The Eye of the Stone (2 page)

Jackson's smile expanded into a full-blown grin. He covered it with his hand, though, pretending to wipe something from the corner of his mouth. He forced a look of disappointment into its place.

“I have to go,” he called out as he turned back to face the boys. “Dad says I have to pick up Becky. Gotta hurry. I'm already late.” He raised his new watch and pointed to it so that Seth and Chris would be sure to understand. “I really want to ride the hill. I'll do it tomorrow.”

Chris shook his head in obvious disappointment. Seth cleared his throat. “Sure you will,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Wimp.”

But Jackson acted like he hadn't heard. He was already pedaling as hard as he could away from the top of the hill, away from the distant rumble that called like a voice from the direction of Cougar Butte.

“Sisters!” Jackson shouted back over his shoulder. “What a pain!”

And he was gone.

2. Into the Stone

“Chocolate tastes better than boogers,” Becky announced from her perch on the kitchen counter.

Jackson looked up from the peanut butter he was spreading on bread for her snack. All the way home from Jeremy and Skeeter's house, he had ignored her irritating chatter, on and on about nothing. Instead, he'd been trying to calm a nagging sense of uneasiness concerning his dad, while at the same time fighting to get that awful word—
wimp
—out of his mind.

Wimp, wimp, wimp.

He really wasn't one. Was he?

Wimp, wimp, wimp.

No. He was just sensible, that's all; careful, not a fool. Right?

Wimp, wimp, wimp.

Like he'd told Chris and Seth, he'd
had
to go get Becky. They'd seen his dad at the top of the hill. They knew. He hadn't had a choice.

Wimp, wimp, wimp.

Round and round Jackson had gone, growing more and more frustrated as he circled his own self-doubt. Which had made Becky's chatter all the more irritating.

Now, at home in the kitchen, he said, “You're disgusting. How do you know chocolate tastes better than boogers? Did you do a taste test?”

Becky wrinkled her freckled nose and shook her head. Her braids swung back and forth. “Oooo, yuck! No! Skeeter said so.”

Jackson stuck the knife into the nearly empty jar and scraped a bit more peanut butter from the bottom. He spread it, then folded the bread in half—a peanut butter roll-up. Emma, their cat, curled around his legs, meowing to be fed, too. He nudged her away with his foot. “Get out of here, Emma. You've got your own food.” He handed the sandwich to Becky. “So Skeeter did a taste test?”

“Uh-huh,” Becky said, picking off a piece of bread crust and dropping it to Emma. “Jeremy bet him he wouldn't, but he did.”

Jackson screwed the top back on the peanut butter jar and put it in the cupboard.

“Skeeter said chocolate tastes better,” Becky went on. “Then he threw his boogers out the window into the yard.”

That did it. The image of Skeeter shooting booger bullets was too much. Despite his mood, Jackson couldn't help smiling. “That kid is something else,” he said, shaking his head. He grabbed the dirty knife off the counter and headed for the sink.

“Yep,” Becky said. “Jeremy called him a wimp, but he wasn't.”

Jackson stopped short. There it was again—
wimp
—now out of the mouth of a four-year-old. He flung the knife into the sink, where it clanged against a dirty pan. The word seemed to be following him around, jabbing at him from every direction. He strode to the faucet, flipped the water on high, and began to scrub at his sticky fingers. The oil in the peanut butter wouldn't wash away. He jammed the faucet off and grabbed a frayed dish towel, wiping fiercely at his hands with it.

“Skeeter's not afraid of anything,” Becky said. “I bet he'd even eat cooked cauliflower. That's
lots
worse than boogers.”

Jackson turned and glared at her, twisting the towel into a rat tail.

Becky took a huge bite of sandwich and grinned at him with puffed-out cheeks. “Mmm, this is good. Want some?”

“No!” Jackson shot back. “I'm going outside.” He threw the towel onto the counter. “By
myself
.”

Becky nodded cheerfully and mumbled through her mouthful of food. “Awwite.”

With a huff of exasperation, Jackson grabbed his Portland Trailblazers jacket off the hook and banged out the kitchen door into the damp afternoon air. He stomped down the back steps and across the yard, kicking at Becky's soccer ball, sending it ricocheting off the rusty wheelbarrow by the garage with a hollow, metallic ka-thump.

Behind the woodpile he squeezed through the hole in the fence where two boards had fallen out. Fists clinched, he leaped a moss-covered log and strode into the muted light of the forest.

Once on the narrow path that ran alongside Cougar Creek, he forced his way upstream, pushing past bracken fern and the slick glossy leaves of salal bushes, slapping at the low limbs of the vine maples and alder trees, knocking them out of his way. Deeper and deeper into the forest Jackson went, lost in his anger, until the wind gusted overhead. He looked up through the canopy of trees to see black clouds—storm clouds—scuttling across the tops of towering cliffs.

“Whoa,” Jackson muttered, his indignation of a moment before quickly fading like steam from a kettle. Somehow he'd wandered all the way to the base of Cougar Butte.

Jackson shook his head. This wasn't like him, not like him at all. How long had he been walking? He checked his new watch and gasped, an instant knot forming in his stomach. Four-twenty-two! If his father got to the house and he wasn't there, he'd be in trouble,
big
trouble. Dad's earlier weird mood and generosity—whatever the bizarre reason for it—could vanish in a heartbeat, he knew, despite all the smiles and talk of dreams coming true and “Lady Luck.” Birthday or not, the rules were crystal clear: He was
never
to leave Becky alone,
ever.
He'd better get home.

A cold drop of water landed with a splat on Jackson's shoulder, followed quickly by a few on his head. “Aw, man!” he moaned as the persistent patter of a steady rain began to fill the forest. He pulled his jacket collar up tight around his neck. Yes, home,
right now.

But before Jackson could take even one step back down the path, the wind gusted again, harder this time, ripping the few remaining leaves from an alder tree and sailing them through the air in wild looping spirals. Above the bare limbs Jackson could see that the clouds had darkened even more and were swirling around the crest of Cougar Butte as if whipped by some gigantic hand. The rain grew heavy, driving down at him like icy little fists. In a matter of seconds he could feel it soaking through his jacket and shirt and onto his skin.

“Oh, great!” Jackson said aloud, trying to sound sarcastic. He began to trot but immediately tripped over an exposed tree root and went down hard. Sharp pain shot through his knee. “Ow!” He struggled to his feet again to go on, but with the first step the pain intensified and he stopped, grimacing.

It took several deep breaths, but Jackson fought back the panic he felt crawling up his back and forced the sound of confidence into his voice, as if Seth and Chris were there. “No big deal,” he assured himself. “Not to worry.” He looked up at the wild dark sky. “This'll let up pretty soon. Just find a place to get out of the weather for a while and rest your leg, then you can get on home.”

Jackson looked around, squinting through what had become a chaos of rain and wind-whipped tree limbs. At first he saw nothing that offered shelter, but then … there at the base of Cougar Butte, a jagged split in the rock face. If only it was big enough for him to get into.

Jackson limped his way through dripping underbrush and up a scree slope toward the butte. “Almost there,” he found himself saying. “Almost there …” Sleet mixed with the rain, stinging his face and the backs of his hands. He dropped onto all fours and climbed laboriously over the slick rocks, his knee throbbing. “Almost there …” Scrambling up onto a ledge, he wriggled into the crack in the cliff.

To Jackson's surprise, the opening was more than just a shallow cleft. It went deep into Cougar Butte and widened as it did so into a small cave. He peered into the blackness. An odd, discomforting smell hung in the still, dank air, like that of a match when first lit. He eased outside again. Maybe he'd be better off going down and making a run for it, after all.

A great rumbling roar shook the air. There was a splintering crack. Jackson jerked around just in time to see a slab of rock the size of a car break off Cougar Butte and come crashing down onto the slope not more than thirty feet from where he stood. He lunged back into the cave and retreated into its darkness as fast as he could, until he bumped into the back wall and could go no further. He sat down, leaning against the rock, and let out a ragged sigh of relief.

Which didn't last very long. Although out of the storm and in a dry place, his jeans and cotton shirt were completely soaked and seemed to be sucking the heat right out of him. He was already starting to shiver.

Hypothermia. Jackson knew all about it. His father had taught him. Wet, cold, and wind together caused it. First you start to shiver, just like he was doing now. Then the shivering won't stop. Pretty soon it's as if your brain has gone numb, and you start thinking crazy and are likely to do dumb things. Eventually you pass out, and then … Hypothermia was a killer.

Jackson bit his lower lip and forced a large swallow. An uncontrollable shudder racked him. He gingerly pulled his knees to his chest, then wrapped his arms around his legs, becoming as tight a ball as he could. He closed his eyes and tried to think warm thoughts: a tropical beach under palm trees, like in the ads; a woodstove and whistling teakettle; a bathtub full of water so hot you'd have to slip down into it an inch at a time.

Concentrating on those things, Jackson actually began to feel heat. He was about to congratulate himself on his power of concentration when he realized that the heat was not being generated by his mind, but from behind him. He turned and put his hand on the cave wall he had been leaning against. Instantly, warmth spread through his fingers and up his arm.

At another time, Jackson would have jerked his hand away. His mind would have raced with horrible thoughts: What had he stumbled onto, a lava tube like they'd studied about in science? There could be an eruption any second! Molten rock would come bursting through the cave wall! He'd die the dumbest of deaths—by fire in the middle of a sleet storm!

But at that particular moment, as cold as he was, Jackson didn't ask himself why, or how, or from what source the heat in the stone was coming. The only thing that mattered was that he was actually beginning to get warm.

Just his arm, though. The heat seemed to run out of energy below the shoulder. He needed more than that. He was cold all over. He wanted to hug a piece of the rock to him.

Jackson's eyes had adjusted to the poor light, so he could make out a small horizontal crack in the cave wall where the rock felt the warmest. He worked his fingers into it, tensed them, then gave a big tug. Nothing moved. He pulled again, harder. There was a small crunching sound. He took a deep breath, then yanked with all his might. The rock gave, and a book-sized piece of it fell onto the cave floor. Jackson reached to scoop it up, but then stopped and stared in disbelief.

Although the front side of the rock had been rough and indistinguishable from the rest of the cave wall, the back side of it—which was now lying exposed—was anything but normal. It appeared to have been hollowed out into a concave shape, much like a cupped hand. And lying in that indentation was a small, perfectly oval piece of polished black stone with a small hole through its center.

“What in the world?” Only seconds before it had been part of the cave wall. Jackson leaned closer. Etched into the surface of the black stone was what looked like a lion.

Fear shot up the back of Jackson's neck. A part of his brain began screaming, “This is weird,
really
weird. Get out of here! Run!
Now
!”

But from another part of his brain came a very different message. Not in words. It wasn't a voice, or even a thought, only a strange and yet pleasing feeling. With it Jackson's fear simply disappeared. Like fog off the mountains, it quietly evaporated, turning from something felt into something not. And just as mysteriously, something else took its place. Jackson didn't know what that something was. All he knew with sudden certainty was that everything was okay. More than okay. He reached out and picked up the stone.

Warmth flooded Jackson's palm, his arm, his entire body. The pain in his knee softened, then ceased. A sense of calm blanketed him, along with an inexplicable feeling of strength, of power. He closed his fingers tight around the stone and pressed it to his chest.

In the next instant a wild roar and blinding flash of red light exploded around him and everything seemed to tilt as if knocked off its axis. Jackson thrust his hand out, groping, grasping for something—
anything
—to hold on to. But his fingers closed on only air, and he was falling, falling.…

3. “Or-y-gun?”

Mud. Cold, wet, slimy. Plastered on his face. Smeared down the front of his Trailblazers jacket. Squished into his hair, cementing his curly brown locks to his scalp. The next thing Jackson knew he was sprawled in the mud.

“Ugh,” he groaned. “What happened?” Only to taste mud on his tongue. “Yuck!” He pushed up onto his knees, spitting in disgust, wiping the smelly, gooey ooze from around his eyes. Cautiously opening them, he blinked in the bright light.

What Jackson saw made no sense. Instead of being in a cave in Cougar Butte, he now knelt on a tiny island of mud in the middle of a shallow river, its water gurgling by on either side.