Fort (6 page)

“This is going to sting, Wyatt, so you'll need to be very brave. Think about something else for a minute.”

She leaned even farther forward to get a closer look at my hand.

“Something that makes you happy,” she went on.

No problem there.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Not quite,” I said, thinking my happy thoughts.

“Now?” she asked.

“I guess so,” I said.

It was over much too soon.

When she'd finished disinfecting, Aunt Hilda examined the cut and decided I didn't require stitches. Next she applied a bandage she called a butterfly, which would hold the two sides of open flesh in place so they could heal together. Then she wrapped gauze over that, taped it in place, and patted my hand with a warm smile.

Dazed and nearly speechless, I managed to thank her. She sent us on our way with the rest of the brownies wrapped in foil.

Back at the fort, we tucked the tarp under the tin along the front edge. Then we positioned it so it hung almost to the ground and nailed it in place. Augie hammered a couple of big spikes into the front roof board and attached a piece of rope to each one. We rolled up the tarp and tied it there.

“If it's raining or we're doing something, you know, top secret, we just undo the ropes and—” Augie demonstrated and the flap fell.

I crawled underneath it into the fort. “It's really dark in here with that down,” I called. “We're going to need flashlights.”

Augie rolled up the flap. “It'll probably be up most of the time,” he said. “But, yeah, we definitely need lights.”

Occasionally munching on Aunt Hilda's brownies, we spent the rest of the day riding back and forth from our houses to Al's, where we piled our supplies: sleeping bags, flashlights, cards, comics, a couple of fishing poles, and matches in a little baggie to keep them dry. Gram gave us some old enamel plates and cups, silverware, a superheavy cast iron frying pan, an empty gallon milk jug, and some duct tape. I asked about those last two things, but Augie said he'd show me later.

At my house we got food: a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, granola bars, Slim Jims, two bags of Oreos (the world's best cookie, we both agreed), cheese sticks, some apples and pears, a bag of red licorice sticks (my personal favorite—Augie likes black better, but we didn't have any), and some bottles of pop and water.

Augie rummaged in the refrigerator and took out a plastic tub of margarine.

“Do you think your dad would mind if we take this?” he asked.

“I doubt it,” I said. “What for?”

“For frying stuff.”

I looked at our collection of food. I'd never had fried Slim Jims before but, now that I thought about it, I bet they would taste pretty good.

Augie grabbed some salt and pepper and added it to the pile. We put it all in our backpacks.

I wrote a note for Dad and left it on the kitchen counter. I took the rest of the notepad and some pens, and put them in my backpack, too.

“What's that for?” Augie asked.

“Writing down ideas for a song for Gerard.”

Augie nodded solemnly. “Excellent.”

All day long we had kept our eyes peeled for J.R. and Morrie. On the way back to Al's, we had a pretty close call. I spied them getting on their bikes in front of a convenience store near Augie's house and called to Augie, “J.R. and Morrie ahead. Take evasive action!”

We turned down a side street and pedaled away without them seeing us. We bumped fists as we rode side by side.

By then it was around four o'clock in the afternoon, and we were finally ready to start taking stuff out to the woods.

Al and Unk had been watching with great interest as the pile grew, and had made some useful suggestions and a few contributions, like two lawn chairs even more beat-up than the ones they were sitting on and two orange crates to use as a table and a shelf.

“Ya want to take this, too,” Al said, unrolling a small square of old linoleum and displaying it for us to see.

“What for?” asked Augie.

“Ya ever slept on the ground before?”

“Not really,” we both admitted.

“Yeah, well, I have,” Al declared. “It's hard. And damp. Put this down. You'll thank me tonight.”

We thanked him right then.

Unk, who had been listening, remarked, “That joint gets any fancier, I might ask can I move in.”

By the time we were about to haul our last load out to the fort, it was close to six o'clock. Al and Unk were packing up for the night. We stored our bikes out of sight inside the fence, and Al locked up.

“Have fun, boys,” Unk said.

“Yeah,” said Al. “Have fun. And if you hear some really bloodcurdling screams tonight—like somebody's getting their heart ripped out by a wild animal while they're still alive?—don't worry about it. I hear stuff all the time when I'm here late, and I don't believe those old stories for a minute.”

Augie and I looked at each other.

“Old stories?” I repeated.

“What old stories?” Augie asked.

Unk broke in then. “Now, Al, don't go trying to scare these boys.”

“Who's trying to scare 'em?” Al protested indignantly. “Didn't I just say if you hear something horrible, don't worry about it?”

Don't worry about it?

“Pay no attention to this joker,” said Unk. “Just go—and have a good time.”

Augie and I started walking toward the woods. Behind us we could hear Al laughing and Unk scolding him.

“He was messing with us, right?” I asked.

“Totally,” said Augie.

“He made the whole thing up,” I said.

“I never heard any stories like that.”

“Nothing to worry about.”

“Heck, no.”

We were quiet for a while. I don't know about Augie, but all I could think about was not thinking about what Al had said.

Augie got us back on track.

“Dude,” he said, “we're about to camp out in the most awesome fort ever!”

“Darn right!” I said.

When we reached the fort, we dropped the stuff we were carrying.

I stretched my back and said, “What do we do now?”

“How about we get some squirrels for dinner?” Augie asked.

“Heck, yeah!” I said. I'd never hunted squirrels before. Or eaten one. But now we were really getting down to it. This was
exactly
the kind of thing I'd imagined you did when you had a fort. “How do we get 'em?”

Augie reached into one of the giant pockets on his cargo shorts and took out a slingshot. “Meet the Squirrel-Slayer.”

“No way!” I said. “You've actually gotten squirrels with that thing?”

“Sure,” Augie said. “Ask Gram.”

I didn't have to ask Gram. If Augie said he'd slingshotted squirrels, I believed him.

“Let me see that,” I said.

Augie tossed it to me and I checked it out. It was a Y-shaped stick with thick rubber strips going from the tips of the Y to a leather pouch. “Did you
make
this?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding surprised. “They're thirty-four bucks at the store.”

“Does it really shoot?”

Augie grinned. “Shoots good.”

I'm telling you. That Augie.

Then I thought of something. “Why don't we use your pellet gun?”

Augie shrugged. “Too easy.”

“For you maybe,” I said. “So, anyway, what do squirrels taste like?”

“Good. Like squirrel.”

“How do we get 'em?”

“First,” said Augie, “we need ammo.” He leaned down and picked up a small roundish pebble.

We continued walking, eyes on the ground, occasionally picking up a pebble with the right shape and pocketing it.

“We should probably hurry,” Augie said, glancing up at the sun. “Squirrels are out in the daytime, not at night. Let's hope they're getting ready to have a little snack before they turn in.”

He led the way to some pine trees and found a pinecone. “See how a squirrel's been eating the nuts out of this? They love these things. We just have to be still and hope he comes back—with a few of his buddies.”

We crawled under some low-hanging branches and sat.

“We gotta stay
really
still,” Augie whispered. “We may have to wait awhile, so get comfortable. If you see one, whisper to me. Don't stare at it, just kind of look at it out of the corner of your eye.”

He got out the slingshot, pulled back the pouch, and tested his aim. Still whispering, he said, “Squirrels always pull the same trick. They run around to the side of the tree and freeze there where you can't see 'em. So hang on to this.” He handed me a stone, about twice as big as the one in the pouch of his slingshot. “When I tell you to, chuck it to the other side of the tree.”

“Okay,” I whispered back.

We sat there, still and quiet as anything. I'd never really just sat in the woods like that, and it was pretty cool until a bunch of little flies started buzzing around my face. One landed on my nose. I wanted to swat it in the worst way. Augie must have read my mind because he hissed, “Stay still!”

I sat as quietly as I could, remembering a movie I saw where Indians buried a guy all except his head, and ants came and crawled all over his face, and he couldn't brush them away or anything, since his arms were buried. But he wanted to prove to the Indians he was tough, so he never twitched, even though they were
biting
ants.

Next thing I knew, a line of ants was crawling on
me
! And even though my arms were free, Augie had said I couldn't move. So I watched as they trooped right over my outstretched leg, like that was their usual route and whatever this thing was that was in the way wasn't going to stop them from following it. They didn't bite, but they did tickle like crazy.

It seemed like a long time went by. Then I heard a rustle. Something was coming our way through the dead needles on the ground! Then it stopped. Then, scamper, scamper, scamper. Stop. Scamper, scamper, scamper. Stop. I slanted my eyes in that direction and, sure enough, there was a squirrel, sitting up on its hind legs, eyes darting everywhere, nose sniffing like mad. Then scamper, scamper, scamper, and jump! It leaped into the pine tree and quickly ran around to the other side of the trunk, out of sight, just the way Augie had said it would.

My heart was pounding like crazy. I slid my eyes toward Augie and lifted my eyebrows in a question:
Now?

Augie raised the slingshot into position, gave me a little grin, and nodded.

I threw the rock so it landed on the other side of the pine tree. I guess the squirrel thought we'd moved and could see it now, so it ran around to our side of the trunk.

Augie let the stone fly—and the squirrel dropped to the ground and was still.

I couldn't believe it. It was like Augie was some kind of squirrel wizard or something, or like he had made a robot squirrel that did exactly what he told it to do!

“Wooo-hoooo!”
I shouted.

We got to our feet and went over to examine the squirrel. It looked kind of peaceful, like it was sleeping.

I examined its long bushy tail, its little clawed feet, and its rounded ears, and pushed open its mouth to see what kind of teeth it had.

“Wow, check these out!” I said, showing Augie the four long, sharp front teeth, two on the bottom and two on the top. “They're orange!”

“Weird, huh? Like a beaver's,” said Augie. “If you keep one for a pet, you have to trim those teeth or they just keep on growing.”

This was interesting. “Really? Forever?”

Augie nodded.

“So, like, the teeth would just grow right up into its brain?” I said.

“Yup,” Augie said cheerfully.

“And the top ones would turn into giant fangs?”

“Yup.”

I was picturing that when Augie handed me the slingshot. “Your turn.”

“Okay.” I'd never even held a slingshot before, forget about shooting a squirrel with one. But it had looked pretty easy when Augie did it—not that I'd actually seen what he did, it had been so quick.

So we sat back down in our same positions, only Augie had the chucking rock and I had the slingshot.

It seemed to take longer this time, and I was beginning to get restless and my stomach was growling so loud I figured every squirrel in the woods could hear it, when suddenly I heard the same scamper, scamper, scamper. Stop! Scamper, scamper, scamper. Stop! A squirrel was rummaging around on the ground. It found a pinecone, held it in its paws, pulled off the scales, and started chomping on the nuts.

I looked at Augie out of the corner of my eye. Was I supposed to shoot now or wait until it went up the tree? Augie nodded and moved his lips soundlessly.
Now
.

I had slowly slumped down while we were waiting, so I had to kind of wiggle up to get in position.

The squirrel froze.

I froze.

After a long time, the squirrel began munching again, only it looked nervous.

I raised the slingshot, real sneaky-like, and pulled back the pouch. It was harder to pull than I'd expected, and the Y part started wobbling as I tried to figure out how to aim.

The squirrel turned and, I swear, it frowned at me for a few seconds. Then it was gone. Too late, my stone flew and landed about four feet away, nowhere near where the squirrel had been.

“Geez,” I said. “That stunk.”

Augie shrugged, putting the slingshot in his pocket and picking up his squirrel by its tail. “No sweat. You know how many times I've shot this thing? Come on. We'll clean this at the stream.”

We?
I thought.

Luckily, Augie cleaned while I watched. He took a pocketknife, cut off the tail, and then made a few more careful cuts. Then he tugged a few times and it was like he slipped the critter out of its fur coat, slick as a whistle. Then he pulled out the guts.