Memory Boy (13 page)

I didn't realize I had spoken aloud. “He also said nobody ever bothered him there, not even the tax man.”

“Not even the tax man?” my father repeated.

I nodded. “He was obsessed with not paying taxes.”

“If you own land, you pay taxes,” my mother said. “Nobody escapes real estate taxes.”

The land belongs to the people. And I'm people.
“He said he lived on public land,” I replied.

My father's eyes blinked and blinked. He began to pace. “Maybe he had some kind of hunting shack on state-forest land. Lots of people do. There's thousands of acres of state land up north. If he did, and if you say nobody bothered him, then it certainly would be safe there.”

My mother remained sitting. “Let's get serious. We need more than an imaginary cabin somewhere in the north woods.”

“Yeah, Miles,” Sarah added, though with less certainty than my mother. The “safe” part had caught her attention.

“Mr. Kurz
had
a cabin on the Mississippi. I know it,” I said. “And I'll bet I could find it.”

Everyone looked at me, then at our own cabin, and then back at me.

“And if you can't?” my mother said.

I shrugged. “Honestly?”

She nodded.

I met their gaze. “I don't know,” I said quietly.

A crow cawed somewhere in the trees; in the silence it was as if our whole family life hung in the balance.

“How far away is this alleged cabin?” my mother said. She stood up. So did Sarah.

I had already opened my Minnesota map. I squinted down at it, then held my thumb against the mileage scale. “It's near Bemidji, which is up by the Mississippi headwaters. That's only about eighty miles. One day—or night—on the road.”

My father looked toward the lake to check the waves. “The breeze is right,” he said.

“Then some local exploring when we get there,” I added. I tried not to be too enthusiastic, tried to hedge my bet just a bit; still, I knew the cabin was there. Mr. Kurz couldn't have made it
all
up.

“Well,” my mother said uncertainly.

My father spoke up. “We know we can't go back to the city—at least not yet. And for the moment we can't stay here. So if we go, what's the worst thing that can happen? We spend the summer camping on the Mississippi.”

My mother was silent.

“Mr. Kurz said there was a freshwater spring near his cabin. There are probably fish in the river,” I said.

“I still think it's a little crazy,” she said. “But then so is the world right now.”

“I hate that Danny,” Sarah said, shooting a look toward Birch Bay. “Anyplace would be better than here.”

With sudden energy we set about packing. It was exciting, as if we were striking out on a family trip—the best kind of trip—one with no exact destination. As I finished stuffing our sleeping bags and stowing my gear (I'm a fast packer), I heard the sound of someone splitting wood down by the lake.

“I'll be back in a minute,” I said.

When I came around the corner of the cabin, the goats went crazy again. Big Danny looked up from beside a woodpile. He was sweating, and with the axe in hand he looked like Paul Bunyan.

“What do you want, kid? Don't tell me they sent you to get me to change my mind.”

“No. We're leaving,” I said.

“So you came to say good-bye, then.” He grinned.

“Not really,” I said. “I came for a gun.”

HE LOOKED AT ME. “A
gun,” he repeated.

“You offered my family a gun. And I accept.”

He pursed his lips. His eyes scanned me up and down. I thought he was going to say something about my age, or my size. But he didn't.

“If I give you a gun, you ain't going to shoot me with it?”

“No,” I said (not that I hadn't thought about it). “It's not for people. Unless, I don't know, if I had to sometime …” That last part slipped out. I thought of those losers under the bridge, their cigarette smoke. I thought of those bandits on their four-wheelers.

“That's exactly right, kid,” Danny said. He turned, tossed his axe overhand at the nearest tree; after two rotations the axe flashed and went
chonk
, blade first, into the bark. I was impressed. “A family like yours, from the city and all,” he said, taking off his gloves, “if you're gonna make it through these times, you might have to do things you never done before.”

“I mainly want the gun for food,” I said. “If we run out and can't buy any, I can hunt.”

“You ever hunted before?”

“Nope.”

“But you're a fast learner,” he said.

I nodded.

He grinned, gap-toothed. “Anyway, nobody can teach nobody how to hunt. You got to learn the woods on your own. So first things first: What do you know about guns?”

“I've heard a few things,” I said, meaning stories from Mr. Kurz. I didn't want to go into that here. “And I've shot a BB gun a few times.”

“That's it? That's all? Your family never had a gun of any kind?”

I shrugged. “No.”

He shook his head sadly. “Parents like yours ought to be arrested. Well, luckily school is in session, kid. Wait here.”

Soon he returned from the cabin carrying a heavy duffel bag with both hands. Steel clanked inside it. He opened a padlock around the handles. He started laying out weapons large and small, long and short.

“Geez!” I said without meaning to.

“Don't ask where these come from. That ain't important anyway. I'll just say that a gun is made to be shot, not hung on somebody's wall.” It looked to me like he had knocked off about fifty walls somewhere.

“Let's see, here's a thirty aught six—that's a deer rifle—but this one will knock you on your can....

“Here's a twelve-gauge shotgun, pump, but it's a little long for you....

“Here's a nice lightweight twenty-two pump action, accurate but mainly a squirrel gun. Not enough stopping power, if you dig....”

I swallowed and nodded once.

“This one's a nine-millimeter semiautomatic, but a pistol's not a good beginner's gun, no way, and it's no good for hunting....”

He stood up and looked me over and stroked his beard. “We need something just right.... Wait a minute.” He dug deeper in the bag and came out with a medium-sized long gun with a bolt action. “Bingo!” he said.

He handed it to me. I put it to my shoulder.

“Whoa!” he said angrily, hopping sideways. “First thing you gotta learn is muzzle safety.” He batted the barrel end away from him toward the lake. “You never point the muzzle at somebody unless you mean to use it—got that?”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Consider any gun loaded until you know it ain't. If you do that, nobody ever gets shot even if you were an idiot and the gun did go off by accident.”

That made sense.

“What you're holding there is a four ten shotgun.”

“It looks like a rifle,” I said. It had a skinny barrel like a rifle.

“Small-bore shotguns are kinda in between,” Danny said. “The four ten number means that the barrel diameter is just a hair over four tenths of an inch. Lots of guns are named that way—for the size of their bore.”

“How many shells does it hold?”

“Just one. And one's enough for a scrawny little devil like you.”

I shrugged. I was thinking more along the lines of something I could jack shells into while riding the
Princess
, like Arnold Schwarzenegger did on his Harley in those old
Terminator
flicks.

He dug in the bag and produced a box of shells, then tossed a single to me. It was a tube of hard red plastic seated in a small brass cup. The shell was about the same length and diameter as my pointer finger. The plastic end was crimped inward; the whole thing had a faint rattle.

“That's fine shot you hear,” Danny said. “Tiny steel balls a little bigger than coarse sand, a little smaller than BBs.”

I nodded.

“You can buy shotgun shells with different shot size, all the way from a real fine shot like number nine, which is almost like salt, on down through six, and four, and coarser—the smaller the number, the bigger and fewer the shot. The last stop on that chart is a slug.”

“A slug?”

He looked at me. “You really are stupid, aren't you? But it ain't your fault. It's how you was raised.” He dug deeper and found a few loose shells. He examined the ends, then tossed one to me. I could see solid, dark lead poking out from the crimped end.

“That there's a single chunk of lead, one per shell.”

“Like a rifle bullet,” I said.

“You got it, kid. And the slug, well, that's the beauty about this four ten. You could kill a deer or a bear with this—or let the air out of someone coming after that pretty sister of yours.” He grinned at me.

I kept my face blank. Now, for sure, if there was anyone I could imagine shooting, it was Danny.

“On the other hand, you can shoot ducks and grouse—on the fly—just by switching to fine shot.”

I looked at my gun.

“Ready to try it?”

I swallowed. “Okay.”

He glanced around, found a beer bottle, and pitched it out in the water. The bottle splashed, then began to bob along with its thin neck up.

“Here's how the bolt works.” He stood close beside me (his T-shirt smelled like vinegar; his breath was worse). “Lift up, pull back; shell in; push forward, then down. Now you're locked and loaded.”

Squinting my eyes against his smell, I dropped in the shell and followed directions.

“Take aim on that bottle.”

I sighted down the barrel; my heart was pounding. The muzzle bobbed and weaved more than the waves.

“Squeeze it off.”

I pressed the trigger—harder and harder—but nothing happened. I jerked at it; still nothing.

Danny laughed. “You know why it didn't shoot?” he said.

I shook my head sideways.

“Because the safety was on. I did that on purpose.” His stench washed over me again as he leaned close. He put his finger on a little lever just behind the bolt. “‘S' and ‘F.' That means ‘safe' and ‘fire.' It's one more way to keep your gun from firing accidentally. They may be in different locations, but all guns got some kind of safety.”

“I see.”

“You ready now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Lever to ‘F.'”

I clicked it sideways.

“Squeeze—and don't flinch this time—it ain't gonna hurt you.”

Suddenly the gun bucked against my shoulder and cheek and the bottle sprayed into brilliant bits of glass. “Hey, Daniel Boone himself,” Danny said.

Except that within seconds Daniel Boone's whole family came racing around the corner of the cabin. “Miles?” my father cried, running just ahead of my mother.

They drew up when they saw me holding the gun.

“What are you
doing
?” my mother said. The fear in her voice turned instantly to anger. She glared at Danny.

“It's all right,” my father said to her.

“He's getting a lesson in how to use his new gun,” Danny replied.

“
His
new gun?” my mother asked.

“If you recall, I offered your family one. Your boy here took me up on it,” Danny said with a shrug.

“We are not taking a gun,” my mother began.

Danny stared. He spit to the side. “I guess it goes to show that there's all different kinds of child neglect.”

“What do you mean by that?” my mother shot back.

Danny pointed and glared. “Your kind of parent annoys the hell out of me. You raise your kids on public television and nature shows. Then when the going gets tough—like nowadays—you won't pick up a gun if your life depended on it. Well I'm telling you right now it might. The highway out there is full of dudes way badder than me. And if you're not going to protect your kids, you might as well leave them here. We'd at least try to take care of them.”

“Yeah, right,” Sarah whispered.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” my mother replied, her eyes fixed on Danny. “What gives you the right to judge us as parents?”

“Nat, easy,” my father said. He put a restraining hand on her arm. He looked at me. “Do you know how to use that?” He pointed to my gun.

I nodded.

“He can handle it,” Danny agreed. “The kid's all right.”