Almost Eden (15 page)

“I want–
hic
–to go home.”

All the time I was cleaning her up I was keeping one eye on the dog. It was sitting there at the end of the row of trees, watching. But I guess that dog was happy enough with having chased us past its yard. Still, I didn’t really want to go back that way. I was starting to figure out that this whole thing wasn’t just lame, it was stupid. As if there was any real chance of finding Tommy out here. It figured that Dad would be right. And now Lena was hurt. It was time to call it quits before anything else went wrong.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “See if you can stand up.”

She could stand on her own two feet all right, even if she was a bit wobbly and winced when she stepped on her one foot. I made her walk it off by the side of the road. I was brushing the dirt off her clothes when a pick-up pulled close beside us and stopped. A man rolled down the window. “You kids need some help?”

“We’re all right, thanks,” I glanced quickly at him, but he wasn’t someone I knew. So I looked away again and hoped he would leave.

“Sure you don’t need a ride somewhere? The little girl looks hurt.”

I didn’t like how he sounded too much. Or how he looked sort of sideways toward the farmyard behind us. And there was something weird about his beat-up brown truck with the white shell over the back. The knot in my gut tightened.

Lena was pulling on my sleeve. “Let’s get a ride home, Elsie.”

“Shhh!” I whispered, leaning close and pretending to fix her hair up. “We don’t take rides from strangers, remember?”

Lena’s eyes opened wide. She nodded.

“No, thanks,” I told him. Then I pointed to the next farm up ahead a ways and out-and-out lied. “We just live there.”

The man glanced at the farm. He shrugged. “If you say so.”

He closed his window and the truck pulled away, slowly. Instead of driving off the truck was crawling along ahead, like the guy was watching and waiting to see what we would do next.

And then I knew what it was that was bothering me about that truck. It was the same one that had run us into the ditch before. I was pretty sure it was the same one I’d
seen on the street and by the pool, too, except now the back of the truck had been covered.

My imagination took off at a gallop.

“C’mon, you have to get on your bike,” I told Lena.

“My leg hurts.”

The dog was sitting there at the corner of its yard still. It had stood up but stayed put when the truck stopped. If that dog hadn’t been there, I would’ve turned Lena around and pedaled straight back to that farmhouse right then.

“I know.” I picked up her bike. “Only you have to get on the bike and ride anyways. Just to the next farm. Can you make it that far? I don’t want to stay on the road with that man watching us.”

Lena straddled her bike. “Is he a bad man?”

“I don’t know. He might be.”

We pedaled slowly, but the truck stayed in sight up ahead the whole time. I was hoping that the lie I told about where we lived had long enough legs to get us home safe and sound. When we finally reached the next driveway, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Lena looked around nervously. “What if there’s another dog?”

“Then we pretend that it’s ours,” I said, sounding braver than I felt. “Let’s just hope someone is home.”

For once we had a bit of luck. We followed the driveway along a row of evergreens and no dog came bounding after us.

“In here.” The driveway turned into the yard behind a tangled clump of lilacs and caragana. Lena stayed with our bikes out of sight of the road while I went up to the house.

That was when I figured out how come everything was so quiet, when I saw the rickety old house with no paint left on it even. And how come the bushes were all overgrown. The farm was abandoned. I tried the door, just in case. It wouldn’t budge.

“He’s still there,” Lena called. “I can see the truck through the trees.”

Sure enough, the half-ton was parked a little ways up the road. Maybe there was a good reason for it to be stopped there, but I didn’t like it much. What if that guy already knew nobody lived at this place?

“I want to go home,” Lena repeated. “Phone up Dad and tell him to come get us.”

“This place is deserted. There is no phone.”

“Elsie! He’s coming back!”

She was right. The half-ton swung around right there in the middle of the road and was heading our way.

“C’mon!” Grabbing our bikes, we raced across the farmyard and behind the sagging barn. I was trying to think what we should do, and what that guy might do if he found us, and at the same time I was looking for a place to hide. We could hide in the barn, only that was probably the first place he’d look.

Then I saw a road, more like two dirt ruts really, leading through the pasture behind the barn. The road ran beside the fence separating the pasture from a field. At the other end of the pasture, maybe half a mile away, was some bush. The guy might give up rather than look in the woods. At least there’d be places to hide.

“This way.” The loop of wire that held the gate shut was tight, too tight for me to pull it off. My fingers slipped and I sliced myself a good one on a sharp end poking out.

“Hurrryyy!” Lena looked over her shoulder.

We shoved our bikes under the bottom wire and crawled through after. In two seconds we were racing like mad down the dirt track, scattering a flock of pigeons having lunch in the field. Looking back, my heart sank. If the pigeons hadn’t given us away already, we were in clear sight of anyone who came out behind the barn. And our bikes were kicking up a trail of dust a blind man could follow. Never mind that Lena was falling behind. She was crying, and I knew her sore foot was making it hard for her to pedal.

We were never going to make it all the way to the woods. I thought about maybe hiding in the field, only the grain didn’t look tall enough.

Then I saw this huge old tree, standing all by itself a short way off the track. I had another bright idea, and steered Lena toward the tree, bouncing over the rough
pasture. We ducked behind it, peeking out to see if the man was following still.

He was out of his truck, standing at the gate behind the barn. I couldn’t see too well from here, but it looked like he was trying to unhook the wire. One thing for sure, he wasn’t trying to be a good Samaritan. My imagination wasn’t running hog wild for no reason.

“What are we going to do?” whispered Lena, sniffling a little but trying hard to stop crying.

Good question. I put my arm around her and hugged her close. She was shaking, but then so was I. All I could think was that we were done for, because you bet he’d seen us. No way could we outrun him to the woods, not with Lena’s sore ankle and with him in a truck. About all we could do was climb the tree. It was a big one, and we should be able to get pretty high up. Maybe he wouldn’t climb up after us.

Yelling for help wouldn’t do any good. There wasn’t a soul around to hear us.

A loud snort startled us. Something really big gave a still louder snort behind us.

“What was that?” Lena’s eyes were huge.

There was another really, really loud snort.
Uy uy uy.

“Don’t move,” I whispered. Slowly, I peered over my shoulder. A bull stood there close by, too close. A huge bull. It paced back and forth, stopping to snort and paw the ground with one hoof, swinging its head low.

“Lena,” I said, as calmly as I could while my insides
were shaking all over the place. “I’m going to boost you up this tree, okay? Climb up as fast as you can.”

For the second time, that tree turned out to be handy. Lena scrambled up onto the lowest branch with a little help from me. I shimmied up right behind her, not a minute too soon, either. My feet were barely off the ground when the bull charged straight at us. Lena let loose, screaming her head off.

Holy Moses. I yanked my feet up, closed my eyes and hung on, waiting to be pierced through. At least this was probably a better ending than if that man in the truck had got to us first.

Only nothing happened, except I heard the loudest snort yet and practically felt that bull’s hot smelly breath. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, that’s for sure. But the bull must have veered off at the last second, because when I got up the guts to look, it was circling around and getting ready to come at us again.

“Go, go!” I shoved my little sister higher up the tree.

One good thing. From up here we had a pretty good view of the pasture and the farmyard, too. As soon as I was sure we were out of the bull’s reach, I looked to see if that man was still there. He was. He was sitting in his truck, watching the fun. Maybe he couldn’t unlatch the gate, either. Or maybe he didn’t want to tangle with the bull.

Anyways, we weren’t going anywhere, not with a bull pawing around the tree and that creep hanging around the gate. Another good thing. The man couldn’t get to us
either, not as long as that bull stuck close. As scared as I was of the bull, I was awful glad we’d run into him because I was still more scared of the man. I never would have thought I’d be so happy to be chased up a tree by a bull.

And that’s pretty much how we stayed, for I don’t know how long. Hours. If there was a God, he was a real practical joker.

One time, the man climbed through the fence and came walking toward us, until he wasn’t much more than a stone’s throw away. He started whooping and hollering at that bull, trying to scare him off. Only I guess the bull didn’t scare too easy and didn’t much appreciate more uninvited company in his pasture because he took off after the guy. The man scrambled back over the fence just barely in time to keep from being turned into a shish kebab.

For hours that ornery old bull would trot off a little ways, then come charging back to see if we were still there. Then he’d trot off again toward the truck and just stand there, keeping an eye on things, pawing the ground and shaking its head every once in a while, to make sure we knew who was the boss of this pasture. It was pretty scary, when he charged at the tree. But then if he got too far away, Lena and I hollered and hooted until he came back to see what all the commotion was about. Because that man in the truck was staying put, and I knew as soon as the bull disappeared he’d be coming after us.

We ate our lunch up in the tree. At least we ate the sandwiches. I thought we should save the apple and
cookies because who knew how long we’d be stuck up here? But the bull all of a sudden got bored and started to trot away, and even when we hollered, he didn’t come back. I grabbed my pack and swung it around and threw it as hard as I could. I forgot the apple and cookies were still inside it. At least the bull trotted over to investigate. He nosed around, pawing at the pack with his hoof. By the time he was satisfied, he had done a pretty good job of trampling my pack into the dirt. But he stuck close after that, maybe waiting to see what else was going to fall out of that tree, or maybe just enjoying the only bit of shade in the pasture. Whatever the reason, it was worth losing the apple and cookies.

Lena was starting to look not so good. She was awfully pale. The tree at least gave us some shade from the sun. That guy in his truck must be burning up. I hoped he was. I hoped between the bull and the sun he’d have to give up soon.

“We could sing,” I suggested. Singing might even drive the man away. Beth was always saying how neither one of us could carry a tune. Hopefully the bull wouldn’t mind.

Anyways, we had to do something to keep from thinking about being scared. So we sang. First we sang songs from
Mary Poppins
and
My Fair Lady
and
The Sound of Music.
Then we sang all the camp songs we knew: “Row Row Row Your Boat,” “Land of the Silver Birch,” “This Land is Our Land.” We sang songs from church choir:
“Joy is like the Rain,” “Dominique.” We sang Christmas songs: “Away in the Manger,” “O Tannenbaum,” “Silent Night.”

We sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children” and “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” about a hundred times. First we sang all the regular verses, and then we sang a bunch of made-up verses like “He’s got little sister Lena in his hands,” and “He’s got that big old bull, in his hands.”

In between singing we tried to remember all the books of the Old Testament and we recited Bible verses. To keep Lena’s mind off things, I said we should have a contest to see who knew more. I’d already had years of looking up Bible verses during sword drill at school, so I knew I could beat her pretty easy, but in the end I let her win by pretending I didn’t know John 3:16. As if. And then I taught her to recite the poem “Abou Ben Adhem,” which Mom had taught me in grade 3 already, but I knew it still. I wondered how Mom was doing, whether she was as scared as we were. So scared my skin was gooseflesh all over inside and outside never mind how hot it was.

“Do you think God is watching out for us right now?” Lena asked. “Do you think He’ll send someone to chase the bad man away and get that old bull out of here so we can climb down?”

“Maybe.” I thought about praying, just in case there really was a God. It couldn’t hurt. Unless there really was a God and He was maybe mad at me for not believing in
Him until things got bad. It didn’t seem right to turn to God only when there was nothing else left to turn to. If I was God, I wouldn’t like being a last resort.

I was getting awful tired and uncomfortable. Even sheltered in a tree, the heat was starting to get to me. The hotter it got, the more bugs and bees there were checking us out. We had no food and no water. And Lena’s eyes were starting to close. If we went to sleep up here we’d fall for sure.

“Let’s sing some more.” I tried to perk up and sound cheerful.

“I don’t know any more songs,” Lena whined.

“Sure you do.” But the only songs I could think of that we hadn’t sung yet were hymns. I sang quietly, because I didn’t have much voice left.

“
The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen, could ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell
”

It used to be one of my favorite hymns, when I went to church still. Lena joined in on the chorus.