Lisa Atkinson - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 5. Whole No. 801, May 2008

The Bowman place was about a mile north of town, hidden by a ridge of pine trees. I saved my delivery to Loreen for last. By the time I arrived, it was nearing noon, and most of the Bowmans were at the main house eating Sunday dinner. Don’t get the wrong idea when I say “main house,” I don’t mean to imply that it was anything grand. Very simply, the Bowmans lived in a collection of ramshackle houses and rusted trailers with no wheels. There was no sign of prosperity. Those years were long past. The main house was a collection of add-on rooms on an old farmhouse that had been built by carpetbaggers and pioneers.

Lehigh’s house sat at the back corner of the property, and I had to peddle past an empty barn that was guarded by a pack of yapping mutts. Mosquitoes swarmed over a green-scum pond just to the left of the house, and the stench coming from the barn was stinky enough to knock a buzzard off the fertilizer spreader.

Teg was sitting on the front stoop reading a book.

“Hey,” I said.

Teg looked up from his book. He was reading White Fang. The jagged haircut was gone; someone had shaved his head for the summer. There’s nothing worse than ticks or lice living in your hair, especially during summer, but I figured whoever had shaved Teg’s hair did it more for economic reasons than for Teg’s personal comfort. I had never seen Teg at the barber with Lehigh on Saturday mornings. He was still skinny as a rail, and he wore glasses that weren’t quite as thick as Coke bottles but pretty doggone close.

“I got some stuff for your momma.”

He closed his book and stood up. “Momma’s in bed. What do you got?”

“Medicines from my dad.” I wanted to drop the bag and go, just in case Big Mike showed up.

“You’re Doctor Kent’s boy, ain’t you?”

I nodded. “Brady,” I said.

“I know your name. Lehigh’s people are taking care of her. You better just get on home. Momma said she don’t want to see Dr. Kent anymore.”

“Well, I gotta leave this package somewhere, so I might as well leave it here and be on my way.”

“Nothin’ stoppin’ you,” Teg said. His momma coughed inside the house and I saw a shadow drift past the screen door.

I shook my head. This was the first real conversation I’d had with Teg, and it wasn’t too pleasant. Normally, I would’ve just turned and gone on my way, but there was something there, like he wanted to say something else, but he couldn’t. Now, I didn’t normally make it a point to strike up a friendship with someone younger than me, but the fear in Teg’s eyes made me curious and sad. I forgot all about Big Mike. Besides, what was the worst thing the crazy lunk could do? Beat me up? He’d already done that. I’d just make up another lie to my mother about the scratches and bruises I came home with. Somehow, I’d managed to keep my war with Big Mike Bowman a secret, even from Pearl, and I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but right then, I didn’t care. I saw a little bit of loneliness that I recognized all too well.

I set the package down beside the bike, shifted a bit, and looked around past the house to the woods. “You found the swimming hole down at the old quarry yet?” I asked.

Teg looked over his shoulder and stepped off the stoop. “Momma’s gonna get real angry if you don’t leave,” he hissed as quietly as he could. “She starts makin’ a ruckus, it’s hard tellin’ who’ll show up.”

“I was just trying to be friendly.”

Teg looked at me funny, then said, “I don’t need no friends, so don’t be doin’ me any favors.”

“Well,” I answered, “I’m gonna stop for a dip on my way home. I was hoping not to go by myself.”

Loreen coughed again, and then appeared behind the screen. “Is everything all right, Teg-Baby?”

“Yes, Momma, it’s just Dr. Kent’s boy bringin’ you some stuff.”

“Tell him to go home.”

“I already did.”

I knew that was my cue to get out of there, but before I climbed up on my bike, I told Teg, nodding at the book on the porch, that if he liked Jack London then he ought to read Treasure Island. He said he already had.

The quarry had been deserted for years. The water was deep and clear, surrounded by fifty-foot limestone cliffs. The limestone that came from the quarry was now part of the Empire State Building in New York City. I’d seen pictures of it in Mother’s photo album, and I always dreamed I would go there someday. She said I would, if I wanted to bad enough. She was right. I went to New York City for a while, touched the limestone on that tall building as if it was a monument to Teg, but somehow, I ended up back in Harlow. Funny how things come full circle, but that’s another story, and really, I don’t think I got time enough to tell it. The only important thing is that when I was old enough, I wanted to get as far away from this town as I could. But the ghosts of the past followed me every damn place I went, so in the end, I figured I might as well just come back home and look ‘em in the eye.

I wasn’t supposed to go to the quarry. But tell a kid he can’t go somewhere and it becomes the Promised Land. Nothing you say or do can keep them away; starve them, tie them up, ground them, it doesn’t matter. Mother was more understanding about my need for adventure. But my dad, well, he’d seen more than one person drown in the quarry, and the last thing he wanted was to see me in the coroner’s office with a gash in my head and my belly puffed up like a dead possum on a summer day.

I didn’t really expect Teg to show up, and truth be told, I didn’t care if the little snot did. I was hot and tired, and a cool dip and a short nap sounded good before I headed home to my own dinner. I was just relieved that I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Big Mike. But Teg did show up. He appeared out of the woods, walking silent like an Indian might, and scared the bejesus right out of me.

“You’re awful jumpy for a doctor’s kid,” Teg said.

“What do you know about it?” I had one leg out of my trousers, and I tumbled over on my aching butt. “Damn it.” I rolled and kicked off the other leg.

Teg burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he cried and had to sit down.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothin’. Nothin’. Except you look like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz fallin’ off his post. I’m sorry,” he said. “I better go.”

“No, don’t. I mean, you can stay.” I stood up, and pulled up my skivvies. “You ever swim here?”

“Nope. I was kind of scared to. It looks deep.”

“It is, but here, let me show you, over here it’s not so bad.” I made my way through a thicket and found a path that led down to the edge of the water. There was a twenty-foot bank of sand that eased slowly into the water before it dropped off to depths unknown. I dived in, expecting Teg to follow. “Come on,” I said. “The drop-off is fifteen feet out. You can see it.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ve swam here a million times.”

He nodded, took off all his clothes except his Fruit of the Looms, and jumped in.

“Feels great!” he screamed. His voice echoed off the limestone walls and he laughed.

“Yeah,” I said, “it does.”

I swear I heard someone in the woods that day, but I thought at the time it was a deer or a coon, even though it felt like someone was watching us.

It’s funny. One day a snot-nosed kid walks out of the woods in the summer, and the next minute he turns into your best friend. The joys of childhood, I suppose, are pretty much lost by the time you get to be an old man like me. Or taken from you. Innocence is robbed from you like a thief in the night carrying a long switchblade. But I didn’t know any of that then. All I knew was that I liked being around Teg.