Bennett 06 - Gone (22 page)

Brian laughed despite himself. You had to hand it to the kid. He just kept at it 24-7. Jabbering, doing funny voices, making fun of things—himself, mostly—like some clown or court jester or something.
A fool
, Brian thought.
That’s what he is. My brother Eddie, the fool.
And he meant it in the best way possible.

“Quick question,” Ricky said from behind Eddie. “Why are we wandering the earth like a band of postapocalyptic nomads again? I hate to say this, big bro, but this Bataan death trek is quickly starting to teeter into the suck category.”

“You can go back any time you want, wimp,” Brian said angrily. “That goes for you, too, Eddie. I never asked you to follow me around. I couldn’t care less what you guys do.”

“Pardon me, but wasn’t it you who woke us up at the crack of dawn, Brian?” Ricky said. “I distinctly remember someone who looked a heck of a lot like you saying, ‘Get up, you idiot. It’s time to go.’ ”

“It’s OK,” Brian heard Eddie say to Ricky. “Brian’s just having one of his Brian moments. In other words, our big brother is going completely nuts.”

You can say that again
, Brian thought as he trudged across the not-so-fruited California plain. What fifteen-year-old wouldn’t go nuts being exiled out here in the desert, like someone from the Bible?

And, just like a nut, he had woken that morning inspired to accomplish an important mission. He was going to walk until he found the river that Mr. Cody had driven them to a few weeks before. Not for any real reason.
Because it’s there
, Brian thought as he paced over the seemingly endless plain of dry land.

He thought he knew the general direction, but they were three hours into the hike, with no water anywhere.
Has to be around here somewhere
, he thought, sheepishly squinting up at the sky.

He hadn’t told Mary Catherine or Seamus about his plans. Hadn’t asked permission. Hadn’t even left a note. He knew it was slightly messed up to just get up and leave without saying anything, but that was pretty much the point. Dad was gone now. They were stuck out here, with no end in sight, and he was simply sick of it. The cows, the homeschooling lessons with the little twerps. Hell, he should just keep walking east until he made it back to Manhattan. Back to his friends. Back to his real life.

“I don’t know, but I’ve been told,”
sang Eddie after a while,
“this stupid walk is getting old! Sound off!”

“One, two,”
Ricky sang.

“Wait, wait,” Brian said. “Shut up! Listen!”

They stopped in their tracks. There was a faint rushing sound coming from beyond the broken, distant tree line off to their right. They looked at each other for a beat, then started running. Brian in the lead, Ricky second, and Eddie dead last.

Brian stopped raising dust as he got to the ridge of the sandy riverbank. He just stood there, smiling. He stared at the sun twinkling silver off the fast-rushing water, stared at the green-brown surface of it, curving through the dry landscape like a ribbon of living glass. The slightly alkaline scent of the water was strong in the dry air. He’d never really smelled water before, at least not clean water.

I’ve done it
, Brian thought.
Set a goal for myself and accomplished it.
A pointless one, maybe, but still. It felt pretty awesome.

“Hey, you did it! You actually found it, Pocahontas!” Eddie said, giving him a high five.

“Of course I found it,” Brian said nonchalantly as he leaped off the berm and down the sand, toward the rushing water.

THEY WERE SPLASHING AROUND
and skipping rocks twenty minutes later, when they saw the kayak come around the bend upriver.

The aging hippie in it smiled as he expertly paddled over to the shore beside them. At first, Brian got a little scared because the guy sort of looked like the Unabomber. But when he stepped out of the Day-Glo-yellow kayak twenty feet away, he was wearing rubber fishing waders that went up to his chest.

Just some harmless old nut fishing
, Brian told himself.

The hippie lifted a palm after he beached the kayak.

“How,” he said like an Indian, then threw back his head and laughed. “Sorry. Always wanted to say that,” he said with a twinkling, blue-eyed wink. “Name’s McMurphy. Pleased to meet you, boys. You must be new around here. What brings you intrepid wanderers out this far into the great beyond? I don’t see any fishing poles. Let me guess. Fame, fortune, and adventure?”

“Boredom, actually,” Eddie said.

The man threw back his head again and cackled some more.

“Boredom,” McMurphy said, tapping a finger against his forehead. “That’s a good one, son. Boredom will work fine, too.”

Wow
, Brian thought, staring at the guy’s wild eyes, his wild gray hair. This guy was pretty nutty.
Too many tabs of acid?
he wondered. He reminded him of someone. An old sixties actor. Dennis someone. He seemed harmless enough, at least.

Maybe this is what happens to you if you stay out here too long
, Brian thought, glancing at the coot. He almost felt like asking him if he was once in the witness protection program, too.

“Holy cow! There you are!” came a shrill voice as they heard some rustling in the trees up the bank behind them.

They looked up to see Juliana at the top of the sandy berm. She was sitting atop one of Mr. Cody’s horses, Spike, wearing riding boots like she was the Queen of England.
Of course
, Brian thought.
They always let Miss Perfect do everything cool.
Juliana could do anything she wanted.

“Everybody is looking for you,” Juliana said, staring at Brian. “What the heck are you doing?”

“Hello there, little lady. McMurphy’s the name,” the hippie said with a courtly little bow. “These boys with you?”

Juliana nodded.

“I was about to ask them if they wanted to learn how to fly-fish. Love to teach you, too. Why don’t you tie up that noble steed there on a branch and come on down? What’s his name?”

“Spike,” Juliana said.

“Spike. Well, of course. Fine name for a fine horse. Speaking of which, what’re your names?”

“We’re the Warners,” Juliana said immediately.

Brian sighed. Warner was the name they were supposed to use when coming into contact with strangers.
Juliana’s just so responsible, isn’t she?
he thought.
She should really get a medal or something.

“How many of you Warners are there, anyway?” McMurphy asked. “You guys seem to keep popping out of the trees like squirrels.”

Brian and Juliana exchanged a glance.

“Just the four of us,” she said.

“Staying out at Mr. Cody’s place, is that right?” the hippie wanted to know.

How’d he know that?
Brian thought.

“I’m sorry, Mr. McMurphy, but my brothers need to get going. My, um, dad needs their help.”

“Your dad? Wait, I think I’ve met you before. You came to church with that nice old Irish priest, right?”

“No,” Juliana said. “You must be mistaken.”

“Mysteries and wonders,” McMurphy said, nodding. “Now, now. Listen to me jawing, chewing your ear off, prying into your business. Just ain’t right neighborly, is it? I apologize. It’s just nice to meet folks this far out in the yonder. I live by myself, and when I finally meet someone, all that bottled-up talk just shoots out of me like soda from a shaken can.”

“Uh, OK, Mr. McMurphy. Nice to meet you,” Juliana said, eyeing Brian, letting him know it was time to get moving.

“Pleasure was all mine, miss. All mine. Hey, wait. Before you go, let me give you a little something.”

He fished something out of the creel in his kayak. It was something green in a large ziplock bag. He offered it to Brian.

“Son, that right there is straight primo hybrid sinsemilla. You will not find its equal in all of North America. I grow it myself with love. Ask anyone in the valley, and they’ll tell you McMurphy’s is a cut above all others. Top shelf, drawer, and notch, as my daddy used to say.”

Brian stared at him, stared at the bag, stared at Juliana.

“C’mon, it won’t bite. Hell, I was a kid. You’ll go crazy out here without having yourselves a little fun. Plus, it’s a gift. You don’t want to offend me none, right?”

“We can’t, Mr. McMurphy,” Juliana said, making up an excuse on the spot. “We’re Mormon. We can’t even drink soda. The use of marijuana would be completely against, um, our way.”

“Mormons, huh?” McMurphy said, squinting up at her.

Juliana nodded.

“Well, isn’t that nice,” McMurphy said, putting the weed back into his creel. “I’ll let you get back to your dad. Respecting your elders is always a good policy. Says that right in the Bible. So long, now.”

MARY CATHERINE HAD SWEAT
on her brow and tears in her eyes as she rabidly zested another lemon in the scorching kitchen. Leo was coming over for dinner tonight, on his day off, and she’d learned that he liked lemons.

And what Leo wants
, Mary Catherine thought, grinning to herself as she zestfully zested,
Leo gets.

She already had three chickens in the oven, and a five-pound bag of potatoes boiling in a cauldron-sized pot on the stove. There were still the green beans and the salad to take care of, stuffing to make along with the gravy, but she wanted to get the lemon cake going or she’d be in the weeds.

Besides the lemons, pretty much everything was from Mr. Cody’s farm, even—
Sorry, Chrissy
—the chickens. They were probably flouting some FDA regulation to have the criminal gall to eat what they grew, but she had the feeling Deputy Marshal Leo would look the other way after he had a few bites.

Farm food this fresh just tasted different, Mary Catherine knew from happy experience. Eating it for the first time was like seeing high-definition TV after a lifetime of black-and-white. It was going to be nice having someone new at the dinner table after all this time.

The back screen door slammed, and Brian, Eddie, and Ricky stood in the mudroom, each one more sunburned and filthy and exhausted than the next.

She bit her lower lip to keep from bursting into laughter.

“Would you look at the state of ya! Were you wandering the earth or tunneling through it?”

“Ow,” Ricky said, taking off a dusty sneaker. “Ow.”

“Smells good. What’s for dinner?” Brian asked, his filthy finger creeping toward the mixing bowl.

He howled as Mary Catherine whacked his hand loudly with the zester. Eddie and Ricky snickered.

“Get your butts upstairs and shower this instant or I’ll drag you out into the yard and hose you down. See if I won’t, and don’t think you’re off the hook for going off by yourselves and skipping your lessons, getting us worried. As if I’m not busy enough.”

“Why are you so busy?” Eddie said.

“I told you yesterday. We’re having a guest tonight for dinner.”

“A guest?” Ricky said. “Who?”

“Deputy Marshal Leo,” Mary Catherine said.

“Deputy Marshal Leo?” Brian said. “How is he a guest? He works here.”

“Mary Catherine, does Dad know about this?” Eddie said, raising his brow.

Mary Catherine stopped zesting. That was it. She knew the boys were having a hard time of late, especially Brian, but that was it. Like she hadn’t been working her fingers to the bone for this lot. Was she not allowed to have something nice in her life? Something even a little bit hopeful?

Standing there in the kitchen, she remembered something from when she was a girl. One of her brothers would get cheeky, and her father, after coming in from haying all day or putting up fencing or some other extreme, fourteen-hour task of backbreaking cattle-farm manual labor, would let his fork fall from his callused fist with a clank. With the slow deliberation of a tank cannon acquiring a target, his weather-beaten face would slowly rise from his meal and shift until it was leveled at the offender.

He never said anything. He never had to. A judge about to deliver a death sentence couldn’t approach the solemn, cold, carved-granite malevolence of his silence. There in his gray-blue gaze lay a guaranteed offer. With one more measly word, you would find yourself in the sudden possession of the entire universe of everything you didn’t want.

Standing there in the sweltering kitchen, Mary Catherine suddenly gave that same look to the boys.

The boys glanced at each other, and slowly, one by one, silently, left the room.

Mary Catherine smiled to herself after they’d left. She’d always been her father’s daughter.

THE FOOD HAD COME
out perfectly, even if Mary Catherine said so herself. The chicken wasn’t dry, and the mashed potatoes and stuffing were seasoned to her exacting standards. Leo certainly seemed to enjoy it, from the way he cleaned his plate and reloaded. He especially seemed to enjoy the homemade pepper gravy, she noticed with delight.

It was the kids who were doing their level best to make the meal as unpleasant as possible. They ate with their heads down, slowly and all but silently, except for the harsh, scraping clicks of silverware off plates. Even Eddie and Ricky, who could eat their weight these days, were holding back, acting like they were at a funeral.

“Don’t let these people fool you, Leo,” Seamus suddenly called out in the dead silence. “This fine bunch of formal young lads and lasses is usually quite lively come mealtime. You’re having quite an effect on them.”

“A positive one, I hope, Father Seamus,” Leo said with a polite grin.

“Aye, without a doubt,” Seamus said, chewing as he looked around the table. “Now tell me, Leo. I couldn’t help but notice, that’s quite some firepower you bring with you every evening. What kind of rifle is it?”

“Now, Seamus,” Mary Catherine said, “is that polite dinner conversation?”

“Perhaps not,” Seamus said with a shrug. “But I figure, even somewhat impolite dinner conversation is a tad better than none at all.”