Strays (5 page)

“Alone,” she said aloud.

“Not exactly.”

Sarah screamed then, loud and fierce and tearing her voice through the trees.  She even made a production of it, twisting about and flailing her arms, but this only sent her tumbling backwards, landing hard in the wet grass.  Somewhere in the sky, a low bellow of thunder answered, so unusual in this kind of rain, as if God were laughing at her.

She sat up as best she could, leaning back on her arms in a semi-crab crawl, and looked about for the source of the voice.  When she saw it, she was almost relieved.  Almost.

The boy was not tall, maybe five feet tops, and looked to be not much older than her.  He wore a dark pair of jeans that looked too large for him and a pale denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up.  His hands were thrust in his pockets.  He was not handsome, but neither was he unattractive.  His shock of red hair, cut high on the sides with bunched copper curls on the top was almost laughable.  The specks of freckle on either cheek made him look like a claymation figure.  At the same time, there was something familiar about his face, his small, pale eyes, and the twisted way he smiled at her.

It was a nice smile, playful and gentle.  It was the first time a boy had smiled at her without that narrow-eyed gleam that suggested he wanted something from her.

“What’s your name?” he asked.  His voice low, not the crackled cartoon voice she expected.  Still, she took a moment to answer.

“Sarah.”

The red-headed boy grinned.  “Hi, Sarah.  I’m Tom.  What are you doing out here?”

“You tell me,” she said.

“I asked first.”

“It’s none of your business, Tom, that’s what I’m doing out here.”

Tom nodded and peered around the clearing.  “You hungry?”

Sarah almost laughed, but it came out a choked grunt like the one the cat had made earlier.  “That’s good, Tom.  You’re like the first person to play that card on me.  Am I hungry?  What do you think?”

Tom said nothing, but he withdrew his left hand from his large jeans pocket and held it out to her.  In his palm was something bright and round, a deep red color to its skin with dots of yellow on its crest.  Sarah’s mouth began to water in spite of herself.

“You want it?” Tom asked.

Sarah fought the urge and looked away. “No … no thanks.”

“C’mon, it's just an apple.  Here.”

He gave his wrist a flick, and the apple tumbled through the air towards Sarah.  She reached up and caught it with both hands, clutching it down to her chest.  For a moment, she just sat there, feeling its texture, listening as her stomach barked at her again. 

“It’s yours,” Tom said.  “I can get plenty.”

“Where?”

“I know a place.”

Sarah pulled the apple away from her chest and looked at it.  “What’s the catch?”

“The catch is you’re hungry.  And I have an apple.  Food and hunger are two things that go well together, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Sarah said.  “I guess so, but …”

“Just eat the apple,” Tom said.  “Get back your strength.”

Sarah looked at him, tried to see his eyes to read them, but he was just far enough away that there was nothing to see.  After a moment, she took the apple to her mouth and took a bite.  She almost felt the crunch vibrate in her teeth, and when the juice squirted in her mouth she groaned.  It was the best apple she had ever tasted. 

When she had gnawed the apple down to the core, she plucked out the stem and ate the rest of it, chewing up what core-bits she could find, even crunching the seeds in her teeth.

“Careful,” said Tom.  “You swallow the seeds and an apple tree grows in your stomach.”

“That’s watermelon,” Sarah said.  “Watermelon seeds make watermelon grow in your stomach.”

“So what do apple seeds do?”

“Keep the doctor away, I don’t know.”

Tom laughed, and Sarah finished chewing the last bite.  “Better?” he asked.

“Better.”

“Still hungry?”

“Of course, but I'll live.”

“I can get more food if you want.”  He gazed about the clearing with lazy eyes, the class clown trying to be cool. 

“Where do you plan to get this?”

Tom pulled his right hand out of his pocket and pointed off in a direction away from where the rising sun once hovered beyond the tree line.  “There are some stores over that way.  About half a mile.  A grocery, a convenience store, even a McDonald’s, I think.”

“I don’t want McDonald’s.”  Another piece of rare goodness from her childhood had been ruined by Creepy Jack the previous night.

“So, what do you want?” asked Tom.  “More apples?”

“Who’s buying this little feast?” Sarah asked.

“I am.”

“You have money?”

“A little,” Tom said.  “But I have something better.  I have friends.”

Sarah frowned and brushed her hair out of her face.  “You have friends.”

“That’s right.”

“And they just give you food whenever you want.”

“Not exactly, but something like that.”

“And you want to give that food to me.”

“Not all of it,” Tom said.  “I’m kind of hungry myself.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Why do you keep asking that?”

“No body gives anyone anything without wanting something in return,” Sarah said.

“Some do,” said Tom.  “Some people do.”

“Not with me they don’t.”

Tom shook his head.  After a moment, he squatted down, still several feet away, but now with his eyes on the same level with Sarah as she sat in the damp grass.  “I’m sorry,” he said. 

Sarah waited for more.  There was none. 

“Look,” said Tom.  “I need to take care of you.”

“Need?”

“Yes.”

“Why
need
?”

“I can’t explain.  But I’m offering to help you, and the only thing I ask in return is that you let me do it.  Crazy as that sounds, that’s the way it is.”

Sarah studied his eyes, which were the color of Puget Sound on a sunny day.  She licked her lips and could still taste the juice of the apple there. 

“Okay,” she said.

Tom smiled.  He slowly rose to his feet, and after a moment, he took careful steps toward her until he was less than a yard in front of her bent knees.  He extended a hand.  Sarah thought about hesitating for dramatic effect, but something in her head—perhaps that voice she had heard in Creepy Jack’s car—was already dismissing any danger with a
laissez-faire
wave of its hands.  What the hell?

She took Tom’s hand.  Tom pulled her to her feet.

“Come on,” he said.  “I’ve got a place you can stay.”

The Camp

About twenty paces back into the woods they came upon Tom’s campsite.  It was a Spartan existence—two thick blankets folded on the ground for a makeshift mattress, a third blanket made of a plastic-type material with a silver lining hung from the trees by two corners with its opposite corners staked to the ground at a 45-degree angle.  A small pack rested near the tie-off tree, old canvas satchel with a long shoulder strap.  Off to one side, the edge of a boulder jutted out of the ground about four feet.

“There,” Tom said.  “Sit on those blankets.  This thing here—” he touched the hanging silver cover.  “It’s called a space blanket.  I hang it like this so it reflects the sun in the morning and makes the bed a little warmer.”

Sarah crouched and sat under the hanging space blanket, and indeed, it did feel a bit warmer under it.  Tom pointed up in the air to a break in the branches. 

“This time of year, the sun comes in there in the morning, and hits that reflective surface dead on.”

“The sun’s behind the clouds now,” Sarah said.  “But it’s still warm.”

“It holds the heat awhile.”

“How do you know these things?”

“I keep my eyes and ears open,” Tom replied.  “So, decided on breakfast yet?”

“Fruit, I guess.  And cheese.  Can you get some cheese?”

“I can get anything.”  He grinned at her and nodded and then turned to march back into the forest.  Just as he was almost gone, Sarah called out to him.

“Tom.”

The red-headed boy turned and sauntered back into the campsite.  “What’s up?”

“Did you see a cat earlier?”

“What’d he look like?”

“Orange,” Sarah said.  “With a white chest.  Tufted ears like a bobcat.”

“Sounds like the one.”

“Which one?”

“He’s a friend of mine, a close friend.  He’ll be around.”

Tom smiled and nodded again, then turned, darted back into the woods, and was gone.

*   *   *   *

It was just an eye-blink to Sarah.  She had sat cross-legged on the blankets, enjoying the reflected heat from the patch of pale slate sky that the space blanket afforded her, and in seconds her head drooped, her mind drifted, and she was in a distant place.  Whatever happened there was wiped clean by something moist and cool rubbing against her arm, which had draped to one side as she slept in semi-lotus.  Sarah opened her eyes …

… and the cat was there.  He sat at attention next to her crooked left knee, staring up at her with his large green eyes.

“Hey,” Sarah said and reached to scratch his head.

The cat leaned into her hand, arching his head back, his mouth opened slightly.  From Sarah’s angle, it appeared that he was smiling.  He did not purr outright, at least not loud enough for Sarah to hear it in the woods, but he sat for a moment, clearly enjoying the contact, and then dipped his head to nudge her knee. 

“What’s your name?” Sarah asked.  “What’re you doing out here alone?”

The cat did not answer, of course, but he just continued to nudge her hand, then rubbed his face against her leg to leave his scent.  Content with his work, he arched his neck again to receive more affection. 

Once the cat had enough, he sprang up onto all fours and trotted around behind the space blanket.  Sarah pushed herself to her feet, peering over the lean-to, searching the forest for that candy-cane tail, but the cat was much faster now and had already disappeared.  She let out a sigh through pursed lips and sat back down on the blanket. 

Alone again, as always.  Tom had gone, the cat had gone.  And to be honest, she didn’t know where she was.  She had earlier been able to guess at which way was north, but that was only when the sun was rising.  Now, with mid-morning approaching and that thin layer of dirty-cream clouds in the sky, the light from the sun seemed to spread out in the haze, its natural position lost to the naked eye.  Sarah could no more find the sun through those clouds than she could find the belt of Orion in daylight, which meant that any sense of direction she had was now lost.

After a time, she heard the footsteps again.  She pushed her hands against her knees, rising to her feet just in time to see Tom moving through the trees toward her.  He held two white plastic bags with blue printing on them, their handles stretched from the weight of their cargo as they swung at his sides.  When he entered the camp, he set them on the blanket bed.

“Oranges, apples,” he said, pointing at the first bag.  “Bag of baby carrots.  Some bottled water.  Oh, and a small block of cheese, Tillamook, I think.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said.

“What are you waiting for?  Dig in.”

Sarah crouched next to the bag on her knees and pulled out the block of cheese first.  As she was tearing open the package, Tom pointed at the second bag.

“Those are for you as well.”

“What are they?”

“They had some clothes on the racks at the truck stop down on 216th.”

“We’re that far south?”

“Pretty much,” Tom said.  “Anyway, you look like you’ve been in those clothes a few days, so I got you a couple t-shirts, and there were a couple pair of slacks that might fit.  Also grabbed a belt for good measure.  They didn’t have anything else.  Looks like all the clothes you have are on your back.”

Sarah got the wrapping off the end of the cheese block and took a large bite.  She chewed and swallowed before she spoke.  “I threw some clothes in a plastic bag before I ran, but I lost it along the way.”

“How long you been on the tramp?” Tom asked.

“The tramp?”

“You know, on the walkabout, the road, whatever this vagabond thing is you’re doing?”

“I’m not a vagabond,” Sarah said.

“You’re a wanderer, aren’t you?”  Tom smiled and shook his head.  “That’s all a vagabond is, a person who wanders.”

Sarah considered this and nodded.  “I guess I’m a vagabond.”

Tom nodded.  He turned away and sauntered over to the boulder.  With a quick leap, he sprang, catching his foot on the shelf of the boulder and teetered forward until he was atop the fat chunk of stone.  He spun on his foot with uncanny grace, twirling back to face Sarah, and then squatted on his heels, legs bent, hips slightly suspended, elbows resting on his knees.  To Sarah, he looked like Batman, crouching on the parapet of some building high over Gotham, and despite that blinding red hair and goofy freckled grin, he looked older, wiser, at that moment.

“So,” Tom said.  “What’s your story, Sarah the Vagabond?”

“What do you mean?”

“Young girl, out in the woods alone.  What’s wrong with this picture?”

Sarah turned away, reaching into the plastic bag.  She groped about until she found an orange, withdrew it and started peeling with her fingers.  “Not much to tell.”

“I doubt that,” Tom said.

“Why don’t you tell me
your
story?” Sarah asked, her face turned to the orange in her hands.  “What’s a boy like you doing out here acting like Huck Finn?”

“Huck Finn?” Tom asked.  “I always felt closer to Tom Sawyer.”

Sarah stopped her orange-peeling and looked up at him.  Tom was still there, crouched like a superhero, elbows on his knees.  He offered a thin smile, and then a soft nod, dipping his chin once, his eyes never leaving her.  There was something in that nod, something assuring, the way a father (or at least the fathers she saw on TV) would nod to assure a reluctant child that it was okay to climb higher on the monkey bars. 

“Are we going to talk here?” Tom asked.  “Or am I just going to watch you eat all morning?”

Sarah smiled back and returned her attention back to the half-peeled orange in her hand.  “I ran away,” she said simply.