Bone Fire (19 page)

The woman and the long-haired guy were trying to doze, and when the man at the counter turned around Kenneth nodded at him. He nodded back like any good neighbor would and didn’t look like a demon or anything, just maybe like he had a job that didn’t pay very well. He was about as old as McEban and dressed pretty much like McEban would have if he was going somewhere on a bus. Kenneth waited until he went back outside to smoke, squeezing through the door before it closed to stand with him.

“Nice night, isn’t it,” the man said, and Kenneth agreed with him. Along the horizon, the stars were brighter.

“I’m not going to give you a cigarette if that’s what you’re after. You’re too young for ’em.”

Kenneth thought the man probably needed glasses because of how he was holding his head. “No, sir. I’m never going to smoke.”

“Good for you. I hope you’re right about that.”

“I’m just waiting for my mom. She got real sick and then she had to go home to get her medicine.” He looked at his wristwatch for effect. “She was hoping it would make her feel better.”

The man dropped the butt on the ground, rubbed it out with the toe of his boot and shook another cigarette out of the pack, then tapped the filter against the edge of the pack. “I’m not about to go looking for your mother, either,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve got the time for it, and I don’t want you standing there thinking I’ll make the time.”

“No, sir.”

The man lit the cigarette, cupping his hands around the match. They were scarred and thick and plenty used. “Maybe you ought to call her.” He pointed toward the building. “I imagine they’ve got a phone indoors there.”

Kenneth nodded and walked a few steps toward the door, trying to think of what to say next. He looked up and down the street. “I called her one time already and she said she was too sick to get out of bed.” He tried to remember something that might make his eyes well with tears. Something sad. “She said I probably
shouldn’t call her back.” He was thinking of when a colt kicked him in the knee, but it just made his leg ache.

“Well, I guess it’s up to you,” the man said. “If it was me I’d try her again.”

His mother had told him that specific lies were better than general ones, that people felt more comfortable if you gave them little bits of information. “I’m supposed to meet my cousins in Sheridan,” he said. “They’ll be waiting for me.”

“How many cousins have you got?”

“I’ve got three. They’re all younger, but we get along okay.” He pulled the money out of his shirt pocket and held it toward the man, who bit down on the filter and reached out to take it.

He thumbed his hat back, turning so the light from the window fell across his hands as he riffled through the bills. “This here’s a hundred and four dollars.”

“Yes, sir. That’s how much she said it was. She said it was the price of my ticket.”

The man took the cigarette out of his mouth. “So what you’re asking me to do is walk back in there and buy you a ticket for Sheridan, Wyoming? Is that right?”

“They won’t sell one to a kid.”

The man nodded. He still held the money. “What’d you say was wrong with your mom?”

“She had a migraine headache. She gets them sometimes.”

“And you’re how old?”

“I’m ten.”

He flicked the ash off his cigarette with the nail of his little finger. “I wouldn’t be helping you run away, would I?”

“No, sir.”

He took a drag, looking away from the town lights toward where the night sky ground down against the darker horizon. “I used to get them damn migraines,” he said. “I haven’t for some time.”

“My mom says it’s like she’s been kicked in the head.” He was still thinking about the colt.

“Well, she’s right about that.”

“She said on the phone if she was too sick to come back I should just walk up and ask somebody to buy me the ticket.”

“And you picked me?”

“You look like a man I met once.”

“I do, do I?”

“Yes, sir.”

The man was staring back through the window of the office like he was concerned they were being watched. Then he dropped the butt and ground it out too. “If I’m helping you run off, I don’t want to know a thing about it. Not one thing, you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If that’s what I’m doing, you just keep lying to me.”

Kenneth bounced the basketball and caught it, holding it against his hip again.

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“No, sir.”

“All right.” He nodded toward the basketball. “You any good with that thing?”

“Not so far.”

“I never was neither.”

He put the money in his shirt pocket, and took out a handkerchief and tipped off his hat, staring down at the boy as he wiped the sweatband clean.

He waited until the woman passenger was getting on and stepped up close behind her, and when she turned down the aisle he handed the driver his ticket.

The man just stared at him, then looked at the ticket again. “This kid with you?” he asked.

The woman turned in the aisle. She looked sleepy and stood shaking her head.

“I can’t let you ride,” the driver said, and handed the ticket back.

“What’s the holdup here?”

Kenneth turned and the driver rocked forward in his seat to look past him.

“This boy yours?” he asked.

It was the man who’d been smoking. He was standing with a foot up on the first step. He said, “You’re probably thinking he’s too good looking to be related to me.”

“That ain’t it,” the driver said. He smiled but wasn’t friendly, more like a mean cop. “What I was thinking is this boy’s a little dark to be yours.”

The man stepped up into the front of the bus, and Kenneth wondered why he hadn’t looked so big when they were standing out in the lot. It was like the bus was suddenly too small for him. The driver noticed too.

“I probably didn’t hear you say what I thought you did,” the man said.

“I don’t want any trouble,” the driver said.

“Then I guess you ought to take your hand away from my boy’s shoulder.” He was whispering, but it was like he was yelling his lungs out.

The driver brought his hand back into his lap, staring out the windshield like he was watching something in front of the bus. Kenneth looked too, but there was nothing to see.

“Why don’t you go find yourself a seat,” the big man said, and Kenneth turned away and walked halfway to the back and took one by the window.

The man stopped in the aisle and bent down over him. “I didn’t know your name or I’d have used it.”

“It’s Kenneth.”

“Well, get some sleep if you can, Kenneth. Mine’s Jerry.” Then he moved a couple rows back, lifting his bag up into the overhead rack.

When the bus pulled out he lay over against his backpack, drawing his legs onto the empty seat beside him, and when he woke it was still dark and more people were getting on, and when he woke up again Jerry was shaking his shoulder. He didn’t really remember walking off the bus, but they were standing on the street, the buildings rising up around them.

“Is this Denver?”

“Mile-high,” Jerry said, handing him his backpack and basketball, dropping his own bag to the sidewalk and lighting a cigarette. “Your next ride leaves from the Amtrak station, but that ain’t for two hours.”

“Where are we now?” He turned in a circle, searching the faces of the tall buildings.

“You’re at the Greyhound terminal. I guess they’re trying to make this as hard as they can, bringing you all the way down here before starting you back north again. You hungry?”

“My mom packed me a sandwich.”

“That must’ve been before she got her headache.”

“She packed two, but I ate half of one already.”

“You like eggs?”

“Yes, sir.”

They walked up Twentieth so the boy could see the outside of Coors Field, then turned down Wazee to a restaurant Jerry said he’d always wanted to try. It was still early, so they were almost the only ones there. They took a booth by the window, and their waitress brought coffee and a glass of milk for Kenneth while they studied the menus.

“It’s expensive here,” the boy said.

“You get what you want. This one’s on me.”

“I got my own money.”

“I’m sure you do, but I wouldn’t mind hearing you say thank you.”

Kenneth looked at him over the top of the menu. “Thank you,” he said.

“You ever had an omelet?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s eggs. They got a Denver omelet advertised, and here we are. You game?”

Kenneth nodded, folding the menu and setting it to the side.

Jerry scooted out of the booth. “Order me one too. And more coffee, and rye toast if they’ve got it.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m just going outside for a smoke. You’ll see me standing there through that window.”

When the waitress came back, Kenneth ordered their omelets and finished his milk, watching Jerry smoke and pace back and forth. He ordered a second glass to drink with his meal, and they ate with their heads down, not speaking until the waitress asked if they wanted anything else.

“No, thank you,” Jerry said, “that should do it.” Then he turned to Kenneth. “What do you think you’d have done if I hadn’t bought you that ticket?” He sat back, working a toothpick in his mouth.

“My mom said I could offer some extra money. For the trouble, I mean.”

“Like a bribe.”

“I guess so.”

“Your mom thinks of everything, doesn’t she?”

“She’s real smart.”

“What kind of bribe did I miss out on?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Is that all you got?”

“I’ve got more than that down in my boot.”

Jerry smiled, dragging his suitcase from under the table. “You ready?”

“How far is it?” Kenneth said, slipping his backpack over his shoulders. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

“It’s only a block but you ought to go now. The restrooms will be nicer here. I’ll just be waiting outside when you’re done.”

They walked over to the Amtrak station on Wynkoop and found the bus they needed.

“You say howdy to your cousins for me.”

“Aren’t you coming?”

Jerry was leaning against a concrete pillar holding his pack of cigarettes, but he hadn’t shaken one out. “Not me,” he said. “I thought I’d walk over here just so I could see you get on this bus.” He stuck a cigarette in his mouth and put the pack away. “And for Christ’s sake don’t go telling everybody you meet about that money you got stuck down your boots.”

“I won’t.”

“All right, then.” Jerry extended his hand. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Kenneth.”

He felt a little bit like crying and kept his head down when they shook hands and then walked right on the bus, taking another seat by the window. Jerry stood watching by the pillar until they pulled away.

He was so tired his eyes felt scratchy and he nodded asleep on the short stretches between stops in Longmont and Greeley and Fort Collins, and then they were in Cheyenne, with the bus driver staring in the rearview mirror and calling, “Twenty minutes.”

He used the bathroom on the bus, and when he came out he could see the driver through the window talking to another man dressed in a Greyhound uniform. He took his backpack and basketball with him when he got off. Having read the pamphlet in the seat about unaccompanied children, he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to ride up to Wheatland, to Douglas, to Casper, to anywhere,
and he could see it in their faces. He smiled at them, hooking up his backpack and walking out into the street. He’d already planned what to do next.

He stood at the pop machine on the sidewalk until the driver looked away, then ducked around the corner into the parking lot. He found a two-gallon gas can in the bed of the second pickup he looked in and climbed over the tailgate, dropping the can out by the side of the truck, counting out five one-dollar bills and pulling the head of a sledgehammer on top of them so they wouldn’t blow away.

He walked quickly along Deming with the empty can, squatting up under the overpass to check his Google maps. When he got to Central he turned north for four blocks to the Sinclair on the corner, just where it was supposed to be. He filled the can and went in and bought a small bag of chips and a Dr Pepper, then sat around the corner from the station eating the other half of his sandwich and all of the chips, washing it down with the Dr Pepper.

The food made him so tired that his legs felt rubbery, but he kept north on Central until the street ended at a black-and-yellow barrier. He ducked under and crossed several railroad tracks, crawling under the couplings of the parked boxcars and watching to make sure none of them were going to move away and cut him in half. Then he was out in a huge dirt workyard, where there were maintenance buildings and cars and trucks and a man yelling what the hell did he think he was doing here. He dropped the basketball when he started to run and didn’t dare go back for it, and the gas can had gotten so heavy that he ran holding it up against his chest. When he crossed over more tracks he stopped to catch his breath, the guard behind him still standing there with his ball but too far away for Kenneth to hear his screams.

He crossed three more sets of tracks and found a regular street again, walking backwards with his arm out and his thumb sticking up like he’d seen in old movies. He’d only gone two blocks when a
woman pulled to the curb, waving him forward and rolling the window down on the passenger side.

It was hot and he set the gas can down, pulling up the front of his T-shirt to wipe his face.

The woman was leaning across the seat. “Are you lost?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. My mom just sent me for gas.” He brought the can up to window-level for her to see. “We ran out, and she was afraid to leave me with the car.” The woman tilted her head like dogs do when they hear a noise they don’t understand, so he added: “She hurt her leg real bad and couldn’t come with me.”

The woman pushed the door open. “Get in here right now.” She sounded mad.

He slid his backpack onto the backseat, setting the gas can on the floor there, and got in the front.

“How come you’re all sweaty?”

“A man was chasing me.”