he’d known it would. It had drawn him from the first moment he had seen it. The story attached to it, the mystery of faith, the lesson, was like none he had ever experienced. Peter’s inheritance had a message for him and his life. He could see that plainly. Now he needed to be faithful to that message, but he wasn’t sure how. Praying for Dominic, the kid responsible for spreading more rumors about him than anyone, was a start.

  “Hey, where’s Toby?” Peter said. “Mom sure was happy when I told her I wanted Toby to tag along. Of course, she doesn’t know where we’re going. It’d be awful if I lost him.” Then he shouted, “Anybody seen Toby?”

  Caitlyn flipped her hair, turned her head, and tripped into Roland. “Didn’t you see him run off? He said something about throwing sticks in the water, I think. I’ll go find him.” She jogged down the narrow trail.

  Roland straightened his tie, shoved his hands in the front pockets of his dress pants and waited for Peter and Dominic to catch up. “I thought you said this trail was wide and easy. Are you sure this is where you wanted Mr. Summer to drop us off?”

  “Don’t you start on me, too. This happens to be a short-cut to the trail that runs along the river, the wide and easy trail. Don’t worry. We’re almost there. You could always help.”

  “I need one of those all-terrain wheelchairs,” Dominic said. “You ever seen those? They have tracks like a tank.” He pushed the wheels a little faster. “Why can’t you tell me what we are doing, anyway? Does he know?” He tossed his bangs out of his eyes as he nodded to indicate Roland.

  “Yeah, Roland knows.”

  “Then everybody knows but me.”

  “You’ll know soon enough.” Peter grinned, a far-off look in his eyes.

  Roland grabbed one of the handles to help push and noticed a football in the pouch on the back of the wheelchair. “What’s with the football?” Roland said to Peter, leaning near and speaking low so Dominic wouldn’t hear.

  “Why don’t you ask Dominic?” Peter said, loud enough for Dominic to hear. Then he pushed Roland’s hand from the handle and shoved both handles down to get the wheelchair over a big root.

  “Ask me what?” Dominic said.

  “About the football,” Peter said. “Is it Foster’s?”

  “Si. I told you he was supposed to meet me in the church parking lot. Did anybody see him? He would probably ride his bike. I didn’t see him.”

  “Maybe he stood you up.” Peter looked amused.

  “I don’t care. Es un idiota.” Dominic mumbled a string of words in Spanish and pushed the wheels faster, making anyone’s assistance useless.

  The path ended on the wide trail that ran along the river. The afternoon sunlight glistened on the water and lit up the trees on the opposite bank. Caitlyn and Toby stood by the river’s edge, throwing sticks and rocks into the water. Toby laughed and kept saying, “Cai-lyn, look. Cai-lyn, look.”

  “Come on, Toby,” Peter said. “We need to move on. You can throw rocks later.”

  Toby whined. Caitlyn took Toby’s hand. Toby pulled it away, but he walked alongside her.

  “This path is much better,” Dominic said. “I can roll by myself.” He picked up his speed as if to prove it. “How far do we go?”

  “To the waterfall,” Peter said.

  “I wish we would’ve stopped at your house first.” Roland glanced at his dress shoes and adjusted the leather duffle bag he carried on his shoulder. “I wanted to change my clothes. I’m not exactly dressed for this.”

  “You should’ve worn jeans like we did,” Peter said. “Besides, I don’t want to go back to the house. Mr. Reinhard would see us, maybe suspect something and follow us. Plus, we wouldn’t be able to get the wheelchair down the slope by the waterfall. You remember where the path from my house comes out?”

  Somewhere a branch cracked and Roland’s gaze shot to the woods.

  “Did you hear something?” Peter looked in the same direction.

  Before Roland could answer, Caitlyn
bounced over and pushed between them. “I didn’t see your brothers at church. Did you come alone?”

  Roland nodded.

  “How’d you get to church? Did you walk?”

  He gave her a little smile and found himself fixated on her green eyes sparkling in the sunlight. She had asked him a question. What was it? “No. In dress clothes? I didn’t walk. Jarret gave me a ride.”

  “Jarret?” Peter said. “You’re kidding. I thought you two didn’t . . . Well, it’s none of my business.” He shut his mouth.

  “I don’t know. Mr. Digby was going to take me, but Jarret said he wanted to. He was acting kind of strange, really.” Roland glanced over his shoulder again. Would Jarret have followed him?

  “Did you hear something, too?” Caitlyn whispered.

  Roland turned to her but didn’t answer on account of how pretty she looked gazing intently into the woods.

  “What’d you guys hear? Think we’re being followed?” Peter took longer strides.

  “Did you guys see that suspicious black car up at church?” Dominic said.

  “What?” Peter and Caitlyn said together.

  “It was a black Chrysler or something. While Caitlyn’s papi was wrestling my wheelchair into the back of the van, the car drove past the church parking lot real slow like. Nobody saw it?”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Peter grabbed the wheelchair again, though Dominic had it clipping along at a good speed. “Did you see the driver?”

  “No. I wasn’t that interested. You think somebody is following us?”

  Caitlyn and Roland took turns glancing into the woods. The bank along the trail rose steadily and the sound of rushing water grew.

  When the roar of the waterfall said they were near, but before they could see it, Toby galloped a few yards. Then he dashed with a lopsided gait down the path.

  “Wait for us,” Peter shouted. He jogged, pushing the wheelchair faster.

  Dominic let out a hoot. “There’s that waterfall. I remember it from years ago. Is that where we are going?”