Those Who Favor Fire

by Lauren Wolk

  Even without his glasses, Ian knew a rump when he saw one. He quickly lowered his flashlight. “That you, Joe?” he said. His heart was still beating like a jackrabbit. Okay, so it wasn’t a three-foot-long rabid skunk, but it still looked to be some pretty weird stuff. “That you, Joe?” he repeated, club in hand, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t just scamper on back home and let the boy get on with whatever it was he was doing out here in the bushes with his ass hanging out.

  “Oh, God,” the thing whimpered, and Ian knew.

  “Tell you what, son,” he stammered. “I’ll just wait on your doorstep. I’ll be right there if you need me.” And he hurried away.

  As Spalding rounded the end of the Schooner, Joe struggled to his feet. It took a moment for him to realize that his pants were still down around his ankles. The feeling of illness that engulfed him then made his lips tremble. He wanted so badly to be away from this place that he turned to look into the woods and to consider quite seriously whether he could walk through them and so, eventually, back where he belonged. But the thought of his father—like his sister’s stories and the useless credit card—made him feel a much worse sort of fool than a narrow bridge, an elusive gas tank, or, now, an unflattering posture ever could. With a sigh, he wiped the dirt from his face and hands, returned to the privy, and sat squarely on the cold seat of the toilet he’d so disdained.

  Spalding was still waiting for him when he returned to the Schooner, so Joe asked him if he’d like to come inside for a beer. “All right,” his landlord said a shade too loudly. After a pause, he left his club outside and followed Joe in.

  For an hour or so, Ian and Joe explored the Schooner, learning its secrets and applauding past owners who had added the sorts of things that make even small homes comfortable: an extra-high table in the kitchen booth granted more room for long legs and crossed knees; strips of padding tacked to the sharp edges of counters and cupboards testified to the amount of head-banging that can go on in tight places; buckled straps looped along the edge of the ceiling suggested fishing poles, paddles, and other gear awkward to store. Joe had noticed none of these things until Ian pointed them out.

  Ian then helped Joe unpack the assortment of goods he’d selected from the tiny Sears in town: sheets and towels, a can opener, laundry line and clothespins, a lawn chair, a washtub, matches, a coffeepot, Scotch tape, pencils, a pad of paper, dishes, a pot with a lid, a skillet, hangers, a broom and dustpan, and various and sundry other things no young man on his own should be without.

  All of this had taken a good deal of time and more energy than Joe had thought he had left. It seemed beyond possibility that he had first laid eyes on his Schooner only a dozen hours before: that in those few hours he had learned to drive a motor home, nearly wrecked it several times, partially wrecked it once, shopped in stores he’d never before in his life contemplated entering, talked to people who said things like “yup,” eaten cold beans from a can (and been pleased with the function of his new can opener), fallen headfirst from a rotting outhouse, inadvertently exposed himself to another man, and then astonished himself by offering this same man a drink.

  By the time he said good night to Ian and crawled into his store-scented bunk, Joe was so exhausted that he began to understand the habitual haggardness of young mothers. But there was a certain gladness, too, that came from his management of things he’d always before left to others both more menial and more capable than he. Gladness, too, from the way Ian had laughed when he had learned the reason for Joe’s unusual behavior at the privy’s door. Laughter so innocent and so consuming that it had made Joe laugh, too, for the first time in days.

  He lay in his bunk and thought about the hot spot he’d passed on the way to Ian’s place. People in town had warned him that he would pass one, but it had not looked all that threatening, really. Not from the window of his substantial Schooner. Not from a football field away. But it apparently had an erratic sort of temper, flaring up one moment and then subsiding the next. It had frightened him, intrigued him, made him decide to have a closer look. Some other day.

  As he lay in his bunk, the night half gone, he felt as if he had lost himself to outlandish circumstance. He knew why he had left home: that much still made sense to him. But how had he ended up in a motor home, in such an unlikely place? And how to explain his renaming, his unrehearsed selection of the simple Joe, there among the pumps at Frank’s Gas ’n’ Go, surrounded by the men who’d helped him extricate and become better acquainted with his Schooner. Joe. A mechanic’s name, stitched above a pocket hung with a greasy pen. Not even Joseph, which was not in any real way related to Joe. Just Joe.

  He felt unsettled, jumpy. His brand of self-confidence had always been fueled not by trustworthy instincts, intuition, or even the fundamental senses that most people rely on for survival, but instead by trappings: good looks, good grammar, wealth in the form of cars, clothes, and the like. His confidence was therefore shaken by his new trappings, by the trades he had recently made: the Schooner for the Jag, beans for lobster, Sears for Saks. All easy enough to change back again, he thought, pulling his virgin blankets closer to his chin. But it was the image of his sister locking doors behind her that made him ache and mutter, chastised with dreams, until the crows announced the morning.

  With a wonderful feeling of reprieve, he slipped quietly from his bed, wrapped himself in a blanket warmed by his body, and went outside. As he wandered around his campsite, looking out across the fields, then toward the woods that framed them, Joe was surprised by a silver stream moving through the trees at the edge of the clearing. He could hear it making its way over rocks and roots and wondered how he’d missed the sound before. Was he so dependent upon his eyes, he wondered, his other senses so stunted, that he could not recognize something until he’d seen it? But this alarming new tendency toward introspection made him uncomfortable, even irritable, so he shook himself all over, threw his head back, and yawned.

  Forsaking the privy with a chuckle, he relieved himself in the bushes and then, on an impulse, dropped his blanket and his shorts at the edge of the stream, waded into its icy current, and began to splash himself clean.

  “Holy shit,” he screamed, prancing out of the icy water and, in the process, tripping on a tree root, badly wrenching his toe. For the second time since his arrival at Ian’s campground he fell to the ground, this time bashing his knee, and then rolled about like a worm that’s been halved by a spade, shivering with cold and pain, coating himself with mud and rotting leaves. When his pain had subsided, he stood up and looked down at his wet, muddy body.

  “Why am I so damned stupid?” he whimpered. He washed himself off, picked up the blanket, and draped it around himself, but it did little to warm him and furthermore had snagged enough tiny twigs to make him feel as if he were wearing horsehair. Limping slightly, he made his way to the Schooner while his forgotten shorts slowly drifted downstream.

  Small children oftentimes do not pay enough attention to how things work: which shoe goes on which foot, how a glass of milk on a table’s edge is bound to be spilled, the hastened demise of bikes too often left in the rain. Older children, habitually rescued from their own inexperience by interfering adults, are equally prone to a debilitating brand of inattention. So it was that Joe had failed to notice how the side door to the Schooner—the one he’d used after leaving his bed—could be opened from the inside even while it was locked from the outside. And that once this door was firmly shut, it was automatically locked unless the small button set into its inner knob had first been released. And that to open this door, one needed the same key that was now languishing inside the pocket of the pants Joe had tossed on the foot of his bed the night before.

  “Please, please, please,” he intoned as he hobbled around, blue-lipped, to try the Schooner’s front doors. They were locked. “Why, why, why,” he whimpered as he hugged the blanket closer and circled the Schooner, confirming what he already knew: that every single window was closed up tight. The thou
ght of fetching Ian was more than Joe could bear. So he sat down on a stump in the thin morning sun and thought it through. He didn’t really want to smash a window, although this had been his immediate inclination. The Schooner was fairly old and might have parts quite difficult to replace. Maybe, he thought, the Schooner’s former owners had hidden a key in one of these incredibly clever little magnetic boxes.

  “Worth a look,” he said aloud, once again breaking the vow of silence he’d sworn in the privy the night before.

  He found the little black box on the Schooner’s undercarriage after only a brief search. That it was rusted shut caused Joe no alarm. He was so pleased with his discovery that he barely noticed his fingernails ripping, dragging bloody bits of cuticle right along with them, as he forced open the rust-locked box. The key inside was in fine shape, for someone had had the brains to seal it inside a tiny plastic sack. Along with the key, Joe found a small sheet of paper folded many times. On it was written in green ink, I told you so, that was all, but the handwriting made Joe think that its author had been laughing at the time.

  After he opened and unlocked the Schooner’s door, Joe replaced the key where he’d found it and, for no reason he could put his finger on, taped the little note on the cupboard above his kitchen sink.

  Then he took a proper shower in his slender stall, dressed in his last clean clothes, brushed his teeth and hair, and made himself a cup of terrible instant coffee. He carried it to the booth and sat down.

  From his wallet, Joe took eight twenty-dollar bills, a ten, one fifty, a Mastercard, and a Visa card. He tossed the credit cards onto the kitchen counter. If the American Express was a dud, so were these. His father was a thorough man. But he was certain that $220 would be enough to see him through until he had a chance to cash a check.

  “A check,” he suddenly said, slapping an open hand to his chest. “Oh, my God.” He pictured his checkbook tucked into a drawer nearly six hundred miles away. “Good, sweet Christ,” he whimpered, putting his head into his hands. The thought of going home broke, his tail between his legs, to live off the largess of a man he did not respect chilled him through. He didn’t want to depend upon his father. But how could he live for long on $220? Would that even be enough to get him home? What if the old Schooner broke down? And if it didn’t, what would he do when he got there? He had taken a great deal of money from his father and left without a word. Freed his sister. Dealt his father a nasty blow. Made him angry. Angry enough to cancel his credit cards. Angry enough to call the police? Angry enough to have them looking for the Jaguar? And if they found it, which they eventually would, angry enough to look for the Road Schooner? For the first time, the boy began to realize exactly what might lie ahead.

  No. His father would not have called the police. To what end? He, more than anyone, would want to keep his secrets safe. But he would come looking. The serial numbers on the missing currency—something a man as thorough as his father would record and safe-guard—would eventually take him to wherever Holly spent the cash, even if they didn’t lead him directly to her. But Holly would be all right. She had proven her ability to look after herself and had enough money to do just that. But Joe had left his own trail and could imagine his father following it. Perhaps to reclaim his son. Perhaps to punish him. The point was moot, since the son did not intend to be found. Not yet.

  For a while he’d be safe enough here in Belle Haven. It would take time for his father to conduct the kind of search needed to find one old motor home, tucked into a small, wooded refuge, endangered by random fire pits, in a town that warned strangers away, far from the last places where he’d used his credit cards and the innocuous lot where he’d traded away the Jaguar.

  With a shudder, Joe realized then what would have happened if Frank at the gas station hadn’t run a check on his credit card and discovered its cancellation. In a matter of hours his father could have learned his whereabouts and come, without warning, to find him. It became obvious to Joe that his father was not thinking any more clearly than he himself had been when he left without his checkbook, without taking more cash than his wallet would comfortably hold, without a backward glance. He imagined his father’s rage upon coming home to find his children, his money, and his gold missing. He imagined, too, the rage that would greet him if he went home too soon, or if his father managed to find him before his fury had subsided. But Joe felt sure he could remain hidden for a little while, for as long as he chose to, for as long as he could get by with what he had on hand.

  He could not apply for a loan, for that would involve using his real name. He could not wire his bank for money without revealing where he was. He was Joe, with no identification, no social security card, no credentials of any sort. Two hundred and twenty dollars in cash. “And,” he said, reaching into his pocket, fingering the opal he had found in his father’s cache. He had taken to carrying the gem with him as if it were some sort of talisman, but since this was not at all in character, he paid little attention to it. No more than to the change in his pocket or the storage of his keys. But he took a closer look at it now, wondered what it was worth, slipped it back into his pocket.

  Two hundred and twenty dollars. Eight months before he could collect his trust fund. Only three before his senior year at Yale began … unless his father refused to pay for it. Jesus, he thought, dragging a hand across his mouth. He wouldn’t go that far.

  Clearly, he would have to go home. But not yet. In a few days his father would begin to calm down, to worry a bit. He would want his son back, despite what he was bound to consider a betrayal. A week should do it. By then this sojourn would be wearing thin. “Thinner,” he amended. And then he would call home. Perhaps his father would be ready to face his problems. Perhaps he would even be glad that his children had forced the issue. But Joe knew better than to count on it.

  He glanced around at his newly equipped Schooner. Why had he done all this? The Schooner itself … well, that was an impulse that he had always known could be corrected. Groceries were hardly optional. But why had he handed over much of the money in his wallet for a coffeepot, towels, a broom and dustpan? A skillet, for God’s sake. (True, he had bought bacon, but was it actually necessary to own a skillet?) Thank God he’d put the toaster back. Things were already too far out of control. Why hadn’t he thought so last night when Spalding had been here? It still surprised him that he’d invited the man in. It surprised him even more that Ian had asked no questions, voiced no suspicions about the reasons for his sudden arrival in Belle Haven.

  So. Two hundred and twenty dollars. Enough … if he drove little, ate little, expected little. He could do it for a while. And in a week or so he’d call his father—perhaps from Randall, to be on the safe side.

  He realized how difficult going home might be. There was every chance he’d have to act the chameleon, suffer his predatory father, until he was back at school and eventually twenty-one, wealthy in his own right. It would be a temporary sort of hypocrisy, the pragmatic choice, the only alternative to penury. But he could do it if he had to. And, once again, with deliberate enthusiasm, Joe imagined the possibility that his father might surprise him with a desire to make amends.

  This settled, he felt so much better that he decided to take the Schooner into town for a really good breakfast.

  “Angela’s Kitchen,” Ian had told him the night before, “is where you want to go for breakfast. Near Maple and Sierra. Better watch out for the trees on Sierra. Need trimming.”

  Joe had no intention, however, of taking his Schooner anywhere near Sierra and its overgrown trees. It was only 7:00 A.M., so there would be little traffic and plenty of places to park. As soon as he was within walking distance, he’d leave the Schooner and find his way to Angela’s Kitchen on foot.

  “Two hundred and twenty dollars,” he figured as he drove carefully down the bumpy lane, through the trees, and onto the pale gray hardtop that led into town. “I probably shouldn’t spend more than three bucks a meal.” He had never had to pr
ice his food before. The effort made him hungry.

  Chapter 10

  “I’ll have two eggs over easy, home fries, and toast. And cranberry juice—”

  “We got any cranberry juice?” the waitress called over her shoulder.

  “If it’s not on the menu, it’s not in the kitchen,” the cook said mildly as she hauled a crate of grapefruits from the walk-in.

  “No cranberry juice. Sorry,” the waitress said. “But we do have orange, apple, tomato—”

  “Make it orange, then,” Joe decided, “and on second thought I’ll have a cinnamon roll instead of the toast.”

  “Good choice. They’re the best in town.”

  “I’ll bet they are.” Joe took a long look at the girl, at the way she was wrapped in her apron like a gift, and did not lower his eyes until she turned abruptly away and retreated toward the kitchen.

  He opened his newspaper and skipped through the front pages, pausing at headlines. The world seemed to be going on without him. When he got to the bits and pieces of small news in the later pages he read more carefully but found nothing about a missing Christopher Barrows. Not that he had expected anything. But eventually, if he was reported missing, he might find a grainy likeness of himself on page 12 or thereabouts. God, he was hungry. Where the hell were his eggs?

  Moments later, when the waitress carried Joe’s plate over to the counter, he was immersed in his newspaper, which he had spread out in front of him, leaving no room for his food.

  “Here you go,” she said, holding his breakfast high in her hand. He raised his head, looked at her intently for a moment, and smiled. She was really something.

  “Looks delicious,” he murmured.

  The waitress smiled back, her eyes narrowing. “You haven’t seen it yet.”

  His smile stiffened. “I meant it smells delicious,” he said.

  She thought this over, her head cocked, one eye shut, mouth pursed. “No,” she finally said. “I don’t think so.”