Valerie Malmont - Death, Snow, and Mistletoe

“You go for help,” she said to me. Her voice was calm and confident.

“ You go,” I said.

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. “You wouldn't shoot him if he got loose.” The coldness in her blue eyes said she would if she had to.

Somehow, I found strength I didn't know I had and ran down the trail to the road in only a few minutes. Luck was with me, for a pickup truck, with a dead deer strapped to the hood, came by almost immediately and stopped. I explained to the driver, in a rush, what had happened, and he called for help on his cell phone. He was familiar with the ruins of the old furnace and described to the dispatcher exactly where we were.

He grabbed his rifle from the window rack, retrieved a first-aid kit from the toolbox in the back, and followed me into the woods.

Pearl sat on a rock, gun on her lap, watching Peter, who had stopped struggling. The malevolent gleam in his wild eyes made me pray the tape held.

The kind stranger climbed down into the pit to look after Kevin. “I think he'll be okay,” he called up to me. “Hand me my first-aid kit. I'll stay with him till the ambulance gets here.”

I sat down next to Pearl.

“Well?” I said, not looking at her. “You going to tell me what this is all about?”

The story she told chilled me to the bone. The three children-Kevin, Peter, and Pearl-had been playing on the hill beside the furnace, when Kevin had tumbled into the chimney.

“He was hurt bad,” Pearl said, “and scared, and crying. That's when Peter called him a crybaby and throwed rocks at him. I told Peter to cut it out, but he kept on. I pulled him off the wall, but Kevin was all bloody and wasn't moving, and I thought he was dead.

“I was afraid we'd get in trouble, so to make sure nobody would find him, we covered him with branches and leaves. Then we went home and made up the story about Kevin going home by hisself.”

“But why didn't you try to get help for him?” I asked.

Pearl started to cry, and for the first time I remembered I was talking to a child. “We was real scared. I thought if we done told, they'd take Peter away and stick him in jail forever. I always done took care of him-nobody else does-and I knew if they took him away, then he wouldn't have nobody. Now, they'll do it anyway.”

I put my arms around her. “Peter won't go to jail,” I said. “There are people who can help him.”

She sobbed into my chest. “Promise? I think there's something wrong with him. Ever since he was a little kid, he always liked to pull bugs apart and watch them squirm. And cut up mice and little animals.” She cried, “I kept telling him to stop, but he wouldn't. Last summer he done poured lighter fluid on the neighbor's cat and set it afire. It was awful.”

I shuddered and looked at Peter, who glared back at me. I wondered why I'd been unaware of the unadulterated evil in his eyes earlier. “He'll get counseling. He's just a child,” I said to Pearl. “There are people who can make him better.” I hoped this was true.

I got up and went to the edge of the chimney and looked down at Kevin and the helpful stranger. “How's he doing?” I asked.

“Well as can be expected. Hope the ambulance gets here soon.”

I returned to my spot next to Pearl. “How did you find us here?” I asked.

“I caught sight of him sneaking out of our trailer, so I followed him to Corny's. He didn't have no business there, so I guessed he was going to call someone. Only phone they got's in the office, so I listened through the window. When you came and went in the store, I hid in the back seat of your truck, under all that junk you got there.”

The junk was Garnet's. I hadn't even realized there was a back seat under it.

“The gun-where did it come from? And the duct tape?”

“The gun's my pa's-he don't lock them up. I took the tape from Corny's-just in case.”

“Did you know Peter was going to hurt me?” I asked.

“I thought maybe he might. Didn't want him to hurt nobody else.”

“Thanks, Pearl,” I said, hugging her.

She wrapped her skinny arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder, and we stayed that way until we heard the distant wail of an ambulance siren.

Directly below us, water danced and sparkled in a small brook. “By the edge of running water,” Praxythea had said. Once again she'd made a lucky guess.

O come ye, O come ye

IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE SEVERAL EMERGENCY Medical Technicians and a state trooper arrived on the scene. With the help of the stranger I'd found on the road, the EMTs placed Kevin on a stretcher board and raised him out of the furnace. While they were fastening the straps to secure him, one said, “We gotta take him way over to Hagerstown Hospital, since the Lickin Creek clinic done closed down.” The accusing look he gave me indicated he blamed me for the disastrous chain of events at the apple festival a few months ago.

I wanted to tell him it wasn't my fault, but I let it go.

Before they left, one man checked my bruises. “You'll be fine,” he said with an unconcerned shrug. “Put some ice on when you get home.”

The trooper, in the meantime, was listening to Pearl's story. When she was done, the officer came over to me, removed his Smokey the Bear hat, and fanned himself with it. “It's hard to believe a kid could do something like this,” he said.

I thought of the many known serial killers who had started their careers as children, graduating from torturing animals to torturing people. Whether he knew it or not, Peter was following in their infamous footsteps.

“I just hope he can get some good psychiatric care,” I said.

“I'll drop the little girl off at her house on the way into town,” the policeman said.

Pearl let out a wail. “No! I ain't gonna ride with Peter! No way!”

He took off his hat again and scratched his head. “Can you take her home?”

I nodded, and put a sheltering arm around Pearl's thin shoulders.

“Tell her parents to come down to the state police barracks on Scalp Level Road. We'll need a statement from you, too.”

“I can stop and tell the Poffenbergers Kevin's been found, if you want me to.”

He looked doubtful, but then seemed to realize there was no other way to handle this situation. “Okay,” he agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

I really didn't want to be the bearer of bad tidings, but neither did I want Pearl to have to ride in the patrol car with her brother. When I left with Pearl, the trooper was stripping the duct-tape bindings off Peter, who was screaming. Agony or anger? I couldn't tell.

Pearl wisely chose to stay in the truck while I went inside the trailer to tell Kevin's parents that he had been found. I could swear Kevin's father looked almost disappointed when he learned his son was safe. There would be no more media trucks in his yard, and most likely no TV movie. The mother, though, responded with a flood of tears and a gush of thanks.

As I started back to my truck, a voice behind me called out, “Miss! Wait up, miss!”

I paused in the small, tire-strewn yard and turned to face Kevin's mother. “Yes?”

Her shoulders drooped, and she looked as if she wanted to run away, but then she straightened up and said, “Thank you, miss. For saving my boy.”

“I'm glad everything turned out all right.”

“He coulda died.”

“He'll be up and around before you know it.”

“God must have something in mind for him to do with his life,” she said.

I remained silent as I wondered what life held for any of her brood.