Go Big or Go Home (13 page)

The professor marched over to Attila and squirted the remaining vinegar up his nose. We waited for the war dog to rise from his dormancy. Sure enough, he did.

A
S WE EMERGED FROM
the cave, we realized we had a problem. What were we going to tell the outside world, including our families?

We had a lot of explaining to do.

The more we batted it around, the more obvious it became that if we told the whole story, if news of Fred and what he had done to me got out, somebody would come after us to get to the space traveler. His final resting place might not be so final after all.

“Simplicity is the key,” the professor suggested. “The simpler our explanation, the better. How do we account for Brady being alive without revealing his dormancy and the microbes that made it happen?”

It was the Carver boys who came up with the solution, which turned out to be simple. They knew from
their dad about true stories of people being declared dead in the hospital, only to wake up in the morgue. It had happened a bunch of times around the country and the world. Their father would buy this explanation for what had happened with me.

Max had it all figured out. “Here's our story, guys. While we were searching for Attila, Brady woke up and let himself out of the building.”

“Beautiful,” Buzz declared.

“I know, but I'm not done. We succeeded in finding Attila down in Minnekahta Junction. Meanwhile, Brady was walking home from the morgue. On our way back into town, we found him walking down the street in Custer. What do you think, professor?”

“Brilliant. It's a shame that a greater good has us fabricating a story, but under these extraordinary circumstances I believe it's the right thing to do. The hospital will be embarrassed to find out that Brady's asthma attack wasn't fatal, but they'll be glad they were mistaken.”

There was one more thing. Fred's whereabouts needed to be accounted for. Some people around town had already heard about him. We put our heads together and decided he was still on the bottom of Pactola Lake. Nobody but us knew any different.

And so it was done. Six hands came together as one, and Attila's paw made seven. We swore ourselves to secrecy forever. The pact sealed, we came down off the mountain.

When Quinn and I got back to the house, the message
light on the phone was blinking. It was my dad. He had called to tell us he'd been helping Uncle Jake move the household stuff from Lead to the trailer in western Wyoming. They'd emptied the house and would be coming back to Hill City tomorrow. No sign my dad had heard anything about what had been going on here.

When Quinn heard the message about emptying out the house in Lead, he dropped his head. “I can't believe this is really happening,” he said, and then he went silent on me. We went outside to play some one-on-one. Quinn had a lot of frustration to take out. Just like old times, he had a step on me. He kept stopping me cold, and his shots fell with a vengeance.

Late the next morning we heard my dad's truck coming up the driveway. We went out to greet them. Quinn's eyes went to the back of the truck, all loaded with stuff. “What's that all about?” Quinn said under his breath. I was just as puzzled.

“Brought your things, son,” Uncle Jake said as he jumped out of the truck.

“Huh?” Quinn replied.

“I've been thinking about this a whole lot. It's just going to be so much better for you here, and you can go to high school with Brady.”

Awesome,
I wanted to shout, but I held back. This was Quinn's moment, not mine. I was remembering what he'd said on the summit of the Iron Mountain Road: “You couldn't pry me out of the Black Hills with a crowbar.”

Quinn wasn't answering his dad. He was looking away, at his stuff piled up in the truck, and he didn't look happy at all.

“You don't understand, son. I'm telling you, I'm okay with leaving you here. C'mon, we've talked about it.”

“But we never decided.”

Quinn's eyes went from the truck to our bikes leaning against my dad's shop.

Say you're good with staying, I thought. Why aren't you saying it?

Quinn kicked at a pebble on the driveway, and missed. Finally his eyes found his father's. “Here's the deal,” Quinn said. “I've been thinking a lot, too.”

Something you haven't told me? I wondered.

“I can live in that trailer,” Quinn said. “I can go to school in Wyoming.”

Uncle Jake was shaking his head. “Course you could, but that doesn't mean you should.”

“Should
is what I'm talkin' about,” Quinn said forcefully.

“How's that, son?”

“We should be together, that's all.”

“As much as that means to me to hear you say that, think about it. This is what you wanted, for a lot of good reasons.”

“Not anymore. I just can't picture us not being together.”

“I'll only be working in Wyoming for a year or two. And you better believe I'll be visiting here every chance
I get. We'll still see a lot of each other.”

Just go with it, I tried to tell Quinn telepathically.

Quinn didn't hesitate. His voice was firm. “Sorry, Dad. We're sticking together.
Where
doesn't matter.”

Uncle Jake's eyes were going misty on him. “You're not going to let me put my foot down, is that what you're telling me, son?”

Quinn's laugh finally broke the tension. “That's about the size of it.”

My dad and I laughed, too, and so did Uncle Jake. We went inside to put some lunch together.

As soon as it was just the two of us, I made sure Quinn knew how I felt. “I get it,” I told him, “and I'm really proud of you.”

“Thanks, Brady. I knew you'd understand.”

After we ate, Quinn and I carted his stuff over to his dad's truck, and they took off for Wyoming. Quinn got registered for school there, signed up for basketball. My mom and my little sisters came back from Iowa. The last two weeks of August slid by with me treading water, seriously missing Quinn and waiting for school to start. My family was getting used to me having almost died.

The professor was getting ready to leave soon, heading back to England with the promise we'd be seeing each other the next summer. Dr. Ripley planned on making the Black Hills and the museum his summer home for the rest of his life.

“Isn't life marvelous?” he said at last, on the sidewalk in front of the museum. “So full of surprises.”

“I wish you could've won the Nobel Prize, professor.”

“For a scientist,” he replied, “the prize is exploring the wonders, and I've explored quite a few. No regrets.”

“You and I know there's life in outer space. I never asked you how much.”

“Wouldn't we both love to know the answer to that.”

“Give me your educated guess, Dr. Rip.”

“Well then, I shall. The universe is teeming with life.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That'll give me something to chew on.”

I was about to get on my bike. The professor reached out and shook my hand. “Work hard in school, Brady. You might have a future in the stars.”

The morning the professor and I said good-bye was Saturday of Labor Day weekend. That afternoon was when the Carvers did their big catapult demo for half the kids in two counties.

Buzz and Max looked all buff in their sleeveless T-shirts, taking turns making announcements. Crystal was there. Sort of together, we watched the Carver boys hurl their toilets, the outboard motor, the computers, and so on, even a couple fusillades from Attila's rock pile. They raked in a mint on admissions.

The very next day, three days before school was going to start, Quinn and Uncle Jake drove over from Wyoming for our annual Labor Day weekend barbecue. Uncle Jake broke some big news. He was walking away
from his new job in the gas fields. They were leaving Wyoming.

I looked at Quinn, my mind racing to grasp what this was all about.

“I lost some money on the trailer deposit,” Uncle Jake told us, “but you live and learn. And what we learned was that Quinn and I belong in the Black Hills. Didn't take us long to figure that out, did it, Quinn?”

Quinn chuckled, poked his dad in the arm. “Two weeks.”

As Uncle Jake went on to explain, they'd already rented a place at the Creekside, the same string of cabins where Crystal and her mom lived.

There was more going on here than met the eye, and it wasn't long in coming out. It seemed that Uncle Jake and Maggie had really hit it off that last time he came through during Sturgis week. They'd been running up big phone bills ever since.

Maybe a spot would eventually open up for Uncle Jake on my dad's crew at Crazy Horse. Meanwhile Uncle Jake had the money out of their house in Lead. He could pick up handyman jobs, cut firewood, stuff like that, enough to pay the rent. And he could start enjoying the finer things of life, like designer coffee and Maggie's company.

Quinn and I started high school together, and fall went to rolling right along. We were doing some serious running after school to get ready for basketball. The aspen leaves turned gold, and no wind came to blow
them off. The days grew shorter and the tourists were all but gone. Mornings were crisp, and afternoons warm and glowing under deep blue skies—a classic Black Hills Indian summer.

Uncle Jake and Crystal's mom were glowing, too. I was kidding Quinn about whether he might find himself with a stepsister one of these days. Quinn didn't laugh. He thought it was a serious possibility, so much so that he had decided against asking Crystal out.

“Tough luck,” I told him, but I couldn't keep a straight face.

“You're such a fungus, Brady. Go ahead and make your move before Buzz does.”

“Buzz? You gotta be kidding.”

“Seriously. I just wish Crystal had seen you do your buffalo vault.”

“I guess I'll have to make it on my own merits instead of Fred's.”

“You miss Fred, don't you, even if he was trying to kill you?”

“In a way, sure.”

“I thought so.”

“You were lyin' about Crystal and Buzz, right?”

“Talk to her, Brady.”

“Soon.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” I promised, and I did. I asked Crystal to the Homecoming Dance and she actually said yes.

Well, this is where I'm going to leave off, but I should
mention that I find myself watching the stars and the planets more than ever. Mars disappeared over the horizon about the middle of September, but it'll be back. As long as I live, I'll always have an extreme connection to the Red Planet.

Sometimes when I'm running after school, or during certain classes when I'm bored out of my skull, my mind goes for a bike ride down the Mickelson Trail, hangs a right at Custer, and pedals up that Forest Service road.

I hike across that mountainside through the fallen timber, and I squeeze into the Halls of the Dead. In the Palace of the Dead King, I sit on that slab where they laid me out, and then I visit the Abyss of Hades to pay my respects to Fred.

Can you hear me, Fred? Bide your time, space traveler! Who knows, in another million years, a giant asteroid might strike the Black Hills of South Dakota and you'll get blasted into space again.

Meanwhile, buddy, I'll be thinking of you. You rocked my world.