Read The Goats Online

Authors: Brock Cole

The Goats (13 page)

The boy looked at the girl. He could tell she wanted to take the ride. Ten miles wasn't far. Maybe it would all be over in a few minutes.
The front seat of the Jeepster was slick yellow plastic. When the girl was inside, the man reached across them both and pulled the door shut. The handle on the inside was missing. That bothered the boy. Someone had once told him that you should never get in a car with a missing door handle if you're hitchhiking. He didn't know why exactly. It hadn't seemed to matter because he never hitched rides. Now it was too late to figure it out. The Jeepster was already moving fast down the highway.
The man fumbled with his right hand in a pack of cigarettes on the dusty dashboard.
“Smoke?” he asked, lighting up. He did it in a showy way, manipulating a book of matches with one hand.
The boy shook his head. It surprised him that the man should think he might want a cigarette. He wondered how old he thought they were.
“Name's Hofstadder. Pearly Hofstadder. You're?” He leaned forward over the steering wheel, looking first at the girl and then at the boy.
“Howie,” said the boy under his breath. He didn't
really want the man to hear. He felt miserable. The inside of the Jeep was hot, and there was a bad smell. He thought it was the man who smelled, even though he looked clean.
Hofstadder must have known what he was thinking, because he said suddenly, “Sorry about the smell, Howie.”
It made the boy jump. The man had got his name. Right off.
“It's goats. Had to carry one of my bucks in the back a week ago. Still stinks. Ain't nothing that smells worse than a goat. Ain't that right, Howie?”
The boy nodded, but he couldn't get it out of his head that it was really Hofstadder who smelled. The man kept looking at the girl out of the pink corners of his eyes.
After about two miles the Jeepster turned abruptly off the highway onto a dirt road.
“Hey,” said the boy. “Isn't Ahlburg that way? We'd better get off here.”
“You in some kind of hurry? I just have to pick up some stuff at the house. Won't take a minute.” The Jeepster didn't slow down. They could hear the tires drumming over the ruts and the stones kicked up inside the fenders. The trees on either side of the road were coated with fine yellow dust.
“You the kids who jumped camp the other day?” said the man. He nodded when they didn't answer. “I thought it might be you. What have you been doing? How'd you get over to Barnesville?”
“We got a ride. We're going back now. They know we're coming. They're waiting for us.”
“Sure. But what you been doing?” The man smiled. He had a big mouth, and when he smiled the boy could see he didn't have any teeth except in front. “Getting a little nudgy, uh?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Howie. Hell, I don't mind. I'm a liberal. It's okay by me if you kids have a little fun. I'll bet you and your girl have had a high old time. Ain't that right, Howie?”
“It's none of your business,” whispered the girl.
“What's that?” said the man sharply.
The boy sat up quickly. “I think we should get out here,” he said. “We can walk. We don't mind.”
The man pressed him back in the seat with a huge forearm. It felt like wood. “Cool it, hotshot. You're not going anywhere.” He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and stared grimly out of the dirty windshield. “You might even say you're under arrest.”
“What do you mean, arrest?”
The man didn't answer. He pulled the truck off the road in front of a store.
There were no other buildings nearby, and the store was empty, abandoned. The windows were smashed and the steps burned away. There was a dilapidated phone booth at one end.
The man turned off the ignition and looked at them. He wasn't pretending to be friendly anymore.
“You're the ones who set off the fire alarm at the
Starlight last night, ain't you? You know that's a serious offense? You need all the friends you can get. You and Jailbait, there.” He spat out the window. “I'm going to call the sheriff now. You just sit tight, you hear?”
The man rolled up both windows, first the one by the girl and then the one on the driver's side. The heat and stench of goat were terrible. He nodded at them slowly, as if he had done something clever, and then got out of the truck. He slammed the door behind him. As he walked toward the phone booth he watched them over his shoulder. He looked smug, almost happy. Pardoe and the cleaning lady had looked smug, too. The man was so sure, so very sure that there was nothing they could do.
“What's going to happen?” She could barely talk. “Do you think they'll put us in jail?”
“I don't know. I don't even think this guy is a real sheriff. He doesn't act right.”
“Oh God, he's so weird. Where is he taking us? Do you think we should try to run?”
“I don't know,” said the boy, but he understood now why the man had rolled up the windows. The inside handles on both doors had been removed. “We're locked in. We'd have to roll down the windows and crawl out. I don't think we could make it.”
The man was watching them from the phone booth, even as he dialed. It was as if he was daring them.
“What do you think? Do you think we could make it?”
She didn't answer. When he tore his eyes away from the man in the phone booth, he saw she was staring at a gold charm in the shape of a goat's head. It was turning slowly in the still air. It was hanging from a key, and the key was in the truck's ignition.
MADDY HAD forgotten that it was Parents' Day, or perhaps she had never understood what that meant. The camp parking lot was filling up with cars. Parents and grandparents picked their way slowly forward, smiling up at the roofs of the camp buildings which poked above the trees. They carried shopping bags of Fritos, Ding Dongs, Twinkies, special longed-for boxes of crackers, and cheese spread in aerosol containers.
At the foot of the macadam path leading up to the camp, a folding table had been set up. Over it was a yellow umbrella strung with pinecones and paper chains. Girls with calm, self-conscious faces were distributing name tags and directions. The name tags were in the shape of large yellow daisies. They stuck
to anything. Tweed and linen jackets, silk blouses and T-shirts.
No one offered Maddy a name tag. She didn't belong there, and she couldn't find a place to stand up or sit down.
Margo Cutter brought her a cup of lemonade and then wandered back to stand with her friends near the reception table. Occasionally one of the young women would glance at Maddy. If Maddy caught her eye, the woman's face would immediately assume an expression of sincere concern.
To escape, Maddy picked her way among the parked cars to the entrance of the parking lot.
She noticed that she still had the cup of lemonade in her hand. It felt sticky. She set it carefully upright on a wooden post as a patrol car stopped near her and a short stocky woman got out. Maddy watched her. She felt suddenly very alert. Her fingertips tingled.
“Mrs. Golden? I'm Sarah Gallagher. County juvenile officer?”
Maddy nodded. She was the woman who didn't know anything.
“I'm afraid we have a problem, Mrs. Golden.”
“What's wrong?”
“Your daughter and the boy were picked up this morning near Barnesville. By one of Sheriff Prosser's deputies.”
Maddy looked over the woman's shoulder at the patrol car. It was empty.
“Where are they?” she asked.
“Well, we don't know, exactly. I'm afraid they stole his truck, Mrs. Golden.”
Maddy waited. There was more coming. She could tell.
“They didn't go far. Just down the road. The deputy wasn't able to follow them from there. I'm afraid they ran over his foot, Mrs. Golden.”
Margo appeared at Maddy's side, hovering uncertainly. “What's wrong?” she asked.
“Laura's run over a policeman's foot,” Maddy said.
“Oh, my Godl”
“Don't be too upset, now,” said Miss Gallagher. She spoke to Margo, who seemed to be reacting in the right way. “The deputy wasn't badly hurt. Just some bruises. And while I can't promise anything, I don't think Sheriff Prosser is going to make any charges here. He thinks the deputy mishandled the business. He turned off the highway to find a phone booth, and left the kids alone in the truck with the key in the ignition. He wasn't in uniform. Sheriff Prosser thinks that Laura and Howie must have been frightened in some way. These aren't the caliber of kids we normally deal with.”
Margo shook her head rapidly. No. No, they weren't that caliber of kids. Over her shoulder Maddy watched a tall young girl come out into the parking lot and be enthusiastically embraced by an older couple. Maddy wondered who she was, and if Laura had once counted her as a friend.
“What did he do?”
Miss Gallagher didn't understand.
“The deputy,” Maddy explained. “He must have done something. They wanted to come here. To me. And he didn't let them.” She put her hand to her temple. The sun was beginning to make her head ache. “Why are we driving them away? I don't understand that. Why are we driving them away?”
Miss Gallagher looked at Margo and then at Maddy. “Mrs. Golden, I think it would be best if I drove you back to your motel now. I'm sure that they'll be picked up before long.”
“You don't think she'll come here?”
Miss Gallagher looked uncomfortable. “Barnesville is nearly ten miles away, Mrs. Golden. Perhaps it would be better if we waited at the motel. Margo will stay here. In case they show up.” Maddy looked at the two of them. They were both nodding their heads at her in the same encouraging way. Miss Gallagher had called Margo by her name. Maddy hadn't realized that they knew each other. It was not unreasonable, perhaps, but she hadn't known. She wondered how much else she didn't know.
Back in the motel room Maddy took off her shoes and lay down on the bed. She had lost track of Miss Gallagher, but she assumed she was somewhere in the room, waiting. She apparently didn't need to talk. That was a relief. Maddy wanted to study the ceiling, where light reflected from the motel pool wavered through a succession of bright patterns. It was like a dance of light and shadow, of coming together and parting.
She began to wonder if she would ever find her way to Laura. Somehow, in a way she didn't understand, the chance seemed to be slipping away, lost in misunderstandings and casually inflicted hurts.
 
The boy leaned over the railing of the bridge and peered down at the river. It was stained brown with mud, its surface marked with long smooth ripples and broad undulations. He could see the reflection of his head, a dark knob on the reflection of the bridge itself. He leaned out farther, testing for the point of balance where his feet might lift from the pavement.
“Hey! Are you watching?” called the girl, sticking her head out of the phone booth.
“Yes.” He pushed away from the railing and looked up and down the highway. “I'm watching.”
The road cut straight through the pine forest, and from the bridge he could see for miles. There were no cars, not even a house or a barn in the distance. The old man who had lent them change for the telephone was sitting by a small white shed just where the road rose to cross the river. His name was Mr. Lockwood, and he sold honey. He couldn't have sold much, there was so little traffic. Perhaps he didn't mind. He had pulled a wooden kitchen chair into a patch of sun. He sat up very straight, but so still he might have been asleep.
The girl was talking to someone now. Behind the dusty glass of the booth she had taken out the little
notebook and was writing something down. The boy couldn't hear what she was saying.
He wondered what had happened to the man with the Jeepster. He hadn't been badly hurt when the truck had sideswiped him. He had gotten up right away. The boy had watched him in the rearview mirror. Perhaps the man wasn't looking for them, after all. Maybe he was embarrassed because he had tried to lock them in the Jeepster. As the boy considered this possibility it seemed less and less likely. No, the man was out there somewhere, trying to figure out where they were.
The girl hung up the phone and squeezed out of the booth, fighting for a moment with the stubborn door.
“Did you talk to her?” he asked. “Was your mom there?”
She shook her head. Her face was pale. She seemed dazed by what she had heard.
“What's wrong? Didn't she come?”
“She's there. But not at the camp. At a motel. In Ahlburg.”
“A motel?” He didn't understand.
“She's been there since the day before yesterday. Mr. Wells called her when we didn't go back to camp. She drove up right away. Miss Haskell said she was sick with worry.” The girl put her fingertips to her lips and stared at nothing. “Oh God. She's going to be so mad at me. Why didn't we think that Mr. Wells would call her? Why didn't we think?”
He didn't know. It seemed obvious now that her mother would learn what had happened and come after her. That would be what she was supposed to do, wouldn't it? Even if she didn't really care. It was unfair to think that way, but he couldn't help it.
“She said she couldn't come until today,” he said coldly. “That's what she said when you talked to her.”
The girl turned away from him wildly. “She didn't
understand!
Don't you see? She didn't understand!”
He reached out and touched her shoulder, but she shook his hand away. He felt slow and dumb, like a windup toy beginning to run down.
“Do my mom and dad know? Did Miss Haskell say?”
“Mr. Wells sent a telegram. They haven't heard anything yet.” She spoke over her shoulder, her voice soft and tired. “She said you can't come home with me and Mom. It's illegal or something. You have to stay at camp until they hear from your parents.”
He wasn't surprised. He had always known, really, that there would be some rule like that.
“We won't get to visit the sliced-up people,” he said sadly, but she wasn't listening.
“Do you think Mom knows about that man? About how we took his truck?”
“I don't know. Maybe not yet.”
“What am I going to tell her? She's going to kill me.”
“No, she won't. I won't let her.” That was a joke, of course. He wished it wasn't, but that's all it was. Her mother would decide what she wanted, and there
wasn't much he could do about it. Still, he had made the girl smile. When she turned and looked at him, he saw that she was smiling and crying at the same time. She could cry like nobody's business. There were even tears on her glasses.
“Here,” he said, taking them off her face and wiping them on his shirttail.
“I've got to call Mom now,” she said as she watched. “Miss Haskell gave me the number. We'll borrow some more money from Mr. Lockwood. Do you think he'll mind?”
“No. He's nice. We can give him an IOU.”
“I'll tell her that we
have
to stay together. If she can't take us both, I'll stay at camp. We'll run away again if we have to. Really.”
“Yes,” he said, but he couldn't meet her eyes. He was ashamed because he didn't believe her. Should he tell her that he wanted to run away right now? Would she be willing to disappear into the woods with him? He almost smiled. How crazy that idea was. Just a stupid dream. He would never tell her. There would never be a time. She would go back to the city with her mother and he would stay at camp and be a goat. That was what everyone would want. That was the rule. He shivered and looked up where the sun was blazing in the pale dome of the sky. Maybe he should be a bandit like Calvin had said and make his own rules.
She ran ahead of him to Mr. Lockwood's stand. When he joined her she had more change in her hand,
and the old man was carefully studying the note she had written. He folded it neatly and put it in his pocket.
“I'm going to call now,” she said. “Are you coming?”
“No. I'll wait here.”
The old man smiled at him when she was gone.
“You look right beat,” he said, and offered the boy a Mason jar filled with bright red Kool-Aid. It was warm and sweet, with a faint musty aftertaste.
“I make that with honey,” said the old man. “Keeps me traveling. You a traveling man?”
The boy shook his head. Goat, bandit, traveling man. He didn't know.
“I thought maybe you were a traveling man. Come far?”
The boy shrugged, not knowing how to measure the distance, but he tried to smile.
“Far to go?”
Behind the honey stand a narrow trail ran back into the woods. It was overgrown with shrubs and dry grass. It didn't look as if many people ever went that way.
“No. Not far.”
 
The phone rang. Once, then twice. Maddy heard a chair creak as Miss Gallagher stirred impatiently. Very slowly, her body as fragile as ash, Maddy sat up and picked up the phone.
“Mom?”
Maddy began to cry. “Oh, Laura darling …”
“There was this man,” Laura said slowly, as if she were going to tell Maddy a long and intricate story. “He said he was a deputy …”

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