One day, when the girl was gone, he wandered all the way to the cabin. He scratched his back against the rough-hewn porch and warmed himself in the last rays of the sun. The air was still, and he listened with pleasure to tomorrow’s breakfast rustling in the woods, the squirrels chattering in the trees, and even, far in the distance, the man and his helper hammering and grinding. But as the sun sank behind the treetops he heard another sound, familiar to him yet forgotten, from a time long ago. He sat up and pricked his ears, scanning the forest. And he was dimly aware of dark presences lurking, something that was not right.
11
When Fred and I pulled in the drive, Sheriff Bean’s cruiser was parked in front of the house. He and Henry were standing in the cold down by the studio door, in serious conversation. Mr. C’mere wasn’t waiting for me on the porch as usual, either. Since yesterday, he’d been cross with me, and extra wary. He flat refused to go up the path to the cabin, though he’d been following me there for a couple of weeks. He sat down stubborn as glue at the edge of the yard, refusing to move, even for Fred’s corned beef.
I’d been out of sorts since yesterday myself, because somebody stole my journal from Ms. Avery’s desk. I’d hardly filled twenty pages. Ms. Avery and I turned the classroom upside down without any luck. I knew who’d taken it, just didn’t have proof.
The sheriff waved in our direction.
“You been speeding?” I said to Fred as we walked over.
“No, have you?” he said.
The sheriff and Henry looked serious, and when Fred and I got close enough to eavesdrop, they cut their eyes toward me and lowered their voices, the sheriff speaking urgently and fast. Henry nodded at what he said, then glanced at me worriedly.
“Afternoon, afternoon, my good friends,” the sheriff called out. “All ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow?”
“I am!” I said.
He smiled his tobacco-brown smile.
“How’s Henry treating you?” he said to me, whipping out a fat pack of Juicy Fruit and offering everybody a stick. I took one and so did Fred. The sheriff unwrapped two sticks, folded them together, and stuck them in his cheek like a chaw.
“Fine for now,” I told him.
“Well, keep me posted. After this weekend, Mrs. Bean and I will have four empty bedrooms again. You keep an eye on this one, too,” he said, nodding at Fred.
“Oh, I do,” I said, giving Fred an if-you-know-what’s-good-for-you look.
Henry tossed down his greasy rag and said, “Let’s all go inside where it’s warm.”
He cleared spaces in the studio for us to sit. Three roaring heaters made the studio toasty. He propped his foot on the first rung of a step stool and rested his elbow on his bent knee. I called it his Thinker pose, after a famous statue by the French sculptor Rodin. I’d seen a picture of it in one of Henry’s books.
“As I was telling Henry,” the sheriff said to me and Fred, “yesterday two boys stumbled on a rusty old still in the woods about a mile due north, near Henry’s property line. They were hanging out there after school drinking beer and fiddling with it.”
“Never knew there was a still up there,” Fred said.
“What’s a still?” I asked.
“For homemade liquor,” he said. “A still’s what you make it in.”
The sheriff nodded. “The boys claim they were up there checking out an old cabin they’d heard about when they just happened on the beer and the still.” He gave us all a skeptical look. “They say they caught sight of an albino deer hightailing it off into the woods, and then somebody shot at them with a bow and arrows. I wouldn’t believe one word of this inebriated fairy tale except that one of them—Mayor Peters’s boy, Hargrove—had a good-sized gash in his arm, and there was blood all over both of them.”
When the sheriff mentioned the cabin and the white deer, my heart started beating fast, but when he said Hargrove’s name, it pounded like it might leap out of my chest. I hadn’t told Henry what had happened at school on Monday. After I’d given my Henry presentation and the class had gone to lunch, I came back to the room for a book and caught Hargrove gaping at the art books I’d left on my desk. When I asked what he thought he was doing, he froze and turned three shades of red. I went straight to his desk, reached inside, grabbed his dog-eared notebook, and started flipping through his pencil drawings of animals, dogs and birds and squirrels. Hargrove crossed that room like a shot, snatched it out of my hand, and shoved me against the door just as Ms. Avery walked up. She took us right to the principal’s office, and Hargrove had to apologize to me in front of his daddy, the mayor. The next day my journal was gone.
Now I put on my best poker face and looked from Henry to the sheriff to Fred. Thank heaven for card nights with Manny and his gambling buddies.
“How is the Peters boy?” Henry asked.
“Doc Wilson says he won’t be throwing sliders for a while, but otherwise he’ll be fine.”
Henry nodded. “And you say the other boy is older? A cousin?”
“That’s right,” the sheriff said. “I’d bet money those two were drinking and Hargrove cut himself on
