Among the Brave sc-5

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  “So?” the boy said.

  "So what do you see when you go?” Mark asked. His voice was low now, almost hypnotic. “You seen any soldiers or anything? Policemen? Anybody tried to stop you?”

  “I walk four miles there and four miles back, from Becky’s house,” the other boy said. “Through the cornfields. Ain’t no soldiers or policemen hiding out in the cornfields.”

  “Oh,” Mark said, almost sounding disappointed that the other boy hadn’t run into dozens of police officers, scads of soldiers. Mark, Trey decided, was smarter than he looked. He was trying to prepare for his trip by pumping the boy for information.

  But Mark and Trey wouldn’t be able to walk through cornfields to get to the Grants’ house.

  “Don’t you go tattling on me,” the other boy warned.

  “I won’t,” Mark said.

  Apparently satisfied, the boy walked out of the barn.

  Mark bent down and whispered to Trey

  “I’ve got to go in now. Matthew — my brother — he’d tell Mother and Dad if I didn’t. We need some sleep anyhow. I’ll come back at dawn and then — and then..

  “And then we leave,” Trey whispered back.

  “Reckon so,” Mark said roughly. In the shadows, Trey could barely see his face. “I’m sorry I can’t invite you into the house so… you know. You’ll be okay out here, won’t you? You won’t — won’t go nowhere or nothing, will you?”

  “Where would I go?” Trey asked.

  And then Mark went away, taking the light with him. In the dark, Trey twisted around uncomfortably on the hard packed-dirt floor.

  I should have told Mark I’d go back and sleep at the Talbots’ house and he could come and get me there in the morning. I could have slept in the lap of luxury tonight; instead of on dirt.

  But the Talbots’ house seemed scarier than ever now. He’d seen the gleam of greed in Mark’s eye when Trey had said that Mrs. Talbot had abandoned all her possessions and didn’t care about getting them back. There had to be dozens of others, even greedier, who wanted what the Talbots had had. Trey could close his eyes and imagine hordes descending upon the Talbots’ house: boys in flannel shirts, like Mark; men in uniform, like the Population Police; new Government bureaucrats in suits and ties.

  And Trey was afraid of them all.

  Chapter Eleven

  It felt like the middle of the night when Mark was back, shaking Trey by the shoulders.

  “Here, put this on,” Mark muttered.

  Groggily Trey accepted a flannel shirt, thick with quilting — almost a jacket, really. He wrapped it around his shoulders. It was warmer, and Trey was a little touched that Mark had thought to share. Trey was still wearing the formal servant clothes he’d been wearing the night of the Grants’ fatal party: stiff black pants, a thin, white cotton shirt Except that the white shirt wasn’t exactly white anymore, not after days of hiding out at the Talbots’ and, now, sleeping on a dirt floor.

  “Watch your head,” Mark said gruffly as Trey rolled out from under the truck.

  Mark opened the driver’s side door, and the light that glowed suddenly inside the truck’s cab seemed almost blinding.

  “Better button that up,” Mark said, and Trey blinked in confusion. Button a light? A door? A truck? “The shirt.” Mark said impatiently.

  Red-faced, Trey forced his clumsy fingers to prod buttons through buttonholes. Then he slipped into the seat of the truck, even though it felt like climbing into a spotlight He slid as far away from the light as possible, and huddled against the far door.

  “Let’s go then,” Mark said.

  Trey glanced around and saw that Mark had opened a huge door behind the truck, leading out of the barn. A gigantic portion of the starry sky seemed to stare back at him.

  “No, wait,” Mark said. “Let’s push it out to the road.” They just stared at him. “So nobody hears."

  It seemed to take Mark forever to explain in a way Trey could understand: Trey would have to get out of the truck, then stand at the front of the truck and shove on the hood as hard as he could, until the truck rolled out to the road.

  “I can’t,” Trey whimpered.

  Mark stared at him for a minute, then said, “Fine. You steer. I’ll push.”

  And then Mark practically had to give him an entire driving lesson: “Thin the wheel slowly… No, no, don’t look straight ahead, look out the back window—”

  “Why?” Trey said. “Why does the seat face forward if I’m supposed to be looking backward?”

  “Because we’re going in reverse,” Mark said disgustedly.

  Trey wondered how much it would take for Mark to give up on him, to just snort, “Fine! You stay here! I’ll go rescue my brother by myself!”

  Is that what I really want? Trey wondered.

  It was yet another question he didn’t want to think about.

  Finally Mark seemed satisfied that Trey could steer the truck properly Mark put the truck in neutral, and moved around to the front.

  Mark was strong. It seemed like no time at all before he’d pushed the truck to the edge of the gravel driveway. Then he went back to shut the barn door while Trey cowered in the truck.

  “Think you’re going to drive the whole way?” Mark asked when he came back

  “What? Oh,” Trey said, and he slid over away from the steering wheel.

  Mark climbed in and shut the door. He turned the key, and the engine coughed a few times, then sputtered to life. The sound seemed as loud as a jumbo jet roaring through the night sky. Trey was certain that the racket would wake not just Mark’s family, but the entire countryside.

  Mark didn’t seem worried, though. He just patted the dashboard and muttered, “Good old Bessie.”

  Trey squeezed his eyes shut in terror. What was he thinking? How could he be doing this? Why go looking for danger?

  Beside him, Mark started whistling. Whistling!

  Trey opened his eyes a crack. The dashboard glowed with dials and numbers. Beyond, the truck’s headlights sliced into the solid darkness around them.

  “Why didn’t you tell your family?” Trey asked Mark softly “How could you just—” He almost said “abandon them,” but stopped himself at the last minute. “How could you just leave without letting them know where you were going?”

  Mark glanced quickly over at Trey, then focused his eyes on the road again.

  “They’d worry,” he said.

  “And they’re not going to worry now? With you disappearing?” Trey asked incredulously

  “They’ll think I’m just running around. Carousing. Getting in trouble.” Mark hesitated. “Little trouble, not big trouble.”

  Trey didn’t want any trouble, of any size. Had Mark done this kind of thing before — taking his family’s truck out in the middle of the night, going who-knows-where? Did they expect it of him? What was Trey thinking, casting his lot with a troublemaker?

  “Uh-oh,” Mark muttered.

  “What?” Trey asked, panicked.

  Mark didn’t answer, just pointed at a pair of headlights far down the road, coming right at them.

  Chapter Twelve

  Turn onto a side street! Hide!” Trey screamed. Without thinking, he grabbed for the steering wheel. Mark shoved him away with one hand, as easily as he might brush aside a fly.

  “Ain’t another road for miles,” Mark said. “Want to end up in the ditch? Just wait—”

  The headlights drew closer. Mark seemed to be speeding up, and Trey had a moment of insane hope. How fast would the truck have to be going to just jump over whatever vehicle — whatever danger — was coming their way?

  But that was childish thinking, based on a comic book his mother had let him read once when his father thought he was studying Latin. Real trucks couldn’t jump.

  “Hmm,” Mark murmured. “It’s old Hobart.”

  “Who?” Trey asked.

  Mark put his foot on the brake.

  “What are you doing?” Trey screamed.

  �
�Shh,” Mark said.

  The truck slowed, then stopped, as the other vehicle— another pickup — drew alongside them. Trey could only stare in paralyzed horror as Mark began slowly rolling down his window. The other driver did the same.

  “Hey,” Mark said.

  “Hey,” the other driver said. In the near-dark, Trey could tell only that it was an old man. His grizzled white hair and beard glowed eerily in the green light of the dashboard.

  “Whozat you got with you?” the old man asked.

  “My cousin,” Mark said calmly. “He was here visiting when — you know. Hobart, this is Silas. Silas, this is Hobart”.

  Trey guessed he was supposed to be Silas. He nodded awkwardly, even though it was probably too dark for Hobart to notice. They was glad of the darkness. It’d make it impossible for Hobart to ever say exactly whom he’d seen.

  “Now, I’m so old, it don’t matter no more what happens to me,” Hobart said. “That’s why my family sent me to town to see if we got any money left in the bank. But, a couple of young scamps like yourselves — where are you off to in such a hurry that it’s worth risking your life to go there?”

  Trey held his breath. Mark wouldn’t dare answer that question, would he?

  “I’m not driving that fast,” Mark said.

  Hobart chuckled. It was a grim sound in the dark.

  “Fast, slow, it don’t matter. These days, leaving your house is like asking to be killed. I heard tell they was shooting anyone who even tried to drive into Boginsville. And over in Farlee, they’ve got soldiers patrolling the streets, telling people to turn out their lights, or turn on their lights, or cook them supper, or dance walking upside down on their hands — whatever the soldiers want, the soldiers get, or else they pull the trigger. And sometimes, they pull the trigger just for fun, no matter what the people do,” Hobart said. “Best thing you two could do is just turn right around and go on home."

  Trey gulped and waited for Mark to answer.

  “Looks like you survived, being out,” Mark said.

  “Soldiers haven’t made it out to Hurleyton,” Hobart said. “Yet.”

  “Was the bank open?” Mark asked. Even Trey, who could never detect subtle innuendo in any conversation, could tell that Mark wasn’t just making idle chitchat

  “Nah,” Hobart said. ‘Whole town’s shut down tight.”

  “It generally is at five in the morning,” Mark said.

  “You questioning my story, boy?” Hobart growled. “I came out yesterday afternoon. When I couldn’t get into the bank, I spent the night at my nephew’s house in town.”

  “Playing cards and gambling and drinking,” Mark said.

  “So? They haven’t made that illegal yet too, have they?” Hobart practically whined.

  “They will if your wife starts telling the soldiers what to do,” Mark said.

  Hobart laughed, and Trey was surprised. Hobart and Mark had seemed to be on the verge of an argument, but suddenly it was like they were best friends sharing a private joke.

  “Tell you what, boy,” Hobart said. “You don’t tell no one you seen me, I won’t tell no one I seen you.”

  “Deal,” Mark said.

  “Okay, then,” Hobart said. But he didn’t drive away yet. He peered straight at Mark and Trey, and for a second Trey was certain that the old man’s glittering eyes had taken in the contrast between Trey’s flannel shirt and his stiff servant pants. Trey even feared that the old man could see through the dusty seat to the papers Trey had taken from the Grants’ and the Talbots’ houses.

  “I don’t know what you two are up to,” Hobart said. “But you be careful now, you hear? Don’t do nothing I wouldn’t do.”

  “Well now, that don’t restrict us much, does it?” Mark teased back.

  Hobart chuckled and began rolling his window up. Slowly, he drove on.

  Trey let out a deep breath. He felt dizzy — now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he’d let himself breathe the whole time Mark had been talking to Hobart.

  Mark was rolling up his window now, too, and expertly shifting gears to get the truck going faster and faster.

  “Can we trust Hobart?” Trey asked in a small voice that seemed to get lost in the sound of the truck’s engine. He was trying to decide if the question was worth repeating, when Mark answered.

  “Hobart’s terrible about cheating at cards," Mark said. "But if he says he won’t tell nobody about us, he won’t."

  And Trey wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. If Hobart had insisted on telling Mark’s parents — maybe even dragged Mark and Trey straight back to Mark’s house — their dangerous journey would be over practically before it started. Trey could have said, “Oh, well, we tried,” and given up with a clear conscience.

  But the way it was now, he felt guilty for wanting to quit.

  And he was still heading straight into danger.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Grants’ house was on the outskirts of a huge city miles and miles away from the Talbots’ mansion and Mark’s family’s farm. That meant Trey had hours of sitting in the pickup truck, regretting every revolution of the wheels beneath him.

  Mark provided no conversation to distract him. Trey wondered if the fear was catching up with Mark as well, because his face seemed to grow paler and paler the farther Trey went his skin seemed to stretch tighter and tighter across the bones of his face.

  At least Trey saw no other vehicles after Hobart’s. Indeed, the landscapes Trey traveled through seemed utterly deserted, utterly devoid of any signs of life. Trey wondered if Hobart’s tales of soldiers everywhere were mere figments of his imagination; he wondered if the news reports of riots were lies as well. Riots required people, and there appeared to be no people anywhere.

  Finally, when Trey had lost all track of time, and all sense of how long Trey’d been traveling and how much farther Trey had to go, Mark suddenly veered off the road.

  “Wha — Mark! Wake up! You’re driving crazy!” Trey screamed, convinced that Mark had fallen into a trance of sorts as well.

  “I’m going this way on purpose, stupid,” Mark hissed through clenched teeth as he steered the truck down a steep dirt slope. A river lay directly ahead.

  Trey clutched the dashboard and squeezed his eyes shut. This wasn’t the way he’d expected to die.

  The truck stopped suddenly Trey hadn’t felt any dramatic leap over the riverbank, and he felt no water lapping at his feet, so he dared to look again.

  They’d stopped in a small woods. All he could see through the windshield now were thick branches and leaves, jarringly red and orange and yellow.

  “Has there been some sort of nuclear contamination here?” Trey asked.

  “Huh?” Mark said.

  “The leaves,” Trey said. “They’re — not green. Is there radiation? Is it safe?”

  Mark’s jaw dropped, ever so slightly.

  “It’s October,” he said. “Fall. Didn’t nobody never tell you that leaves change colors in the fall? Didn’t you ever notice?”

  “Oh,” Trey said. He remembered now. He’d seen pictures in books, of course, but the autumn leaves had never looked so bright and gaudy in pictures. “I was never outside until last December," he said defensively. Mark was staring at him.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “You never once stepped foot outdoors until last year?”

  “No,” Trey said.

  “Didn’t you ever even peek out a window?”

  “No. It was too dangerous.”

  Mark’s jaw was practically dragging the floor of the truck now, he looked so stunned.

  “I think. .,"he started. “I think if I’d never seen the outdoors, I’d keep my eyes open once I was in it.”

  “I do!” Trey said.

  “No you don’t. You had your eyes closed practically the whole way here.”

  “No I didn’t!”

  “Yes you did! I bet we passed dozens of trees with turned leaves. Why didn’t you
ask if any of them was contaminated?”

  Now that Trey thought about it, he remembered a few swirls of colors along the way. But he wasn’t going to admit to Mark that his way of looking out windows was mostly by way of quick, fearful glances. He had kept his eyes open, but he’d mainly been looking at the dashboard.

  “Never mind,” Mark said suddenly, in a rough voice. “It don’t matter.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I was thinking, we’re almost there. If we hide the truck here and go the rest of the way on foot, we won’t stick out so much.”

  ‘We don’t want to be conspicuous,” Trey agreed. So he didn’t know anything about trees and leaves — so what. At least he could supply Mark with a better word than “stick out so much.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Mark said. “I have maps for getting over close to the city, and Peter — Smits… whatever you want to call him — he told me where his house was. So I know where to go. But, um…”

  Trey waited, but Mark didn’t seem inclined to keep talking. He just sat there, staring out the windshield at the branches and brilliant leaves.

  “What?” Trey prompted.

  “We was on back roads up till now,” Mark said. “I avoided every single bit of civilization I could. But now… I ain’t never been in a city Is there anything I should know? So I don’t make any mistakes, I mean?”

  Trey looked at Mark, in his flannel shirt, faded jeans, and heavy work boots. Under his dusty cap, Mark’s face held a mix of fear and hope. He looked like he really thought Trey could give him good advice.

  “I don’t know,” Trey said. He’d grown up in a city, of course, but what had he ever seen of it? “Just don’t say ‘ain’t’ anymore, okay?”

  “Uh, okay,” Mark said, but he looked like Trey had slapped him. Trey wanted to take his words back Trey were two ignoramuses going into danger Trey couldn’t even imagine. What did a little strangled grammar matter?

  Mark shoved his door open, banging it on a tree branch.

  “Help me cover the rest of the truck so nobody sees it from the road,” he said gruffly.