A Boy Called Duct Tape (11 page)

I sat up, both fists doubled. I’d been dreaming about Jimmy Coleman. He’d said something mean to Pia—I don’t know exactly what that something was because the dream was all hazy, but Pia was crying—and I’d punched him in the face. He dropped to the ground like a mail sack.

I shook the dream from my head and looked around. I could see the inky shapes of Pia and Kiki under one canoe, and that of Monroe under the other.

The talking had stopped and I wondered if the voice I had heard was part of my dream. I peered into the shadowy forest. The pearly moon had come and gone, and the chatter of locusts had been silenced.

Sleeping on the ground had made my joints as stiff as rusty door hinges, and I arched my back and stretched my arms.

Then I heard the voice again.

But this time I recognized the voice—it was Monroe. He was talking in his sleep. The words were slurred so I couldn’t make them out.

Only Monroe talking in his sleep.

That’s a relief!

Then, from the darkness, there was a rustling of leaves. I turned toward the sound and squinted into the shadows. The dying fire cast eerie shapes on the sycamore trees, which stood like ghostlike sentries around our campsite.

I removed my flashlight from my backpack and scrambled to my feet.

There it was again—dry leaves crackling underfoot.

The Blood brothers!

I flipped on my flashlight and aimed the beam toward the sound, the skin on the back of my neck tightening. The bright shaft of light threw weird shapes against the trees and bushes.

Or maybe a bear!

When the rustling sound came again—this time much louder—I flipped off my flashlight and stepped away from the fading campfire and into the sycamore trees. I crouched and listened, my body tense, my mind spinning a series of crazy scenes, all of which were bad. The crackling continued—footsteps in the night.

Bears do eat berries, right?

My forehead cool from a nervous sweat, I felt a twitch of fear rush through my body. But strange enough, I liked the feel of it.

I flipped on my flashlight again and aimed the beam at the sound. As I did, two things happened at once: The shaft of light illuminated a pair of shimmering eyes, and a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.

I had been crouching, and I jumped straight into the air with a startled cry.

“Easy, boy!” It was Monroe. “What the heck you doing?”

I felt like I’d just finished a cross-country race. My legs were trembling and I was breathing like a race horse.

“Monroe! Y-You scared the c-crap out of me!”

“Appears so. I say again, what the heck you doing?”

“I … I h-heard something,” I stuttered.

“Heard something?” Monroe uttered a soft laugh. “Of course you heard something. You always hear something in the woods at night. That’s when animals feed.”

Monroe snatched the flashlight out of my hand and scanned the brush. The shaft of light came to rest on a gray possum. Three baby possums clung stubbornly to their mother’s back. Alerted by the gleam of light in her eyes, the mother possum stopped, hissed and showed her teeth, then turned on her heels and retreated quickly into the heavy undergrowth.

I felt like a fool, and I expected Monroe to laugh at me, but he said, “Be dawn in another hour. Might as well stay up.”

Pia, Kiki, Monroe, and I hiked through the forest toward the western base of Bear Mountain, the morning sun sifting through the leafy canopy. To throw the Blood brothers off our trail, we had camouflaged our canoes beneath a fluffy layer of sycamore branches before breaking camp 15 minutes earlier.

We hadn’t gone far when Monroe stopped and raised his nose to the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Huh? I don’t smell anything,” I said, looking to my left, then my right.

“Me neither,” Kiki said.

“What does it smell like, Mr. Huff?” Pia asked.

“Nothing … uh, it’s nothing.”

Monroe in the lead, we trod on, leaving the forest and hiking single file through an open meadow of leafy weeds. We were nearly across the field—within a few yards of the forest—when Monroe stopped.

“Aha!” he crowed. “Now I know what I smell! Cannabis!” He made a wide sweeping motion with his hand. “We’ve stumbled upon someone’s marijuana patch!”

“Pot?” I said, fingering one of the lush stalks. The two-acre field was infested with the waist-high plants.

“Yeah, pot,” Kiki confirmed. “We had a policewoman come to our school last month with marijuana plants. These look just like the ones she brought to class.” Kiki brushed a leaf with the back of her hand, then leaned forward and smelled it.

“My teacher says smoking marijuana is bad for you,” Pia said, looking troubled.

Kiki nodded. “Your teacher’s right, Pia. Smoking
anything
is bad for you.”

I examined one of the leafy plants. It looked like a weed. I’d never smoked pot, but I’d seen a couple of eighth-grade boys smoking a joint behind the bus barn one day after school. A bus driver busted them, and they were suspended.

We continued pushing through the field.

“Monroe, is it like growing wild?” Kiki asked.

Monroe shrugged. “I seriously doubt that—”

“Stop!” I ordered from the back of the line, making a startled gesture. “Everyone, look at me!”

Everyone stopped and turned toward me.

“What is it, Pablo?” Kiki asked in a hushed voice.

“Don’t speak,” I said.

“Pablo,” Pia began in a scolding tone, “what are you—”

“Don’t talk, just listen,” I interrupted, making eye contact with each of them.

“What’s up, Pablo?” Monroe asked soberly.

“We’re being watched,” I said, trying to keep my voice soft and under control.

“Where?” Monroe asked.

“Pia, Kiki, look away,” I said. “Look straight ahead into the forest. Don’t look to the right or the left. Nod if you understand.”

Pia and Kiki replied with anxious nods.

“Off to my right, Monroe,” I said in a halting tone. “Seated in a tree stand about ten feet off the ground. He’s wearing camouflage and face paint. About 50 yards away.”

Monroe kept his head still, but shifted his eyes. Then, in a strangled whisper, he said, “Yes, I see him.”

“Pablo …?” Pia choked.

“Everyone just follow me,” Monroe said, “Do as Pablo said. Keep looking into the forest ahead.”

Pia began to say something—my sister could be dangerously stubborn sometimes—but I gave her a stiff shake of my head.

Monroe turned and began walking briskly out of the marijuana patch and into the forest. Pia, Kiki, and I followed. After we had marched a hundred yards or so into the heavy timber, Monroe stopped. He turned and faced us. “That was very close, my young friends.”

“I don’t get it,” Kiki said, the tension draining from her face.

“That marijuana field was being guarded by a man in a tree,” Monroe said. “I imagine he had a weapon of some kind. He was, no doubt, protecting his crop.”

“Whew! We dodged a bullet—literally,” Kiki said, out of breath. “But I never saw him.”

“How’d you see him, Pablo?” Pia asked.

I blew out an anxious breath. “I saw a glint of sunlight off his glasses.”

We hiked on.

When we reached the base of Bear Mountain we fanned out in ten-yard intervals across its western slope and began searching for the mysterious JJ Rock. The cave entrance—if the map was accurate—was located only a few steps from the JJ Rock, and we examined every rock, boulder, and stone of any size, looking for anything resembling the letters JJ.

We found no such writing, and by noon we weren’t any closer to solving the mystery. We rested under a tall chestnut tree halfway to the summit of the mountain. The heat and humidity were suffocating—our T-shirts were plastered to our bodies with sweat, and gnats kept flying up our noses—and Monroe insisted we take frequent water breaks from the canteens hooked to our belts.

I kept a close eye on my sister. The going hadn’t been that exhausting for someone with two good legs, but for a nine-year-old girl with one bad leg, I imagined it was a real challenge. But Pia was caught up in the thrill of the hunt, and she had not complained.

Nor did Pia object when I suggested that she take a break while we inspected a steep section of the mountain ahead.

“I don’t mind resting for a little while longer,” Pia confessed with a faint smile, rubbing her leg. Her hair was so sweaty it looked like she’d just stepped out of the shower.

“We’ll be back in about 30 minutes, Pia,” I said, turning toward Monroe. “Is that about right, Monroe? Thirty minutes?”

“Give or take,” he said unscrewing the top from his canteen and taking a big gulp.

“Promise, Pablo?”

“Promise.”

“Blow your whistle if you need us, sweet pea,” Monroe said, reattaching his canteen to his belt.

Fingering the brass whistle hanging around her neck, Pia slipped out of her backpack and settled in on a shaded log that stretched out beneath the big chestnut.

Kiki, Monroe and I were five minutes into our steep upward climb when the shrill of a whistle shattered the mountain calm. We turned and looked back down the mountain to where we had left my Pia. She was hidden by the dense timber.

“Pia,” I croaked, my chest tightening with pain. Although I was sweating from every pore in my body, I suddenly felt cold.

“It’s Pia!” Kiki gasped.

The whistle shrill continued in breathy spurs.

Monroe said something, but I was already tearing down the mountain, dodging bushes and logs, a pain shooting into my heart. Two scenarios crowded my mind. The first was that of an angry bear attacking Pia. The second was that of the Blood brothers carrying her away.

We should never have left Pia alone.

With the whistle ringing in my ears, I sprinted in and out of the trees and bushes, my duct-taped sneakers carrying me down the mountain.

What would I do if Pia was being attacked by a bear?
Beat if off with a stick.

What would I do if Pia was being abducted by the Blood brothers?
Fight them with every breath in my body.

To my relief, I found Pia where we had left her a few minutes earlier seated beneath a chestnut tree at the end of a log.

“Pia!” I panted, going over to her and grabbing a breath. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes round and fizzing with excitement, Pia removed the whistle from her lips. “Pablo!” she cried. “I found it!”

Monroe and Kiki arrived seconds later.

“Pia!” Kiki gasped. “What happened?”

“What did you find, Pia?” I said, my heart banging in my chest.

In a hurried voice, Pia said, “I was hungry and started to eat some raisins and this little chipmunk hopped up on the log and I put some raisins on the log and the chipmunk began—”

“Pia, slow down!” I cried.

Pia continued to unravel her story, the words flying out of her mouth. “The chipmunk started to stuff the raisins into its mouth and after it finished eating, it jumped off the log and ran away and then it ducked under—”

“Take a big breath, Pia,” Monroe encouraged, stepping over to where she sat. “Breathe deeply.” He gently laid a hand on her shoulder. “Now … slowly.”

Pia nodded, sucked in a breath and in a less hurried voice said, “I watched the chipmunk dive under the rock, and that’s when I saw it.”

“Saw what?” I asked.

Pia pointed at a large boulder 20 feet away. In a calm voice she said, “Look.”

Everyone turned and looked at the huge rock.

I noted that the shape of it was odd. The ragged left side.

It was the silhouette of a human face!

Everyone agreed, the left side of the boulder did resemble the profile of a human face. The big stone was about six feet wide and eight feet tall. It was interesting that the limestone outline could only be seen when a person stood about where Pia had been sitting on the log. A few feet to the right or the left and the boulder looked like any of the hundreds of other boulders on the mountain.

Monroe said the big rock in its entirety might be larger—much like an iceberg—and only a fraction of it sticking up above the ground.

“But I’m not so sure this is the JJ rock,” he said, surveying the boulder. “There are no initials. Besides, many rocks take on the features of a human face. And it’s plain to see that there is no cave entrance.”

We gathered around the boulder, each of us searching for some clue.

I dug out my map and studied it. It indicated that the Cave Entrance was only a few steps from the JJ Rock.

Kiki suggested that the entrance might be located on the backside of the boulder, but we couldn’t find an opening. My spirits sagging, Dad’s advice bubbled up in my mind: “Only a fool pretends to know tomorrow.” Maybe there was no stack of gold coins in my future. Maybe the map was just someone’s idea of a joke.

The noontime sun was burning like a furnace, and Pia, Kiki, and I sat on the shaded log and drank from our canteens.

Monroe was chipping away at the boulder with his rock hammer—he found a quartz crystal embedded in the big rock—when he began to sink into what appeared to be quicksand. He was soon up to his knees, and then his waist. In the next moment he was swallowed alive by Bear Mountain, the earth beneath him falling away completely.

“Monroe!” Pia screamed, her eyes fixed on the Caveman as he disappeared into the ground.

I rushed over to the hole. Falling to my knees, I peered into the hole. “Monroe!”

My eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw that Monroe had sunk a few yards into the side of the mountain. He had come to rest in a sitting position on a steep mound of muddy grit. The mound of mud extended down to the bottom of a dark cavern.

“I think we’ve found the cave entrance,” Monroe announced, a wide, happy smile on his face, the quartz crystal the furthest thing from his mind.

Flashlight in hand, I slithered down the mound of soft earth. The first thing that struck me about the underground chamber was the smell. It was the same smell I had noticed on Monroe—the smell of cave. Monroe carried that same musty, damp smell in every pore of his body.

“This must be the Hotel Lobby,” Monroe said, removing his sunglasses, the beam from his flashlight exploring the dingy little cave.