Even Steven (3 page)

Bobby nodded. "Right. Just leave everything."

As Susan wrapped the boy up in a jacket and a sleeping bag, Bobby couldn't take his eyes off the corpse. Jesus, he'd killed a man; damn near been killed by him. Why? What the hell was going on? And why would he want to harm such a small child?

Bobby realized now that he needed to know who this guy was. If there was a Samuel out in the woods somewhere, waiting to come in and help his pal, Bobby didn't want him dragging the body off to cover his tracks. If nothing else, he needed a wallet or a driver's license from his attacker - some name to give to the police.

He moved cautiously, as if the body might suddenly lash out at him. Ridiculous as it was, scenes from all the slasher movies he'd ever seen

flashed through his mind, and he didn't think he could deal with a sudden awakening from the dead.

The corpse's wallet bulged plainly from his back pocket. Bobby stood for a long time, gathering the courage he needed to take the next step. His skin puckered at the very thought of touching a dead man.

Straddling the body, he used only his thumb and forefinger to reach in and grab a corner of well-used leather. The man smelled of urine, and up this close, the spilled contents of his bladder radiated a nauseating warmth.

"What are you doing!"

The suddenness of Susan's words made him jump a foot, and he fell backward into the leaves. "Jesus Christ!"

Susan just stood there, at the opening of the tent, the bundled boy in her arms. "Are you robbing him?"

"No, I'm not robbing him!" Bobby was aghast that she would even ask such a question. "I want to get his ID so we'll be able to put a name to all of this."

"Oh, honey, I don't know ..."

"It'll only take a second." He went back to work, again using only two fingers to pull the wallet clear of the pocket, and opening it. He couldn't see much in the darkness, but the billfold had an odd shape and weighed more than he thought it should. When he turned it over in his hands, he saw why, and for just a fraction of a second his heart stopped beating.

A gleaming silver badge stared up at him. Suddenly light-headed, he reeled and once again sat heavily on the leaf-strewn forest floor.

"What?" Susan said, moving toward him. "What is it?" He's a cop." Hearing the words shot an icy chill through his belly. "Oh, my God, Sue, I killed a cop."

Terror bloomed in Bobby's chest. Cop killers went to jail, pure and simple; that much he knew just from watching television. Provided, of course, they lived long enough to make it there.

Susan took a quick three steps forward, then stopped. "But so what?" She tried to sound light and confident, but the brittle edges of Panic showed through anyway. "So what if he was a cop? I mean, he's just another man, right? Self-defence is self-defence."

Oh, Christ, but was it really self-defense? This cop came into their campsite looking for a child to whom the Martins had zero rights, and when Bobby showed resistance, the cop drew his gun. Whose self was being defended?

No, don't think that way. He was going to shoot. I saw it in his eyes. He was going to shoot.

But he didn't shoot, did he? At least not until Bobby lunged at his gun and started to fight with him. What the hell else was he supposed to do? All the cop knew was that some stranger had his kid, and when he moved to get him back, Bobby refused. He was a cop for God's sake.

"Bobby? Bobby, what's wrong? It was self-defense, wasn't it?"

All at once, it crystallized for him. They had to get out of there. Right now. They had to disappear, make it look as if they'd never even been there. Stuffing the wallet back into the man's pocket, Bobby stood and whirled to face his wife.

"We've got to go. Take everything. And I mean everything. I don't want to leave so much as a trace."

"You're scaring me, Bobby," Susan whined. "Tell me what's happening."

He didn't have time for this. Neither of them did. "Think about it, Sue. I killed a cop."

"In self-defense." She said the words as if she were speaking to a dense child. Then she saw the look in his face, and her shoulders sagged. "It was."

He didn't know where to begin. Everything had happened so fast. Everything was just flashes and impressions. "I don't know for sure,' he said at last, and he saw his wife's eyes widen with terror. "I mean I was sure at the time, but I don't know now. I mean, if I thought he was a cop, maybe I would have done things differently. If he'd identified himself as a cop -"

"But that's just it," Susan said quickly. "He didn't identify himself. I was here. I heard that. And by not identifying himself, you had every right -"

"What about the other cops, Sue? The ones who investigate all of this? They're going to see a dead cop, and they're going to hear about a child we don't know from Adam, and a story about an attack that's mak-ing less and less sense even to me. What are they going to think?"

"So, what do we do, then?"

"We get the hell out of here."

"You're at least going to call, right?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything right now. And to top it all off, we've got him." Bobby gestured to the sleeping boy, who'd finally found his thumb. "Not to mention good old Samuel, whoever the hell he is." Bobby stepped over the body and started policing the area. "For all I know, this is the worst thing we could do, but it's the only thing that sounds right, okay?"

No, it wasn't okay, and her face showed it. But she didn't have a better idea.

"Now, put the kid down someplace and let him sleep. I need help here."

He moved at a frantic pace, darting from one corner of the campsite to the next, playing his L.L. Bean miner's light all around, hoping to find any trace of themselves that they might have left behind. He got the food and the trash, and he remembered to pick up the pot he'd slung at the intruder.

While the little boy slept at the base of a tree, Susan shoved their belongings into their backpacks. Bobby's sense of urgency had infected her, and she found that her hands couldn't move fast enough. Every second, she felt that they were on the verge of getting caught. She still wasn't sure what that would mean exactly, but she'd never seen Bobby so distraught.

She made it a point not to look toward the body. Anything left over there was left forever, as far as she was concerned. She just wanted to be off this mountain and on to someplace safe and friendly where she could talk some sense into Bobby's head. They had nothing to hide, dammit. To run was to admit otherwise. She knew this. And she knew that Bobby would know it once he started thinking straight again. For now all that mattered was getting back to the car.

Samuel hadn't moved in a half hour, and neither had Jacob. It really was true, wasn't it? Jacob was really dead, and these people had killed him. If it hadn't been for those two nosy nellies, everything would be just fine.

But why are they nosy nellies to begin with?

He whirled at the sound of Jacobs voice, only to find himself staring deeper into the woods.

"Jacob?" he asked the night, still in his quietest voice. He looked nervously toward the campsite again, and at the body, which still hadn't moved. "Where are you?"

No answer. Jacob was like that sometimes, asking questions just to get Samuel thinking straight.

He stewed the question over in his mind. Why were they nosy nellies to begin with?

Because of the kid. That damned kid, who refused to do anything he was told to do. That kid who wouldn't do anything but scream and whine and never say a fucking word to anybody. For the life of him, Samuel couldn't figure out why Jacob had wanted the kid in the first place.

You let him get away. You fell asleep.

That time, he knew the voice came from inside his head. The picture that Jacob wanted him to see started to focus in his mind, and once it did, Samuel wished it would disappear.

If the kid hadn't gotten away, then the nosy nellies would never have known a thing. And if they had never known, then Jacob wouldn't have been shot. So, if Samuel hadn't fallen asleep when he should have been watching . . .

Samuel gasped, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep anyone from hearing him.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, it can't be. I killed my own brother.

Finally, they were ready. The backpacks were full, the stuff sacks stuffed, and the woods where their campsite had been looked pristine. Susan wanted to carry the boy, but with her full pack, she couldn't manage the weight, so Bobby took over. The child stank of urine and filth. He tried to carry the boy with the little one's grimy head on his shoulder, but the straps of his backpack got in the way. In the end, he had no choice but to carry him cradled in his arms.

Bobby led the way, illuminating the path with his goofy-looking headlamp. The boy couldn't weigh much more than thirty pounds, but dead to the world as he was, he felt much heavier. Combined with the fact that Bobby could no longer see where he placed his feet on the narrow steep, rocky trail, the thirty-minute walk to the Explorer might as well have been an hour and a half.

The woods seemed abnormally silent tonight, the blood pounding in his ears all but drowning out the distant rushing of the river. Where it had once brought a sense of peace, that hissing roar now made him worry that someone might more easily sneak up on them.

"I see the car," Susan said from behind.

Bobby shifted his head, and sure enough, he caught a flash of white through the naked trees. "Thank God." The little boy now felt as if he weighed three hundred pounds. Bobby's arms trembled.

"Okay, little guy," Bobby said as he walked around to the side of the truck, "I've got to put you down for a second." The boy stood as Bobby lowered him to the ground, but he never really woke up.

Just to be sure, Susan steadied the boy as Bobby's trembling hands fished for his keys. With two presses of the little button on the fob, the locks popped up and he pulled open the door.

Susan hoisted the boy onto the backseat, where he instantly curled onto his side and stuffed a thumb in his mouth.

Next came the backpacks, which they shoved through the tailgate. It was time to leave.

"I'll ride in the back with him," Susan announced.

Bobby opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. Why the hell shouldn't she ride in the back? The boy needed to be with somebody, after all.

Thirty seconds later, the truck was heading down the treacherous, unpaved switchbacks that would lead to the road home. Ruts and rocks bounced them all over the interior of the truck, and Bobby found himself riding the brakes even after shifting the transmission into low.

"How are you guys doing back there?"

I'm hanging on, and he's doing great." Susan's voice bounced right along with the suspension.

Shouldn't be more than a couple minutes till we're out of here."

If anyone had asked him yesterday, Bobby would not have been able to imagine a circumstance in which he would make this drive after dark. Not unless someone was gravely ill.

Or dead, with a bullet in his brain.

Finally, they made it to the bottom, and Bobby let out an audible sigh. They were back on solid pavement, and they'd put plenty of distance between themselves and whoever the cop might have been travelling with. For the time being, the worst was over.

Or so he thought, before he saw flashing blue lights closing in on his rear bumper.

Samuel had taken a trip. That's what he called those times when he left the real world and travelled off to think thoughts that no one else could understand, and when he got back, darkness had returned. The camp-fire and the flashlights were gone, and the darkness pressed in all around him. Even the moon had dimmed.

The stiffness in his shoulders and his knees told him that he'd been gone a long time, but not as long as he used to go when he was a kid. His pants were still dry.

He didn't like the dark; never had. Bad things happened in the dark, and for as long as he could remember, he'd always kept lights on around him. At least a flashlight, but Jacob wouldn't let him carry one of those tonight.

In the darkness, with all the other people gone, Samuel decided that it was okay for him to cry. No one could see, so no one would call him a pussy now. Certainly not Jacob.

Because he was dead.

Sadness flooded up all the way from his tippy-tippy toes and burst over him, making him wonder if maybe he would drown in it. Samuel put his hands over his ears and pushed as hard as he could, hoping that the horrible feelings could be kept inside, but they all rushed out anyway. He sagged to his knees and sobbed there in the darkness, not even caring about the snot and the drool that leaked out onto his shirt.

Jacob was never coming back. He was dead. And there was nothing Samuel could do about it.

It took another half hour for him to summon the courage to move out of his spot and do what he had to do next. The moon didn't provide whole lot of light, but it was enough for Samuel to pick his way through the trees without getting hurt. He moved a step at a time, still trying his best not to step on any sticks.

Through the bushes, an iridescent white rectangle drew his attention. He bent down for a closer look and found a piece of paper with writing on it. Samuel liked paper, and he liked writing, so he folded it up and stuffed it in the pocket of his jeans.