I Owe You One (2 page)

She paused before asking, “What made you risk your life for a ballcap anyway? Don't you kids have dozens of those things?”

“My dad gave it to me,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

There was a long silence as my words hung in the air. “I was really sorry to hear about his passing, Wesley,” she finally said. “Such a good man.”

I didn't trust myself to speak, so I just nodded.

“Well, just promise me you'll stay away from that creek until it settles down. There's no telling when I'll feel up to another walk.”

I looked up just in time to see Mrs. Minton smile. I try not to look at old people when they smile. There's nothing worse than seeing their false teeth slip, so I was relieved to see that Mrs. Minton seemed to still have all her original teeth. And it wasn't just a little grin. It made her whole face light up, and it made me smile too.

I thanked her again and slipped out the front door, terrified that someone would see me. I jogged down her front path, trying to get out of the danger zone. I almost made it. I was just closing her gate when my best friend Zach came around the corner.

“Hey, Wes!” he called. “Where've you been? I've been looking for you for half an hour.” He looked down at my hand, which was still on the gate, and back up at my face.

“Uh, I was just…” For a split second I considered telling him a new and improved version of my adventure. In it I was the hero who risked his life to save old Mrs. Minton, whose cane got tangled in the bushes. Weak and confused, she was about to slip down the muddy bank to a certain death. While valiantly holding on to her, a freak gust of wind blew me into the roaring creek and I was nearly swept away. Coming up for one last gasp of air, my life flashed before my eyes, and I managed to grab a branch, haul myself out and drag her away from the bank to safety too.

Unfortunately I am a terrible liar. My dad used to say I should never play poker because my face was so easy to read. He always knew right away who had taken the last slice of pizza from the fridge or that I had been given a blue slip for not having my homework done.

And Zach was the last person I could fool. We'd been friends since we were old enough to throw sand in each other's faces in the sandbox. I was going to have to tell him everything.

I got off easy. Zach only laughed once. The thought of me under Mrs. Minton's afghans wearing only my underwear and some fuzzy moose slippers was too much for him.

Chapter 2

Two weeks later, I was pretty sure that Zach had forgotten the whole rescue thing with Mrs. Minton. I could turn my attention to more important matters.

“How steep do you think it is?” I asked Zach as I rode my bicycle through the old gate that he held open for me.

“It's like a wall! Straight up!”

“Remind me again why we're going across—
umpfh
—Mr. Delany's empty field—
ouch
—on our bikes?”

“You want—
ow
—to try it out, don't you?”

At the rate we were going, our bikes would be wrecked before we got to the hill. But Zach was right. I did want to try it out. The land around Six Roads, the little town where we lived, was basically limestone cliffs and trees. Not exactly the ideal place for dirt biking. To locate a hill that wasn't just a pile of rocks was a major find. The perfect thing for when I finally got my 250cc Hummer dirt bike.

“How'd you find it?” I asked.

“Some professor is interested in the old Indian copper mine my dad found when he—
ouch
—was doing survey work. He asked Dad to show him the location, and I went with them. While they were—
umpfh
—crawling around looking for the entrance, I climbed up the cliff and had a look around. This hill has been hiding in the corner of Delany's land all the time!”

“Are we—
ow
—almost there?”

Zach stopped his bike to let me catch up. I was glad he did. My teeth were aching from going over all the ruts, and I was sweating. I was glad I hadn't worn my jacket.

“It's just over there,” he said, pointing to a stand of trees that was fenced off from the huge field.

It took a few more minutes of tooth-rattling riding to get there.

“We just need to take down a couple of these rails so we can get our bikes in,” Zach said. “There's a sort of path through the trees.”

I looked around, feeling a little nervous. It was an unwritten rule in the country that you never damaged fences.

“There aren't any animals in this field, are there?” It was a huge pasture, and I couldn't see the far end of it around the trees.

Zach shook his head. “I didn't see anything in here the other day when I checked it out. Besides, the Delanys don't have cattle.”

“Are you sure they won't mind us riding on their property?”

Zach sighed. “Why are you such a wimp today?”

I didn't want to tell him that one close call on my life per month was my limit. And I didn't need to get into any trouble with my mom. I was pretty sure she had figured out what had happened at the creek a couple of weeks ago. She had looked suspiciously at my clothes and sniffed them with this funny look on her face.

“Okay, but this better be good.” Together we wrestled the rails off and laid them on the ground. We pushed our bikes through, and Zach hopped on his.

“Shouldn't we replace these rails?” I asked.

“Nah. Then we'd just have to do it all over again when we leave.”

I listened for a moment. There was no movement. No sound of a stampede. Zach was right. The field was empty.

The path wound between a few scraggly pine trees. Within a few seconds, it became obvious why the woodlot was fenced off. The land dipped down into a gully that was swampland. I skidded to a stop.

“How are we supposed to get through that?”

Zach pointed to a couple of boards straddling some stones poking out of the swamp. They made a rickety sort of boardwalk through the narrowest part, and he stood on the pedals as he bounced across.

I was going to tell Zach to forget it, but then I saw it. On the other side of the swamp, the land leveled and then swooped up into an impressive tower of dirt. The sides were steep and the top was flat. It looked just like the hills in motocross races I had watched on tv.

I rolled down to the swamp and inched my way across the boards to where Zach was waiting.

Bushes and rocks made it hard to get up any speed before attacking the hill, but we managed to get about halfway up before getting off and pushing our bikes up the rest of the way. It would be better on my Hummer. I could just rev up the engine and conquer the hill.

“You were right, Zach. This hill is awesome,” I said as we rested at the top.

“I told you. And just think—” Zach stopped talking as we both heard a sound. A sound that didn't belong in an empty field.

We looked at each other in horror.

“You didn't just hear a neigh, did you?” I asked, hoping I had imagined it.

“Uh, maybe?”

The blood drained from my face as I turned my bike and headed back down the hill. If I had dared to take a hand off my handlebars, I would have smacked myself on the forehead. How could I have forgotten that the Delanys kept horses? They were so proud of their trotters or pacers or whatever they called them.

We had to get back to the fence and fix it. Fast. Before the horses got in.

I was almost back to the boardwalk across the swamp when my heart sank. We were too late. One of the horses was not only inside the fenced-off area, it was in the swamp. It was struggling to pull its legs out of the mud, and the whites of its eyes were showing as it tossed its head and neighed.

Zach panicked. Maybe because he realized this was
all his fault.
“What is it doing in there?!” he screeched.

“Well, it's not line dancing,” I yelled back, my panic turning to anger as I realized I was going to be in it as deep as the horse if my mother or the Delanys found out.

Our screams scared the horse, and it struggled even more and sank even deeper into the mud.

A couple more horses were at the top of the rise, ready to head for the swamp.

“Zach, chase those other horses back into the field while I try to help this one.”

Zach dropped his bike and ran toward the horses, waving his arms. They scattered at the sight of him and turned back along the path to the dismantled fence. Then one skittered sideways and started down the incline toward the swamp.

“Get him! GET HIM!” I yelled, terrified we would soon have two horses stuck in the mud.

“I'm trying!”

“Take off your shirt.”

“What?”

“Take off your shirt and wave it like flag.”

The horse in the mud neighed again, and the loose one responded. They were probably telling each other what a bad idea it had been to go through that hole in the fence. It was exactly what Zach and I were thinking.

Zach whipped off his yellow T-shirt and held it out in front of him like a matador's cape.

I tried to get close to the stuck horse by stepping on some rocks. If I could grab its halter, maybe I could direct it out of the deep mud.

Zach inched toward the loose horse slowly, gently shaking the shirt. The horse eyed it suspiciously and took another step toward his pal in the swamp. Zach backed up to try and come between them.

I put one foot on a clump of grass. Neither Zach nor I made a sound in case we spooked the horses again. My fingers barely touched the halter. A couple more inches and I could get a hold of it.

Zach stepped back and to his left.

I stretched out as far as I could and curled my finger around the metal loop on the halter. I had him.

At the sudden pressure on his halter, the horse in the mud flung its head back, taking me with it. And there I hung, yelling, my legs kicking frantically, trying to find the ground again.

The other horse startled and lunged forward. Zach scrambled backward, lost his footing and toppled into the thick layer of muck.

“What in the blazes is going on?!”

The voice belonged to Mrs. Delany, and, man, did she sound furious.

Zach and I froze. He was sitting, shirtless, in the mud, and I was hanging in midair from the halter. I felt my cold fingers begin to slip, and I seemed to hover in the air for a second before I landed facedown in cold, slimy mud. It oozed between my fingers as I pushed myself back up.

“Of all the ignorant, irresponsible, clueless acts of vandalism I have ever seen…,” Mrs. Delany yelled. I was sure she had this lecture memorized. When her five sons were little, they were the terrors of Six Roads. She would have continued, I'm sure, but just then Mr. Delany appeared at the top of the rise.

“Get the tractor, Bill,” Mrs. Delany said. “Domino here is right stuck.”

She ignored us as she unclipped a lead line hanging from her jeans and walked slowly up to the loose horse, clipped the line to his halter and tied him to a nearby pine. Then she spoke softly to the horse in the mud until it calmed down and stopped struggling.

Zach and I pulled ourselves out of the mud and stood off to the side, shivering. I felt just about as stupid as I could be.

Mr. Delany came back on the tractor, and he and Mrs. Delany both ignored us as they attached a wide leather strap to one of the chains on the back of the tractor. It looked kind of like what tow trucks use. Mrs. Delany stood on the boards and slipped the strap under the horse's belly just behind its front legs and snapped the other end to another chain. Mr. Delany edged the tractor forward while Mrs. Delany pulled on the horse's halter and encouraged the horse to try and move.

It worked. He heaved and bucked out of the muck, then stood at the edge of the swamp while Mrs. Delany ran her hands down his muddy legs.

“Looks like he didn't pull or break anything.”

I let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding. The rest of the lecture was sure to come now. And our punishment.

“You should both know better.” She shook her head as she looked at us. What would it be? Mucking out the stables for a month? Checking and repairing all the fences around their sixty-acre property?

Nope. It was none of those things. In fact she didn't mention any punishment at all. The grossest chore in the world would have been easier to take than the words she said. “Wes, if your father could see you now, he would be sorely disappointed in you.”