Hideout Page 16

  “Geez,” I said.

  “We had to pick a direction,” he said.

  I smiled and would have laughed with him if I hadn’t been so concerned that we still didn’t have any idea where we were.

  “Sometimes you can lie if it helps people,” he said.

  I grabbed the flare and stood. “Come on.”

  39

  I picked another tree and started through the palmettos toward it with Davey following.

  “Stupid owls,” I said. “I can’t believe you thought of that.”

  Davey laughed to himself quietly.

  We pushed through the underbrush for a couple of hours before dawn seeped through the canopy and the swamp revealed itself in shades of gray. I stopped and looked over my shoulder and saw the sky lighter behind us.

  “We’re headed west,” I said. “The Pascagoula River should be somewhere in front of us. But I thought we’d have gotten to it by now.”

  “We’ll make it,” Davey said.

  I looked at him. His hair was littered with sticks and leaves. His arms and legs were covered in palmetto cuts. But he smiled at me like he didn’t know about or feel any of it.

  “At least it’s getting daylight,” I said.

  “I’ve never stayed up all night before.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “Are you tired?”

  He shook his head. “No. Let’s keep walkin’. I’ll bet we’re close.”

  I was tired. My legs ached and my face and arms burned from the palmetto cuts. I wanted to lie down and sleep. Then I reminded myself that we had to get somewhere we could be found. Somewhere a boat might pass.

  As the swamp grew lighter squirrels began to chatter and leap through the treetops. Birds called and flitted about the underbrush. The swamp gradually filled with the comforting sounds of life, even if it was just animal life.

  I heard an osprey cheeping from far overhead and I knew the river was ahead of us before I saw it. When I finally stared through the trees at the black water, I felt relief wash over me. I didn’t know what part of the river it was, but at least we’d come to the end of that terrible place behind us. I sat on a log and watched Davey approach.

  “I told you,” he said.

  He sat down beside me while I pulled out the flare and studied it.

  “Think it’ll work?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. We kept it as dry as we could.”

  “How do you use it?”

  “I’m reading the directions.”

  “Maybe we should wait until we see somebody,” he said. “A boat will probably come along soon.”

  He was right. We should wait. I looked up again and studied the empty river.

  “How come you’re not worried about anything anymore?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Are you thinking about your dad?”

  “For a while I was tryin’ to remember his face. What he looked like.”

  “I guess it’s been a long time since you saw him.”

  Davey nodded. “Since I was a little kid.”

  The osprey cheeped again and I looked up and saw it pass over the middle of the river.

  “I thought I would be sadder,” Davey said.

  “You acted pretty upset when you ran off from Slade. I thought you were gonna drown yourself.”

  “But I don’t think I was sad,” he said. “I just didn’t know what to do anymore. It didn’t seem like there was anyplace else to go.”

  I studied the flare again, not knowing what to say.

  “It feels good to finally know.”

  “Know what?”

  “That I won’t ever have a dad. That Slade doesn’t care about me. That I don’t have to think about anybody comin’ for me … At least now I know.”

  I started to reply, but then I heard something. A faint buzzing in the distance.

  Suddenly Davey leaped up. “I hear a boat!” he said.

  I stood. “Yeah,” I said.

  “Get the flare ready!” he said.

  I hurried to the riverbank and looked downriver, where the engine sound was coming from. The boat was still out of sight. Davey came up behind me and peered over my shoulder.

  “Hurry!” he said.

  But for some reason I hesitated.

  “Let’s wait until we see it,” I said. “Back up.”

  I heard leaves crunch as Davey took a step back. I kept my eyes trained on the river bend. Then I watched the boat race around the point. To my horror, I saw that it was Slade.

  “Run!” I yelled.

  But I knew he saw us. He swung the jon to the right and headed straight for us. I spun and ran into Davey.

  “Go!” I yelled. “It’s Slade!”

  Davey didn’t move. I looked at him and his face was colorless like the life had gone out of him. I grabbed his arm and pulled at him desperately, but he wouldn’t budge. I shoved him and he fell back into the leaves. Then I rushed to him and grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him up.

  “Get up!”

  He jerked his hand away.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t see.”

  “You can follow me! Get up!”

  He shook his head. “That won’t work, Sam. I’ll just slow us down. You know that.”

  The roar of Slade’s boat was so close it seemed he was about to run us over.

  I bent over and tried to grab him again, but he rolled away and backed against a tree and locked his arms over his chest.

  “Go, Sam,” he said calmly. “You can come find me again.”

  I didn’t know what to do. I saw Slade’s boat in my periphery, bearing down on us, not fifty yards away now.

  “If he gets both of us, we don’t have a chance,” Davey said.

  I took a step back.

  “Please come find me,” he said again.

  I nodded. I heard the tone of the outboard change, and then I heard it crash into the underbrush. I turned and ran. I tripped and fell over a cypress knee and dropped the flare. I scrambled to my feet and left it and kept on. I had a sudden thought that maybe Slade had a gun and he was pointing it at my back and the fear of it went white-hot up my spine. I fell again and this time crawled behind a tree and stood and peered around it.

  Slade was standing over Davey, not a hundred feet away, watching me. He didn’t appear to have a gun. He studied me for a few seconds more, then looked down at Davey.

  “Get up!” he commanded.

  Davey looked at his knees and shook his head.

  Slade kicked him in the shoulder and knocked him over into the leaves.

  “Leave him alone!” I yelled.

  Slade looked at me. “Why don’t you come over here and save him, kid?”

  I stepped from behind the tree and faced him.

  Slade kept his eyes on me, the creepy doll face boring into me. After a moment he smiled and looked back down at Davey.

  “You see,” he said. “I’m the only person who cares about you.”

  Davey said something I couldn’t make out.

  Slade bent over and grabbed him and pulled him up and shoved him back against the tree. “Look at me!”

  But Davey wouldn’t look up. He began to tremble. Then he started to lift his hands to his face and Slade slapped them away. Davey sniffled and rubbed his eyes.

  “I thought we were family,” Slade said. “But I guess you’re no better than the rest.”

  “He doesn’t want to go with you!” I shouted. “Just leave him alone!”

  Slade looked at me. “Where’s the money?”

  “I told you. I left it on the creek bank. Hanging on a tree.”

  He continued to study me.

  “We don’t have it,” I said. “How could we have it?”

  Then I knew. Jesse had come back and found the money. He couldn’t help himself.

  Slade turned to Davey again. “Get in the boat,” he said.

  “Jesse’s got the money!” I said.

  Slade pulled Davey from the
tree and shoved him toward the boat. Then he turned back to me. “And now I’ve got insurance that you’ll keep your mouth shut. You say a word about anything you’ve seen or heard out here, and I’ll kill him and dump him with his dad.”

  I froze. I couldn’t make words in my mouth. I realized that I was face-to-face with true evil, and I was nothing up against it.

  Slade looked at the ground and saw the flare. He stepped over to it and picked it up. Then he tossed it into the river as he started for the boat. I saw that Davey was already sitting on the front seat. I stood there helplessly as Slade climbed past him, started the engine, and backed away. When I heard the motor shift into forward gear it somehow snapped me out of my state and I began running toward them.

  “I’ll get you more money!” I yelled. I didn’t know where the idea had come from, but it was all I could think of.

  I broke from the trees and splashed into the river until the water was up to my chest. The boat was already racing away. I saw Davey in the front seat with his back to me.

  “Davey!” I yelled.

  He didn’t turn around.

  40

  I watched as Slade’s boat raced away toward the first bend in the river, and I was certain that I wouldn’t see Davey again. I’d never felt such a sense of helplessness, and I began coughing like I wanted to cry but there were no tears. I tried to yell again, even though I knew it was useless. I bent over and rested my hands on my knees and coughed at the water, then looked up again and stared after them.

  Just as Slade was about to turn out of sight I saw another boat roar around the bend and pass him. I stopped coughing and stared at it like it was only something in my imagination. Officer Stockton’s patrol boat slowed while Slade’s jon slammed into his wake and clattered over it.

  I stood up and raised my arms slowly. Then I began to believe what I was seeing, and I started waving my hands in the air.

  “Over here!” I shouted. “Hey!”

  The patrol started to make a slow turn in the middle of the river.

  “Help!” I shouted.

  The boat slowed and drifted for a moment like the driver was considering going after Slade.

  “Help!” I shouted again.

  Then it began turning back. Its engine groaned as the vessel dug into the water and lifted and came for me. I watched my father hurry out of the wheelhouse and scramble to the bow.

  * * *

  Dad leaped into the shallows of the river, still wearing his uniform from work. He waded to me and hugged me to his chest.

  “Thank God,” he said.

  The patrol boat backed up beside us and stopped. Officer Stockton came onto the deck and looked down at us.

  “You okay, son?” Dad asked.

  I nodded against him. “He took him, Dad,” I said.

  “Let’s get him in the boat, Roger,” Officer Stockton said with urgency.

  Dad let go of me as Officer Stockton reached his hand out and I grabbed it.

  “Dad,” I said, “my friend’s in that other boat. We have to get him.”

  Officer Stockton lifted me over the gunnels and led me around to the wheelhouse. We went inside, and he pointed to a jump seat against the wall, but I didn’t want to sit.

  “We have to hurry,” I said.

  “You know those people?”

  “Yes,” I said desperately. “It’s my friend and his stepbrother.”

  Dad was coming up a ladder at the stern of the boat, dripping wet in his clothes.

  “I think that’s the boat I’ve been looking for,” Officer Stockton continued.

  “It is,” I said. “But my friend didn’t have anything to do with it. And I think his stepbrother’s going to hurt him.”

  I watched Officer Stockton’s face grow tight and stern. “Get in here, Roger,” he said.

  Dad walked through the wheelhouse door and pulled me to him again. “Just glad you’re safe,” he said. “I don’t even care—”

  “Hold on,” Officer Stockton interrupted.

  The engines roared beneath our feet, and the boat tilted as the stern dug into the water. Dad and I were pressed against the back wall of the wheelhouse.

  “We’ve got to catch them, Dad.”

  “We’ll catch them,” Officer Stockton said with confidence.

  And once we were racing down the river I had no doubt that we would. I’d never been in a boat so powerful and fast. The riverbank raced by like we were on a highway and I was watching trees out the car window. As we carved the bends in the river, Officer Stockton gently and precisely turned the steering wheel with the palm of his hand and kept his eyes trained on the water ahead. It seemed like only moments later we were running over the frothy white trail of Slade’s boat. Then around the next bend was a straight part of the river, and I saw the boat itself.

  Dad let go of me and stepped out from against the wall and got next to the wheel. Officer Stockton grabbed his radio handset and keyed the mic.

  “Dispatch, this is Unit Two. I’m on the West Pascagoula just south of Crane Lakes. I’m ten-forty-three, in pursuit of a robbery suspect.”

  “Ten-four, Unit Two. Are you requesting backup?”

  “Negative. No backup at this time.”

  “Ten-four, Unit Two. No backup at this time. We’ve got your coordinates and will be on standby for further instructions.”

  Officer Stockton replaced the handset, keeping his eyes on Slade’s boat.

  “How you wanna do this, Jim?” Dad asked.

  Officer Stockton reached overhead and flipped a switch on the ceiling. I heard a siren wail from the roof, and the insides of the gunnels strobed with blue and white light.

  “We’ll let him decide,” Officer Stockton said.

  Dad glanced at him and nodded.

  A moment later Officer Stockton cut the wheel and roared between Slade and the riverbank. Then he slowed the boat until we were running alongside and towering over them. I saw Davey watching us, his eyes wide with fear. Slade looked at us once, his doll face emotionless and evil-looking, then he set his sights on the river again, as much as saying there was no way he was going to surrender.

  Officer Stockton grabbed another mic from the ceiling and spoke into it. I heard his voice boom from a loudspeaker on the roof.

  “Pull your vessel over and shut off your engine!”

  Slade ignored him.

  “Sam?” Officer Stockton said over his shoulder.

  “Sir?” I said.

  “Do you know if he has a gun?”

  “I haven’t seen him with one, but I don’t know.”

  Officer Stockton nodded. “Roger,” he said, “take that AR-15 off the wall, unload it, and get on the deck with it.”

  Dad turned and removed the assault rifle from its rack. He pulled the clip, dropped it in his pocket, and worked the action, making sure there wasn’t a shell in the chamber. Then he turned to me and said, “Stay inside.”

  I nodded.

  Officer Stockton shoved down on the throttle, and we raced ahead of Slade’s boat. Dad left the wheelhouse and walked up to the bow, holding a handrail with one hand and the assault rifle with the other. After a moment he steadied himself at the front window and turned back to look at us. He gave Officer Stockton a nod. I felt the boat lean into a turn, and I grabbed hold of a strap on the ceiling and hung there. Then the patrol boat slowed and sat down in the water. We were sideways in the channel, with Slade’s boat bearing down like it would ramp over us. Dad stepped to the center of the bow, brought the assault rifle to his shoulder, and leveled it right at them.

  It’s not loaded, Davey, I thought to myself, like maybe he could hear me.

  Even with an AR-15 pointed at his head, it didn’t appear Slade was going to slow. I watched Davey grab one side of the boat and scoot over to it like he was thinking of jumping out. It suddenly crossed my mind that Slade was going to kill both of them.

  “Come on,” Officer Stockton mumbled. “Think about it.”

  I saw his hand
pressed against the throttle, ready to shove it forward in an instant. Dad stepped closer to the railing and re-shouldered the rifle with emphasis. Slade’s boat was going to hit us dead-on in seconds.

  “Come on,” Officer Stockton said again, with more urgency in his voice.

  At the last instant it must have crossed Slade’s mind that he didn’t want to kill himself. He slowed and shoved the tiller hard to his left. But it was too late. They were too close and going too fast.

  Officer Stockton turned and yanked me to him and squeezed me tight against his hip. His free hand darted up and grabbed another overhead strap.

  “Hold on!” he yelled.

  I saw Dad drop to the deck and disappear from my sight. Then there was a loud, hollow, metallic bang that rocked the patrol boat.

  41

  Officer Stockton shoved me aside and dashed out of the wheelhouse. I saw Dad on his feet again, and then both of them were leaning over the side of the patrol boat. I rushed to the window and watched as they pulled Slade from below and rolled him over the gunnels. They flopped him onto the deck, and Officer Stockton pinned him with one knee on his back, already reaching for his handcuffs. Dad straightened and searched the river as he kicked off his shoes. The wrecked jon boat appeared, drifting away from us. Davey wasn’t in it.

  “You see him, Roger?”

  “No!”

  “He ejected! I saw him eject!” Officer Stockton yelled.

  Dad turned in a circle, inspecting the water all around us.

  “I don’t see him, Jim!”

  Officer Stockton left Slade facedown on the deck, cuffed and moaning. He hurried to the stern and searched the water.

  “Got him!” Dad shouted.

  Dad vaulted the railing and I saw water splash above the gunnels. Officer Stockton spun and grabbed a throw ring hanging outside the wheelhouse. He rushed to the bow, hesitated, then hurled it in Dad’s direction. It was attached to a rope, and he held on to the end as the rest uncoiled. Then I saw Davey floating facedown in the river and Dad swimming for him. Dad turned him over and got behind him and put his arm around his chest. Then he sidestroked the limp body to the throw ring and grabbed hold. Officer Stockton began pulling them to us.

  I came out of the wheelhouse, wanting to help. I stood behind Officer Stockton as he dragged Davey over the stern and laid him on the deck. Davey’s eyes were closed and his face was pale. Officer Stockton knelt over him, tilted his head back, and began performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He blew into him twice, then straightened and used the palms of his hands to pump Davey’s chest.