“He’s just lucky. I almost had him a couple of times. Kind of blends into the trees and dirt though, and turns invisible on ya. Maybe I’m outta practice. We gotta git out more, Willie. Like the old days.”
“Yeah,” Willie said dreamily. “The good ole days, when a man was a man, and a woman—”
“Wasn’t,” sighed Hank.
“Yeah,” Willie said. “Women, you can’t live with ’em, and the dog can’t open the fridge.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Hank snickered. “Yer ole lady still ain’t givin’ ya nothin’, huh?”
“Hell,” Willie said, “her legs are tighter than a pair of rusty bolt clippers.”
“Ouch,” Hank chuckled. “You always had a way with words.”
“Yeah? Ya know I used to write the old witch love poems when we first met.”
“No joke?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Willie said. “I was a regular romantique.”
“What happen’?”
“Dunno. Got married, I guess. Ain’t nothin’ like marriage to ruin a good love song. Why do you think that’s so, Hank?”
“Can’t really say. I think about it a lot though.”
“Well, you always was the thinkin’ sort.”
“Yeah? Ya know, I read once that that there Ziggy Freud fellow once said there just ain’t no understandin’ women. He said everything was related to yer unconscious and yer butthole.”
“Whoa, that’s heavy, Hank.”
“Yeah, makes me wanna go back and read up on it again. Used to read a lot, ya know?”
“I remember. What happen’? How come you don’t read no more?”
“Dunno,” Hank said. “Got married, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Willie said, “nothin’ like marriage to suck the brains right outta ya…”
“Hey,” Hank said, “got a smoke?”
“Sure. Good idea. A smoke and then we catch that punk. I know he’s crouchin’ round here someplace.” He tapped a cigarette out for himself and tossed his buddy the pack. “Low tar,” Willie apologized. “Hope ya don’t mind.”
“Nah… One of these days I’m gonna quit.”
“Me too. Need a match?”
“Got my lighter, thanks.”
The men struck up their cigarettes, facing one another across the ditch.
An astonished pause.
“The hell!”
Max and Steve sprang out of the ravine like Jack-in-the-boxes. They grabbed the cowboys, one hand on their belt buckles, the other on the lapel of their heavy leather jackets, and yanked them into the ditch, smashing one into the other. Arms and legs flailed. A cowboy boot caught Max in the stomach. He stumbled back and tripped over a rock.
Hank scrambled to his feet and unleashed his hunting knife. He pointed it at Max. “I got you now, girly.”
Max scooted backwards along the rocky, branch-littered bottom trying to distance himself from the knife-wielding lawman.
Willie cried for help. Steve had him by the jacket and was bashing him against the side of the ravine. Hank turned and raised his knife in the air.
“Steve, watch out!”
Steve glanced over his shoulder and saw the lawman rush at him, the knife raised threateningly in the air. The man in Steve’s clutches was no pipsqueak, but Steve possessed the strength of a young Atlas. Roaring, he swung Willie like a mannequin and flung him at Hank, knocking him to the ground. Max scrambled over and stamped his hiking boot on Hank’s wrist, forcing the deputy to surrender his knife. Hank, his partner unconscious on top of him, glared up at Max, blood streaming from his nose.
Max said, “Grab their cuffs.”
They cuffed the two deputies together back to back, dragged them up the ravine, and shackled them to the exposed root of a tree.
Hank struggled and cursed. He sneered at Steve and spat a mouthful of blood at him.
Steve winced. “Aw, man. Enough already—” He punched Hank in the face and knocked him out cold.
The boys climbed out of the ravine, picked up the deputies’ rifles, and walked down to the pond. They flung the rifles high into the air and watched them pierce the thin ice on their way to the pond’s muddy bottom.
“They must have rounded up the others,” Steve said.
“Sounded like it.”
“Things are getting hairy, Max. Do you think it would be best if we turned ourselves in?”
“It’s an option,” Max answered.
“Or just pick up and leave?”
“Another option.”
“Or fight?”
“Or fight.”
“Or am I forgetting something?” Steve asked. “Tell me, ‘cuz I’d really like to know.”
“Nope,” Max said, “that about sums it up.”
“I was afraid of that.”
The boys circled round to the other side of the lake. They cut into the woods. The forest loomed dark and still, but they knew these parts as well as the streets of Pinecrest by now and had no trouble negotiating their way. Steve didn’t have to ask where they were headed.
Max halted and held up his hand. He pointed into the darkness towards a lone deer. Max reached into his shirt for Aidos’ ring. It felt unusually warm. Holding it in his fist, he watched the deer and felt a strange kinship with it, as if the animal were communicating with him. Max closed his eyes and cleared his mind. The ring tingled in the palm of his hand. He opened his eyes. The deer had not moved, but continued to observe them. The animal nodded, stepped back into the darkness, and disappeared.
Max turned to Steve, who was still staring into the woods where the deer had stood. Steve’s mouth hung open. He looked slowly away, an astonished expression on his face.
“What’s the matter?” Max asked.
“That was too weird,” he said.
“What was?”
“I think she liked us,” Steve said.
“The deer?”
“Well, yeah… I don’t think it was afraid of us. I felt like we could have just walked up to her and she wouldn’t have run away.”
“Let’s go,” Max said, patting his friend on the back.
“Okay, so I’m crazy. You asked.”
Max chuckled. “I could tell you a few things about crazy.”
53
Oh Youth!
It was eight in the evening when the boys arrived at Camelot. Beowulf greeted them with a stick in his mouth. He demanded a few fetches before he’d consent passage into the house. To this the boys readily agreed. The dog’s happy yaps brought Mr. Thoreson to the porch.
“Hungry?” he called out.
“Very,” Steve answered.
“Come on in. You’re just in time.”
Max gave the stick one last fling and jogged into the house after his friend.
“The salad is ready,” Hardy said. “Give me a few minutes to fry up some more fish.” He took some fillets out of the freezer and tossed them into a skillet. “I just got back from town. I heard about your escape. Did you really jump from a third-story window?”
“I used a mattress to break my fall,” Max said, helping himself to a glass of water.
“And you’re okay?”
“No damage.”
Mr. Thoreson shook his head in amused disbelief. “You’re a lucky fellow.”
“I know, isn’t it great?”
“You’re not invincible, Max. Leaping out of windows is not very smart.”
“True, but sometimes I’d rather be lucky than smart.”
“You can’t be lucky all the time,” Hardy said.
“Don’t have to be. Just when I need it most.”
Steve pointed at a backpack against the wall. “Going somewhere, Professor?”
“I…”
Max said, “You’re going to look for Aidos. I’m coming with you”
“No.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“We leave at dawn,” Max said.
“A little before,” Hardy said.
“No sweat. Steve?”
“I’m ready right now.” He picked an apple out of a bowl on the kitchen table.
“Don’t you boys have homework to do?”
“This is our homework,” Max said.
“I don’t have to tell you how much trouble you’re in, do I?”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Steve said, shining the apple on his shirt. “Max was shot at and I was almost stabbed.” He bit into the apple.
“Lucky for us we’re so lucky,” Max said wryly.
Mr. Thoreson’s laugh turned into a hacking cough.
“You okay?” Steve asked.
“Just a tickle. I’m very sorry about your mother, Max.”
“Thanks. Me too… All I want to do is get my sisters. Then I’m out of this town and never looking back.”
“Mrs. Goodbea has them,” Hardy said. “The Ladies Auxiliary is watching the girls until they figure out what to do with them.” He saw Max’s eyes light up. “They know what you’re thinking and are counting on it. They’ve posted a twenty-four hour watch on her place hoping you’ll try something. They’re looking for an orphanage somewhere. It’ll take awhile, but they might move the girls before we get back.”
“Hmm,” Max said, going to the cupboards to take out the dishes. “First things first. I said I’d go with you when you were ready.” He passed the dishes to Steve who set them on the table. “Do you have any idea where we should start looking?”
“The only thing I have to go on is an old recluse up there somewhere called Doc. He might have seen her.”
Steve turned to Max. “Old Man Messerman?”
“Maybe.”
“Cool.”
“Who?” Hardy asked.
Max said, “Since I was a kid we heard stories about a crazy hermit in the woods. Where in the mountains did they find him?”
“About a four day hike from here. There are caves up there. My brother-in-law is having the sheriff fly him up there to talk to him as soon as they can.”
“He’s trying to take Aidos away from you, isn’t he?” Max said.
“He will if he finds her. I don’t have a chance. He’s got a list of charges against me a mile long. I can beat most of them but he’s out to destroy my credibility with the judge. No one is going to sympathize with me. That you can count on.”
Mr. Thoreson told the boys to sit down and brought the food to the table. He selected a bottle of red wine from the wine rack, popped the cork, and poured the boys each a glass.
Max held up his glass. “A toast…
Here’s to you, and here’s to me,
Pinecrest is screwed and so are we,
Eye to eye we’ll never see,
As long as there’s some good in me!
Steve…”
Steve pushed back his chair and stood. He held up his glass.
“As I lift this glass up high,
Ruby juice against the sky,
Invoking gods to do or die,
Drink this blood and hear me cry,
Life is fugitive and so am I!”
The three friends laughed and downed their wine.
Mr. Thoreson refilled their glasses and asked, “What do you know about your friends?”
Max said, “It sounds like they were all rounded up.”
“Arrested,” Hardy clarified.
“They’re in jail?” Steve said.
Thoreson grinned. “They’re supposed to be.”
“What do you mean?” Max said.
“Well, deputies were marching your friends through the town square towards the police station, when all of a sudden firecrackers and bottle rockets went off all over the place—bang! pow! crack!”
“What?” the boys said.
“Kids flooded into the square and attacked the deputies with a barrage of baseballs, Frisbees, sling shots, fire extinguishers and water hoses—you name it.”
“Whoa!” Steve said. “An ambush!”
“A well-orchestrated one. Your friends emerged from all over the place—from behind cars and around buildings. They dropped from trees and streaked by on bicycles. I saw Jake pop out of a manhole right in front of the deputies and spray them with a fire extinguisher. He held the extinguisher like it was a flamethrower, a big, maniacal grin on his face.”
“All right, Jake!” Steve laughed. He could picture his friend perfectly.
Max said, “Then what happened?”
“The lawmen didn’t know what was going on. Everywhere they turned they got pelted. Balls bounced all over the street—basketballs, footballs, soccer balls, Ping-Pong balls, marbles… The deputies covered their heads and ran off in panic”
“Man,” Steve said, “I wish I could have been there.”
“Then your friends made a break for it. I thought they would just keep running, but they didn’t. They beelined it to the flagpole in the center of the square and chained themselves together around it. The locks were there waiting for them. When I left they were chanting slogans and holding up signs calling for your amnesty and the cessation of construction on Moonridge.”
“Wow,” Max said. “It looks like Regina had a plan of her own.”
Steve smiled proudly. “It sure sounds like Regina’s work.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes, each meditating on the new developments. Mr. Thoreson looked up, a concerned expression on his face. He said, “You know what the town is saying about you and your friends, don’t you?”
“That we’re a bunch of spoiled brats,” Max answered. “I know. A pack of stupid, ungrateful punks—that’s what they’re saying.”
Mr. Thoreson nodded.
Max took a deep breath and pushed his plate aside. He set his elbows on the table and put his fist contemplatively into his palm. “But they’re wrong,” he said. “A year ago they would have been right, but today they are wrong. My friends and I know that we have it good. We know we are lucky to have been born and raised where we were. We know that any one of us could have been just another unfortunate wretch in a thousand miserable places in a world where a million years of innocence are born into every day. We talked about it. We wondered about it. We know.
“And we asked ourselves, why us? Who are we? How come we lucked out? Our elders tell us that it is they who deserve our gratitude. But they are every bit as blind as we were. They forget that they themselves have been blessed and stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Max picked up his knife and studied it thoughtfully, turning it slowly between his fingers. Mr. Thoreson considered interrupting him, but he could sense the wheels spinning in Max’s head, and curiosity held his tongue. Max, his eyes transfixed on some locus visible only to himself, continued.
“Youth is not an age group or a statistic. Youth is a force. Our ages are not to be counted in years, but in millennia. Steve and I may be eighteen years tall, but we are eighteen thousand years deep. We are a law of nature. We are change incarnate. Our song is that of the volcano, the tidal wave, the hurricane. Without the exercising of his youth, a man does not grow wise but merely old. Only those who have known the full measure of their youth are qualified to advise those who come after them. Only they can be trusted. The rest are charlatans that any keen-eyed kid will see right through, be disgusted with, and dismiss.
“It is said that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children. We are not rebelling against our parents, but against their hypocrisy and lack of shame. We want clear consciences, and we will throw their bribes back in their faces to keep them that way. We have no money, no property, no debts, no interests in any company or institution. We belong to no political party; have started no wars; have passed no legislation; have raised no one’s taxes. To our elders this is evidence of our naïveté. To us it is proof of our innocence.
“My friends have committed no crimes. Their only sin now is renunciation—always considered a virtue in the minds of most philosophers and divines. These friends of mine, Professor, they are saints in my eyes, and I’m damn
proud of them. They are brave and I love them. God bless them and pass the salt…”
Steve chuckled and scraped up a final forkful of rice from his plate. “Ask a simple question, eh, Professor?”
Mr. Thoreson did not reply. Instead, he reached for the wine bottle and drained the remains into his empty glass. The young man’s eloquence and conviction impressed him. Max’s voice was absent of rancor, but his eyes sparkled like sapphires and his person radiated a magnetic intensity. The youth spoke with equanimity, but beneath his words roared boldness and sincerity. Hardy Thoreson thought it a shame that society hadn’t a worthy vehicle for the vigor possessed by the two inspired and strapping youths across from him. They were good boys, he thought, whose goodness was not wanted.
Steve took the dishes to the sink and began washing them. After a minute, he turned and said, “Would you guys mind if I don’t go with you tomorrow? I think I should be in town holding that flagpole with the others. They need me more than you do.”
“Then listen,” Max said, “before you chain up, see what they need and what you can do from the outside. Drop in on Mr. Brodie if you need some help.”
“Right.”
“Regina’s father?” Hardy asked. “What makes you think he’ll want to help?”
“We have an understanding.” He turned to Steve. “Tell him Max sent you. He’ll do what he can. He’s a solid and honest man.”
Part IV
How nigh is grandeur to our dust,
How near to God is man;
When duty whispers low Thou must,
The youth replies, I can!
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
54
Tree Of Life
The first one up, Max took it upon himself to fix breakfast. His scorched, lumpy oatmeal and charred toast won him no commendations. It was still dark outside when they finished eating and lugged their packs onto the front porch.
Max and Steve shook hands. “Better let someone know about ole Hank and Willie,” Max said. “I’m sure they’re pretty cold and hungry by now.”
Stormer’s Pass: Aidos Trilogy: Book 1 Page 27