get the guy who did it though.”
“Seriously? That’s crazy!” exclaimed Stephen. “Where did he live?”
“Right next door to the kid,” said Ben. “We were right outside when it happened, and we saw the whole thing.”
“I still can’t believe it. Mr. Anderson was really cool,” added Jack. “He used to take care of that kid sometimes, when his parents couldn’t find a sitter and stuff. Just seems weird.”
“Yeah, but didn’t your dad say they had lots of evidence?” asked Ben.
“You guys need to back up a piece — what happened to the kid?” asked Stephen.
“Well, he went missing a couple of months ago,” explained Jack. “I don’t remember exactly when, but everyone was looking for him for a long time. After a while they just stopped. Not his dad though — that guy was really mad. We hadn’t heard anything about Gabe in weeks and weeks and then they showed up and took away Mr. Anderson.”
“Wow — where’s he now?” asked Stephen.
“I don’t know. We haven’t been watching the news or anything, but I think everyone thinks Gabe is dead by now,” replied Jack.
“And where did this kid live?” asked Stephen.
“Just down the street,” said Ben. “We’ll show you when we get back.”
“Wow. You live down the street from a dead kid,” said Stephen. “That’s trippy. But I think you’re right: it doesn’t make that much sense. I would think those guys wouldn’t grab a neighborhood kid. Too risky. They’d go for a kid who lived really far away so nobody would know.”
“Yeah, but maybe Gabe trusted him,” said Jack. “He grabbed him from pre-school, so maybe he just said he’d give him a ride or something.”
“That’s cool they caught him and all,” said Stephen. “My mom would probably freak if she thought there was a kid-toucher around somewhere.”
“Yeah, well we’ve been dealing with that for weeks,” said Ben.
“I think it’s getting better now,” offered Jack. “She didn’t even really ask where we were hiking today. Just told me to bring sunscreen.”
“Which you didn’t put on,” said Ben.
“Hey, leave him alone,” said Stephen, defending Jack. “He really needs a tan.”
Jack threw an empty can at Stephen — “You’re just as pale as me, buddy.”
“Yeah, but I just got here,” countered Stephen. “You and Ben have been nature-boys for weeks.”
“That’s actually a pretty solid point,” agreed Ben.
“Get bent,” said Jack. “Which way did you guys want to go, anyway?”
“You tell me — what’s where?” asked Stephen.
Ben pointed off to the west. “If we go that way just past that second hill we can take a right and get to the quarry. Over that way,” he pointed behind himself, “you can see that little river down there. It’s not that wide, but looks really deep and it moves fast. We’ve never gone across cuz it’s so cold.”
“We could make a raft or a bridge or something,” said Stephen.
“Yeah, that might be cool,” replied Ben.
“Did you ever follow it downstream to see how far it goes until there’s a real bridge?” asked Stephen.
“No, but we looked online,” said Jack. “The only bridge that way is the highway,” he pointed north.
“And back that way you’re all the way back to Jack’s house,” added Ben, pointing south.
“Yup,” said Jack.
“Well I guess there’s plenty of directions to go before we get desperate about that river anyway,” said Ben. “We still haven’t really gone much north from here, or west past the quarry anyway.”
Jack was digging through his bag. “Oh wait, check this out.” He pulled out a topographic map. “I forgot I had this.”
“Oh, nice. Thanks,” said Stephen as Jack handed him the map.
“So we’re about here,” Jack pointed. “And this is the quarry.” His map had all the local features. “It’s a little old, so it doesn’t have a couple of the newer roads, but it’s pretty accurate about this area.”
“What’s this here?” asked Stephen, pointing at the map.
“Looks like a little pond or something,” answered Ben.
“Don’t these lines mean that it’s uphill?” asked Stephen.
“Depends on the numbers, those are the height above sea-level,” said Jack. “They should be marked every fifty feet on the darker lines. Are they going up?”
“Yeah, look, five-hundred there, and five-fifty up here,” replied Stephen. “So that little pond is at the top of a hill. That sounds cool.”
Ben agreed — “Yeah, like a volcano or something.”
“Could be — we should go check it out. How far is it?” asked Stephen.
“Let me see,” said Jack. “Well, looks like a mile from here. Could be hard-hiking though, so maybe about an hour each way.”
“Do we have time?” asked Ben.
Jack cautioned: “We might, but it wouldn’t leave us much time to explore and stuff. I think we should plan a whole day around it.”
Stephen was the first to capitulate — “Yeah, let’s do that. Then we don’t have worry about getting right back,” said Stephen. “Actually, I think we might have to think about getting back before those clouds come.”
“Hey,” said Ben, “let’s go over to the quarry and see if we can get wet before we get wet.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Jack.
The boys packed their trash back into their packs and headed down the hill to the west. Ben was in the lead and Jack pulled up the rear. Jack moved somewhat slower down the hills — his balance was affected by his immobilized arm. He managed to catch up on the flats though, and kept pace with Ben and Stephen.
Shielding his eyes and squinting, Stephen looked off to the woods often. When a plane would pass overhead, he would look up frequently until it had passed. He seemed to be focused on everything except the trail in front of him.
They walked in silence for almost twenty minutes before Stephen broke in — “These trails are really pretty cool. We don’t have anything like this.”
Ben turned around and walked backwards to answer — “Yeah, we’ve been exploring almost every day, and we still haven’t nearly seem them all. The quarry is just up here.”
Stephen and Jack followed Ben’s lead to a narrow trail through the woods. Soon they had emerged at the edge of a clearing, on the lip of sandy slope that led to the quarry floor. Half-running and half-sliding, Ben descended first. Stephen followed and Jack came down a bit more gingerly. The floor of the pit was mostly hard-packed sand with a few large rocks strewn about.
“You gotta make sure nobody’s shooting down here before you come down — that’s the only thing,” said Ben. “There’s a target right there.”
“We’ve only seen them once though,” said Jack.
The three boys headed around the corner following four-wheeler tracks from pit to pit. Aside from the occasional broken bottle, the area was fairly un-littered. Soon they approached the quarry-pond, dumped their packs, and sat down to peel off their shoes and socks.
“What do you think — you going all the way in?” asked Jack.
“I’m just going to dip my feet,” replied Ben. “I don’t want to get all wet.”
“I’ve got to at least dip my head in — I’m burning up,” said Stephen.
After they had dipped and splashed, they climbed one of the rock walls and looked down at the quarry.
“You think we could jump off here?” asked Ben.
“Looks dangerous,” said Jack. “You first.”
“This first,” said Stephen as he chucked a large rock down to the water. He was rewarded with a giant splash.
He was ready to throw another when Ben stopped him — “Wait, hold on.” Ben pointed to the east side of the pond where two shapes were coming around a large rock.
