haunches to be seen. But the source was not his boy’s car. It was not a car at all. As it loomed up, it seemed to the fox to be as large as the house his humans lived in.
The truck was green. Not the growing green of the trees all around, but a dull olive, a colour death might wear when it claimed these trees. The same dull olive of the toy soldier the fox had cached in the milkweed stalks. It stank of diesel and the same charred metal scent that had clung to his boy’s father’s new clothing. In a cloud of dust and sprayed stones, the truck charged past, followed by another and another and another.
Pax bounded away from the road. The vulture soared up and away with a single beat of its wings.
Not hunting for his grandfather’s torch – that was the first mistake of the trip. The moon had lit Peter’s way for maybe two hours before it had drowned beneath thick clouds. He’d stumbled along in the dark for another hour before giving up. He’d slit open the sides of a bin bag to make a long mat and cut the other to wear as a poncho against the cold mist, and slept beside a culvert, his baseball mitt for a pillow. Actually, “slept” was a wild overstatement, and when the first low sun rays stabbed his eyelids, he’d awakened cold and wet from whatever dozing he’d managed.
His first thoughts were of Pax – where was he this morning? Was he wet and cold, too? Was he afraid? “I’m coming,” he said out loud as he rolled the bin bags back into his pack. “Hold on.”
He ate a stick of cheese and a couple of crackers, slugged a long drink of water, then laced his boots and climbed up to the road.
He was stiff and sore, but at least his anxiety had relaxed its grip. He probably hadn’t travelled much more than seven or eight miles, but there was still a whole day before his grandfather would get home from work and even suspect he was gone.
According to the atlas map, he probably had another twenty miles to go before hitting the highway. After that, he could turn west for the shortcut anywhere that looked promising. He’d sleep deep in woods tonight, out of civilisation, the riskiest part of the trip behind him.
He wished he’d paid more attention as he’d driven with his father the day before – mistake number two – but he only recalled there’d been a single sleepy town right after they’d exited the highway, and then stretches of woodlands broken only by occasional farms.
Peter walked for five full hours. Blisters formed on his heels, and his shoulders ached from the rucksack. But every step brought him closer to Pax and the home he should never have left, and he felt hopeful. Until a little after noon, when he hit a cluster of buildings that passed for a town square.
Immediately, it seemed every person he passed was eyeing him suspiciously, wondering why he wasn’t in the school he’d noticed a little while back. When a woman dragging a toddler stopped to stare outright, Peter pretended to study the window display in the hardware shop beside him.
In the glass, he saw his reflection, and the remnants of his hopeful mood melted. His hair was tangled with leaves, his sweatshirt streaked in mud, and his nose reddened with what promised to be a full-faced sunburn by the end of the day. The kid in the window looked like a runaway – one who hadn’t prepared very well.
He sensed the woman moving on, but before he could leave, a shadow loomed over his shoulder.
“Need something, young man?”
Peter looked up. A man in a blue jacket emblazoned with the shop logo stood in the doorway, smoking. His arms were crossed over a sagging belly, and his hair was a thinning grey, but something about the way he was peering down his nose reminded Peter of a hawk he’d once seen searching for prey from the top of a cedar. He pointed to the window.
Peter looked back at the display – seed packets and gardening tools. “Oh, no, I was just … uh, do you sell torches?”
The man cocked his head and eyed Peter while he took a drag on his cigarette, and again Peter was reminded of the hawk. Finally he nodded. “Aisle seven. No school today?”
“Lunch break. Got to hurry back.”
The man stubbed out his cigarette and followed him inside, hovering nearby while Peter chose the cheapest torch on the rack and a pack of double As, and even shadowed him as he checked out.
Outside, Peter let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He wedged everything into his pack and headed back to the junction.
“Hey, kid.”
Peter froze.
The man had followed him outside. He yanked a thumb over his shoulder. “School’s that way.”
Peter waved and smiled, trying to act dopey, and changed direction. At the corner, he risked a glance over his shoulder. The man was still watching him.
Peter took off, sudden trickles of sweat chilling the back of his neck. He didn’t stop running until he reached the school entrance, then cut through the parking lot.
All he wanted to do was hide for a couple of minutes – maybe crouch between a couple of pick-ups – and figure out an escape route. But beyond the parking lot and the utility buildings, he saw something a whole lot more appealing.
A baseball diamond carved into the lime-green spring grass. And tucked along the third-base line, facing away from the school, an empty dugout.
Peter stood at the top of the rise looking down at the sight. He argued with himself for only a minute. He’d like to be moving, for sure, making time. But what if that guy had called the police? Hitting the road would be risky. Any time he rested he could easily make up at night, since he had a torch now. And he was suddenly tired – bone-dead tired.
Mostly, though, it was the way the field looked so welcoming, as if it were inviting him in. Peter always felt good on a baseball field. And maybe that was a sign – he didn’t think he believed in signs, but after the coyotes last night, he wasn’t sure he didn’t. Peter adjusted his rucksack and loped down the hill.
In the dugout, the familiar mingled scents of leather, sweat, and stale bubble gum wrapped around him like a hug. Peter hurried into his other set of clothes and rubbed a handful of clay-red dirt through his hair – when he left here, he sure wasn’t going to look like any description the police might have. He filled his thermos from a water fountain, drank it all down, and filled it again. As he wriggled under the bench, he smiled, realising that Pax would have chosen this same spot – protected, but with a good vantage point – if he wanted a rest.
An hour, that was all, and then he’d cut behind the school and pick up the road again. Enough time that if the police had been called, they would lose interest. He arranged his baseball glove and lowered his head. “Just an hour,” he murmured. “I won’t even close my eyes.”
This
