“ And I’m going to help him.” Carolina bent down to pick up a rock. “About now your friend, Steve, is getting his head stitched together. You want to join him?”
“ Hey, two against one, no fair,” Ray said.
“ Get going, Ray,” Arty said.
“ I can’t fight a girl,” Ray said.
“ Sure, Ray,” Arty said, and Ray Harpine stepped around them, keeping himself as far from them as possible, without actually walking in the water. In a few seconds he was out of sight.
“ Wow! Tough guy, Arty,” she said, beaming her crooked smile.
“ That felt good,” he said.
“ Okay, now the hard part starts. We have to cross back across the stream a little way up ahead, then we get to start climbing. It’s not difficult, but you can get tired.”
“ I can do it,” he said, and he followed her, again stepping on stones to cross the stream. It wasn’t hard going and it wasn’t steep. However it was up and he found himself breathing heavily, but he didn’t want to cry uncle, so he kept on, till they reached the top, where he flopped on his butt and took in great breaths of air.
“ That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked.
“ Piece of cake,” he said, grabbing his throat and pretending to gasp his last breath.
“ Cut it out,” she said, laughing.
“ How much farther?”
“ We have to follow the stream for another few minutes. Then we turn right and go back through the woods for a bit, till we get to the clearing by the cliffs. From there we take the path down to the Little League field. Then it’s only a hop, skip and a jump and we’re home.”
Ten minutes later they came out of the woods, “Quiet,” she said. “Someone’s got a camp up ahead.” They stopped and studied the campsite against the setting sun.
“ How’d you see it?” Arty asked, “I can hardly tell it’s there.”
“ Hunter’s eyes,” she whispered.
“ You hunt?”
“ My dad used to take me. I liked it, till I finally killed something. That’s how come I don’t eat meat.”
“ Is that why it bugs you that Brad goes hunting?”
“ Maybe,” she said.
“ Who do you think it is?” he asked, changing the subject.
“ Probably one of the homeless people from town. Ray Harpine’s dad has been telling them he’d run them in, if they didn’t get out of the park. Come on, and be quiet,” she said, walking around the far side of the clearing, till they got to the path that leads down to the Little League field.
“ I have to go left here,” Carolina said.
“ But you live the other way?”
“ Yeah, but I promised Lynda I’d come over after we got back.”
“ How you gonna get home?” Arty asked, worried about her alone after dark.
“ Her mom will drive me. She always does.”
“ I think I’ll walk you to her house.” Arty thought about his father, dead on the sidewalk. Maybe he should have told her.
“ Okay,” she said, “but it’s only two blocks.”
“ That’s alright, I don’t mind.”
When they reached the house, she asked, like she did yesterday, “You’re coming over tonight, right?”
“ Between seven-thirty and eight.” He no longer worried about his father.
“ See ya then,” she said. Then she surprised him by moving in close and giving him a quick kiss on the lips. “For good luck,” she said, smiling, before she turned and darted to the door and rang the bell.
Arty waited till she was inside, before turning back the way he’d come. He was over the moon happy. Last week he was friendless and afraid of his own shadow. Now, a few short days later, he’d stood up to Brad and his gang, had the prettiest girl in school for a friend, and she’d kissed him. Nobody, except his mother, had ever kissed him before, and he decided that he liked it. He liked it a lot.
The sun was hanging low in the sky, casting long shadows, by the time he got back to the Little League field. The night he loved was close. The sky was clear. Arty loved it when the stars ruled the heavens. He knew them all. He could tell both time and direction by the stars, and he didn’t learn how from a book. He was a star gazer.
He brought his eyes down from the heavens and ran them along the basepath. Someday, he told himself, he’d be behind that plate, catching fastballs and throwing runners out at second base. Someday he’d be in that batter’s box, staring down a mean eyed pitcher. Someday he’d smash a line drive over the shortstop’s head. He ran his eyes and his imagination down to first, they rounded the bag as the ball came in from left, and they flew along the basepath to second and kept going to third, where they were getting ready to slide, when he saw Brad Peters out in left, running fast.
“ Darn,” he said, aloud, before he turned and ran back toward the path to the clearing. He would be in the woods before Brad could catch up. It would be dark in a few minutes, and the night belonged to him. Brad must really be mad, Arty thought, as he chugged up the path.
“ You can run, but you can’t hide,” Brad yelled, but he was wrong, because as soon as he was out of sight, Arty turned off the path and into the woods. He picked out an area with three small pines growing close together and made for it, diving behind the center tree with seconds to spare, as Brad came blundering up the path.
“ You might as well come out and take your medicine, ’cuz I got all night.” Brad stopped on the path. He was less than fifteen feet away. Arty held his breath as the last of the daylight slipped from the sky. Most people were afraid of the dark-he hoped Brad was, too.
“ I mean it, Arty. I know you’re hiding around here, and there’s no way down ’cept past me,” Brad yelled.
Arty was laying flat on the ground, behind the pine. He chanced a peek through its Christmas tree like branches and saw Brad, hands on hips, covered in shadows, facing the opposite direction. Arty reached around himself with his right hand, searching for and finding a rock. Then, like a soldier throwing a grenade, he brought his arm back behind his head and whipped it forward, sending the rock flying in a high arc over Brad’s head, into the woods on the other side of the path.
“ There you are.” Brad turned away from Arty and starting toward the place where the rock fell.
Dumb, Arty thought, picking up three more rocks and standing. He threw another far to the left of Brad, and smiled as Brad turned toward it, lurching through the woods like a mad bull. He remembered what a keen shot Brad was and he didn’t want to give the bully a target, so he stayed behind the pines till Brad was out of sight. Then he tossed another rock to Brad’s right, suppressing a laugh as the bully changed course and started back the way he’d come.
“ You are in major trouble, Arty,” Brad hollered.
But it was dark now and Arty yelled out, “I don’t think so Brad.”
“ Where are you?” Brad spun around in his confusion as Arty bent down and picked up a handful of rocks. He started throwing them in Brad’s general direction. His aim was not to hit, but to frighten and confuse the bully.
“ Ouch,” Brad wailed and Arty smiled. Lucky Shot.
“ You like the dark?” Arty yelled out, moving behind another pine.
“ When I get a hold of you-”
Arty sailed another rock over Brad’s head and again the bully turned away from him. Arty stepped out from the shelter of the pine, pretending the rocks were newspapers. He let three fast ones go.
“ Ouch, dammit.” Just like landing a paper on a porch.
Arty stepped back behind the pine.
“ I’m gonna pound you into the ground tomorrow,” Brad yelled as he retreated back down the path toward the Little League field. Arty sailed a couple of rocks in his direction for good measure, and was rewarded with Brad yelling back, “After school, in front of everyone, I am going to whip the holy shit out of you.”
Then Brad was gone and the night was quiet.
Arty waited a few minutes and was about to head back down, when he heard someone coming down the path. He froze in place. For an instant, he thought about running headlong down toward the baseball diamond, but then he calmed down by reminding himself that it was dark. He was safe in the night. The night was his friend.
