Ken Douglas - Scorpion

“ Your parents must be worried.”

“ They’re getting a divorce. They don’t care about me.”

“ How long do you think you can live out here?”

“ Oh, a long time. I got a two man tent and a sleeping bag over there.” He pointed toward the falling sun peeking through the clouds. “I got enough canned goods for a couple of weeks and I got friends that’ll sneak me more when they run out. I can stay hidden forever.”

“ It sounds like you’ve thought of everything.”

“ I’ve been planning a long time,” the boy said. Then he added, “Are you hungry?”

“ Powerfully,” Earl said.

“ I thought you would be. I saw you climb out of the river. Then you crashed. I thought you might be dead.”

“ I’m not dead,” Earl said.

“ My name’s Mick,” the boy said. “My mom named me after Mick Jagger. He’s in the Rolling Stones. That’s a rock band.”

“ I’ve heard of them,” Earl said, smiling despite his suffering body.

“ Can you get up? Can you walk?” Mick asked.

“ I think so,” Earl said, and he pushed himself to his feet.

“ Okay, follow me. We’re having hot dogs for dinner.” The boy walked with a self assured swagger. He was at home by the river and Earl guessed that he was a veteran of many camping trips with his father.

He groaned when he walked, but the boy didn’t look back. He ran a hand over a pain in his side and winced when he remembered slamming into a rock. He flexed his fingers, then his toes, then ran his head in a circle. Everything ached, but everything seemed to be working.

“ You got a nasty cut over your eye,” the boy said without turning around. Earl reached up and felt the scabbing wound. “And a bad bruise on your chin,” the boy said, with his eyes still forward. Earl moved his hand to his chin. He put a little pressure on it and grit his teeth against the tenderness. “I can imagine what the rest of your body looks like,” the boy added, as he moved into a clearing.

“ Nice place,” Earl said, admiring the tent and the small cook stove in front of it. “Nobody would ever find you out here.”

“ That’s the plan,” Mick said, then he crawled on his hands and knees into the tent, the flap closing behind him. In a few seconds an eight pack of hot dogs appeared out of the flap, followed by a hand that quickly vanished back inside. Then came the buns sitting on top of a plate. Then butter, mustard and ketchup on another plate and a quart of orange juice.

“ Pretty good, huh?” Mick said, crawling out of the tent.

“ How do you plan on keeping the meat fresh?”

“ I don’t, it’s only for today. From tomorrow on I’m eating out of cans.”

“ How about water? That juice won’t keep.”

“ Come on, there’s a whole river down there,” he said, pointing. “You should know that.”

Earl watched while the kid lit a can of sterno. The boy was an experienced outdoorsman, the kind that only another who loved living out of doors and camping could appreciate. Earl pulled off his wet shoes as Mick smeared some butter on a fry pan and set it on the stove. He was taking off his socks as the boy cut the wieners in half and dropped them in the pan. The sizzling meat had him salivating in seconds. He was hungry and the boy was cooking up the best dinner possible, fried hot dogs, out-of-doors, nothing better.

After he’d eaten his fill, he lay back and closed his eyes. He faded off to a quick but restless sleep. Random thoughts turned into short dreams and faces kept flashing beneath his eyelids, Johnny Lee, Maria, Old Loomis and most of all, Jackson. Then finally he sank into a deep sleep, where his only dream was of the flowing river. The dark river. The dream turned into a nightmare when the river grew hands, clear water dripping hands, reaching for him, tugging at him, pulling him under. He screamed himself awake.

He jumped up to the setting sun, pushing himself from the ground to his feet with athletic grace. He rubbed the confusion and delirium from his eyes, blinked, squinted, then turned away from the sun and faced the river below, and it all came rushing back to him.

“ Hey, Mick,” he said, turning around.

The boy was gone. He’d moved his campsite like a true woodsman. Only a pro, like himself, would ever know a tent had been there. His socks had been laid out and were dry. Mick must have dried them over the camping stove. He sat back down and tugged them on. His shoes were still damp, but he put them on anyway. He wished the boy hadn’t gone, but maybe it was for the best. He didn’t think he could kill a child, but he would have given it some thought, because he hated the idea that someone had seen him climbing out of the river. It was lucky for the boy that he was gone.

First order of business was to get himself back to the bridge and his car. He pushed back to his feet and brushed off. He couldn’t go walking around wearing wet, bloodstained, and torn clothes. He was going to have to do something about that.

He walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the river, trying to get his bearings. He’d been down it so many times, but he’d never looked at it from this perspective. He tried to imagine himself down there, rushing on the raft, paddling furiously on the right, Jackson digging his oar into the water on the left. What would that bend up ahead look like if he was down there? Then he saw it, pictured it in his mind as clearly as if he was flying over the water.

Right around the bend there were a couple of houses overlooking the river. He started walking. The green river grass grew high and the trees he wound through often blocked his path and confused him, but he kept the river at his left as he pushed through the thickening woods, thinking of the money in that briefcase. It had to be in the car, but was the car safe? Could he get back before it was towed away, or worse, stolen? And then, just as his anxiety was reaching a fever pitch, the woods fell away into clear ground and he saw a neatly manicured front yard.

He studied the house. Then the one next door, looking for signs of life. He found none. Both homes faced the river. Both were built in log cabin style and Earl guessed that a man must be mighty rich to have an extra home, just for the weekends and holidays.

He crossed the front yard and made his way to a garage between the two homes. It had no windows and the door was locked. The chances were slim, but he needed to know if there was a car in there. The door was too thick to kick in and he didn’t have his weapon. He checked the lock, a dead bolt. The garage was locked good.

A bird called overhead and Earl turned, quickly spooked. He looked out toward the sound of the rushing river, then back toward the first of the two vacation homes. His mind made up, he crossed the lawn to the front porch, taking the steps two at a time. He tried the door. Locked. But not deadbolted. He thought about that. Maybe there was a car in the garage after all. Then with a swift side thrust kick, made powerful by twenty years of Shotokan Karate workouts, he blasted the lock and the door flew open.

Too easy. Inside, he went straight toward the bathroom, dropping his wet shirt as he crossed the hardwood living room floor. He kicked his shoes off in the hallway, and stepped out of his pants as he faced the tub. He reached in and turned on the water. Cold only, but that was all right, he’d had plenty of cold showers in his lifetime.

Once the dirt was off he padded to one of the bedrooms and rifled through the bureau drawers and closets. He found a pair of Levi’s a couple of sizes too big, but a thick leather belt took care of that, and a white sport shirt made him look close to presentable. He stared at his reflection in a mirror above the bureau as he buttoned up the shirt. The scabbing cut above his eye and the black and blue bruise on his chin made it look like he was the loser in a heavyweight battle, but there was nothing he could do about that, so he left the mirror.