Free Stories 2014

by Baen Books

  Moss had heard this before—Ben had picked him up a couple miles south of the Mass Pike, so they'd been together almost a day. The story was that Ben shared a house in Portland, Maine, on India Street. The plan—Ben's plan—was for Moss to come home with him, and "help out" for crash space and food.

  It was a nice plan, Moss thought—for Ben. He didn't particularly have anything against Ben, mind. The man'd been more than fair with him: fed him a couple burgers, with fries, made sure he had a new, cold Coke every time they stopped for gas, offered to share his cigarettes and his reefers, too; and had only wanted one blow-job, which he'd asked for, nice and polite. His momma would've liked Ben.

  Well, and Momma never did have no sense in men; which was the reason Moss was sixteen, and hitchin', and givin' blow-jobs to such folk as might pick him up. Momma'd taught him it was wrong to be beholden, so he made sure him and his rides were caught up even by the time he left 'em.

  . . .though that was lookin' like it might be a problem, with Ben, here. Moss had no intention of letting himself be took into a strange house in a strange city and set to work givin' blow-jobs—or worse—to them he owed nothing to—or maybe Ben had the idea he'd like to deliver reefers, which he wouldn't much care for, neither.

  Trouble was, they were getting close to Portland—he'd seen a sign 'bout ten miles back that said 38 miles, which meant he was going to have to give Ben the slip at the next gas stop.

  He glanced over at the dash. Gauge was showing under a quarter, and the way this old Lincoln drank down the gas, no way they were making even twenty-five more miles without a top-off.

  "Be home for dinner," Ben said, maybe thinking he was looking at the odometer. "We'll stop and pick up some groceries—beer, Coke, whatever you like—'fore we get there. Sound good to you, Mossie?"

  "Sure," he said, and smiled, because Ben would want him to smile and be excited about comin' inside to a regular house where there was a shower, and regular meals an' all. A place where he could be useful and maybe earn some money and not have to put up with Momma's new boyfriend whaling on him, and calling him a freak and a weakling, and yelling at him to die, already.

  His momma—give her credit—she hadn't liked seein' her boyfriend smacking her sickly son around, so she'd done what she could, since she wasn't going to be givin' the boyfriend up no time soon, not with a new baby on the way. She'd given Moss his own daddy's backpack, from when he'd been in the Army, and she'd told him to pack up his clothes and any other little thing that was his. Then, she'd given him nineteen dollars, which was all the grocery money, drove him out to the edge of the city, so the cops wouldn't give him no hassle, opened the door and told him to go.

  He gave her back a ten, because he knew she'd want to think well of herself, and remember that she hadn't sent him out empty-handed. The boyfriend, though, he'd still expect to eat, and there wasn't no sense her getting the man mad when she'd just done him a good turn.

  She took the money quick enough that he knew she'd been counting on him giving some back. He picked up his pack from between his feet, and got out of the car.

  "Moshe," she said, just as he was shutting the door.

  "Ma'am?"

  "You remember now—don't you walk too hard, or too far. You mind your heart. Promise me."

  "I promise, Momma," he said, giving her a smile, and closed the door nice and soft.

  By the time he'd gotten to the end of the parking lot, she was gone.

  "We'll pull over for gas just up the road," Ben said, breaking into his thoughts. "Get us some Cokes and chips to last the rest of the way."

  Moss looked out the window, saw a long main street like a lot he'd seen in New England—hardware store, five and dime, diner. . .and 'way up the end of the block, on the right, a white, red and blue Esso sign.

  "Where are we?" he asked, 'cause of course the hardware store was somebody's name, which wasn't no help, and the diner was The Golden Rooster, with a big sign in the front window that said, "Something to Crow About!"

  "Saco," Ben said. "That bridge we just come across was the Saco River. Town just the other side was Biddeford."

  "And next is Portland?"

  "Nah. Still gotta do the rest of Saco, then Scarborough, then over the bridge into the city. Twenty miles, maybe. Home for dinner, just like I said."

  This was definitely the place for him to get off.

  Moss smiled. "Sounds great," he said.

  Ben pulled up to the pumps, and cut the engine. Moss opened his door.

  "Gotta hit the head," he said. He closed the door briskly and walked to the office.

  "Key?" he said to the guy behind the counter.

  "Over there on the hook," the guy said, jerking his head to the left without bothering to look around.

  Moss snagged the one labeled "M" and was out the door, ducking past Ben as he came in, and scooting around the side of the building.

  But he didn't go to the men's room. He tucked the key on its piece of wood in the back pocket of his jeans, and looked around the corner at the car.

  There was only one guy on, and he'd put the pump on automatic while he got under the hood to check the oil.

  Good, thought Moss. It was time to leave Ben and get on alone. He couldn't risk the house on India Street, not by a long damn, he couldn't. Sure, he was on the street, and he didn't have an address, but he'd talked to the other kids he'd met on his way out from KC. Some of 'em—a lot of 'em—they'd made mistakes, and they were willing to share what they'd done wrong, or seen done wrong, what and who to look out for. . .

  He didn't quite have Ben figured, but that didn't matter. The only kind of person who picked up a hitcher, treated him good, and promised him a nice room in his own home—was the kind of person no hitcher wanted to know. Might be Ben was on good behavior until they got to that house, which might not even be his. Some places, after they had a kid for a while, they sent him out to get more kids. . .

  Well.

  Wasn't here nor there, really. He had a plan—he had a duty—and he was gonna see it done. He'd promised.

  Moss slipped around the back of the car, opened the back door, ducked inside and grabbed the strap of his backpack.

  Easing the door closed, he looked to the front, but the gas-guy was still fiddling around with the engine. He stood on tiptoes to look over the roof of the Lincoln; saw Ben in the window, talking with the office man, but shifting a little like Ben did when he was nervous. Might be he was starting to wonder how long Moss was gonna take.

  Time to go.

  He fished the key out of his back pocket and dropped it onto the tarmac, then slung the pack over his shoulder, ducking a little to be sure he was below the line of the car's roof, and angled toward the shrubs and trees lining the edge of the station.

  He'd just gotten past the shrubs and was almost into the trees when he heard somebody running behind him, and Ben's voice yelling.

  "Hey! Hey! Moss! You come back here, you little—Hey! Somebody help me catch that kid, he's got my wallet!"

  That didn't take long.

  Moss pushed further into the trees, wondering how deep the little wood was. Behind, there came some crashing and snapping as branches broke, and Ben yelling, "C'mon Moss, quit foolin' around; we gotta go!" and the gas guy maybe it was yelling, "C'mon, kid; the boss is calling the cops. Just throw the guy's wallet out here and everything's square."

  "What the hell you talkin' about?" Ben yelled. "He's with me!"

  "Thought he had your wallet."

  "Well, he does. He. . .plays these jokes. But we're together. Mossie! C'mon, it ain't funny no more."

  No, thought, Moss, it wasn't. Up ahead, flashing silver through the leaves, he saw a chain link fence. Behind him, they were still crashing, and to the right. . .

  To the right, it was downhill and more trees and maybe he could lose them, if he ran like hell.

  He dropped to his knees in a little clearing, panting for air and his heart pounding funny like it did, and there were little s
pikes of pain in his chest, and he just put his palms flat against the dirt, and hoped that this wasn't it, the time that his bad heart went bust on him, and then he hoped that it was, it hurt so bad, and then. . .

  . . .he woke up to the soft inquiry of an owl, and stars above him, between the leaves. He was tired, but nothing hurt, and he took a deep breath of the cool, damp air, tasting salt.

  The ocean, that must be. He was close to the ocean—the Atlantic Ocean, that was. He'd struck out deliberate for the Atlantic Ocean, all those weeks ago, on account of his duty. His promise to his dad. 'course, his dad'd thought—had said!—that Moss would make good on the promise when he was a man.

  Wasn't dad's fault that Moss wasn't likely to live that long. He hadn't caught the fever 'til after dad was gone himself. Strep throat, that was what they thought. . .

  Well.

  Water under the bridge. His dad used to say that. That's just water under the bridge, Moshe, all flowed away and gone.

  That was what happened to the bad things—they all flowed away, to the ocean, and the ocean salt dissolved them. Try to carry the bad things around, and they'd weigh you down into the ground.

  The good things, though, you carried them with you, 'cause good things, they didn't weigh no more than sunlight.

  The owl hooted again, softer, like maybe it was telling him to go back to sleep; he was safe here.

  Moss took another deep breath, smiling at the lack of pain.

  Tomorrow, he thought drowsily, he'd find the ocean.

  The sand on the beach was like his dad had told him, white, like snow; fine as flour. Surely was pretty, but it was tricky to walk in. His sneakers were sliding and his knees were working, and it was hard to make any headway. He did it, though he was panting like a grampaw, and his heart was kinda beating strange, one thump harder than the next two. No pain, though, so he didn't mind it, much.

  What his dad hadn't told him about, though, was how the air smelled—not just salty, but fresh, like air right after a thunderstorm. Smelling it made him feel like dancing, though maybe not in the dry sand.

  Finally, he made it to wet sand. He could walk better now, almost like on a sidewalk, and he kept on going, to where the waves come in, rolling soft and slow, and every one that found the sand making a sweet little plash.

  Moss stood there, looking out over the bright, glittery, gently rolling waters, and he felt something happen in his chest—not pain, or that squeezing thing that sometimes happened. No. . .it felt, somehow like he was happy—too happy to laugh.

  So happy, his stupid heart wanted him to cry.

  Well. . .

  He slung the pack around and lowered it to the sand, then knelt and undid the buckle.

  There, in the hidden pocket underneath the right back pocket, he found the little pouch, and pulled it out.

  For a long time, they'd just sat out on a shelf in his room, but when Momma's new boyfriend moved in, Moss had thought maybe it would be better to empty his old shooters out into his sock drawer, and put his dad's tokens into the bag, outta sight.

  The bag, he tucked under his t-shirts, and the boyfriend never found it to break, though he'd broken some other stuff he had no business putting his hands on. . .

  Moss closed his eyes and took a breath.

  Water under the bridge, he told himself, all flowed away and gone.

  Leaving the pack where it was, he walked down to the place where the little waves kissed the beach. There were shells, here and there on the wet sand; strings of weed, and stones as shiny as living eyes.

  Just by his foot were two flat, round bones, beige-brown and laying together in the damp. Sand dollars, they were called, his dad had told him, on account they looked like big ol' silver dollars. The two on the beach were damp, and gritty with sand, and though they looked stiff, he knew that they were living critters.

  The one he took outta his pouch, though, that one was white as bone, the critter long dead. He put it on the wet sand near the two live ones, and then reached into the bag for the couple other shells, scattering them onto the sand from his fingertips as he walked a little ways down the waterline.

  When the bag was empty, he upended it, so any sand and grit and pieces could fall out, then shoved it into his pocket.

  He took a deep breath, looking out over the water, and sighed.

  Duty done. Promise kept. The lazy, rolling water glittered a little more, like maybe he'd caught some drops on his eyelashes.

  Another breath, and here came a roller that was taller than the others, seeming to move a little faster, too. Before he could figure out how that might be, it struck the sand with a boom! White spray flew into the air, splashing his face, then the wave was gone, leaving Moss with his jeans wet and his sneakers soggy. The sand around him, where he'd left the shells and the dead sand dollar, was clean, just like somebody had reached out a hand and swept them off the beach.

  * * *

  "Here he comes back, now," Felsic said, leaning on the ticket counter under Noah's Ark.

  Phyllis didn't bother to look up from her newspaper.

  "Lost boy from Away got nothing to do with me. Or with you."

  "Might be he's not lost," Felsic said; "that's what's nagging at me."

  Phyllis rattled the paper.

  "Says here, next month, NASA's gonna be trying to land on the moon. Think o'that, now, eh?"

  "Quite an age we live in," Felsic said agreeably.

  The boy'd been down to the sea; his jeans was wet to the knee, and his sneakers squelched on the land. Might've made an offering—he had the look of it. Gone down heavy, come back light. Wasn't nothing more keeping that boy from floating off to the moon his own self, now that the sea'd taken what he'd brought to it.

  "Hungry," Felsic said, because Phyllis wasn't near as cold as she talked, and she was listenin', even if she was pretendin' not to be lookin'.

  "Give 'im a job," Felsic urged; "can't hurt."

  Phyllis sighed gustily, rattled the paper closed, and stared across the parking lot at the kid an' his backpack an' the dazed way he was starin' around.

  "All right," she snapped. "I'll give 'im a job, if he wants one, but I ain't chasing 'cross the parkin' lot to hand it to 'im. He gets his tail over here like a sensible boy, and looks at the board, then—all right."

  "Fine," Felsic said soothingly. "That's fine."

  A little ripple, that's all it took, the boy might be from Away, but he wasn't one o'the deaf-and-blind ones. No, he felt the ripple, took the suggestion into his head, and started moving 'cross the lot, toward the Ark, and the signboard over at the side saying Operators Wanted.

  Phyllis saw him moving, took note of his direction and turned a pretend glare on Felsic.

  "Well, boss?" she asked, sarcastic, but that was just her way. "Where you puttin' him?"

  "Jack 'n Jill," said Felsic promptly. "Sally'll do 'im a world o'good."

  * * *

  Sally was a little bit something: She teased, and laughed, climbed up the outside scaffolding like a cat, expecting him to keep up. His momma would've said she was "lively." Moss thought she might be something more—or other—than just that. Her eyes flashed yellow in the shadow sometimes, like cat-eyes. She slipped a little, climbing ahead of him, and he thought he saw claws come out from the tips of her fingers and snag the canvas awning stretched between the slide and Noah's Ark.

  Still and all, he liked her—claws and cat-eyes, too. She'd come back down the scaffold to him when he'd had to rest in his climb, an' asked what was the matter.

  "Little breathy; need a quick rest. I got a tricky heart," he told her, which was more than he told most people, for fear of being laughed at. "Had rheumatic fever when I was a little kid."

  "That mean you shouldn't climb?" she asked. "'cause, if you want, we can just set you down at the gate t'take admission. I can do what climbing needs done."

  There now—that was why he liked her. She didn't make fun, and she didn't disbelieve, or go tell Boss Phyllis he was sick, e
ither; just offered up a plan for how to work the ride out between 'em.

  "I can climb; just sometimes I gotta rest."

  "OK, then," she said, and perched on the bar above him, easy as a cat, until he started cilmbing again.

  Up at the top of the slide, standing on the platform, you could see everything there was to see in Archers Beach and beyond—the sun glittering on the ocean, and the land curving, miles away. He could see it all, despite the glittery sea and the fresh damp air making his eyes water. Sally got him turned around so he could look up the hill at the stores and the people shopping, and the cars and delivery trucks doing business.

  "This is my favorite place," Sally said, close in his ear, like she was telling him a secret. "You can see everything."

  Well, you couldn't see Kingman, Kansas, but maybe that was all right, too. Moss took a deep, deliberate breath of wonderful air, and smiled.

  "Sure is fine," he said, and Sally laughed.

  "Where're you from?"

  "Kansas," he said. Sally frowned like he'd said something foreign.

  "Much like here?" she asked.

  "Not anything like here."

  "What brings you to us, then?"

  He shook his head, his eyes damp from the sun striking off all that moving blue water.

  "Made a promise to my dad. He was here, years back. Picked up some shells and stuff on the beach. He gave 'em to me, before he died, and said that I had to go to Archers Beach when I was grown up, and give the shells back to the sea. Made me promise. So, I come to fill the promise."

  Sally didn't make a fuss about that, either, or tell him he was silly. He had the feeling that Sally took promises serious, and he liked her even more.

  "Be going back soon?"

  Going back? thought Moss. What would he go back for? Or to?

  He shook his head.

  "I think I'll stay here. I think. . .my dad wanted me to see something different. He told me how, when he first saw the Atlantic Ocean, he said it changed his whole life, and how he saw the world."

  "He went back, though," Sally said, looking down at the parking lot below them.