Reality Check

by Peter Abrahams

  “Hi,” Cody said. “What, uh—”

  “First time here?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “Thanks for helping out,” she said. “I’m Mrs. McTeague, volunteer coordinator. Help yourself to a doughnut.”

  “Uh, no thanks.”

  Mrs. McTeague helped herself to a doughnut, chocolate with sprinkles. With her free hand she shuffled through some papers, produced a map overlaid by a grid. “Familiar with the woods around here?” she said, not quite finished with her doughnut.

  Cody shook his head.

  “You’re not at the academy?”

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  “No.”

  “We’ve had a number of volunteers from the high school,”

  Mrs. McTeague said, and Cody offered no correction. “And we appreciate it very much. So nice to put some of those old towngown quarrels to rest.” She turned the map so he could see, pointed with a pen. “We are here—at the red X. This is the Dover campus, the village green, and Route Seven would be over there, just off the edge of the map, meaning north is like so. The main riding trail enters the woods here.” She pointed to the beginning of a blue line on a green background. “It’s a three-mile loop, with many trails, marked in blue, branching off as you can see, and even though some aren’t suitable for riding, the search has expanded to include them all.”

  “But the horse came back,” Cody said. “Doesn’t that mean—”

  Mrs. McTeague shook her head, cutting him off. “Because we’re working on the assumption that she was thrown from the horse and got confused, we have to check all the trails, and the woods in between, of course. Naturally, we’ve canvassed residents for miles around, all the backwoods people.” She pointed again. “These boxes have been searched—A-one through B-three. Today we’re working on C-two.” She handed him the map. C-2 was about a thumb’s width east of the loop. A single blue line labeled Upper Mountain Crossover cut across it from 110

  the loop all the way to the right-hand edge of the map.

  “So I just go up there?” Cody said.

  The woman nodded. “It’s a bit of a hike. You’ll find a police officer where the loop meets the crossover. He’ll assign you a sector.” She gave Cody a flyer with the word Missing at the top, followed by a smaller version of Clea’s photo and her name in big black letters. “Keep an eye out for any clothing items on this list.”

  “Okay,” Cody said, and headed for the door. He heard a sound from the loft, looked up, and saw a man descending a ladder, a rake in one hand. He reached the ground a few steps ahead of Cody, a tall, thin red-eyed man, with a wild graying beard and a long graying ponytail.

  “Hey, Ike,” said the woman. “Say hello to the new volunteer.”

  “Too many cooks,” Ike said.

  “Come on, Ike,” the woman said. “Be nice.”

  Ike glanced at Cody. “Nice guys finish last,” he said. Coach Huff liked that one too.

  Cody moved around Ike, walked past the stalls. All the horses stood quietly, some watching him, the others gazing at nothing. All the horses but one: The last horse on his left was restless, shifting around in the stall, tossing his mane, rolling his eyes. Cody recognized him right away, from the diamond111 shaped blaze. “Hey, Bud,” he said.

  Behind him, the woman called, “That’s Clea’s horse—how did you know his name?”

  Cody made an instant decision, based on no facts, just a feeling. “Yeah?” he said, not turning, “I was just like ‘hi, bud, buddy,’ you know? A coincidence.”

  “Oh,” said the woman. “The poor thing’s been so anxious.”

  Cody went closer. Bud noticed him, grew still. Cody extended his hand, patted Bud’s face. He looked into Bud’s big brown eyes, thinking: You know. Whatever happened, you know. Bud pressed his head against Cody’s hand, but those eyes revealed nothing. Bud’s like an open book, Clea had once said. But not to him.

  “Get a load of this, Ike,” said the woman. “Our new volunteer has a way with horses.” Ike grunted. “Ike’s just jealous,”

  Mrs. McTeague said. “Bud hasn’t been letting anyone near him.”

  Cody stopped patting Bud and turned. Ike stood in a stall, raking out dirty straw, his ponytail bobbing; the woman was watching Cody. “How come he didn’t stay with her?” Cody said.

  “Good question,” the woman said. “We wondered about that. Sergeant Orton—he’s in charge—let Bud out the very next morning, hoping he’d lead us back to the scene, but he wouldn’t leave the yard.”

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  “Horses ain’t dogs,” said Ike. The woman looked ready to argue with him, but her cell phone rang. She answered it. Cody lingered, hoping for news, until she said, “I’ll pick it up on the way home.”

  He went outside, checked the flyer. It described Clea—

  sixteen, dark hair and fair skin, five feet five, 130 pounds, no distinguishing marks or tattoos. When last seen, she was wear- ing black riding boots and black riding helmet, black sweatpants bearing the Dover Academy logo, a short red jacket, red leather gloves, and possibly a light-colored scarf. Clea is an excellent rider and is in good physical condition.

  Cody crossed the yard, went by a riding ring with jumps set up inside, and came to the loop trail entrance. The woods—and hills rising beyond them—were different shades of brown and gray with dark evergreens mixed in; wouldn’t a red jacket—Cody knew the one—be very visible? He couldn’t be sure. Cody had hardly even been in woods before, just a few times on mountain outings; there was nothing you could call woods in Little Bend.

  Cody started up the trail. Right away, the wind died down to almost nothing and it got very quiet; he no longer heard the helicopter. The trail was broad and hard packed, with little mounds of horse shit here and there, and sometimes a horseshoe print. The trail curved around a tall spruce tree and began to rise. Going uphill was actually easier on his knee. 113

  He picked up the pace, but always glancing to one side or the other, looking for a flash of red. From the map, he knew he was in A-1, a square already searched and probably heavily trafficked, being so close to the search headquarters, but he couldn’t help it. Once or twice he almost called her name; and inside his head he was calling it, many times. He could easily picture her coming around the next bend, sitting straight up and still in the saddle, the way she did. Cody got a funny feeling at the back of his neck, like she was close by. He even turned to look, and saw nothing but the empty trail and the tall trees, with no red showing between their trunks or bare branches.

  Cody passed several trails entering the loop and soon heard sounds in the distance: a man’s laugh, a dog’s bark. He went around a big mossy rock, almost the size of a house, with a big crack down the middle, and saw two men up ahead, one in uniform. The uniformed man sat on an ATV, a German shepherd at his feet; the other man stood to the side, a walkie-talkie in his hand and binoculars around his neck.

  The dog must have heard Cody coming—its head turned suddenly in Cody’s direction, and it started barking. The men turned, too. “Easy, girl,” said the uniformed man. The dog fell silent.

  Cody went up to the men, spotted an intersecting trail and 114

  a sign nailed to a tree: UPPER MOUNTAIN CROSSOVER—4.5 MILES TO

  ROUTE 7. “Hi,” he said, recognizing the uniformed man from the TV report: Sergeant Orton. “Mrs. McTeague said, um—”

  “New volunteer?” said Sergeant Orton; his shoulder patch read NORTH DOVER POLICE: TO SERVE AND PROTECT. The dog sniffed at Cody’s leg.

  Cody nodded, giving her a little scratch between the ears. Sergeant Orton saw him do it; his eyes—not very noticeable at first, kind of overwhelmed by his big red nose and bushy white mustache—shifted slightly, and changed expression; and for a moment somehow became his dominant feature.

  “I’m Ted Orton,” said the sergeant. “This is Mr. Stein from the school.” They shook hands, the men with their gloves on, Cody barehanded because he hadn’t thought of bringing gloves. “And you’re?” Sergeant Or
ton said.

  “Cody,” said Cody.

  “Thanks for coming out, Cody,” said Mr. Stein. He turned to the sergeant. “Want to put him over with those kids on the east ridge?”

  The sergeant nodded. “Just follow the crossover about a mile. You’ll come to a little bridge. There’s a party sweeping the woods off to the right. Tell them I sent you.”

  “I can walk you over,” said Mr. Stein.

  “That’s all right,” said Cody. “I’ve got the map.” He started up the trail.

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  “No hiking boots?” Mr. Stein called after him. “It’s a bit steep.”

  “I’m okay,” Cody called back. He felt their eyes on him until the first bend in the trail, maybe fifty feet away. No gloves, no boots, no jacket: He knew he stood out, also knew he wanted to avoid a whole lot of questions, although he couldn’t say why. The Upper Mountain Crossover, much narrower and

  rougher than the loop, began rising in a series of long switchbacks. His knee hurt, but at least it seemed stable, and stronger than even a week ago, a good thing because of all the rocks and tree roots on the trail. Maybe too tricky for horses—there were no signs of them now. Cody kept scanning the woods. Nothing red appeared. And if he did spot Clea’s jacket, either she would be wearing it or not. Not wearing it was the better option; his mind shrank away from the other one.

  The trail grew steeper. Sometimes Cody had to grab a branch to pull himself along. Once or twice he almost went down on all fours. He began to sweat a little, not good in the cold—“stay dry or die” was another favorite saying of Coach Huff’s. Although there was nothing about outdoor survival in the health class textbook, he spent weeks on it, telling and retelling hair-raising tales of the Old West, the one about the Donner Party being his favorite.

  A while later Cody heard flowing water, soon saw a narrow 116

  stream, a stride’s width across or less, blinking through the trees. It came closer, running fast and clear on a rocky bed, sometimes frothing over a fallen branch. The trail curved up around a huge oak and then flattened out for ten or twenty yards, and in that flat part the stream cut across, spanned by a little wooden bridge. Three kids, all warmly dressed, were sitting on it, legs dangling—a boy and two girls, one big, one small.

  Cody approached. The kids looked up. “Hey,” Cody said.

  “They sent me up here to help out.”

  The kids gazed at him. The big girl had braces on her teeth; the other looked partly Chinese; and the boy wore the expensive kind of glasses Cody had seen on models in magazine ads. They were all smart—somehow he knew that at once—much smarter than him.

  “‘They’ meaning Stein?” said the boy.

  “Yeah,” said Cody. “Mr. Stein.”

  “He’s insufferable,” said the Chinese girl.

  Cody wasn’t sure what that meant. “I’m Cody,” he said.

  “That’s a first,” said the Chinese girl.

  Cody didn’t get that either.

  “Meaning you’re her first Cody,” said the girl with the braces. “I’m Alex. This is Larissa. And he’s Simon.”

  “You from the high school, Cody?” Larissa said.

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  “No,” said Cody, wondering about the best way to reveal who he was. “Where are we supposed to be searching?”

  Simon waved vaguely at the hill rising upstream. “Right now, we’re on a break.” He took the top off a thermos. “Coffee?”

  he said.

  “No, thanks,” said Cody. “I’d like to get started.”

  “As you wish,” Simon said. He poured coffee in the thermos cup and, as steam rose, took a bottle from his pocket—Armagnac, Cody saw from the label, a drink he’d never heard of—and added some of that. Simon passed the cup to Larissa and said,

  “Hang a right after that rock—”

  “The one that looks like a giant boob,” said Larissa.

  “And somewhere up there you’ll hear Townes thrashing around,” Simon said.

  “Townes?” Cody said, remembering the big blond kid from the TV report.

  “Clea’s boyfriend,” said Larissa.

  “The missing girl,” Alex explained.

  “He never takes a break,” Simon said, sipping from the cup. Cody heard sounds from above. The idea of explaining who he was lost any appeal it might have had.

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  CODY MOVED OFF THE BRIDGE. His face felt hot. Clea had a boyfriend, that Townes kid from the TV report? She’d said nothing about that in her letter. But maybe there’d been a hint, something between the lines. Cody wasn’t sure; all he remembered by heart from the letter were those two sentences: One or two I don’t like at all. It’s hard to know who to trust sometimes. The letter was in the glove box of the car; Cody made a mental note to go over it the moment he got back, although written material—reading between the lines or just the lines themselves—was not his strength. That first act from Hamlet, for example: impenetrable.

  The slope rose steeply to Cody’s left: no trace of a path, just rocks, moss, patches of dirt, acorns, dead branches, dead leaves—mostly yellow or brown, with a few dull red ones mixed in, not the kind of red he was looking for. He climbed for a few minutes, reached a tall, slanting rock, and leaned against it, resting his knee.

  “Hang on,” Alex called from below. “I’ll come with you.”

  Cody watched her climb. She followed the same route up from the bridge that he’d taken, climbed it pretty easily. Alex was strong, with broad shoulders—broad for a girl, at least. She reached the tall rock, straightened, gazed up at his face.

  “Play any sports?” she said.

  “Some,” said Cody.

  “Like?”

  “Football.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “How come?”

  “Football rocks,” Alex said. “I’d love to have played.”

  “Yeah?” said Cody. He’d met very few girls who even liked watching football, if they were honest about it. “What position?”

  “Safety.”

  “Good choice,” Cody said.

  “Because you see the whole field?”

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  He nodded.

  “Cool.” Alex peered up the slope. “Onward,” she said, and then after a pause, “Although it really doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Why not?”

  “Think about it,” Alex said. “The working hypothesis is she fell off her horse, got knocked a little silly, and wandered around in confusion.”

  “What doesn’t make sense about that?” Cody said. He remembered getting knocked silly by Martinelli in the first quarter of the Bridger game: Wandering around in confusion made perfect sense to him.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” Alex said. “But confused wandering in an uphill direction? That does not compute.”

  She was right. “So we should be working downhill,” Cody said, “on the other side of the bridge.”

  “Except they swept that sector yesterday,” Alex said. “With the dogs. Finding zip.” She bit her lip, her braces glinting in the light. “All this looking and not one single clue,” she said. Meaning they had to keep looking: Was there another choice? “So we go up?” Cody said.

  “Nowhere else to go,” Alex said. “These woods have been pretty much searched now—hundreds of people, ATVs, dogs, choppers, you name it—all the way to Route Seven.”

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  “What if she crossed Route Seven?” Cody said.

  “You know how busy it is—hard to imagine that no one would have spotted her, or that she wouldn’t have asked for help.” Their eyes met. Alex’s eyes were dark, intelligent, worried. “I really like her,” Alex said. “Clea, I mean. No offense, but all this is different when she’s a real flesh-and-blood person in your life.”

  Cody felt a thickness in his throat, could not have uttered a word at that moment.

  “She lived—lives—next door to me, in Baxter,” Alex was saying. “Clea’s new—came as a junior from out west. Not easy,
but she handled it so well. Naturally, it helps when you’re someone like her.”

  Cody cleared his throat. “Someone like her?”

  Alex took a deep breath. “Better get moving,” she said.

  “Night comes so early.” She turned and started up the slope, Cody following. Her quickness surprised him; even with two good knees, he might have had trouble keeping up.

  “Someone like her?” he said again.

  Alex, still climbing, her back to him, said, “Heard you the first time. I just don’t want to sound all snotty.”

  “I can take it,” Cody said.

  Alex laughed, a surprised kind of laugh. “I forgot—did you say you went to the high school?”

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  “No.”

  “Do you know much about Dover Academy?”

  “No.”

  “Well, this is the snotty part—there’s lots of very accom-plished kids here. They come from all over the country—all over the world, really—to Dover and a few places like it. Sounds unfair, maybe, but it’s a fact.”

  “Unfair because you’re all rich?” Cody said. They reached a narrow ridge, worked their way along it, the wind picking up as a stony summit came in view off to the right.

  “Not all of us,” Alex said. “I’m not rich.”

  “You’re not?” Cody would have bet anything she was.

  “I’m on full scholarship,” Alex said, gripping an overhang-ing branch to pull herself along.

  “Yeah?”

  “Single mom situation,” Alex said. “Renting out the top of a Dorchester triple-decker.”

  Cody didn’t know where Dorchester was—or the exact nature of a triple-decker—but he got the point. Maybe like living over the Red Pony: not terrible—he had no complaints—and there was much worse, and also much better.

  “So you must be super accomplished at something,” he said. First time he’d used the word accomplished in a conversation, for sure.

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  “I wouldn’t say super accomplished,” Alex said. “But the answer is it’s crew.”