“Crew?” Cody was at a loss.
“Sculling,” she said. She looked back, maybe saw he still didn’t understand. “Rowing,” she explained.
Rowing was a competitive sport? Cody kept that thought to himself.
“I got involved with a Harvard program, crew for inner-city kids,” Alex said. “I was one of the inner-city kids. With Clea it’s riding. Of course, she is rich, although not rich for here. Plus she’s just so good at everything. Larissa—she’s the lit mag editor—said Clea submitted a poem that blew her away. On top of that, she’s a wizard at math, and—”
“I’d like to see it,” Cody said.
“See what?”
“The poem.”
“You’re interested in poetry?” Alex said.
“Not really.”
“Then why do you want to see the poem?”
“No reason,” Cody said.
They came to a rocky cliff, maybe ten feet high, with a trickle of water running down its face. Here and there at the edges of the trickle, the water was starting to freeze. Alex glanced up at the sky. It seemed smaller here than back home 124
in Little Bend, although Cody knew that had to be impossible. Cody also remembered it being blue when he’d entered the woods; now it was gray, the clouds dark and sagging. Alex and Cody moved along the base of the cliff, came to a strangelooking bowl-shaped hollow full of stunted evergreens, not much taller than a person.
“It was called ‘Bending,’ I think,” Alex said.
“The poem?” said Cody.
Alex opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment they both saw a man seated on a tree stump at the far side of the hollow, smoking a cigarette. He was dressed in black, except for a bright red headband, the only red Cody had seen in the woods; in fact, that red flash was the first thing he noticed. The man looked up, saw them; no, not a man, but a kid, like them.
“Townes?” Alex called to him. “What’s up?”
Yes, the TV report kid, the one with long blond hair falling over one eye. Townes took one last drag from the cigarette, rose, and ground the butt under his heel, then moved toward them, smoke curling up from his nostrils. He carried a long stick, used it to raise a branch of one of those dwarfish trees, hack at another. Was this part of looking for Clea? Alex stepped down into the bowl, and Cody followed.
They met halfway across. At first Cody thought he was much shorter than Townes, then realized it was mostly an 125
illusion from the way Townes carried himself, head tilted slightly back. In fact, he was only an inch or so taller than Cody, and not quite as broad. “Townes, Cody,” said Alex. “Cody, Townes. Cody’s a volunteer from the town.”
Townes glanced at Cody for maybe a split second—his name not ringing the slightest bell, as far as Cody could see—
and turned to Alex. “Where the fuck is she?” he said. His eyes were red. Had he been crying? There was no sign of tears. Cody glanced down, saw that his hands were balled up in fists, like they were doing things on their own; he jammed them in his pockets.
“We’ve got to keep looking, that’s all,” Alex said.
“You don’t think I know that?” Townes waved his stick—a hardwood branch trimmed except for a big knob at the end—at the stony summit. “You think I’m going to stop looking?”
“I didn’t say that,” Alex said. She took out one of Mrs. McTeague’s maps. “Aren’t we supposed to be checking down there?” She gestured toward the woods at the other side of the bowl, where Townes had been smoking his cigarette.
“Apparently,” said Townes.
“Then let’s do it,” Alex said.
Cracking sounds came from the other direction, back by the cliff. A few seconds later Larissa and Simon walked down from the ridge, breath clouds rising over their heads, and joined the others in the bowl.
126
“Is anyone else freezing?” Simon said.
“This way,” said Alex.
They all followed her into the far woods, Simon last. “I hate nature,” he said. “Despise, detest, loathe.”
They stepped into the trees, the ground sloping up again, but not steeply. “Spread out,” Alex said. Everyone spread out, Alex on the far left, Cody on the far right, with Townes closest to him, whacking at the undergrowth with his stick. Cody moved around a big rock, kept his eye out for anything moving, anything red. But all that moved were the darkening clouds and themselves, five kids that Cody could only think of as four and one; and the only red to be seen was Townes’s headband.
“There’s no God,” Simon called out. “Brambles are the proof.”
They crested the top of the hill, found themselves on a narrow ledge. Beyond the ledge, the trees thinned out and the ground sloped toward a distant paved road. A semi went by, lights on, and then a car with skis on the roof.
“Route Seven?” Larissa said.
Alex checked her map and nodded. “If we head north off the ledge, we should find a trail to the bottom.”
“Perfect,” said Simon. “We can take a taxi back.”
“Calling a taxi how, precisely?” Townes said. “This is a dead zone.”
But just as he said that, Cody’s cell phone rang. They all 127
looked at him in surprise. “What service do you have?” Simon said.
Cody took the phone from his pocket. “Hello?”
“Where the hell are you?” It was his father. His voice was loud; he might have been standing right there.
Cody moved away, although there really wasn’t anywhere to go on the ledge. He lowered his voice. “I left a note,” he said.
“I saw your fucking note,” his father said. “You think that’s good enough?”
Cody, aware of the Dover Academy kids watching him, took a few steps off the ledge onto the steep slope, and slipped on some dead leaves. He felt a sudden twinge in his bad knee, for an instant thought it was coming apart again, but his knee held, and somehow he stayed on his feet. “Can’t talk right now,”
he said. “I’ll call soon.”
“Call soon? Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“I’m sorry,” Cody said.
“Ain’t that the truth,” his father said. “Now answer my question—where are you? What are you doing?”
Cody’s knee started to throb. He glanced back, saw the Dover Academy kids gazing down from the ridge. “Read the note.”
“What did you say to me?” His father was shouting now, shouting and drunk.
128
“You heard.”
“Think you can talk to me like that, boy? I’m your goddamn father.”
“Why?” Cody said. The word just popped out, totally unplanned, not even making any sense that Cody could see. He clicked off.
The Dover Academy kids were still watching him. “What service do you have, again?” Simon said. Cody noticed they all had their cell phones out, maybe hadn’t overheard the conversation, maybe had no interest in it, not the slightest. He named the service. They stared at the tiny screens, shook their heads, put their cell phones away.
“At least we’ll be able to call the cab,” Simon said. A fat snowflake wafted by, followed by a few more. “Let’s take it all the way back to Manhattan,” he added.
“Really,” said Larissa. A snowflake landed in her hair. For some reason the sight—snowflake so white, hair so black and glossy—had a calming influence on Cody, just at a time when that was what he most needed. The snowflake melted and disappeared. 129
THEY MOVED NORTH OF the ridge, soon found the trail. Snow—“A trifle early, no?” Simon said—fell lightly, sifting down through the bare branches like salt from a giant shaker.
“You limping, Cody?” Alex said.
“No.” They were walking in single file. Cody drifted to the back.
“The helicopter has been conspicuous by its absence,”
Simon said.
“Mr. Negative,” said Townes.
“I’m merely noting the fact,” Simon said.
“Shut up,” Townes said.
“Hey, come on,” said Alex. “It’s probably just refueling, anyway.”
They continued in silence, Alex, Simon, Larissa, Townes, Cody. Snow coated the trail now, a fraction of an inch, but enough to record their footprints. Something about the snow bothered Cody, maybe just the thought that it had in fact come too late. Wouldn’t snow last Wednesday have captured Clea’s footprints, led the rescuers right to her?
“Hear the latest?” Larissa said. “Clea’s dad had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital.”
“How do you know?” Townes said.
“The cops were talking about it in the barn,” she said.
“How bad?” Townes said.
“How bad what?” said Larissa.
“The heart attack, for Christ sake.”
Larissa gave him a look; despite the fact she was half his size, the look said she wouldn’t be pushed around. “No idea,”
she told him.
“He struck me as the heart-attack type,” Simon said.
“Shut up,” said Townes.
“Hey, come on, guys,” Alex said.
“Speaking of the barn,” Simon said, “what’s the story with this Ike character?”
“No story,” Townes said. “He mucks out the stables.”
“I refer to his whole Deliverance aspect,” said Simon.
“He’s harmless,” Townes said.
“Maybe,” said Simon, “but he really should do something 131
about his—” Simon cut himself off. Up ahead, and not too far off the trail, a small cabin appeared.
“Just one of those warming huts,” Alex said.
“They’ve all been searched,” said Townes.
A minute or two later they were even with the warming hut: square and squat, with walls made from rough-hewn logs, a lopsided roof, a slanting chimney. “I’d like to take a look,”
Cody said.
“I just told you,” Townes said. “They’ve all been searched.”
“You guys go ahead,” Cody said. “I’ll catch up.”
“But how will we call the cab without your phone?” Simon said.
Cody didn’t want to lend them his phone, partly out of fear that his father might call again, partly because, apart from Alex, these kids seemed so strange to him. “I’ll just be a minute or two,” Cody said, and turned off the trail.
“But no more, if it’s all the same to you,” said Simon. “Hypothermia is setting in, and my funeral would be so awkward for my parents, having to stand together in the reception line and all.”
Larissa laughed. The Dover Academy kids kept going down the trail.
Cody stepped over a fallen branch, got tangled in some brambles, freed himself, reached the hut. He felt better away from 132
those kids. They—or maybe just Simon—took up all the air. Cody walked around the hut, looked through the grimy little windows, didn’t see much: a potbelly woodstove, a table, shadows. He returned to the front, tried the door: unlocked. Cody went in.
It was colder in the hut than outside, kind of strange—cold enough to make Cody shiver. He examined the interior of the hut: a single room, woodstove in the center, the table against one wall, a bench against another, two wooden chairs and a stool, a pile of split wood in one corner. Easy to imagine a confused person stumbling into a hut like this, maybe resting on the bench: but he saw nothing red, no sign of Clea, or anyone else. Cody read a notice tacked to the wall.
Welcome to this warming hut, maintained for the
comfort and safety of hikers, skiers, and snowshoers by the Vermont Trailblazers Society. If unfamiliar with the operation of the woodstove, please do not use. Please leave the hut the way you found it.
Pack out what you pack in! Safety first!
Enjoy our beautiful mountains!
Cody moved over to the bench, got down on his hands and knees—one knee, anyway, the good one—and peered 133
underneath. Why bother, if, as Townes said, the hut had already been searched? Cody didn’t know. He saw a big circular spiderweb hanging from the underside of the bench. Two flies, a moth, and another insect Cody had no name for were caught in the web; he couldn’t find the spider. He remembered how Junior was afraid of spiders, just about the only thing in the whole world that scared him. Kind of weird, what with Junior being such a warrior. Wish you were here. Cody rose, walked to the woodstove. He knew woodstoves: Junior’s mom had one, heated their whole house with it in winter. Cody raised the cook lid; the little cooking bowl beneath it was empty. He opened the feed door at the side, bent down, saw a pile of white ashes; and what was this? Cody reached in, took out a beer bottle, the top broken off, the end jagged. He examined the bottle. It hadn’t been inside while the stove was hot: The paper label was intact. Bud Light. Bud, he thought; completely meaningless, of course, unconnected to Bud the horse.
Cody sniffed at the bottle. He detected no beer smell at all, just ashes. Completely unconnected but—from behind came a voice, so sudden and unexpected it made him jump.
“What are you doing?”
Cody turned. Townes stood in the doorway.
“Looking for Clea,” Cody said.
134
“Hard of hearing?” Townes said. “They’ve searched all the huts.” His eyes went to the bottle. He pointed at it with his stick. “W hat’s that?”
Cody knew the huts had been searched, didn’t need reminding. Also, he didn’t like the stick or that particular way of pointing it. But most of all—what was that expression Alex had used? About things not computing? How did you compute that bit from Clea’s letter— I’ve been thinking about you a lot, can’t help it— with this new boyfriend, Townes DeWitt, or whatever the hell his stupid name was? Cody didn’t think about all those things; they were just there, egging him on. “Here,” he said, and tossed the broken bottle to Townes.
A soft toss, neither spinning nor rotating, unbroken bottom end first: in other words, catchable. But Townes made no attempt to catch it. He leaned slightly out of the way—a bit like a matador Cody had seen on TV—and the bottle arced past him and smashed on the floor.
“What’s your problem?” Townes said.
“No problem.”
Townes looked down at the broken glass, toed some of it aside, then gazed at Cody, maybe actually seeing him for the first time. “You from the high school?” he said.
“I dropped out,” said Cody.
“Yeah?” Townes said. “How ballsy.”
135
Cody shrugged.
Townes glanced around the hut. “Seen enough?” he said. Cody didn’t know about that. He wished he hadn’t broken the bottle, although it couldn’t have anything to do with Clea: She didn’t even like the taste of beer.
“Isn’t it obvious she’s not here?” Townes said.
“Maybe she was,” Cody said; not because he thought so—
he’d just proved the opposite to himself—but more because he didn’t want to agree with Townes about anything. He realized he was jealous and felt ashamed. It took him a moment or two to even understand the feeling, put a name to it. Cody had never felt a whisper of jealousy in his life. It was a bad feeling, tumultuous, dark, powerful. And indulging in it now, with Clea missing, in trouble, maybe even something worse? That was low.
“What do you mean, maybe she was?” Townes said.
“What I said. Maybe she was here.”
“Is there evidence of that?” Townes looked around the cabin again, slower and with more care this time. “I don’t see anything.”
“Maybe she likes Bud Light,” Cody said. He realized he was toying with Townes, a sneaky little game cooked up by this new jealousy demon inside him.
Townes glanced down again at the remains of the bottle. “Are you suggesting that she wandered in here with a 136
concussion and funneled down a quick one?”
“You’d know,” Cody said. He was out of control now, the jealousy demon in full command.
> Townes’s face changed; hard to describe how, exactly: It was almost as though he suddenly felt unwell. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he said.
Cody shrugged. “Alex says you’re going out with her.”
“Alex has a big mouth.”
“Meaning you are going out with her.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Nothing,” Cody said.
Townes gazed at him, at the same time easing more of the shattered glass against the wall with his foot. His face—a good-looking face, the kind that might turn up in some clothing catalog, no way Cody could avoid noticing that—returned to normal, as though the sudden illness had passed. “I can tell you that Clea is not the funneling type,” he said.
“But does she like beer?” Cody said.
“Margaritas are more her speed,” Townes said. Cody nodded.
A composed sort of nod, perhaps, but inside he was very mixed up, as mixed up as he’d ever been. Margaritas? That wasn’t Clea, not at all. How well did this guy, this rich asshole, the new boyfriend, even know her? The wind rose, blowing a 137
little twister of snow through the open doorway.
“How about we get going?” Townes said.
Cody didn’t want to leave the warming hut, although for no reason he could express. He moved toward the door. Townes stepped aside. They didn’t look at each other. Cody stepped out of the hut, Townes following and closing the door. They walked out to the trail, Cody still leading the way, trying not to limp. The wind blew harder now, and the snowfall thickened. Cody pictured his winter boots—sturdy, waterproof, lug soles for traction—in the closet back home. His feet were cold, his ears, too; just about all of him. He should have made a list before packing; making lists was something he never did. That was one thing he should change about his life, and soon. Clea made lists all the time.
They reached the trail, turned right; the footprints of Alex, Simon, and Larissa were quickly filling up with snow, getting smoothed away. The trail soon widened, and Cody and Townes were side by side.
“What’s she like?” Cody said.
“Who?”
“Clea.”
Townes glanced over at him. Cody kept looking straight ahead. “Anyone ever mention you ask a lot of questions?”
Townes said.
Reality Check Page 9