Hideout Page 12

  Grover stared at me. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Nobody has hideouts anymore. That’s like from old movies. Like fifty years ago.”

  “Davey’s got all this money, Grover. Like thousands of dollars. He said his brother gave it to him. And he just wants a family so bad that he doesn’t even ask where it came from. He doesn’t even want it. He tried to give it to me. But I know they stole it. Officer Stockton, the same guy who found you today, came to our house and told us about a fish market that got robbed and described a boat that looks just like theirs.”

  “So let me get this straight. You have a new friend who’s a homeless thief? And being friends with him is an upgrade from me?”

  “Davey’s not a thief, Grover. His brother is. Davey’s in big trouble, and he won’t admit it.”

  “Well, where’s their dad? Is he a thief, too?”

  “I don’t know. He still hadn’t gotten there by the time I left. Davey said he’s not a thief, but there’s a lot of it that doesn’t add up. Anyway, Davey doesn’t care. He won’t give up hope that they can be some kind of normal family again.”

  Grover reached over to his bedside table and grabbed a glass of water. He took a sip and set it down. “I don’t know much about normal families,” he said, “but I don’t think there’s any chance of them being normal.”

  “I just left him out there, Grover. I feel really bad about it.”

  “You’ve been leaving a lot of people lately.”

  “I know. I feel bad about everything.”

  “I can’t believe I talked Natalia into taking me to church last Sunday. What a waste.” Grover looked out the window for a moment.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He frowned. “I didn’t mean what I said about your dad. Or your mom.”

  “I know. You were just upset.”

  “Your dad is five times the man my dad is. And I’d give anything to have your mother. Natalia’s more like a mom to me than anybody. But nobody needs a mom they order around and call by their first name.”

  “I’ve never heard you order her around.”

  “Well, I could…”

  I didn’t mean to smile, but it just came out as relief washed over me that Grover was no longer upset with me.

  “So what are you going to do about Davey?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Dad said sometimes you have to try and help people even when you think they don’t want it.”

  “I don’t imagine your dad knows about your outlaw friend in the swamp?”

  “Funny.”

  “Why don’t you tell him? Get Davey’s brother and friends arrested. Get your dad to handle it.”

  “Davey says they’ll send him back to a foster home. He says he’ll drown himself before he lets that happen. He told me how he got treated at the last one, and I don’t blame him for thinking that way.”

  “So you just have to go talk him into it.”

  “I’ve tried.”

  “I didn’t think you were ever going to talk to me again, Sam. If you hadn’t come over here today, I might have done something else stupid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean just what your dad said: sometimes you think a person doesn’t want your help, but they do.”

  29

  I left Grover’s house feeling lighter, the weight of our arguments finally off me. Although my stomach was heavy, because Natalia had fixed us some big sandwiches for supper.

  I slept well for the first time in many nights. When I got up, Dad was gone but Mom was still at the house. She said she was going in to work a little late and wanted to have breakfast with me. She scrambled some eggs and brought them to the dining room table and set them before me with a glass of milk. Then she went back into the kitchen and returned with a cup of coffee and sat in the chair across from me and watched me eat. It didn’t bother me. I was used to her doing that. Like she was remembering things and maybe a little sad for some reason.

  “How are things with Grover?” she asked.

  “He’s got a cast on and a lot of bandages, but he seems to be doing okay.”

  “I mean with you and Grover.”

  “Dad told you?”

  Mom nodded.

  “It’s okay now,” I said.

  “You two have been through a lot together. Whether you realize it or not, he’s always going to be a close friend.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You don’t always get to pick your friends, you know. Sometimes they pick you. And those are the best kind.”

  “Sometimes he’s just so annoying.”

  “I’ve never had a friend who wasn’t just a little bit annoying in some way.”

  “He can be real annoying in lots of ways.”

  Mom smiled like she understood. “Grover’s got a lot of character,” she said. “That’s what makes him interesting.”

  “Yeah,” I said. And everything about Grover suddenly made sense. “It’s like he’s so boring that he’s not boring,” I said.

  Mom raised her eyebrows and nodded like she hadn’t thought of it that way.

  “But we’re fine,” I said. “It’s all fine.”

  Mom seemed relieved, and I saw that the hint of sadness in her eyes was gone.

  “Anything else you want to talk to me about?” she asked.

  I took a drink of milk and shook my head slowly like I couldn’t think of anything. Then I did think of something I’d been wanting to ask. And I thought it was the perfect time to steer the conversation in another direction.

  “Actually,” I said, “I do have one thing.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “You told me once that our church helps people find foster homes.”

  Mom looked a little surprised. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve actually been part of that process. They place several children a year with new families.”

  “Does it usually work? I mean, are the kids happy?”

  “There’s always exceptions, but I think they’ve been successful. According to the files I’ve seen, most of the kids have ended up being adopted, and a lot of them have gone on to college and done just fine for themselves.”

  “What if a kid didn’t like his new family?”

  Mom eyed me suspiciously. “What’s with the sudden interest in foster homes?”

  “I’m just curious,” I said. “You never talk much about what you do.”

  “Well, I typically just help with the paperwork. There’s a volunteer group that does most of the placement.”

  “So you would know if it didn’t work?”

  “It works. They spend a lot of time interviewing the families and making sure they think it’s a good match for both the child and the parents.”

  “Do they go and check on them to see if they’re okay?”

  “Sometimes. The state is also supposed to check on them.”

  “Has the church ever found out the parents were being mean?”

  “Like abuse? No, never anything like that. All of the families we’ve worked with have been good people.”

  “But how would you know?”

  “If you’ve done it as long as we have, you get a certain feeling about things. We can generally tell who’s fit to be a foster parent and who’s not.”

  I nodded to myself.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  She brushed her hair behind her ear and stood.

  “I better get to work,” she said.

  “All right,” I said. “Dad wants me to mow the lawn, and then I might take the boat out.”

  “Okay. Wear your flotation vest and be safe.”

  Later, I got the lawn mower out of the shed, gassed it, checked the oil, and generally took my time checking it over. Then I pull-started it and began pushing it over the lawn in a slow, deliberate pattern. I felt good to be doing something I knew was right and responsible. It felt good to put off my return to the swamp for a few more hours and lose my thoughts
behind the steady engine noise. I really didn’t want to think any more about it. I really didn’t want to go.

  * * *

  Although it had only been a couple of days since I’d been there, the swamp seemed like a different place. I was no longer scared of the black water and the looming trees and the isolation and the quiet. I felt like an expert now. Like there was no way I couldn’t get in and out without trouble.

  When I finally slowed at the mouth of Ware Bayou cicadas were starting to buzz in the trees as late-afternoon summer heat settled over me. Even though I was still several bends away from Davey’s camp, I listened anyway, half expecting to hear him and the others across the miles of emptiness. I heard nothing but the insects and the reeds swishing to the disturbance of my boat wake. I motored slowly around the deadhead and continued on.

  When I came around the last bend I saw no one on the deck. Slade’s boat was tied up, but Davey’s canoe was gone and the catfish jugs had been left untended and were tangled in the weeds. I shut off my motor and drifted to the dock. I looked and listened. There was loose trash lying about, and the grill was out like someone had been there recently. But I heard nothing.

  “Hello?” I said quietly as I got out of the boat and went up to the camp.

  No one answered. The confidence I’d been feeling on the trip out was quickly ebbing away. There was something eerie about being here at the camp. It was no longer Davey’s playhouse. It was something more serious now. Something sinister and uninviting.

  I walked onto the deck of the camp. It didn’t seem like they’d made any repairs since I’d left. The front door was still missing, and there was a pile of loose nails at my feet. I continued inside and saw blankets and sleeping bags piled on the floor and hanging sloppily from the bunk. I saw Baldy’s pot on the kitchen counter next to some fly-covered McDonald’s trash, empty beer cartons, and a half-empty two-liter bottle of Coke.

  I walked back out onto the deck and looked down to where Davey’s canoe had been. The marsh grass was still flattened and the drag marks were fresh. It wasn’t possible that all four of them had left in Davey’s canoe. It didn’t make sense that the camp was abandoned with Slade’s boat still there.

  Unless someone had come and gotten them.

  My eyes wandered up and studied the trail leading into the trees. There were fresh footprints in the mud.

  “Davey?” I said. But I didn’t say it loud enough for anyone to hear. I don’t think I wanted anyone to hear. I certainly didn’t want to go up that trail. Somehow I knew that whatever was back there wasn’t something I wanted to see. I’d known this since the first time Davey had pointed it out and acted like he didn’t know what it was.

  I dropped down into the marsh grass and walked over to the muddy footpath. The buzz of cicadas was suddenly louder as I approached the gap in the vines and palmettos that created something like a cave entrance into the depths of the swamp. Mosquitoes hung in the air and whined about my face. Beyond, there was only darkness and shadow and the rich smell of rotten vegetation.

  I swept the vines from my face and pushed through the palmettos and stepped into the damp, shadowy bottomland. The swamp was more open than I’d imagined beyond the wall of thicket lining the creek bank. The canopy rose far overhead and closed above me. I only saw the sunlight in dappled patches, far up in the tops of the trees and sometimes falling on a single palmetto frond near my hand. I heard strange birdcalls that I hadn’t noticed before, shrill and distant. I looked at my feet and saw the footprints beckoning me into the dim light.

  I pushed on slowly, waving the mosquitoes from my face, my ears trained on every sound, but only hearing the faraway birdcalls. Always in the distance like they were constantly moving away from me. I kept going until finally I heard the birds behind me. I stopped and turned in a circle, and everything looked the same. If I hadn’t had the trail, I knew I’d be lost. And suddenly the fear that I’d lose the trail gripped me, and I studied my own footprints until the fear subsided. Then I was left with my heavy breathing and an instant thirst and was wishing I’d thought to bring water. I slapped a mosquito on my cheek. The birdcalls came to my ears again. And something else this time. I thought I heard voices.

  “Davey?” I said. The sound of my own voice frightened me, and I was glad I hadn’t spoken loud enough for anyone to hear. If I’d really heard voices at all. If I hadn’t imagined it.

  I took a deep breath and continued up the trail, wishing the raspy palmettos brushing across my waist weren’t so loud. Wishing I could hear better. Then I did hear something. Someone let out a shout in the distance, and I stopped and stared in the direction it came from. I trained my eyes on the weave of vines and fronds, studying the patterns they made against the tree trunks. Slowly I looked off-trail to my left. My eyes passed, then jerked back to something that seemed out of place. My heart leaped in my chest when I saw the doll face staring back at me. Slade standing still as a statue, partially camouflaged against the backdrop of the swamp.

  30

  It seemed that Slade studied me for a full minute, as if he wasn’t sure I saw him. And then he said, “Kid,” and the sound of his voice came to me like he was closer than he looked.

  “Where’s Davey?” I said.

  He began walking, pressing through the palmettos. When he reached the trail in front of me he turned on it and came toward me until he was standing over me. His doll face was slick and sweaty, and his hands were dirty like he’d been digging in the mud.

  “He’s not here,” Slade said in a way that scared me. In a way that told me I wasn’t welcome.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, like he was saying one thing but thinking another.

  “I just—”

  “You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Didn’t you get the idea we don’t want you around?”

  I didn’t know how to answer him. “I just wanted to talk to Davey,” I said.

  “Why don’t you talk to me? What is it you need to tell him so bad?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Slade!” someone shouted.

  I looked past him and saw Fred coming down the trail.

  “What are you doin’?” Fred said.

  “Come here, Fred,” Slade said without taking his eyes off me.

  Then Fred came closer and saw me. “What’s he doin’ here?”

  “He came to help us,” Slade said.

  Fred stopped beside him and looked at me. “What?”

  “Yeah,” Slade continued. “Let’s show him what we need him to do.”

  Fred looked at him in disbelief. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

  Slade turned to him. “No,” he said. “He just got himself a job. And solved one of our problems.”

  * * *

  There was nowhere to run, no one to call for help. I had no choice but to follow Fred with Slade right behind me. We continued down the trail until we came to a small open area where there was more sunlight. At the other side of the clearing Jesse was sitting on a log drinking from a jug of water. It made me feel better to see him. I had gotten the sense that he was the only one of them who might protect Davey—and me—from Slade. When he saw me he lowered the jug and a worried look came over him.

  “What are you doin’ with him?” Jesse said.

  “He came lookin’ for Davey,” Fred replied.

  Jesse shook his head. “So you couldn’t just take him back to the camp?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Slade said. “We need him.”

  Jesse set down the jug and stood and used the back of his arm to wipe sweat from his forehead. “There’s no way this can be good, Slade,” he said.

  “I’m not askin’ for your opinion,” Slade said.

  Jesse frowned and kept his eyes on Fred until Fred looked away.

  Slade pointed at the ground. “You know what that is, kid?”

  I studied it. A
t first I didn’t notice anything special about it except for the sunlight falling across the tops of the plants. Then I noticed that the plants were different from any others I’d passed. They were tall and leafy.

  “No,” I said.

  “That’s marijuana.”

  I stared at it and swallowed. “You mean, like the drug?” I said.

  Slade chuckled. “Yeah, like the drug.”

  I looked at Jesse. He had his jaw clenched, staring off into the trees like he was trying to keep from saying anything.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” I said, hearing my voice crack.

  “Well, you do now,” Jesse said, stomping past us and back down the trail.

  “Hey—” Fred started to say something to Jesse.

  “Let him go,” Slade interrupted.

  “I just want to talk to Davey for a little while and then go home,” I said.

  “That’s fine,” Slade said. “We’re gonna let you go home. But you’re gonna take some of this with you. And you’re gonna take it to a friend of mine.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said.

  Suddenly Slade grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me close to him. I saw the sweat beads rolling down his face. I smelled the sour beer and cigarette stench of his breath. “I’m not askin’ you what you want,” he hissed. “Playtime’s over. You got yourself into this, and now you’re a part of it. And if you screw it up, I’m gonna come to your house on Acorn Drive and kill you in your sleep.”

  My mind raced with fear at the thought of Slade creeping through my house at night and standing over me with a knife. And I had no doubt that he’d do it. Leroy Parnell and Gooch were nothing compared to this guy. They were just dumb kids. Slade was the real deal.

  I had no choice but to follow them back up the trail to the camp. They weren’t turning to check on me, and I thought about running, but we all knew there was nowhere for me to go. And Slade’s threat had me paralyzed with fear.

  “Where you think Jesse ran off to?” Fred said.