The Boy in the Burning House (16 page)

Jim stumbled to the woodstove and found a coffee can full of matches. He lit one. In the glow, he saw a plaster statue of a little black boy sitting on the table, fishing. He was almost white with dust.

There were lawn ornaments everywhere: deer and fawns, flamingos and a dwarf standing in the sink holding his belly and smiling.

Jim located newspapers and kindling. Fisher would not be able to see the smoke on such an overcast night.

The thought of any more running exhausted him. He lit another match, set it to the paper.

The firewood was right where he had left it. He had visited Billy Bones a few times, tended him when he got sick. And then one day, on his way here with a pot of soup, Jim saw an ambulance driving away. And that was that. The crazy old man had saved Jim's life but he couldn't return the favour.

He tried to remember Billy's face but he couldn't — only his eyes, lost and confused. There was just this poor house, a few sticks of furniture and a zoo of abandoned lawn ornaments. And there was this wood, waiting. Almost as if Jim had been expecting one day to come back.

He left the door open on the stove. The flames lit up the squalid room. Outside, the wind had picked up again. Rain in the branches of the windbreak splattered noisily onto the steel roof.

He dragged a foul-smelling blanket from Billy Bones' bed, wrapped himself in it and ventured out into the night as far as the road. He had hoped to see Ruth Rose, but it was difficult to see anything except the faint lights at his own place. It was too far away to tell if the van was still there.

Why had she run out front like that? What was she going to do? Puncture Fisher's tires? Smash in his windshield? Probably. Some dumb and dangerous act of vengeance. How could anyone so smart be so reckless?

Suddenly the rain picked up and he ran for shelter back to Billy Bones'.

He fed the fire and felt its warmth melting the shards of ice in his bones. Time passed and, despite his best efforts, he drifted off.

Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. He jumped and spun around. His feet became tangled in his blanket and he crashed to the floor. When he freed himself, Ruth Rose was standing there. Sopping wet, white as a ghost, but smiling.

“Mind if I sit down?” she said.

Jim got to his feet, feeling like a fool.

“Where were you?” he demanded. “What took you so long?”

“I hid in the barn.”

“Why didn't you come here like I told you?”

She glared at him. “Stop yelling at me.”

He hadn't meant to yell. It was just nerves. He turned his attention to the fire, fed it and stoked it. Then he dragged more blankets from Billy Bones' bed to wrap her up. He pulled another chair over to the fire, shook the mouse droppings off it and sat down beside her.

That's when he noticed her bare feet. They were scraped and filthy with mud; one of them was smeared with blood.

“I had to wait him out,” she said.

Jim went to the sink and worked the old pump. It strained and squealed but no water came. It had lost its prime. He found a rag that may once have been a dishcloth. He banged it against the counter a couple of times to shake the dust off it. Outside the door, he dipped it into a rusty bucket filled with rainwater. It would have to do.

He returned to the stove and kneeled at Ruth Rose's feet, dabbing at the caked mud and blood. She leaned back in her chair and tried not to flinch. He worked away as gently as he could, the fire warming his back.

When he next looked up, Ruth Rose was gazing behind her.

“There's a dwarf in the sink,” she said.

Jim nodded. “Happy.”

“I guess so,” said Ruth Rose. “Except for my foot.”

“No, I meant the dwarf,” said Jim. “It's Happy. You know, from Snow White.”

Ruth Rose sniggered. “Well, this place could use Snow White,” she said. Then they both broke down in a giddy giggling fit, made worse by the attempt to stifle it. The laughter subsided in the dark and was replaced by a low groan from Ruth Rose.

Jim found her a plastic lamb to rest her foot on.

“I wonder how Poochie is,” she said.

Jim thought of the dog. It had squealed, all right, but it had run away under its own steam. It was probably off somewhere licking its wounds.

“He'll be okay,” he said. “That dog's tough.”

“Yeah. A killer.”

Jim thought again of the lightning speed, the viciousness, with which Fisher had lashed out at the animal.

“You could call him,” he said.

Ruth Rose dug the whistle from her pants pocket. Then she put it away again.

“Dog might lead him here,” she said.

Jim nodded. How could he have been so stupid? But then, it was hard to think like this, like a fugitive.

He got to his feet. He had done about as much as he could for Ruth Rose without iodine and clean bandages. He kicked at the floor.

“I hate this,” he said. “I hate
him
.”

“At last,” said Ruth Rose.

They were quiet again. Ruth Rose leaned forward so that her face glowed red in the firelight. Jim cleared his throat.

“Why did you go out front?” he said. “You were a sitting duck.”

She shrugged. “I thought maybe I could steal his car, leave him stranded. I know how to drive. Except he didn't leave the keys.”

“Oh,” said Jim. It wasn't what he had thought at all. He was all churned up inside.

“It was dangerous,” he said. “Stupid.”

“What is with you, anyway?”

Jim didn't speak for a moment. Then he steadied himself so that his words came out clear and unwavering.

“My dad never hurt anyone. Never. Just so you know.”

He didn't dare look at her, didn't want to see the disdain in her eyes.

She didn't reply. The moment lengthened.

The rain beat down deafeningly. Jim fed the fire and it grew so hot that he dropped the scratchy blanket from his shoulders. He tried to guess what time it was, thought about checking the road again but only got as far as the door. The rain was a solid curtain. He returned to his chair but he couldn't sit. He couldn't stand the tension.

“What was he saying about a letter?”

“How should I know,” said Ruth Rose, her voice full of mustard.

“He said you stole it.”

“Who do you want to believe, him or me?”

Jim could feel her eyes on him but he couldn't meet her gaze.

“Okay, I'm sorry,” he snapped. He glanced at her. She turned away. But then she spoke anyway.

“What I think is that one of the letters got lost or something — intercepted, maybe. Maybe whoever is blackmailing him got pissed off when they didn't hear back. So he figures it must have been me.”

“If it wasn't you, who was it?”

Ruth Rose shook her head. “That's what I want to know.”

Jim tried to think but he was growing more and more sleepy. He closed his eyes and there was Father Fisher standing on the other side of the kitchen door looking in at him.

Jim's eyes snapped open again. He hadn't even had the chance to tell her.

“I think he had been in a fight,” he said. He told Ruth Rose about the cut on Father's cheek, the stain on his lapel, the scratches on the back of his neck, the missing cross.

“He never goes anywhere without that thing. It's like his good luck charm or something,” she said excitedly. “They must be closing in. He must have escaped some kind of a trap. That's why he was acting like a cornered rat. He's close to breaking.”

Jim looked at her. Despite her pain, her exhaustion, she was gloating, her eyes brimming over with fury. It was scary.

“We were lucky,” he said.

“It isn't luck,” she answered, her face contorting into nastiness. “Hate is a powerful weapon, Jim. Hate got me this far. I'm not gonna quit now.”

Jim poked at the fire with a stick. He didn't like the
look on her face, didn't feel right. His brain hurt. He hurt all over. The stick he was using burst into flames. He shoved it into the fire.

He slumped in his chair, plumped up his blankets into a pillow.

“I'll keep first watch,” he said. Ruth Rose didn't answer. She had fallen asleep. “I'll wake you,” he mumbled. But he never did. He was asleep himself before the next squall hit. The rain thundered down, the wind shook the house so that the windows rattled in their casements. The door flew open. Neither of them noticed.

What there was of dawn finally pierced the grimy windows to give shape to the decrepit interior of Billy Bones' shack, It looked even more wretched in the dim light than it had in the dark. Ruth Rose found a pair of gumboots and shook the spiders out of them. Her foot had stopped bleeding. They had wrapped it up in strips of torn bedsheet. It was painful but she could walk.

“What if he's still there?” she said, hobbling towards the door, following Jim. Jim stopped, dopey with sleep. He hadn't really thought about it.

Ruth Rose picked up a lawn ornament. “We could flamingo him to death,” she said. Jim smiled. It was good to hear her crack a joke.

They walked cautiously out to the road. As far as they could tell, there was no car in Jim's yard. It was cold enough that they could see their breath blossoming out from their mouths. They didn't speak, just tried to keep their tired eyes open as best they could and one foot moving in front of the next.

Ruth Rose kept checking behind them. She wasn't armed with a flamingo anymore, but Jim had seen her wrap a rusty kitchen knife in newspaper and shove it down her boot. He hadn't said anything.

The sun was lost to them, the palest pencil line of
light along a ridge that jutted up from a dark mantle of fir trees to the north of the Twelfth Line.

“What do they call that place?” asked Ruth Rose.

Jim followed her gaze. “The ridge, you mean?” She nodded. He thought a minute, racked his brain. “I think they call it the ridge,” he said.

“Sure are imaginative up this way.”

Jim turned his gaze to the hill. It formed an impressive backdrop to the gouged-out moonscape of Purvis Poole's sand pit. The pit was closed down, had been for years. Jim had never ventured much beyond it. He had played there sometimes when he was younger — the biggest sandbox in the county — leaping off the grassy lip and tumbling down, down, down.

He looked at Ruth Rose. Her eyes were fixed on the ridge. The highest point of land in the area.

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” he asked.

She cocked an eyebrow. “Mount Tabor?”

He nodded. “Maybe Fisher named it that.”

“Did the search parties get up that way?”

Jim thought a bit. He remembered seeing the police helicopter flying low. But really the police had concentrated the search where they had found the car, down at the southeast corner of the Hawkins farm and south from there towards the quarry. He stopped in his tracks.

“Holy smoke,” he said as the truth dawned on him.

“What?”

“The clues,” he said. “The footprints and everything. They all led the search party away from the ridge. The exact opposite direction.”

Ruth Rose snapped her head in the direction of the high ground. They stood in the middle of the road and watched the light creep over the rim of the ridge and seep like pale lava down the edges into the trees.

“Now we're getting somewhere,” she said.

There were no surprises waiting for them in the farmyard. The Godmobile was gone. Fisher could be hiding, waiting. Somehow Jim didn't think so. Maybe it was the ragged light of day or the prospect of his mother arriving home soon. Whatever the reason, he was willing to take his chances.

The back door was hanging open. Jim stepped into the kitchen but stopped on the threshold and gasped.

He saw the table on its back, a broken chair lying in the corner. He saw smashed dishes and torn curtains, and red. Everywhere red. Primer-paint red.

Three words spray-painted like splattered blood on the wall, the floor, the fridge.

He felt Ruth Rose's hand on his arm. He slapped it away and turned on her, breathing hard, dizzy with rage.

Ruth Rose met his gaze, her mouth gaping.

“Thought you'd steal his car,” shouted Jim.

“What are you talking about?”

His arm flung out and pointed behind him to the kitchen. His eyes blazed with betrayal. “Hid in the barn,” he shouted. “Waited him out.”

Her eyes retreated into angry slits. “You think I did this?”

He didn't speak. His face said it all.

Neither of them moved. Then Ruth Rose stepped into the room and looked around at the ugly lettering, the ugly revelation scrawled everywhere, the empty
spray tins, the derangement of what had once been a spotless country kitchen, and she laughed. It was the laughter of a mad person.

“Shut up!” yelled Jim, his face burning, his neck muscles standing out like cables. “Shut up!” he screamed, his voice shattering into a thousand pieces.