The Journey Back (12 page)

B
y the end of October a lot of little things started to change. The days got cooler and nights downright cold. I needed an extra blanket when I slept and had to start wearing that dang Redskins sweatshirt all the time, even when we sat around the fire after dinner. Other things happened, too, things I never noticed before I lived in a tent. Like all the acorns that thumped on the roof and how the crickets got loud and how geese flew overhead making long, wavering checkmarks in the sky. In the mornings, there was dew on the grass. It was dark when Luke left for school. And, as Nora liked to point out, the poison ivy leaves had turned red.

I couldn't stay mad at Nora for long. I told her I was sorry for stomping off and she said not to worry about it. But after that, she didn't ask me any more questions about my past, or why I run away from prison, and I didn't ask her anything about her personal life. We both had screwed-up families and lives. In a weird way, it gave us a bond.

Anyway, the little changes at the end of October hinted that bigger changes—like winter—were on the way. Some people at the campground had already left for the South to pick oranges. Nora, upset one night, said her mom was thinking of moving to Las Vegas with her boyfriend. Even Woody mentioned something about working on bridge construction in Florida. I knew I'd have to make a big decision of my own pretty soon. All of which was unsettling. So I played a lot of basketball to get my mind off stuff.

Thump, thump, thump—clang! Thump, thump, thump, whoosh!

I loved the sound of a basketball swishing through the rim, all net. Ever since my ankle had healed up Luke and me had been regulars on the campground court, practicing foul shots and layups with the basketball Woody bought.

“Luke, stop! If you're coming toward me and I'm defending the basket, then switch the ball over to your other hand. Keep your body between me and the ball!”

“Got it!” he hollered back, but he had a hard enough time dribbling with his right hand, much less his left.

Nora got in on some of the basketball, too, and I have to say, she was a pretty good shooter. I felt bad she might be moving to Las Vegas, but I didn't say anything, and I tried not to think about it.

A month had passed since I ran away from Cliffside. A whole week since I hid from police across the river. Buddy and I spent that night sleeping in the volunteers' room at the horse farm, like Nora suggested, and it wasn't that bad. I had a couch to sleep on, a bathroom, and a bunch of snacks. Nora took care of Luke for me until Woody got home that night, and Buddy and I were back in the morning before Luke had to go to school so it wasn't ever a problem.

I continued working at the farm a lot and one day, I offered to build some shelves for Mrs. Crawford in the tack room where they keep all the bridles and saddles. She had a couple nice pieces of pine and a table saw in a toolshed. She said her husband was going to make her some shelves about five years ago, but then he up and had a heart attack and died on her. Funny—not about him dying—but the fact that I actually learned in wood shop at the prison how to cut, plane, and build wooden shelves. Before I took off, us boys in shop made a slew of shelves for New Germany State Park.

While I was in the toolshed working, I hid both a hammer and a hacksaw. But the next day I put them back on the wall over the bench 'cause I could get a hammer at home. And a hacksaw was just too big and clumsy to carry. Besides that, realistically, how the heck was I going to use a hacksaw for protection?

Anyway, after the shelves got done, Mrs. Crawford started giving me more hours of work and different jobs. Like one day she asked me to put fly spray on the horses. She also taught me how to turn my back to a horse, lift its foot, and clean out under the hoof with a pick. Bet you didn't know stuff could rot under there. That not only smelled bad, but could cause a painful crack in the hoof, too.

One weekend, I even sat in on a session with Nora and the volunteers to hear a talk about emergency situations. Like if a horse got loose or the barn caught fire or—and this is wild—if some crazy horse owner showed up at the farm wanting to steal back the horse that had been taken away. We learned how to size people up quickly. Do they look you in the eye? Are they impatient? Do they keep asking about a particular horse and want to see it?

I loved being at the farm with Nora on the weekends. She was happy around those horses and knew all their names, their personalities, everything. Like how you couldn't put Mozart next to Prince. And how Pegasus had to be the first one in the gate to eat. And how Tork stood at the rail and chewed on the wood, which is called cribbing, which is a bad habit like biting your nails, only worse.

She had a soft spot for that crazy stallion, Fuego, and even brought out handfuls of Cinnamon Cheerios from the volunteers' room and left them on his paddock door for a treat. She talked sweet to him and one day—it blew me away— I saw that horse come over and let her pet his nose. “It's like velvet,” she said softly. “Here, come touch it. Go ahead. Isn't it amazing?”

Nora taught me a lot about horses. Like the hair that hung over Fuego's eyes? That was his forelock. I watched Nora straighten out his forelock so he could see. Then she gave him a good hard scratch under that forelock and it must've felt good 'cause he closed his eyes.

So the farm was working out, but I still hadn't found anything that would make a good weapon or give me any idea of how I was going to protect my mom and the kids. And that was beginning to worry me.

Meanwhile, I was making money, most of which I saved. The only money I spent was for dog food. Plus I gave Woody some cash one time to buy me a couple plastic razors. My dad had grown a beard recently and I didn't want to start looking anything like him. So I had almost five hundred dollars saved up and stuffed into a sock with the white card from Cliffside. I kept the sock deep inside my pillowcase in the pup tent.

At the campsite, things were pretty good, too.

One evening after dinner, me, Luke, Woody, and Nora took this rusty, paint-chipped set of silver and gold horseshoes Woody had and walked down to the playground where they had two sandy pits staked out under the trees.

“I want Nora!” Luke cried out. And I thought, darn, 'cause I wanted Nora, too. She was looking mighty cute with her hair in braids and a snug black T-shirt she'd worn once before that said: I
D
ID THE
M
ATH:
H
ORSES >
B
OYS
. Which made me wonder all over again if she felt that way.

Luke's a little kid so we all shrugged and let him have his way and paired off. We even let Nora and Luke go first.

“Do you need glasses?” I asked Nora when her horseshoe missed the stake by about five feet.

She slapped me on the arm and then watched me throw a perfect ringer.

Luke was next and his throw was terrible. It didn't land anywhere near the pit.

“Try again,” I heard Woody tell him. “That was your practice shot.”

But Luke's second try wasn't any better, and I could see this game was going to be a slaughter. Nora was taking it in good humor, shrugging like who cares? But Luke was already getting pouty and sad.

My partner, Woody, was next. But before he took his turn, he caught my eye and kind of nodded before sending his horseshoe a whopping twelve feet off the mark.

Now, it's not my nature to let somebody else win if I can help it, no way, but I could tell Woody wanted me to play along. He was doing it so Luke and Nora would win, so Luke wouldn't feel bad. I understood all that, but I also thought it was kind of teaching Luke to be a crybaby so he'd get his way.

“Go ahead! Aim careful there, boy!” Woody called out when it was my turn again.

I held the horseshoe in front of my face and squinted my eyes as I took aim.

“Whoa!” I hollered when my horseshoe overshot the pit and landed in the bushes.

Luke laughed. “What happened to
you
?”

So basically me and Woody, we let them win. Luke went running to his dad, who picked him up high in the air and gave him a big hug.

And you know what? It didn't bother me a lick that I gave in 'cause it was so nice, seeing that kid and his dad look so happy.

—

Nights, I was sharing Buddy with Luke. Like one night the dog would sleep in the big tent, and one night he'd sleep with me. I didn't care too much about it. I worked hard and was tired at night. No television in the pup tent, but Woody did give me an old radio and a couple times I turned it on. I couldn't find a Ravens game, so I listened to music and some of the World Series games.

Funny, but I didn't even miss TV, and it had always been like this really big part of my life. Back home, even though we didn't have a flush toilet in our house, we had three televisions. I watched cartoons like
SpongeBob
and
Dora
with Hank and LeeAnn and then all kinds of crazy stuff at night. My parents didn't care. Even at prison, us boys could watch television. If you didn't have kitchen duty, you could go to the “40-seater,” this big room off the dining hall where a TV was rigged up to a satellite box. No cable television out there in the boonies! Problem with the satellite setup though was that the control box was in the office so we couldn't change the station. They kept it on ESPN for sports, so that's all we saw: football, basketball, baseball, golf, poker, whatever was on. Sometimes, we got to see a movie, but nothing ever R-rated. Other than
The Mummy
all those boys ever wanted to see was more sports. I think if I had to watch
Remember the Titans
or
Hoosiers
one more time I would've puked.

Without TV, I had a lot of “think time” in that tent. Funny how when you're by yourself and it's quiet, you see things more clearly. For example, while listening to Luke and his dad read that dog story every night I noticed how Luke always started with Chapter One. Then, at some point, he'd push the book to his father and say it was his turn. And it just kind of struck me all at once—was Luke trying to memorize the story? Like maybe he
couldn't
read! Maybe memorizing the story was how he faked it!

I sat up when that thought hit me. It sure would explain why every time I helped him read, we did the same sentence over and over before moving forward. Huh. So what was up with that?

Lots of times I thought about Nora and how much I liked her. I knew it was one reason I wasn't rushing off. And sometimes, I got to thinking about all those things Nora asked me. Like what gave me the right to take off from Cliffside and steal that truck? I kept coming to the conclusion that she didn't understand my mission. Sometimes, I thought, I should forget Nora and everyone else, just drop everything and get on home to help Mom. If things were bad, if I got desperate for protection, I could steal this rifle my neighbor kept behind the vacuum cleaner inside his broom closet. My neighbor didn't know I watched him put his gun away one evening while I was returning a casserole dish to his wife. He'd been trying to kill the fox that cruised our neighborhood 'cause they had a Chihuahua or something like that, one of those little dogs that would make a nice snack for a hungry red fox.

But those neighbors with the rifle? They brought my mom a bag of groceries once. They made us dinner when my mom got sick. Another time they paid our electric when it got turned off. The white card flashed in my mind:
Think of the other person.
How could I break into their house after all they done for us?

Besides, wasn't I kidding myself to think I could get away with a prank like that? Stealing a rifle? Then actually
using
it? The white card again:
If I stole a rifle, then I'd probably get caught and spend even more time in prison!
I'd never get to be a Marine. I wouldn't be able to see Hank and LeeAnn grow up. I wouldn't have a life, period. And would it really make things better? Or was I doomed to making everything worse?

Damn that white card. It made me think too much! I pulled it out from inside my pillowcase and got ready to tear it in half. But then I flipped it over 'cause for some reason I'd been trying to remember the last “expectation” on the back side. Number twelve. Oh, yeah. “I will actively involve myself in planning for the future and in developing my aftercare plan.” I started to smile. Mr. R. and Miss Laurie, for sure they wouldn't think my future plans right now were very good! No . . . I felt the smile kind of slide off my face . . . they wouldn't. They'd be ashamed.

—

Then it happened again.

“Woody's gone,” I told Nora. “He never came home last night.”

She rolled her eyes and dropped her backpack on the picnic table. It was Saturday and Nora and I didn't have to work until later. The three of us were headed to the river with a blanket, a deck of cards, and a picnic lunch. But I had Woody's cell phone number with me, too. It was written on the candy wrapper that I'd pushed into my pocket. At the very least, I'd call Woody and chew him out for leaving us again. Then I might call Mom, just to see how she was doing.

So we were down at the river. It was a pretty day. People called it Indian summer on account of how it stayed warm so late into November. Nora had already ditched her backpack so she and Luke could go off looking for sea glass along the shore. That left me alone. I knew Nora would tell me her phone wasn't charged up. I didn't know why she didn't want me using it. While she was gone I took a breath, then hastily rummaged through her backpack. I pushed aside her
Vocabulary for the College-Bound Student
book and her Shakespeare paperback and all her notebooks with a million roses doodled all over them until I found the little, silver flip-top cell phone. I checked to be sure she wasn't coming, then I flicked that cell open—and just stared at it. There wasn't even a number pad. It was a broken, empty shell.