Night of the Howling Dogs (4 page)

“Way to go, little punks,” Mike said, and slapped Billy, Sam, and Tad on the back. “That was a good lunch.”

The rest of us nodded, still wolfing down oranges, bologna sandwiches with mustard on soft white bread, and small bags of Fritos that they’d packed in for our first meal. I could have eaten ten of everything.

Mr. Bellows and Reverend Paia sat off a ways, letting the guys working on advancing to Second Class manage the meal alone.

Louie belched and patted his stomach.

Mr. Bellows stood and pushed his blue Dodgers cap back on his head. “Listen up, men. The Reverend and I are going down the coast, see what’s around the bend. Feel free to do some exploring, too…but don’t drift too far.”

Reverend Paia stood and put his straw hat back on, then grabbed a canteen. “Nobody goes off alone. You have buddies for a reason. Keep your eyes open and your common sense engaged.” He pointed at me. “SPL…you’re in charge.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Louie snickered.

“You can do whatever you like except go in the ocean,” Mr. Bellows added. “For that you have to wait until we get back. Understood?”

Nods and mumbles, yeah.

Mr. Bellows turned to look out at the small island. “Last time, we spotted a shark just to the right of those rocks.”

A shark?

They headed out, Mr. Bellows in his blue cap and Reverend Paia smiling under his floppy sun blocker.

“You heard it,” I said. “Stay with your buddy.”

“Me and Louie are going to check out the cliff,” Mike said. “Just so you know.”

Louie shoved him. “Why you talking to him, ah? You his slave?”

“Hey!”

“We go,” Louie said.

When you get up to the cliff, jump off, I thought.

“I’m just telling him where we’re going, that’s all.” They left.

Zach helped the young guys clean up the lunch mess. He had to stay with Tad anyway. “Make this place shine,” I said.

Casey and I went down to the ocean, took off our boots, and sat with our feet in the water. I closed my eyes. “Man, does that feel good!”

“Watch for eels,” Casey said, and I jerked my feet back.

He laughed. “You are hopeless, bro,
hopeless.
”

I scowled, knowing he was right. I fell for everything. I skimmed a flat rock out into the bay. “You see that knife in Louie’s pocket?”

“Yeah.”

We sat for a moment in silence, the ocean calm, whispering.

“Bothers me,” I said.

“Why?”

“Don’t know.”

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Because?”

“Because Dad knows what he’s doing.”

I let that thought sit a moment. It was answer enough. Mr. Bellows would never let Louie bring it if he didn’t trust him. So he must trust him…but does he even know Louie has it?

I tossed another pebble into the water. Why am I thinking about this? I stuffed my socks into my boots and stood. “Your dad didn’t say we couldn’t swim in the crack, right?”

Casey looked up and raised an eyebrow. “You’re right. Maybe you aren’t so hopeless.”

Five minutes later we were heading up to the crack in our swimming shorts, with rubber slippers slapping our feet and white towels hanging over our shoulders.

“You bring anything for sunburn?” I said.

“Oops.”

I was glad I had my T-shirt on.

We stood at the top of the dirt trail that sloped down into the crack. It was dark down there, like somebody’s old bomb shelter. But the water looked cool, and where the sun shined on it you could see shadows under every rock and pebble on the bottom. Farther in, the water ran back under the lava.

I looked up. No one in sight.

“What you looking for?”

“Mike and Louie.”

“They won’t tell,” Casey said. “Anyway, Dad didn’t say stay out of the crack, right? He just said don’t go in the ocean.”

“That’s how I remember it, but maybe he meant don’t go swimming at all.”

“Then he would have said that.”

“I guess.”

We headed down the trail. Casey flipped off his rubber slippers, dropped his towel, and jumped. “Yeehaw!” he yelled coming up, his voice echoing through the cavernous crack.

I leaped in after him. The water was cool. It tasted slightly salty, but also fresh and earthy, like up in the rain forest. It was brackish, half springwater, half salt water seeping in from the sea. I dove under. “Hey!” I shouted as I popped back up. I wanted to hear my voice bounce around the rock walls.
Hey…hey,
it echoed.

The lip of the rocks that surrounded the crack above framed the cloudless blue sky. It was like swimming in a well.

“All right, Case,” I said, floating on my back. “This is about as private as it’s going to get. Tell me about Louie.”

Casey pulled himself up onto a ledge.

I climbed out and sat next to him, our feet in the water. “You know I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“Okay, listen.” He glanced once up the trail. “You got to
promise
to keep this to yourself. Dad only told me because I overheard him talking to Mom.”

“Yeah, yeah, I promise. What did you hear?”

“See…Dad sort of…rescued him.”

“From what?”

“One day Dad was snooping around an old abandoned warehouse…he was following up on leads he had on some guys who were stealing cars and dismantling them for parts.”

“Louie was stealing cars?”

“No, no, not Louie. Dad just found him in that warehouse…. He was living there.”

“Whoa,” I said. “You mean using it like a fort. He lives in that house in the jungle, right?”

“Yeah, but when Dad found him, he was living in the warehouse. He ran away from home.”

I whistled, low.

“So when Dad walked in—”

Casey stopped and looked up. A dark figure appeared, silhouetted against the blue sky at the top of the trail. I shaded my eyes.

Zach peered down on us, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “How’s the water?”

“Come on down,” Casey shouted. “It’s awesome!”

I frowned.

“Tell you more later,” Casey said.

“Just tell me what your dad saw when he went into the warehouse.”

“There was this room,” Casey whispered. “The door was locked, but Dad jimmied it open. Inside, there was a bug-infested mattress on the floor, a box of clothes, a couple of cans of food, and a jug of water…and two schoolbooks.”

“That’s where Louie was living?”

“For more than a month. But get this—he was still going to school.”

“You mean, from that warehouse? After running away?”

“That’s what Dad said.”

“Was he there when your dad went in?”

“No, but…Shhh.”

“What are you guys whispering about?” Zach called across the water, pulling off his T-shirt.

“Secret,” Casey said.

Zach tossed his shirt and shorts on the rocks and jumped in wearing only his boxers. He sank and came back up, water streaming from his face. “Ho, this is nice!” He swam over, pulled himself up on the ledge.

“Where’s Tad?” I said, irritated. I wanted more of Casey’s story. “You’re supposed to be with him.”

“With Billy and Sam. He didn’t want to come up here.”

“But, Zach,” Casey said. “You’re supposed to—”

“It’s okay. He’s with them.”

I frowned and shook my head. “I hope you don’t get caught.” As SPL, I should have made him go back. But it wasn’t easy bossing your friends around.

“He’s
fine,
” Zach said. “Those guys are just playing around, making dams in the tide pools.”

Casey slipped off the shelf into the water.

I should have been worrying about Zach leaving his buddy, but I couldn’t get that warehouse out of my head. If Louie ran away, wouldn’t his parents assume he wasn’t going to school? And if he wasn’t going to school, wouldn’t his parents wonder why they weren’t getting a call about it? And wouldn’t they call the school to find out why? If they did, they’d have found Louie.

This was too weird. I had to know more. “Zach, you really need to go find Tad.”

Zach ignored me and dove off the shelf, swirling water following his feet down.

I looked up at the blue patch of sky. I could get more out of Casey tonight in the shelter.

But I couldn’t wait that long.

When Zach came back up, I said, “You
need
to go get Tad, Zach. I mean it. What if he slips and falls and gets cut up on the rocks or something? You want to explain that to Casey’s dad?”

Zach scowled. “All right…
jeese.
I’ll go back and get him and drag him up here.”

“We’ll all go,” Casey said. “All right, Dylan?”

No, not all right. I want more story. “Sure,” I said with a sigh. “Why not.”

We swam to the rocks and grabbed our towels, T-shirts, and rubber slippers. Out in the sunlight it was so bright it felt like somebody’d stabbed a spear into my eyes. I hung my towel over my head.

We headed down to the tide pools.

No one was there.

“Look,” Casey said, pointing down the coast.

Billy and Sam were squatting in the shallow water of a tide pool. All you could see was their heads.

“You see Tad?”

Casey hopped onto a large boulder and stretched as high as he could. “Just Billy and Sam.”

I scowled at Zach.

“He was there when I left.”

I tossed my towel and T-shirt down. We hurried toward Sam and Billy, jumping the rocks. I was grateful for the cushion of my rubber slippers, because in some places the lava was like sharks’ teeth.

“Billy!” Casey called. “Sam!”

Their heads popped up.

“Where’s Tad?” Zach said, breathless. He bent over and put his hands on his knees.

Sam glanced around. “He was here a minute ago.”

I looked back up toward the crack and the cliff, scanned the coast in both directions. “Well, he’s not here now. Which way did he go?”

Billy lifted his chin, two shiny wet rocks in his hands. “He was over there last time I saw him.”

Nothing was there now but shimmering black lava for as far as I could see. “This is definitely not good.”

Zach rubbed a hand over his mouth.

“He didn’t go in the ocean, did he?” Casey said.

Sam and Billy shook their heads.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s think about what we have. Last time anyone saw him, he was over there…so I say we start that way. You two stay right here. All right? Don’t move.”

The sun beat down on the shiny lava and bounced back up into my eyes as if it were coming off a window. There was no sand or scrub to soften the glare. I was stupid for not bringing a hat. My towel and T-shirt would have helped, but I’d dropped them.

“Tad!” Zach called. “Tad!”

To the right the ocean thumped against the rocky shore. I felt the first hint of panic.

We followed a faint trail heading into the endless desert of rock. Here the lava was curved and folded, dried and hardened smooth. There were fissures and holes and slits in the crust where animals could hide…if any animals ever came near this place.

“Tad!”

“We’ve come too far,” Casey said. “There’s nothing here but heat.”

I glanced back toward camp. The ant-sized figures of Louie and Mike were heading down around the shoulder of the cliff. Sam and Billy were still in the tide pools.

My hands were sweating. I wiped them on my shorts.

“Tad!”
Casey shouted again.

“He’s not here. Let’s go the other way.”

Zach shaded his eyes and searched the landscape one last time, his face pinched.

Just as we turned to head back, we heard a voice.

“Help!”

It was muffled, somewhere behind us.

“Tad!” Zach yelled.

The rocky coast was deserted.

“Tad! Where are you?”

“Here!”

But there was nothing there.

“Where?”

“Here!”

We spread out and jumped over the rocks, searching. “Keep talking,” I called. “Because we can’t see you.”

“I’m in a crack.”

“There!” Casey said.

I squinted. “I don’t see anything.”

“I don’t either,” Zach said.

“See his shirt?”

“Whoa!” I said. A tiny shock of yellow was wedged into the black rock. “How’d he get in
there
?”

He was jammed into a crack so small and so tight it seemed impossible that he’d gotten into it at all. If he hadn’t called, we’d never have found him. We hurried over, jumping cracks and sinkholes, careful not to step where the crust looked too thin and we could fall through.

We jumped down into the depression and squatted around the fissure. Tad was curled into a ball. All we could see was the back of his shirt. “Tad, come out,” I said. “What are you doing in there?”

When I saw, I staggered back.

Zach and Casey scrambled away, too, dodging and ducking the wasps that swirled through the air and attacked the crack where Tad was wedged.

“Make them go away!” Tad yelped.

Zach dropped down as a wasp whizzed past his face.

“Tad,” Casey said, “you got any food in there with you?”

“A can of peaches.”

“An open can?”

“I was eating them when they attacked me.”

Casey looked at me. “They want the sugar. Out here food is so scarce they could prob’ly smell those peaches from ten miles away.” Casey hunched down. “Tad, you got to get rid of them.”

“But I already ate the whole can.”

“You still got the can in there?”

“Yeah.”

“Throw it out, then.”

“I can’t. I’m stuck. I can’t move my arms.”

Casey tried to move closer, but the wasps got angrier. I pulled him back. “Don’t get them mad at us, too.”

Casey squatted and thought a moment. “Tad…listen, just shove it between your legs, if you can. Wiggle it till it falls out. We’ll take it from there, okay?”

A moment later the tin can came tumbling out. The wasps swarmed onto it, fighting to get at the sticky juice drying inside.

Casey stood and searched the rocks. “Dylan, Zach, look for a stick.”

A stick? Out here?

But Zach got lucky. He found a piece of driftwood and tossed it to Casey.

Casey inched toward the wasp-covered can and carefully worked the stick into the open end. Wasps buzzed off but came back, some landing on the stick, their stingers sagging with poison. Slowly, Casey lifted the peach can and carried it several yards inland, then set it down lightly. He left the stick in it and backed away.

The wasps stayed with the can.

“Okay, Tad, come out now. Hurry…we got to get out of here before they finish off the sugar. Next thing they’ll want is the water in our eyes.”

We helped him wiggle out. Two ugly wasp stings boiled on his neck and face. His arms were scratched from the lava fissure.

“Well, well,” someone said.

I jumped, startled.

Louie and Mike stood on the rim of lava above us, Louie leaning forward with his hands on his knees. “Looks like the senior patrol loser found the lost boy.”