Nightwitch
Page 15
He saw her muscles tighten. Her hand snaked out and she wrapped her fingers around the backpack, and against his better judgment he found himself stuffing the two Spanish books into his. She pulled the backpack toward herself and started to put it on.
Then she surprised him.
“ Hey, Mom,” she yelled out, standing up and slipping the pack onto her shoulders. She waved and Arty followed her lead, standing and slinging his own pack over his shoulders.
The three bullies turned to the direction she was waving.
“ Three.” She took off toward the woods, like a base runner stealing home, and he took off on her heels.
She was out of the park and into the woods, and he was at the edge of the park himself, when he heard a loud, “Hey.” He didn’t have to look back to know their ruse had been discovered. They would be coming now, running flat out, all three of them were faster than him. He sure didn’t want to get caught.
Branches whipped against him as he entered the woods. Which way-the pathway to the right offered an easy escape. He turned left, smashing through dense brush toward the creek. They’d expect him to take the easy route. He hoped Carolina thought like he did.
“ Hurry,” she said, ahead of him. She did. He caught up with her and together, they pushed branches aside as they made their way to the creek. “They’ll most likely take the path for a few minutes, because they’re stupid, but when they find out we didn’t go that way, they’ll come back.”
He heard the babbling creek up ahead. “They’ll never find us now,” he said.
“ Don’t be too sure. Even as dumb as they are, they’ll know there’s only two ways through the woods back to Palma. The jogging path, or the hard way, along the creek.”
“ They’ll run on the jogging path all the way to Palma,” he said.
“ How fast can you run?”
“ Not very,” he said, pulling a branch aside for her.
“ Do you think they know that?”
“ Probably.”
“ Then they’ll be coming,” she said. Arty was impressed with her logic. She was awful smart for a kid.
“ Do you know the way?” he asked.
“ Sure, you just stay by the creek all the way into town. It’s not easy though, we have to go up the side of the mountain over by Mountain Sea Road, and past that clearing by the cliffs, then down again into town. We wind up by the dunes on the south side of town.”
“ You’ve done this before?”
“ Sure, lotsa times. I love walking in the woods.”
“ I hate it.” Arty pushed still another branch aside for her.
“ Once we get to the creek it won’t be so dense. It’ll be easy, till we have to start going up. Oh, yeah, and there’s a couple of places where you have to walk on rocks to the other side, because you can’t always go along this side.”
“ Those guys aren’t gonna push their way through all of this just to catch us.”
“ They don’t have to.” She stopped for a second to catch her breath.
“ What do you mean?” An insect landed on his hand and he slapped it.
“ All they have to do is take the jogging path back to the park, turn right for about hundred yards to the creek, and come right up after us.”
“ They don’t have to push through all this stuff like we do?”
“ No. Sorry.”
“ We should get going.”
“ Maybe not,” she said, “because there is one other thing.” She stuck her lower lip out and blew hair out of her eyes.
“ What?”
“ They could be waiting for us up ahead.”
“ How could they do that?”
“ If they know the jogging path crosses the creek about halfway between here and the mountain.”
“ Jeez, do you think they know about that?”
“ I’ve only lived here for three months and I know about it.”
“ I didn’t.”
“ But you don’t like to come into the woods.”
“ What are we gonna do?”
“ I don’t know,” she said. “We could go on ahead and maybe get caught, because they’re waiting for us. Or we could head back along the creek and maybe get caught, because they’re coming up that way for us. Or we could head back to the jogging path, and take it either toward Palma, or back to the park, hoping they came up the creek after us. Or we could stay here and hide, till we’re sure they’ve gone home.”
“ I don’t wanna stay here.” He slapped another insect.
“ Me neither, so we have to make a choice.”
“ What if they split up?” he said.
“ They won’t.”
“ How do you know?”
“ They’re too stupid for that, besides, without Brad egging them on, the other two would just go home.”
“ Then let’s go up the creek and over the side of the mountain.”
“ Why that way?” she asked.
“’ Cuz we gotta make a choice.”
“ Okay,” she said, smiling at him, “let’s go.”
They pushed their way through the brush and in a couple of minutes they were at the creek. Arty followed as she turned right and started walking against the flow of running water. She seemed to have endless energy as she followed the creek, sometimes leaping from stone to stone, where he had to stop and take a breath, say a small prayer and jump like an ungainly elephant, but miraculously he landed on every stone with enough balance intact to keep from falling in.
But sometimes there were no stones and he had to step in the wet, coarse sand along the creek’s bank. A couple of times he had to step in mud. His new Nikes would never be the same. After about thirty minutes, he found himself huffing and sweating and feeling every extra pound.
“ I gotta rest,” he said, ashamed of himself.
“ Okay.” She stopped and pointed. “Right up there is the widest place we have to cross over.”
“ It looks dangerous.” He hoped he didn’t sound like a chicken.
“ It’s not that bad, really. It looks a lot worse than it is. Besides, the water is only about six inches deep, so even if you fall in, all’s that’s going to happen is that you’ll get wet.”
“ That’s not so bad,” he said.
“ But you’ll probably freeze to death.” She laughed and he found himself laughing with her.
“ Alright, I’m ready,” he said.
She got up and led the way to the stones that crossed the twenty feet to the other side of the creek.
“ There they are!” Brad’s voice rang through the forest.
“ Come on, we have to hurry,” she said, but Arty didn’t need any urging. She skipped across the rocks like a ballerina and he followed like a lumbering, sure footed bear.
When they reached the other side, she said, “Come on, up the side.” She started to climb out of the gully the creek had taken thousands of years to make. It was only six feet to the top, but there were no easy hand holds. By the time they scrambled and clawed their way up, Brad Peters and Steve Kerr were at the other side. Ray Harpine wasn’t with them. Either he’d gone home or he was waiting up ahead.
Brad charged to the first stone and was moving to the second when something hit him in the chest, causing him to lose his balance and fall in the water.
Arty stared at Carolina, dumbfounded. “Come on you big lemon, pick up a rock,” she said as she sailed another that splashed in the water, missing Brad by inches.
He stood up in the stream, soaking wet and yelled, “You guys are really asking for it.”
“ Yeah,” she answered back, picking up another rock and letting it fly. Brad scurried through the water, tripped and did a belly flop, sending up a splash, like a snotty kid doing a cannonball. He started to get up, but another of Carolina’s rocks hit him square in the back. He sloshed the rest of the way back to the other side on his hands and knees, mad and getting madder.
“ Come on, Arty, now’s your chance to get back at him for y
esterday.”
Arty grinned and picked up a rock. Brad and Steve didn’t have a chance, he thought. He and Carolina had the high ground. It was a lot easier to throw a rock down than up. He saw Brad, pick up a rock and start a wind up, like he’d seen pro ball players do on TV. Arty aimed at his chest. Both boys let fly at the same time.
Arty missed by six feet. The hefty piece of granite that Brad had thrown hit Arty hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
“ Damn, he’s good,” Carolina said as Arty bent over, coughing and gasping for breath.
“ We got all day,” Steve Kerr yelled up at them.
“ So do we,” Carolina said, ducking another one of Brad’s blazing missiles. She picked up the same rock that Brad had hit Arty with and threw it back at Brad as hard as she could. She missed, but the rock hit Steve on the side of the head, ripping a gash along his right cheek that would get seven stitches at Tampico Emergency in about an hour.
She was ready to fire another, when Steve started crying. She held her fire as Brad turned to see what was wrong.
Steve put his hand to the side of his face. He cried louder when he removed it and saw that it was covered with blood. “We gotta go, man,” he wailed.
Carolina yelled down to Brad, “You better take him home or he might bleed to death.”
“ He’s not gonna bleed to death,” Brad hollered back.
“ Is too,” Carolina yelled.
“ No, he’s not.”
Carolina didn’t have to answer, because Steve, still crying, stood up and said, “Brad, we gotta go. I’m bleeding bad.”
“ We gotta get ’em,” Brad said.
“ No, I gotta go. You gotta come with me.” Tears were mingling with the blood.
“ Okay,” Brad said, then he turned toward Carolina and Arty and hollered up at them, “This isn’t over.”
The victors watched the vanquished leave the field of battle, but they both knew that tomorrow was another day and that Brad was going to be gunning for them.
“ Did you see him throw?” she said. “We were lucky I accidentally hit Steve or he would have clobbered us.”
“ He clobbered me,” Arty said.
“ Yeah, he’s a real good shot.” Then she changed the subject, saying, “You want to follow them down or keep going the hard way?”
He wanted to take the easy way down, but he didn’t want her to think he wasn’t up to it so he said, “Let’s keep going.”
“ All right,” she said with enthusiasm, “Let’s go.” She slid down the embankment to the stream bed. He followed, sliding on his butt.
“ Gosh, that felt great.” He stood up and brushed the dirt off.
“ What?” she said, “chasing Brad away or sliding in the dirt?”
“ Both,” he said.
They were five minutes into their trek when Ray Harpine jumped out of the bushes shouting, “We’ve got you now.”
Carolina made to run, but Arty stepped around her. “Back off, or I’ll kick the shit out of you.”
“ Oh, man, one karate lesson and you think you’re tough.”
“ Look around. You see your bully pal Brad anywhere? We whipped him and now I’m gonna whip you.”
“ And I’m going to help him.” Carolina bent down to pick up a rock. “About now your friend, Steve, is getting his head stitched together. You want to join him?”
“ Hey, two against one, no fair,” Ray said.
“ Get going, Ray,” Arty said.
“ I can’t fight a girl,” Ray said.
“ Sure, Ray,” Arty said, and Ray Harpine stepped around them, keeping himself as far from them as possible, without actually walking in the water. In a few seconds he was out of sight.
“ Wow! Tough guy, Arty,” she said, beaming her crooked smile.
“ That felt good,” he said.
“ Okay, now the hard part starts. We have to cross back across the stream a little way up ahead, then we get to start climbing. It’s not difficult, but you can get tired.”
“ I can do it,” he said, and he followed her, again stepping on stones to cross the stream. It wasn’t hard going and it wasn’t steep. However it was up and he found himself breathing heavily, but he didn’t want to cry uncle, so he kept on, till they reached the top, where he flopped on his butt and took in great breaths of air.
“ That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked.
“ Piece of cake,” he said, grabbing his throat and pretending to gasp his last breath.
“ Cut it out,” she said, laughing.
“ How much farther?”
“ We have to follow the stream for another few minutes. Then we turn right and go back through the woods for a bit, till we get to the clearing by the cliffs. From there we take the path down to the Little League field. Then it’s only a hop, skip and a jump and we’re home.”
Ten minutes later they came out of the woods, “Quiet,” she said. “Someone’s got a camp up ahead.” They stopped and studied the campsite against the setting sun.
“ How’d you see it?” Arty asked, “I can hardly tell it’s there.”
“ Hunter’s eyes,” she whispered.
“ You hunt?”
“ My dad used to take me. I liked it, till I finally killed something. That’s how come I don’t eat meat.”
“ Is that why it bugs you that Brad goes hunting?”
“ Maybe,” she said.
“ Who do you think it is?” he asked, changing the subject.
“ Probably one of the homeless people from town. Ray Harpine’s dad has been telling them he’d run them in, if they didn’t get out of the park. Come on, and be quiet,” she said, walking around the far side of the clearing, till they got to the path that leads down to the Little League field.
“ I have to go left here,” Carolina said.
“ But you live the other way?”
“ Yeah, but I promised Lynda I’d come over after we got back.”
“ How you gonna get home?” Arty asked, worried about her alone after dark.
“ Her mom will drive me. She always does.”
“ I think I’ll walk you to her house.” Arty thought about his father, dead on the sidewalk. Maybe he should have told her.
“ Okay,” she said, “but it’s only two blocks.”
“ That’s alright, I don’t mind.”
When they reached the house, she asked, like she did yesterday, “You’re coming over tonight, right?”
“ Between seven-thirty and eight.” He no longer worried about his father.
“ See ya then,” she said. Then she surprised him by moving in close and giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “For good luck,” she said, smiling, before she turned and darted to the door and rang the bell.
Arty waited till she was inside, before turning back the way he’d come. He was over the moon happy. Last week he was friendless and afraid of his own shadow. Now, a few short days later, he’d stood up to Brad and his gang, had the prettiest girl in school for a friend, and she’d kissed him. Nobody, except his mother, had ever kissed him before, and he decided that he liked it. He liked it a lot.
The sun was hanging low in the sky, casting long shadows, by the time he got back to the Little League field. The night he loved was close. The sky was clear. Arty loved it when the stars ruled the heavens. He knew them all. He could tell both time and direction by the stars, and he didn’t learn how from a book. He was a star gazer.
He brought his eyes down from the heavens and ran them along the basepath. Someday, he told himself, he’d be behind that plate, catching fastballs and throwing runners out at second base. Someday he’d be in that batter’s box, staring down a mean eyed pitcher. Someday he’d smash a line drive over the shortstop’s head. He ran his eyes and his imagination down to first, they rounded the bag as the ball came in from left, and they flew along the basepath to second and kept going to third, where they were getting ready to slide, when he saw Brad Peters out in left, running fast.
“ You can run, but you can’t hide,” Brad yelled, but he was wrong, because as soon as he was out of sight, Arty turned off the path and into the woods. He picked out an area with three small pines growing close together and made for it, diving behind the center tree with seconds to spare, as Brad came blundering up the path.
“ You might as well come out and take your medicine, ’cuz I got all night.” Brad stopped on the path. He was less than fifteen feet away. Arty held his breath as the last of the daylight slipped from the sky. Most people were afraid of the dark-he hoped Brad was, too.
“ I mean it, Arty. I know you’re hiding around here, and there’s no way down ’cept past me,” Brad yelled.
Arty was laying flat on the ground, behind the pine. He chanced a peek through its Christmas tree like branches and saw Brad, hands on hips, covered in shadows, facing the opposite direction. Arty reached around himself with his right hand, searching for and finding a rock. Then, like a soldier throwing a grenade, he brought his arm back behind his head and whipped it forward, sending the rock flying in a high arc over Brad’s head, into the woods on the other side of the path.
“ There you are.” Brad turned away from Arty and starting toward the place where the rock fell.
Dumb, Arty thought, picking up three more rocks and standing. He threw another far to the left of Brad, and smiled as Brad turned toward it, lurching through the woods like a mad bull. He remembered what a keen shot Brad was and he didn’t want to give the bully a target, so he stayed behind the pines till Brad was out of sight. Then he tossed another rock to Brad’s right, suppressing a laugh as the bully changed course and started back the way he’d come.
“ You are in major trouble, Arty,” Brad hollered.
But it was dark now and Arty yelled out, “I don’t think so Brad.”
“ Where are you?” Brad spun around in his confusion as Arty bent down and picked up a handful of rocks. He started throwing them in Brad’s general direction. His aim was not to hit, but to frighten and confuse the bully.