Strays (35 page)

“What are you doing?” Kyle asked.

Tom ignored him, letting his pants drop to his ankles. He stood in a pair of blue boxer shorts and nodded in the direction of Trudy.  “Apologies, Miss Trudy, it’s no time for modesty.”

“No problem,” Trudy said, turning her head away.  Tom slid the boxers down to his ankles.  Kyle moved forward, shielding Tom’s naked body from Sarah’s eyes, but she did not see, her face transfixed by the thing in the gravel drive.

The spirited buzz in the space about Kyle’s head was like a hive of bees.  He heard someone shuffle behind him.  He placed a hand on Sarah’s shoulder, and Sarah started, glancing back at him.  He knew then what had to be done. 

A voice in his ear then, no more than a whisper … Molly’s voice: “We can help you if you want, but you have to ask for it.”

“No,” Kyle said.  “I don’t think so.”

“You’re sure?” 

“Tom’s right.  This is my battle.  I’m just not sure how to beat him.”

“It isn’t about beating anyone.  It isn’t about winning.”  He felt Molly’s face nuzzle against his neck.  “You’re fighting something else, and what’s more, you’re fighting
for
something else.  Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t.”

“We’ll stay out of the way unless you ask for our help … or if he hurts one of our own.  If he attacks one of us, all the bets are off, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Kyle said.

He felt Molly move away, and the air shimmered with her static now, so great that Kyle thought his heart might stop.  He glanced out in the yard at the gathering of cats, dozens of them packed together on the grass like campers at an outdoor concert.  From between his feet, a new cat bounded off the porch to join them, heavy and strong and covered with a short coat of ginger fur the color of Tom’s hair.  The ginger cat slid into the front of the feline ranks, and then a second cat, this one more of a reddish-blonde long-hair (
has to be Strawberry
, Kyle thought), performed an acrobatic leap into the yard and stood at the ready, sidling up next to Tom.   

At last, the third cat appeared at Kyle’s feet, pressing her head against his shin and rubbing the length of her body against it.  She was black as a raven’s feather, her ample coat full and billowing in the morning breeze.  She looked up at Kyle with blood-red eyes, blinking once before turning and jumping off the porch to join the others. 
That
cat, of course, the damned cat that had pulled Kyle into a life shackled to Seby Lee all those years ago.  Kyle watched as Molly took her place next to Tom, puffing her fluffy chest and tilting her chin to the sky.

When the final gathering of cats and cat-people (Kyle had no other name for them, and he rather enjoyed that the term aggravated Tom) were grouped in the yard, Kyle knew his moment had come.  With his hand still on Sarah’s shoulders, he gave a gentle squeeze, then took the three stone steps down from the porch to the yard.  He allowed himself three more steps toward the gravel drive, keeping the cats in formation on his right, placing himself between the porch and the thing by the Datsun truck.  He glanced through the pickup’s windshield and saw the shape of a passenger, someone with long wavy hair, possibly the driver’s girlfriend.  Whoever she was, she was not getting out just yet. 

“Morning,” Kyle said.  It was best to start things slow, he decided.  Regardless of what these people wanted, it was unwise to blunder in blindly.  Kyle took another step, arms loose at his sides but palms visible to show they were open.  “What can I do for you today?”

The thing that had emerged from the Datsun stood a full head taller than Kyle, its broad shoulders declining out from its neck in twin harsh slopes, the way the side of a hill looks after a rock slide.  Heavy dark slacks sagged around its abundant belly, and dirt and oil darkened its weathered cowboy shirt as thick pools of sweat-stain formed under each armpit.  Kyle looked the creature over, top to bottom, and for some reason his eyes settled on its boots, what looked to be size 16’s or larger, massive mud-caked boats that reminded Kyle of the cumbersome weighted feet of Boris Karloff in those old
Frankenstein
films.

“Name’s Smallhouse,” the thing said.  “Bud Smallhouse.  Folks call me Big Buddy.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Kyle replied.  “Kyle Winthrop, at your service.”

Big Buddy flashed an easy smile and tucked his thumbs in the belt loops of his pants.  He tugged his slacks upward, and his eyes darted to the porch, where Sarah and Trudy watched from the shadows.

“That there’s Sarah,” Big Buddy said.  “She’s my girl.”

Kyle nodded and realized he was mimicking his father a bit.  He could almost feel Dad—

My son.

—pulling the strings just now.  Dad with his easy, agreeable demeanor, listening with that affable nod to let you know he heard you.  Kyle even felt Dad’s ornery grin flickering across his face, and he kind of liked how it felt. 
Go ahead, Dad,
he thought. 
You’re a part of me.
 
You run the show. 

“My girl there,” Big Buddy said, “she run away from home last week.  Got her mother worried something awful.”

A chill wriggled down Kyle’s neck, settling between the shoulder blades.  Where had he heard that one before?  He knew well enough, and he could see by the way Big Buddy’s fat brows hunkered down as he squinted that he was trying to make his eyes smaller, masking the lies behind them. 

“Her mother okay?” Kyle asked, working as much genuine concern into his voice as he could.  “She’s not sick or anything is she?”

Big Buddy shook his head.  “Nah, she’s not sick, just worried.”

“That’s a relief,” said Kyle.  “Well, as you can see, Sarah’s just fine.  If you’d like, we can call her mom and put her mind at ease.  Would you like that?”

One of those heavy sloped shoulders convulsed and contracted, the way a batter might recoil to avoid contact from an inside pitch.  Whatever Kyle said, Big Buddy did not like it.

“That ain’t necessary,” he said.  “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just get my girl and take her on home.”

Kyle looked back over his shoulder at Sarah, who had shrunk further back in the shade of the porch roof.  Trudy had taken a position in front of the girl, one shoulder overlapping, offering herself as a last line of defense.  Kyle locked onto Sarah and made sure she was looking at him, and then he offered her the nod, his father’s nod, assuring her that everything would be all right.

“I guess that would be okay,” he said, turning back to Big Buddy.  “Provided you’re who you say you are.”

Big Buddy took his thumbs out of his pocket and let his arms poke out like a gunslinger’s.  “What do you mean who I say I am?  That’s my girl.  I’m her father.  And unless you want a world of trouble, you’ll let her go home with me.”

Big Buddy took a step toward the house, coming within a couple of feet from the edge where the gravel drive ended and the yard began.  Kyle did not move, did not even allow his body to flinch.  “I can’t just let her hop in a car and ride off with any old stranger, can I?”

“I’m not a stranger,” Big Buddy snarled.  “I’m the girl’s father.”

“I believe you, sir,” Kyle replied, lifting his hands in his favorite placating gesture.  “I truly do.  But I need to have proof, you know?  If I turn her over to you, and it turns out you’re not who you say you are, well … you see the dilemma I’m facing.”

Big Buddy’s brows arched, and he rolled his eyes.  “I’m her father.  Dammit, boy, don’t make me say it again.”

“There’s an easy way to settle this,” Kyle said.  With palms still out, he turned his head to the porch.  “Sarah?  You’re hearing all this?”

Silence hung in the air for a good five seconds before he heard her voice, soft and fighting to suppress a tremble.  “Yes.”

“So you know what I’m going to ask you, right?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me, is this gentleman your father?”

More silence, this time even longer.  Kyle lowered his hands and turned full toward the porch, offering his back to Big Buddy.  If the older man was coward enough to attack him from behind, well, so be it, but Kyle didn’t think it would come to that yet. 

“It’s okay, Sarah.” he said.  He met her eyes and provided her with the soothing nod again.  “You’re safe.  You know that, right?”

Sarah did not speak, but he could see her nod from the dimness of the porch. 

“So
is
he, Sarah?” Kyle repeated.  “Is he your father?”

Sarah met Kyle’s eyes.  It seemed as if every bolt and nut and washer holding her together from the inside had been tightened an extra quarter-turn, hardening her jaw.  Not the coldness Kyle often saw in the faces of girls back when he roamed the halls of Landes High with Seby Lee, but something stronger, unyielding.

“No,” she said.  “He’s not my father.”

“Now just a damned minute,” Big Buddy barked.  “That’s a lie and you know it, Sarah.”

“He’s not my father,” Sarah repeated.  “I don’t know who my father is.  That’s just some man who married my mom.”

“Okay, sure,” Big Buddy admitted.  “We’re not flesh and blood, but I’m as good as her dad.  I’ve been with her mother since she was a little girl.”

Kyle gave Sarah a final nod, his assurance that he was taking her side in the argument.  With a slow and sweeping motion so as not to appear a threat, he turned back toward Big Buddy.  “You heard her, sir,” he said.  “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” cried Big Buddy.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you can’t take her with you.”

“Of course I can,” Big Buddy snorted.  “I’m her father.”

“
Step
father, sir.” 

“As good as a dad, boy,” Big Buddy grunted.  “As good as a dad.” 

“I don’t know about that,” said Kyle.  “You see, I have a dad, a really good one, and he never talked to people like you’re talking now.  So when you say you’re her dad, you’re kind of raising a red flag, do you see?”

“Listen,” Big Buddy bellowed.  “I’m here to take my girl home, and I’m taking her all right, there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.”

Kyle opened his mouth to speak, but the words trailed off before they were spoken.  A part of him was already writing lies in his head, anecdotes like one about Reggie Adler that had scared away Bran the Man and company when he was twelve.  But another part of him, that slow, demonstrative voice that sounded a lot like his father, told him that this time was different.  He felt it as surely as he felt his own breath in his lungs.  The spinning of a baffling yarn was not the way to defeat this monster.  Besides, Molly had told him that wasn’t about winning. 

You’re fighting something else,
she had said.
And what’s more, you’re fighting
for
something else. 

This is your battle.

His
battle, yes, and if he was to finish it, it would be on his own terms.  Already, he saw the hunger in Big Buddy’s eyes, curdled with the promise of carnage.  Kyle knew what the man’s next move would be—to try and goad a fight out of him.

“You going to stop me, boy?” Big Buddy snarled.  “You think you
can
stop me?”  

Kyle shook his head.  “What I think,” he said in his most even tone, “is that you’re going to get in your truck and drive back to wherever you came from.  Sarah’s in good hands now.  You can be assured of that.”

Big Buddy took a step toward the yard and thrust his arms out even more.  There was a ripple of disquiet throughout the hoard of cats to Kyle’s right.  He shot a glance their way and saw Tom, still in his ginger cat form, prowling up and down in front of the host, grunting his disapproval. 

He’s telling them to stand down,
Kyle thought. 

This is what Kyle had wanted, wasn’t it?  For them to leave him on the island by himself, against Sarah’s most feared nightmare, the kind of hulking beast that Kyle had never faced before.  Not even Bran the Man and his partners in crime were as awful as this Big Buddy fellow.  Bran the Man was just a punk, perhaps secretly afraid of his own shadow, but Big Buddy was capable of a whole new level of atrocity.  Kyle could smell it in the air about him, and for a moment, he could see it, could see the filthy man’s bumpy fingers touching his stepdaughter in ways a dad never touched his children.  He could not let that happen again.  He
would
not.

It isn’t about beating anyone … it’s not about winning …

That was it, wasn’t it?  He wasn’t expected to win.  He was simply expected to stand his ground, stand firm, and …

… and not lose himself. 

Big Buddy in all his quivering monstrousness, was the kind of chaotic thing that could not be predicted, let alone controlled.  He was the greatest and worst reality of Sarah’s young life, perhaps her very first memory.  If Kyle was to face the dragon, he could not
become
the dragon.  He must be something else, something stronger, something contrary to all that Big Buddy represented. 

“There’s a right way to do this,” Kyle said.  “I understand your concern, sir, surely I do.”

The wired mass of brow above Big Buddy’s eyes curled down again.  There was an absolute zero amount of concern in that face.

“I think we probably need to call someone,” Kyle said.

“Call who?” Big Buddy growled.

“I’m not sure.”  He turned away from Big Buddy again, again exposing his back for a rear assault.  He offered Sarah another nod and winked without smiling.  He hoped the message was clear.  “Trudy,” he said.  “Who do we call in situations like this?  Social services?  Police?  Something like that?”

If Sarah did not grasp Kyle’s scheme, at least Trudy did.  “All of the above, I think,” she said.  “I know someone at CPS I could call.  Nice lady.  I helped her adopt out a litter of cats last spring.”

Kyle turned back to Big Buddy, arms outstretched in a large shrug.  “There you go,” he said.  “We’ll get the proper authorities out her to look things over, and I’m sure you and Sarah can be on your way in a couple of hours.”

Big Buddy grunted and thrust his head forward, sloped shoulders hunching back.  Kyle bit his lip to suppress a laugh.  He imagined a turtle and a vulture mating in some twisted cartoon world, and Big Buddy would be the thing that popped out, bloated and hungry.