Blazer Drive (7 page)

“Me. I always had hockey. Now it's going away. It's not fun to watch you get better and better and have people like you.”

“What do you mean,” I asked slowly, “about your hockey going away?”

He turned away again, a movement I caught out of the corner of my eye.

“I'm real messed up, okay? Let's leave it at that.”

Messed up? I thought of how badly he had been playing. I thought of how slow and weak
he had been on the ice. I thought of how light he had felt when I grabbed him by his jacket.

Messed up? I didn't know much about drugs, but I had to wonder if that's what he meant.

“You can get help,” I said, thinking if he wanted to explain, he would.

“Tell you what,” he said, “let's not talk anymore.”

“But Coach Price—”

“Yeah, yeah. Coach Price. Tomorrow, go ahead and tell him we talked it through. Tell him everything will be fine. And it will be. I promise I won't give you any trouble. In McDonald's, I found out I don't have the energy to hate you.”

He paused. His voice got a little stronger, as if he were grinning. “No, I changed my mind. I want to make a deal with you. Help me get through the season, and I'll stop pushing you.”

“Help you get through the season?” I repeated, confused.

“Be a friend. Stick up for me. I can't tell you how much I hate it when the guys bug me about my shaved head.”

“Then why did you—”

“Look, just make the deal.”

“Sure,” I said. He shouldn't have had to ask. We were on the same team.

“Good. Now get us to this meeting with your girlfriend.”

Girlfriend. I liked the sound of that.

“I'll sit in the truck and shut up,” he finished. “You won't even know I'm around.”

Trouble was, when we got there, Stephanie wasn't around either.

The headlights of my truck illuminated a pile of rocks beside the stop sign. Had someone stacked them there? Stephanie?

I let the truck idle and got out. A night breeze chilled me. The stars above were white dust in a black, black sky. The hills were dark. It was a lonely highway. It was a lonely intersection.

The final rock on top of the pile held down a piece of paper.

I grinned. Stephanie was pretty smart. I pulled out the paper and took it back to the truck. I switched on the dashboard light.

“What is it?” Luke asked.

I read it out loud, skipping the hugs and kisses part at the bottom. “Sorry we missed each other. Hope you are just late. If you get here by 7:30, go to the Belkie ranch. (Dan Belkie.) I should be there at least that long. Steph.”

It was ten past seven. We had lots of time.

Again, she had drawn a map with the note. I handed the map to Luke and left the dash light on as I started to drive.

“Read out the directions as I drive,” I said.

“Hugs and kisses?” he asked, reading the bottom of the note.

“Yeah, yeah.” In my hurry, I'd forgotten it was there in her neat handwriting. “Just read the directions, will ya?”

The driveway to the Belkie ranch was off a gravel road, up a hill, about fifteen miles
from the intersection. As the headlights swept through the turn, I saw the entrance was marked by old wagon wheels and a large mailbox.

Gravel and rocks bounced off the bottom of the truck. The driveway up to the ranch was narrow and twisted up the steep hill. Maybe I was going a little fast, especially for that kind of road. But it was a long way to the ranch house, and I wanted to get there soon. For some reason, I was nervous. Maybe because the ranch was so far away from town. Maybe because of the black night. Maybe because I had no idea what was happening.

There was a light on in the kitchen of the ranch house. It was a long low house with a sidewalk that lead from the drive to the front door.

I parked the truck. Luke waited inside.

A border collie ran up to me as I stepped out. It sniffed at my pant legs. I scratched between its ears. Most farm dogs go crazy when strangers arrive. Not this one. It was friendly and followed me up the sidewalk.

A single yard light threw a shadow ahead of me as I walked.

I rang the doorbell. No one answered. I rang again. Still no answer.

I walked back to the truck and opened the door.

“Weird,” I said to Luke, standing outside. “She should be here. We didn't see anyone come back out on the road.”

“Unless her directions were bad. She
is
a girl.”

He caught the look on my face. “Bad joke?”

“Yup,” I said. “You mind waiting? I'm going to look around.”

“Don't have much else to do,” he said, slouching back against the seat. He was sounding almost human.

I walked away from the house toward the barn, which was a couple of hundred yards away. As I walked farther from the house, it got darker and darker. The collie stayed with me, running little circles.

I heard the low moaning of cattle in pens on the other side of the barn. As I got closer, I heard voices.

Just as I reached the barn, an outside light switched on. I jumped. Then I saw that it was a security light rigged to go on when it senses movement.

The light showed a set of wide barn doors, half open.

“Hello?” I called out as I walked up to the doors. “Hello?”

I didn't want anyone to think I was sneaking around.

I peeked inside. A big man in coveralls stepped toward me. I jumped again.

“Hello,” I said. “Are you Dan Belkie?”

“Long ways from the beaten path, son,” the man said. He had wild bushy hair. His hands and wrists stuck out a couple of inches from his shirt sleeves. He wore big work boots.

“I'm sorry to bother you,” I said. “I have a friend named Stephanie Becker. She told me to meet her here. She was going to talk to Dan Belkie.”

Another man joined us. He was much smaller than the wild-haired guy. He wore tan pants and a sweater. “I'm Dan Belkie. This is my foreman, Jim Cowle.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “My name is Josh Ellroy.”

I stuck out my hand. Dan Belkie stepped forward and shook it. The big man didn't.

“Ellroy,” he said. “As in Ryan Ellroy?”

“Yes, sir. He's my father.”

“And quite the rancher. Pleased to meet you. What can I help you with? You were talking about a girl?”

“She told me she was coming here to meet you. Have you seen her?”

The big man quietly moved around behind me. I didn't like that. But it seemed rude to say anything. What was he going to do? Jump me? Dumb thought. Even so, the skin on my neck prickled.

“Haven't seen any girl,” Dan Belkie said. His voice was soft. It sounded educated, with an English accent. “You say her name was Stephanie?”

“Yes.” I looked past Dan Belkie. With the big man out of the doorway, I could see a little more of the inside of the barn. I saw the bed of a pickup truck. In it was a large basket, big enough for two or three people
to stand inside. Some ropes hung over the side of the basket.

“Maybe she's playing a joke on you,” Belkie said. “It's a shame you had to drive all the way out here by yourself.”

“Actually,” I said as I jerked a thumb back over my shoulder at my parked truck, “I have a friend with me.”

“Oh.” Belkie shook his head. For a second, it seemed like he was looking at the big man behind me. “Well, then at least you'll have company on your way back.”

“You're sure,” I said, “that Stephanie never made it here?”

“Young man, are you accusing me of lying?”

I felt my ears turn red. “I didn't mean it that way. It's just that—”

I stopped. If he was lying, I wouldn't get anywhere like this. If he wasn't lying, I would just be making a fool of myself.

“It must be a joke,” I said. “Stephanie lives on a ranch too. She's probably with her friends right now, killing herself with laughter.”

Dan Belkie put his hand on my shoulder and guided me back toward the house. We walked side by side. When I headed back to my truck, he dropped his hand.

I can take a hint. He wanted me to leave.

“Well, sir,” I said as we reached the truck, “I'm sorry to have bothered you.”

“No bother,” he said. “Have a safe drive back. These mountain roads can be dangerous.”

I felt a chill run through me. And it wasn't from the cold mountain air. It was from the way he said it.

“What's going on?” Luke asked.

I didn't answer until I had driven out of the yard and we were on the long drive back to the main road.

“Weird stuff,” I said. “They told me Stephanie never made it there.”

“Maybe she changed her mind,” Luke said.

“Maybe.” Luke had not been there at the doorway to know how strange it had been.

The men had seemed like hunters, eyeing me as if I were a deer in their gunsights.

I thought of the pickup truck inside the barn. “Luke, what would you do with a basket big enough to hold three people?”

“Is this a riddle?”

“No.” I described what I had seen.

“Oh,” he said. “It's probably from a hot-air balloon. Especially if it's in the back of a truck.”

“Hot-air balloon?”

“My parents took me for a ride in one as a present on my sixteenth birthday. The guys who pilot the balloon need a way to get the balloon to and from their launch site. They load the basket in the truck. Plus the empty, folded up balloon. Plus the gas burner.”

I was driving slowly because my mind was working on something.

“Burner,” I repeated to myself out loud.

“Yeah, burner,” Luke said, thinking I had asked a question. “They need to heat the air to fill the balloon. That was the cool part, watching the balloon fill until it lifted the
basket into the air. If they hadn't tied it down with ropes, it would have just floated away without us.”

“Ropes.” Sure. There had been ropes tied to the basket. Why was that bugging me?

“What a noise, though,” Luke said. “That burner really roars. The balloon ride is quiet, except when the pilot turns the burner on to lift it some more.”

“Noise,” I said. That was bugging me too.

“Lots of noise. I was watching the burner, thinking it would be great to roast some hot dogs over the flame.”

“Flame.” I must have sounded like an idiot to Luke.

Then I put it together: rope, burner, noise, flame.

Without warning, I swung the truck's steering wheel hard. We bounced off the road, down through a small ditch and up the other side.

“What are you doing?!” Luke said.

I ignored him. I wrestled the steering wheel and managed to get the truck between
the trees. I drove a little farther until we were well off the road.

I put the truck in park, turned off the ignition and shut off the headlights.

“I'm going to ask you again,” Luke said. “What are you doing?”

“Broomsticks,” I told him. I reached across him to the glove box. Ranchers always carried flashlights. I would need mine. “We have to go back to the ranch. On foot.”

“Try making sense,” he said.

I grabbed the flashlight from the glove box and stepped out of the truck. Luke got out too. We stood in the darkness. The truck engine ticked as it cooled.

“Broomsticks,” I repeated. I was about to explain when I heard a sound.

“Listen,” I said. “What's that?”

Luke listened. “Sounds like a car or truck. It's coming from the ranch.”

“Maybe it's Stephanie.” I began to walk among the trees toward the road, using the flashlight to show me a path. Luke followed.

The sound of the vehicle got louder. I shut the flashlight off and stood beside a
tree. I didn't have a good feeling about this. Especially since I didn't see headlights.

A minute later, I understood why. The truck was traveling without its lights on. As it passed us, I saw the outline of Jim Cowle, the big foreman, behind the steering wheel. He was hunched forward, peering at the road ahead of him.

“Spooky,” Luke said. “Why not use headlights?”

“Maybe because he doesn't want to be seen.”

“By who?” Luke asked. “The only other people on the road would be us. They know that because we just left.”

“Exactly,” I told him. “Let me ask you something. If you and I were in the truck right now, on that road, would we see him coming up behind us?”

“No.”

“Does that tell you anything?”

“Yes,” Luke said after a couple of seconds. “And I don't like it. What is going on here?”

“We're going to find out,” I said, “by going back to the ranch. On foot. Remember?”

As we got closer, I whispered to Luke that I wanted to go to the barn first. Of all the buildings, it would be the easiest one to get inside. We were looking for Stephanie or her Bronco 4x4. After that, I hoped to find something that would help me figure out more of this puzzle. If Stephanie wasn't in the barn, we'd go to the house next.

We circled the house, stopping in a stand of trees to listen for any signs that someone knew we were there.

“We'll have to come up to the barn from behind,” I whispered to Luke. “In front, there's a security light.”

Luke pointed in the direction of the barn. Our eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and we didn't need the flashlight, not with the full moon that had risen.

“But there are animals back there,” he whispered.

He was right, of course. There were pens and corrals with cattle. Not only could we see the dark outlines of the animals moving around, but we could smell and hear them.

“Your point?” I asked.

“Big animals,” he said, “with pointy horns—”

“Stay on the right side of the fence and the big animals can't get you.” I grinned. “Besides, you've faced plenty of big animals in hockey.”