I ducked and wove my way forward. Slipping on moss and clambering over roots. Finally, I recognized the hill where I had caught up with him that first day. Found the rock he’d tried to hide behind. I stood on the spot, squinting through the trees. The leaves were all gone now, so I could see farther. I listened. Chevy stood still too, her nose twitching.
Nothing. Just crows squawking, squirrels chattering and wind scraping through the branches. I waited. Chevy turned, and her ears perked up. A low growl bubbled in her throat.
I held my breath. Bears were on the move right now, finding food and shelter for the winter. Their cubs would be playing nearby. Suddenly Chevy barked and took off farther up the hill. I shouted, but she ignored me. I scrambled after her, hoping she wasn’t leading us both toward a mother bear. Up ahead I could hear her barking, a high-pitched warning bark. I followed the sound, my heart pounding. Over the hilltop and down the other side. Toward a mossy stream and another rocky overhang where I knew animals liked to gather. A pile of rocks and old boards made a sort of shack.
Chevy was standing by the rocks, barking. Her hackles up and her tail stiff. I could see nothing in the darkness inside. No black shape, no shiny teeth.
But it smelled like a rotting corpse.
I shrank back, afraid to look. Then I saw one of my towels draped over a tree branch to dry. And my blanket over another. My microwave was down by the stream.
The kid’s secret lair! I rushed forward, slipping on the mossy rocks and falling head first into the darkness. I landed on my hands and knees on something soft. A cry startled me, and I yanked my hands back. I looked down, my eyes gradually getting used to the gloom. I saw my horse blanket on the floor and a pile of towels and blankets in front of me. The pile moved. It moaned. I reached up to pull the covers back. Saw a woman’s face, white and shiny with sweat. Her eyes were shut and her lips cracked. She panted like a dog. The rancid stink rose from her.
I tugged on the blanket to drag her out into the light. Her eyes flew open. Glassy and unseeing, but as blue as a winter sky.
Robin’s eyes.
Out in the sunlight, I could see how sick she was. Fever and stench radiated from her. I reached down to gather her into my arms. She weighed less than a hundred-pound sack of potatoes, but the trek through the woods was going to be hard. I grunted as I turned around.
And came face to face with the barrel of a shotgun. Robin blocked the path, his feet apart and both arms holding a shotgun almost as big as him.
“Help me, Robin. She’s very sick.”
“I help her.”
“You can’t. I can’t. She needs a doctor.”
“I use moss. She tell me.”
“Is she your mother?” It might explain why no one was looking for him.
“My sister.”
I looked at the woman’s feverish face. At the cracked lips and furrows of pain. Illness had aged her.
“We need to get her home. It’s too cold out here.”
He shook his head wildly. The gun wavered. He tightened his grip in defiance.
“Robin, she will die out here!”
His chin quivered. “No doctor. No police.”
I thought fast. One step at a time. “Okay,” I said. “No doctor. But let me take her home, where I can see what’s wrong with her.”
Robin stared at the girl. She had fainted again and lay limp in my arms. He took a few quick breaths. Trying to gather his courage. And then he stepped aside.
Seven
“Aunt Penny, I need your help. Out at the farm.”
“Is it the boy?”
“No. Yes. Sort of. Can you come quick?”
There was silence on the line. I hoped she heard how scared I was and would save the tongue-lashing for later. Robin and I had put his sister in my mother’s bed and given her some water. But she was burning up. Way too sick for me to figure out. Maybe I should have called the doctor, but I turned to the next best thing. Robin didn’t know. He was upstairs with her.
When he met Aunt Penny, I hoped he’d thank me.
Luckily, Aunt Penny can recognize real trouble. She said she’d close the store and come. I told her to bring all the medical supplies she had on the shelves.
She turned up with almost a whole drugstore. Aspirins, flu medicine, vapor rub, antiseptics, antibiotics, bandages and tape. I didn’t ask her where she got it all. She caught one whiff of the mystery woman and snapped her fingers at me.
“She has an infection. Get me all the cloths, cold water and ice you can spare, Ricky. We’ve got to get the fever down.”
Robin was hanging around the doorway, wide-eyed. She glared at him. “What happened to her?”
He just shook his head. Too scared to answer. I brought the ice and towels. Aunt Penny tossed the blankets on the floor and began pulling off the girl’s jacket. She howled. Aunt Penny turned instead to her trousers. She peeled off the fleece outer layer and then the long johns. The girl’s legs were like sticks. Aunt Penny sponged the sweat and dirt from her face and her neck. Then she laid a cold compress on her forehead and tilted her head to give her some water. She slipped a couple of pills into her mouth. The girl made a face. Shook her head weakly.
Aunt Penny washed her legs in the cool water and tried again to touch her jacket. The girl jerked away. Penny leaned toward her. “I have to take off your jacket, dear.”
I’d never heard my aunt talk so gently. Seen her touch so softly. The girl said nothing, but whimpered as Aunt Penny slowly removed her clothes. First a jacket, then a sweater of my mother’s and finally a fleece soaked with dirt, blood and rot. Underneath was one of my towels, stained yellow and black. The stink grew so strong I held my nose. Robin shook all over.
Finally, the wound was exposed. A raw purple hole in her side, partly healed but oozing yellow pus. Aunt Penny pursed her lips. She leaned in and sniffed. Shot a glance at Robin.
“Spruce gum. Who taught you that?”
Robin thrust out his chin. “She tell me.”
I knew what Aunt Penny was thinking. Spruce gum was traditional Indian medicine. Were these kids part Native? Or had they been raised on an isolated reserve? Robin clearly wasn’t saying, and Aunt Penny didn’t push it. Instead, she touched his arm.
“Well, it helped, but it’s not enough. Ricky, get me hot water and the antiseptic soap.”
I brought a big bowl. Gave her more clean cloths. Watched as she dabbed at the wound. The girl shrieked.
“Hold her hands,” Penny said. She stayed so calm. Slowly she soaked away the dried pus and blood. Washed it again and again. Dried it. Poured alcohol over it and then peered at it. In the long silence, there was nothing but the girl’s moans.
Then Aunt Penny turned on Robin, no longer soft. “This is a bullet hole. Ricky, call the police.”
“No!” It was the girl who shrieked. Loud. Fierce. I stopped halfway to the door.
“You’ve been shot,” Penny said. “You need a doctor.”
“No, you fix it.”
“I can’t fix it.”
“No doctors. No police. Please!”
The girl spoke English better than Robin, but with the same odd accent. She was trying to sit up, and the wound was oozing again. Aunt Penny tried to calm her.
“You have to stay still.”
“No police! Promise!”
“Okay. For now. I will wash the rest of you and bandage this so you can rest.”
Aunt Penny sent Robin and me away while she finished up. When she finally came downstairs, I was preparing chicken soup. She tried to be gentle with Robin, but I knew she was angry. Maybe even scared. Not much scares Aunt Penny.
“Someone shot your sister, Robin. I think the bullet went straight through, but it’s not healing well. This is serious.”
“An accident. A hunter, in woods. Shooting at deer.”
“It’s not deer-hunting season yet.”
Robin froze.
“The police must—”
“No! Please! Accident, is all.
I clean. I take good care.”
Aunt Penny gave him a long look. Her lips were tight. But she kept her voice soft. “Yes, you did, dear. Now take this soup up to her.”
After he’d gone, she reached for the phone.
I dived to stop her. “What are you doing!”
“Calling Jessica Swan.”
“But…” I sputtered. Floundered. “You promised him—”
“I promised him nothing. There’s more to this. That little slip of a girl up there? She’s borne a child.”
Eight
I stared at her. “How can you tell?”
“There are signs.”
Her expression said “don’t ask,” so I didn’t. I looked for a different route. “So what? Is that a crime?”
“No, but Children’s Services has to be involved.”
My heart jumped. I hate Children’s Services. Sometimes my mother would get really bad, and they’d decide she wasn’t taking care of me. They’d stick me in foster care. I pictured Robin in foster care. In a strange home, a real school. With all the kids laughing at his accent and calling him a retard.
“But we don’t know what happened to her baby,” I said. “We don’t know how old she is. Maybe she’s eighteen!”
“But the boy, at least, is underage. You can’t keep him here, Ricky. And let’s face it, these kids haven’t been exactly truthful.”
I stepped between Aunt Penny and the telephone. Spread my arms. She gave me a long stare. I’d never stood up to Aunt Penny before. Or to Children’s Services. I’d never stood up for my mother either. She hadn’t been much good at mothering, but she was all I’d had.
“Then let’s ask them,” I said. “Give them a chance to tell us the truth.”
She took a long time to decide. Finally, she turned around and marched up to the bedroom. Robin was spooning soup into Marian’s mouth. Neither one would tell us their names, so that’s what I had decided to call her, to go with Robin. She looked half-dead, but she was eating.
“You realize I have to call Children’s Services,” Aunt Penny said. Never one to pull punches. “Robin is underage. He needs care. Proper schooling.”
Marian’s eyes flashed. “I take care of him.”
“But you’re a child yourself. The two of you—”
“I am not a child. I am twenty-two.”
“And the baby you had?”
Marian dropped her gaze. She pushed Robin aside and murmured to him in another language.
“But—” he began.
“Go!”
“He is not my brother,” she said when he had left. I heard his footsteps dragging on the stairs. I figured he’d be listening.
“I didn’t think so,” Aunt Penny said to Marian. “He’s your son.”
There was no sound from the stairs. Marian turned pink. “He doesn’t know. This is the story we tell.”
“Who’s we?”
She struggled to sit up. To face Aunt Penny straight on. “I am adult. Old enough to take care of him.”
Aunt Penny was shaking her head.
Marian sagged. “Please. That is what is important.”
“You are sick.”
“No law. No police.” Tears stood in her eyes. She looked so pale I thought she’d faint.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said. I wanted to drag Aunt Penny out of there. But luckily, I didn’t need to. She felt Marian’s forehead, tightened her lips and headed out of the room without another word.
She saved those up for me the minute we got downstairs. “Those kids need help,” she hissed. “That girl could die without a doctor.”
“But you gave her the antibiotics.”
“My antibiotics. Two years old. Something’s not right here, Ricky. Even if that girl is twenty-two, that means she was a child when the boy was born. That’s child abuse. Somewhere out there, a sex criminal is walking free—”
“But…” I couldn’t think of an answer. She was right. It was probably why the kids were running away.
“There’s no but. We’ll let her sleep tonight, but in the morning I’m going to Jessica Swan. This is out of your hands, Ricky.”
I knew I wasn’t going to budge her. She slept on the sofa in the front room, like she was guarding the door. Robin slept on the floor in Marian’s room, too scared to let her out of his sight. None of us slept very well, and when I got up, Aunt Penny was already getting ready to head into town.
I didn’t want her going by herself. I didn’t want to leave the kids in the farmhouse alone either, but someone had to stand up for them. I knew what it was like to have the police and child welfare swoop in. Like hawks. Fast. Powerful. And ruthless.
The police detachment was quiet when Aunt Penny and I arrived. Jessica Swan was on the front desk, and so my fear was mixed with thrill. She had a coffee at her side and a report in front of her. But she gave us a big smile as she shoved it aside.
“You’re up early! Want some coffee?”
I knew I had to jump in before Aunt Penny did. “That missing kid I was talking about—” I started.
Surprise replaced the smile. “I’ve kept an eye open, Rick. There have been no missing-child reports. Or thefts.”
“They’re at my farm. I mean, he’s at my farm. With his sister. I mean, his mother.” I could feel my ears burning. I tried to untangle my words before Aunt Penny could jump in. “She’s hurt.”
Aunt Penny jumped in anyway. “We need a doctor and Children’s Services.”
“Not Children’s Services,” I said. “The mother is old enough—”
“She wasn’t when she conceived the boy,” Aunt Penny snapped. “And the boy is neglected. Raised like an animal in a barn. No schooling, no manners. He can barely speak English.”
Jessica had been staring at us in amazement. “First things first. The woman. How bad is she?”
“Getting better,“ I said.
“She has a bullet hole—”
“A bullet hole!” Jessica leaped up. “Why didn’t you say—”
At that moment the door to the commander’s office flew open. “Did I hear bullet hole?” Sergeant Hurley said. He looked from Jessica to Penny to me. “No one’s going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on!”
Nine
For once I was happy to see Sergeant Hurley. He’d been handling trouble since before I was born, most of it in Madrid County. If anyone could take the reins from Aunt Penny, it would be him.
Instead of heading off with sirens blaring, he sat back and listened to my whole story from beginning to end. As he listened, my pulse came back to normal. He ordered Jessica to call the paramedics and double-check all the missing persons. Then he got up, hitched his belt and studied the big map on the wall. His eyes narrowed. His finger traced roads from my farm, finally stopping in a big area of bush farther north.
It was a region where many of the local guys had their hunt camps. I had never been up there because I don’t like hunting. But I knew there was nothing but acres of lakes, forests and deer.
He tapped the area with his finger. “Pretty rough country up here. A hundred years ago it was heavily logged, but settlers couldn’t make a go of farming. Too much rock and bush.”
I thought of my own patch of scrub. Not much better down here, I almost said. But I didn’t want to interrupt. Hurley didn’t usually take me this seriously. In the background, Jessica spoke into the phone.
“But there are still some tough old-timers up there, making a go of it,” Hurley said. “Survivalist types, loners, misfits. They like to run things their own way, don’t like rules and regulations. You don’t bother me and I won’t bother you. And if they’re doing no harm, we mostly leave them be.”
“That’s nearly thirty miles away! How did the kids get to my place?”
Hurley shrugged. “Walked? Hitched? Stowed away?”
I thought it over. It made a crazy kind of sense. The kids were smart enough. “The boy does act like he’s never seen the outside world. Not even electr
icity.”
Aunt Penny huffed. “So the authorities just ignored these kids? The girl was twelve years old when she had the boy, and he’s never been in school.”
Hurley shrugged. “Likely no one knew. The farms are pretty isolated, and these guys aren’t exactly friendly with their neighbors. Lots of things—violence, abuse— go on in those remote homesteads that never get reported. Folks mind their own business.”
“But the kids themselves. The girl. Why stay in that situation all those years?” Right and wrong always did seem clearer to Aunt Penny than to the rest of us.
Jessica hung up. “The paramedics are on their way from Hinchinbrooke, sir.”
Hinchinbrooke was half an hour away over bad roads. Hurley made a face. “Call them back. Tell them we’ll meet them out at Rick’s place.” He picked up his keys and strapped on his utility belt as he headed out the door. He gave Aunt Penny a patient look. “Where’s a girl like that going to go?” he asked. “Who is she going to tell? And if this was her life, would she even know any different?”
Aunt Penny has never been married, never had a family. Has never known any life except her store and our town. But people tell her things over the counter. Even she knows about the things that go on behind closed country doors. When life’s frustrations boil over, and guys come home from the Lion’s Head full of too much booze and anger. For some wives, it is just the price to be paid for a home.
But Aunt Penny tightened her jaw as she followed him outside. She was not giving up on the kids just yet. “Well, it ends now. The woman may be of age, but she’s in no condition to take care of him.”
The Night Thief Page 3