Skinny-Dipping at Monster Lake (2 page)

He seemed real proud of himself and was ready to play. None of us cared. By then we were already worn out, bruised, and wanting to do something else.

Over the next week or so, we
did
have fun with the things. Playing army like Daniel had seen in the movie didn't work out too well. That's because, without the helmets . . . well, getting clunked in the head with those things—even though they were padded—sure gave us a headache. So after a few days we decided to use them in a different way.

We went through our “Knights of the Round Table” era. We used old, wooden baseball bats as the swords. (They were about the right size and weight. Even Sir Lancelot had to use two hands to wield his sword.) We used the pugil sticks like jousting lances.

That didn't work too hot, either.

Without a hand guard, like on a real sword, our fingers kept getting smashed. Smushed fingers ended the sword fighting
real quick.
Our horses weren't too crazy about these pugil sticks flying around their heads. When we'd charge at the other knight, the horses usually shied away and we couldn't stab anybody. On the few occasions we managed to keep our horses going straight long enough to make contact, we figured out why the knights wore all that armor. Getting knocked off a running horse and landing flat on your back in the middle of the pasture was no fun at all. We gave up on our Knights of the Round Table thing and went back to being the Seventh Cavalry.

Zane Parker's dad was a brick mason. He had boxes and boxes of this bright blue chalk. He used it to coat string that he and his crew stretched and thumped against the ground to lay out straight lines for walls and stuff. Since there was plenty of it, Zane talked him out of a box. We'd dip the ends of the pugil sticks in the blue chalk. That way, whenever you hit somebody, there was no chance of lying about whether you got speared or not. The blue spot on your shirt was enough to . . .

• • •

“. . . thousand fifty-eight, thousand fifty-nine . . .

The sound of Chet's voice snapped me from my daydreams. As soon as I was alive again, I needed to take off before Daniel figured out where I was going. If I could find Foster . . . if I could talk him into voting for me . . .

“. . . thousand
sixty!
”

I opened both eyes and sat up.

Foster Foster leaned down next to me. He reached out a hand and picked his pugil stick spear off the ground. It was the one that came flying at me from the pile of brush.

“Thanks for the new spear, Daniel,” he called over his shoulder. “It's great. I'm going to have to throw it a few more times before I get accurate with it. I should have had Kent with that throw. But it's really neat.”

Daniel shrugged. “Don't mention it. Soon as I get a little more money saved up from my allowance, I'm going to buy sticks for Kent and Jordan and Ted, too.”

When I saw how proudly Foster held his new pugil stick, my heart sank.

Daniel Shift beat me to him. He bribed Foster with his very own pugil stick spear.

“It's just not fair,” I mumbled.

“Oh, quit complaining.” Daniel laughed. “It was a good ambush.”

I wasn't even talking about that, but I couldn't say anything. Leading Daniel's horse, Zane rode up on his dapple gray mare and handed him the reins. “Where to now, General Swift?” He stuck his hand to the brim of his baseball cap like a salute.

“General?” I asked.

When Daniel stuck his nose in the air, it made him look like he had even less chin than normal.

“Yep. General.”

My shoulders sagged. “I thought we were going to vote.”

“We did. Chet, Pepper, Zane, and Foster all voted for me as general.”

“But—”

“That's a majority,” Daniel interrupted. “Even if Jordan and Ted vote for you, that still puts me one vote ahead. I'm making you captain, though. After Chet, you're next in command.”

I stood there with my mouth open. Daniel put his foot in the stirrup, bounced once, and swung to the saddle.

“Troop, mount up!” he ordered. “We have to ride by Ted's and get him. Then we'll pick teams and have a real war before lunch.”

Duke and I rode at the back of the line.

Captain Kent Morgan.
It was almost enough to make me sick. Here I had dreams of being general of the Seventh Cavalry, and without even getting to vote, I'd been demoted to captain.

Bummer.

W
e rode across Wilson's Swamp, alongside Sinkhole River and headed up Bobcat Canyon.

Okay . . . Wilson's Swamp wasn't really a swamp. It was just sort of a muddy spot where one of the creeks flowed into Monster Lake—I mean, Cedar Lake. Right now it was all dried up because we hadn't had a rain since early June. Sinkhole River was really a little dried-up creek. We called it “Sinkhole” because there were a couple of deep pools that still had slimy, oozie green water in them. And “river” just sounded a lot more exciting than “creek.”

We really did see a bobcat in Bobcat Canyon, though. It was about two years ago. He was a scrawny little thing. We thought he was somebody's house cat at first. But he was a real honest-to-goodness bobcat.

We almost didn't see him at all. That's because Zane was the one who spotted him. Usually, nobody ever listened to Zane. He was all the time
making up stories or seeing stuff. If Pepper hadn't noticed the bobcat, right after Zane did—well . . .

We were near the head of Bobcat Canyon, where we saw the “real” bobcat, when we found Ted.

I guess I should say, Ted found us.

General Daniel Shift, our fearless leader, was in front of the line. I brought up the rear. With Chet close on his heels, Daniel kicked his horse and started up the steep path. He was almost to the top of the cliff when Ted Aikman sprang from behind a fallen oak log and drilled him—square in the chest—with a sunflower-stalk spear.

Startled, and probably a little hurt, Daniel grabbed his chest. Quick as a cat, Ted sprang to the side and launched another spear at Chet. It caught him totally by surprise, but Ted missed. Chet hopped off his horse and used him for a shield.

That's when the idea struck me. Why wait to choose teams, like General Swift suggested earlier. We all knew that Daniel, Chet, Pepper, and Zane would be on one team. Ted, Jordan, Foster, and I would be on the other. That's the way it always worked. So . . .

Nudging Duke with my heels, we trotted up beside Jordan. For once he was paying attention. I slipped my rubber knife from the scabbard at my
side and nodded toward Pepper and Zane.

Jordan winked.

“Let's get 'em,” he whispered.

Pepper never saw us coming. Jordan kicked his feet free from the stirrups and tucked them up on the saddle, under him. Pepper's horse didn't even shy when Jordan leaped from Mac and landed on his back.

Now, Jordan was kind of in a different world, most of the time. He was, however, smart enough to know that you don't drag Pepper Hamilton off his horse. Pepper outweighed any two or three of us put together. The chance of him landing on top of someone was simply too great a risk. So instead of trying to pull him off, Jordan just reached around and stabbed him in the chest.

Pepper did manage to yell out, though.

It was too late for Zane. Duke and I squeezed past Foster on the trail. We were right beside Zane when he looked up. His eyes flashed, just in time to see my blade coming toward his stomach. He sucked in, but it was no use. I got him.

His shoulders sagged and he sneered at me before he slumped in the saddle, then slid off Gray's back. When he yelled out, too, the element of surprise was lost.

I didn't even give Foster a second thought, since
he always ended up on our team. I guess his new “gift” from Daniel made him forget. He grabbed the pugil stick spear from where it rested across the front of his saddle, and jumped off his horse. He looked at me, then at Jordan, then back at me again.

Chet was closer. I turned my attention to him. Chet raised his head over the dip in his saddle. He ducked down, quick as he could. When a spear didn't come flying, he raised up again.

Still near the fallen log at the top of the cliff, Ted only had two sunflower stalks left. He wasn't about to waste one on a guy hiding behind a horse. Pugil stick spear in hand, and using his horse as a shield, Chet started toward me. Ted raised one of his spears, but Chet knew it was just a bluff.

“Jordan,” I called. “Hurry up. I'm outnumbered.”

Kneeling, I reached for Zane's spear. But he held on to it. I tugged. “You're dead. Let go.”

“It's a ‘death grip,”' he explained, still hanging on like a bulldog. “You'll have to pry my fingers loose.”

My eyes crossed when I looked down my nose at him. I reached for his fingers, then gave it up. Chet was too close. There was no time.

“Jordan. Hurry!”

Slicing the air with my knife, I fended off Chet's first spear attack. He backed up, moving to the side for another try. That put Foster behind me. It was hard to watch Chet and wonder if Foster was sneaking up to stab me in the back.

“I got Foster,” Jordan called. “Run from Chet, if you have to. Soon as I finish this guy off, I'll come help you.”

It was mighty brave talk for Jordan. He wasn't that good at hand-to-hand combat. Usually—even if he was thinking about what he was doing—he ended up tripping over his feet or leaving himself wide open.

There was a sudden crashing sound behind me. Chet's mouth fell open and his spear dangled at his side. I glanced over my shoulder to see what was going on.

Tumbling and rolling like a bowling ball, Ted Aikman came from the top of the dirt cliff. Foster blinked. Then his eyes got as big around as baseballs. Ted was headed right for him.

Foster kind of hopped from one foot to the other—trying to decide which way to dodge. It was all Jordan needed. I guess he'd grabbed Pepper's spear, after he stabbed him. Jordan aimed it at Foster. Jabbed him in the side. The thing hit
him so solid that a small cloud of blue chalk dust swirled through the air.

Foster didn't care that he'd been stabbed. He just wanted out of Ted's way. Ted wasn't rolling anymore. He was sliding. At least, I guess he was. I really couldn't tell. All I could see was this cloud of dust, rushing down the hill like an avalanche.

Foster started to jump left. He started to jump to the right. Only he couldn't decide. By the time he did . . .

It was too late.

Ted slammed into him. There was a yell—really more like a scream—then Foster's spear went flying. The next thing I saw were his tennis shoes. In the blink of an eye his feet were up above his head. Finally he disappeared into the cloud of rolling dust.

When the dirt settled, Ted appeared under Zane's horse's belly. Blinking and eyes still rolling, he staggered to his feet. The horse didn't kick or anything. He just wobbled his ears. Dizzy from rolling down the hill, Ted's eyes kind of jerked and twitched a moment before he found Chet. He fumbled for his knife.

The two of us started for the last enemy. Jordan was no help. All he did was laugh. Leaning against Zane's horse, he pointed at Foster, then at Ted,
then back at Foster. He laughed so hard that water started leaking from his eyes.

“You—” He broke off, almost howling. “You should have seen . . . the look on . . . on Foster's face.” Jordan finally managed. Then he dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around the horse's hind leg.

All Ted, Chet, and I could do was shake our heads. Ted and I moved in for the kill. We came at Chet from opposite sides. Eased closer and closer, twisting our knives and watching his every move.

Chet dropped his spear. Both hands shot over his head. “I give! I surrender. You win.”

The only difference between surrendering and getting killed was—if you were killed you had to lay quiet on the ground for sixty seconds. If you surrendered, you could at least stay on your feet and talk some. Chet knew he lost, and there was no sense getting all dirty.

I picked his spear up and turned to Ted.

“I'll watch the prisoner. You go get Jordan off the horse's leg, before he gets kicked in the head.”

We probably had the best horses in the whole country. They weren't much good for racing or roping or anything like that, but when it came to fighting wars . . . our horses couldn't be beat.

Two years of jumping out of trees and knocking
people off their backs—two years of leaping from one horse onto another while galloping across a field—two years of getting hit with spears or sunflower stalks and having your rider fall off . . . the whole bunch of them had gotten used to just about anything.

Ted unwrapped Jordan's arms from around the hind leg and brought him over to where Chet and I stood.

Daniel got up and started dusting his jeans off. “That's cheating. Kent and Jordan were riding with us.”

Jordan quit laughing just long enough to suck in a deep breath. “Kent and I weren't really on your team, Daniel. We were spies for Ted's team.” With that, he looked back at Foster and burst out laughing again. The drops of water that leaked from his eyes left little mud trails down his cheeks.

I smiled, amazed at how sharp Jordan could be sometimes. Daniel folded his arms.

“It's not fair,” he grumped.

“You're dead.” I smiled at him. “Shut up or I'll kill you again.”

Grudgingly, Daniel plopped down on his bottom and pouted.

“Thousand one,” Ted began. “Thousand two . . . thousand three . . .”

“I'm tired of this war stuff.” Daniel cupped his hands under what little chin he had, and stared at the dirt. “Let's go do something else.”

Ted threw his hands up. “Now I got to start all over again.”

I nudged him with my elbow. “I'll count. Thousand one . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . thousand two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . thousand three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”