Going Where It's Dark (20 page)

W
hen is a lie not a lie? What if every word is true one way, but in another, it's not?

“Wh…where did you find this?” Buck asked.

“In your room. Mom asked me to run the vacuum over the upstairs today, and this was under your bed. Did you mean to give it to Mom? To Dad?”

“Oh, that,” Buck said, laughing a little. “It's old.” His mind was racing on ahead of him. Was it possible he'd forgotten to hide that note again after he'd used it once?

“Yeah?” Katie waited.

“You know that Ambassador Hotel?”

She stared at him with squinting eyes. “What does
that
have to do with anything?”

“David and I once made a bbbbbbbet with each other, that we wouldn't dare go in that hotel at nnnnnight alone. All the way up to the third floor—where that man died—back again. And I decided that if I ever did, I'd leave this nnnnnnnote on my bed so if I never came b…back, David could tell them about our bet.”

There was a flash of hurt in her eyes, and he realized he was admitting he'd trust David with a secret before he'd tell her, but it passed. Still, the way she was studying him…

“Honest! We really did dddddddare each other. You can call David yourself.”

She dropped the note on the table beside him and sat down. “Okay, but that doesn't explain the other stuff.”

“What other stuff?” Buck started to take a bite of bagel, but Katie's eyes stopped him.

“Buck, you've been sort of strange lately, you know it? I see you riding off on your bike every day and you're gone at least an hour. Where are you going?”

“N…not every day…” And then Buck realized that was already a confession.

“Several times a week, then. And that one time you came home late to dinner, all muddy. And you said your bike went down a ravine? But I went out after dinner and saw your bike and it wasn't banged up or scratched or anything.”

“You tell Mom?”

“Of course not.” Katie was loyal. “But now…”

Buck pushed his plate away. “Katie, if I ttttttold you something, you've absolutely got to pppppromise not to tell anyone.”

Now her eyes were wide and she had that same trusting look she used to get when Buck confided in her. It made his chest hurt.

“I promise,” she said.

“Really?”

“Totally.”

“Okay. Jacob Wall is a…speech d…doctor. Used to be. And he's helping me with my sssstuttering.”

Slowly her forehead wrinkled into the puzzled look he knew so well. “That old man in the yellow house?”

Buck nodded.

“The one you and Mel do jobs for?”

“Yeah…He offered to help me, and I've bbbbbbeen going over there three t…times a week.”

Katie raised both hands, then let them drop. “But…why are you keeping it secret? Why can't Mom and Dad know? They'd be grateful.”

“You know how they are, Katie. Mom would be all the t…time on me asking if I was gggggetting better. And Dad would be embarrassed Jacob wasn't charging us anything, like we couldn't afford it or something. They'd have a mmmillion questions, like why he's doing it at all, you know?”

Katie thought about it. “I guess so. But…it still doesn't make sense.”

“Why not? Jacob used to work for the navy, and it's a tttttttough course. He said some of the marines couldn't handle it…that they…walked out.”

“You mean, like boot camp or something?”

“Sort of.”

“It sounds hard…the course, Buck. What does it have to do with stuttering?
Is
it helping?”

“I just feel different, Katie. Do I ssssound any different to you?”

She thought about it a moment. “You don't get tensed up so much like you used to. What I mean is, when you stutter, I hardly notice it anymore.”

When you stutter, I hardly notice it anymore.

It was the first time anyone had ever said that to him. In the past, people only wanted him to stop stuttering. But now, if nobody noticed…Well, why should he care whether he stuttered or not?

The thought was so new to him it was like a fragile piece of china he had to protect. As though, if he examined it, it might slip from his hands and crack. Like a dream that after you'd dreamed it, you had to quickly remember or it would just disappear.

The tomatoes hung heavy on vines that had already begun to wilt. Pole beans were picked every week to keep them producing, and the last of the beets and potatoes, the carrots and onions, called to be dug out of the hot soil.

Whenever Mel wasn't on a run in his semi, he pitched in to help with the digging or crating, while Buck, and sometimes Katie, did the back-breaking job of straddling the rows of lima beans, the sun beating down on their heads, fingers sore from grasping the spiny pods and dropping them in the bucket.

For the last two weeks Buck had consoled himself with the thought that any day his headlamp would arrive. The longer he had to wait, the more desperately he wanted it, and the more he worried that it would be one big disappointment.

Nat stopped by on his bike that Thursday. He stood at the head of the lima bean row, waiting to see if Buck could join him, his Eagles cap low on his forehead.

Dad came out of the house just then from answering the phone.

“Buck,” he called. “Your mom left her glasses here this morning and decided she really needs them. You and Nat want to ride out to Holly's and take them to her? You can take a couple hours off if you want.”

This must be what every convict feels when he goes on parole,
Buck decided as he headed inside to wash up, Nat following behind.

“The carnival's generator truck was in the lot behind Bealls' this morning,” Nat told him. “That means the rest will be here soon. Heard they've got a new ride, the Wildcat.”

Buck reached the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet. “Yeah? What's it d…do?”

“You sit at the end of those long poles, two to a cage, and it jerks you in and spins you around, then shoots you back out again, all the while it's whirling around in a circle. Something like that.”

“Cool.” Buck leaned over, burying his face in a two-hand pool of cold water, then another, till his hair was plastered to his forehead in front. He followed it with a long drink.

“I've earned enough in the gggggarden to ride everything they've got this year, I'll b…bet,” he said. He picked up his mother's glasses case from off the counter, put them in one pocket, and they went back outside and around to his bike by the shed.

“I'll come help you pick beans if I run low on cash,” Nat joked.

Buck had been thinking all morning of a way to ask Nat about his cousin and the basement he was paneling—where he'd gotten the plywood they were using. But how could he ask that? Nat would wonder why he was so curious about plywood.

The boys were hot again by the time they got to Holly's Homestyle, and found there were four other bikes in the rack out front. And before Buck could wonder whose they were, the glass doors opened and Pete and Isaac, Rod and Ethan, spilled out onto the steps, kidding around with plastic straws and their wrappers. Then they saw Buck.

“Well, look who's here!” Pete said. “El Creepo himself.” He turned to the others. “Did you know he called my dad's station the other day and wanted to know the price of super premium for his bike?”

The other three boys guffawed.

And then, mimicking Buck, Pete said, “ ‘Wh…wh…wh…what's the p…p…p…p…price of s…s…s…s…super p…p…p…premium…?' And when I told him to shove it, and hung up on him, the little creep called back.” He turned to Buck. “You know what? I think you just do it to bug the heck out of people, that's all.”

Another customer was coming out of the door just then, so Pete and his buddies went on down the steps and Buck and Nat went in. They stayed inside the entrance, though, to make sure Pete didn't do something with their bikes. He didn't. The foursome pedaled away.

Nat didn't believe any of it. “What a moron,” he murmured. “Aren't you glad he'll be in high school in the fall?”

“Rod won't, though,” said Buck. He looked around for his mom and saw her at the far end of the counter, listening to a middle-aged woman in a straw hat loudly complaining about something. Mom glanced over at the boys, her eyes saying it all, and they slid onto stools near the pie display.

“…and another thing,” the woman said, both elbows on the counter, one hand holding half a sandwich, the other delicately pulling out pieces of bacon. “I've been getting my BLTs here for the last seven years, and if the bacon doesn't crumble in my mouth, it's not cooked enough. I shouldn't have to tear it with my teeth. And the tomato…was that homegrown?”

“Indeed it was,” Mom said patiently. “It was out of our very own vegetable garden.”

“Well, it was picked too soon,” said the woman.

“Oh, spare me!” murmured Pearl, who was wiping off a table next to the counter, and Buck and Nat ducked their heads to hide their laughter.

“If you'll excuse me,” Mom said to the woman. She made her getaway while she could, and turned her attention to the boys. “Thanks, Buck. Your dad and Mel out in the field?”

“Yeah. He asked mmmme to ride over.”

“Well, I thought maybe I could get through the day without them, but when it got to the point where I couldn't read my own handwriting, I knew I had to have them. How you doing, Nat?”

“Okay,” he said. “First carnival truck's here.”

“That's good news for Holly's,” Mom said.

When the straw-hat woman realized Mom wasn't coming back, she gave a loud sigh and climbed down off the stool, taking her check to the cash register.

Pearl sidled up to Mom behind the counter. “That woman!” she declared. “She'd blame sugar for being sweet.”

Buck and Nat laughed out loud.

Holly came out of the kitchen then with a tray of apple and blueberry pie slices to put in the pie safe. “You boys want some ice cream?” she said. “First dip's on the house. Second dip's on you. Sprinkles are free.”

The first dips of Holly's ice cream, however, were always huge, and with sprinkles, they were enough.

“Nat says a carnival truck is here,” Mom told her.

“Ah!” Holly wiped her hands on her apron. “Let's hope the carnival workers get tired of eating carnival food and want some honest-to-goodness home-style cooking.”

“They usually do,” said Mom.

On their way home, Nat said, “Let's go back to the river. We went almost as far as the bend last time, so let's start hiking from there.”

“For a while, maybe,” said Buck. “I should probably help Dad a little more before dinner.”

It was cool in the woods—perhaps ten degrees cooler—and just looking at the water seemed to help dry the skin. That and a breeze blowing in from the north. Buck figured the sawmill couldn't be more than a half mile off. The woods was a real tangle the farther they went, the trees so close together it was hard to find a way through them. Walking along the riverbank itself was impossible at points, forcing them back into the underbrush.

“What's that?” Nat said, stopping and wiping one arm across his face. His hair was a mess, with leaves and twigs stuck every which way.

“Whhhhere?” Buck asked, almost bumping into him from behind.

“There.” Nat pointed. “That…shack.”

Buck moved up beside him and looked in the direction he was pointing. “S…somebody's house? A homeless person?”

“Could be. Should we look?”

In answer, Buck began making his way through the trees and vines, each step breaking a net of leaves and branches.

It was a strange put-together structure about eight feet square, with a flat roof half-covered with tarp.

“Hello?” Buck called, and waited, listening.