Autumn Blue (16 page)

It could be fixed. There was no jewelry store in Ham Bone, but she could have it done in Dunbar. She went to place it in the
jewelry box on her dresser for safekeeping.

Puzzled, she stared inside the box. Things were missing. The sapphire and diamond ring she had inherited from her great-aunt
Louise was gone. She remembered seeing it just a few days ago in its usual slot in the red velvet lining. There was no doubt
in her mind. The chiming refrain from “Some Enchanted Evening” playing from the music box became suddenly annoying. Where
was the gold bracelet from her father? The rhinestone bracelet and earring set? Her silver locket?

Sidney’s heart sank like a boulder in quicksand. She knew that neither Rebecca nor Sissy would dare get into her jewelry.
They had used it for playing dress-up once and learned their lesson during a week of restrictions. She hugged herself, suddenly
chilled. Deputy Estrada had seemed so sure that Tyson stole someone’s jewelry, and now hers was missing, too. But what could
Ty do with it? He was on house arrest; there was no way to fence it for cash. And what desperate need could he possibly have
for cash in his current situation?

Her mind whirled. Ty was too smart to steal from his own mother where he was sure to be caught. Besides, she reasoned, he
wouldn’t do that to her. Ty wasn’t like that. She went to the girls’ room first, feeling as if Deputy Estrada were looking
over her shoulder, his narrowed eyes shouting,
See? I told you so!
Her daughters didn’t stir when she turned on a lamp or when she quietly opened and closed drawers. She didn’t search hard.
She knew the jewelry wasn’t there.

In Ty’s doorway she paused, fear and fatigue rooting her bare feet to the floor. “Tyson,” she whispered. He didn’t stir. She
couldn’t hear his breath. “Tyson, I need to talk to you.” This time she spoke firmly. When he didn’t respond, she turned on
the light. The lump under his covers didn’t look right. She made herself walk up to the bed, stretching out her arm, knowing
before she touched the mound of pillows beneath his comforter that her son was not there.

M
ILLARD LAY WIDE-AWAKE
in his bed, his thoughts jumping between his mole problem and the moody boy who had invaded his home. He knew there was a
way to rid himself of the mole. In fact, the solution was tottering at the edge of his mind, so close to falling in that he
held his breath. But then, uninvited, the image of that sad-faced kid would fill his brain again, scattering shadows of emerging
ideas back into hiding.

Tyson had started to open up to him that day, but then had closed again like a threatened sea anemone. Millard had never known
a kid so enthralled by nature, one who not only knew and understood the wild things around him but had relationships with
them. A student he was not. But he was smart. And the kid had passion; Millard had seen it in his eyes as he stared out at
the four-point buck and the woodlands beyond.

It was the phone call from his probation officer that caused the boy to recede again into his dark, secret world. If it was
the threat of being taken back to jail again, why didn’t the kid just get busy on his schoolwork? Millard had had no patience
for students like that back when he taught at Silver Falls High. Kids that had good brains and wouldn’t use them. He wouldn’t
even let a wrestler on his team compete if his grade-point average dipped below 2.0. There he had been struggling to raise
a son with a brain the size of a marshmallow while others with healthy minds willingly let them go to waste. It made him angry,
then and now.

When his phone rang, Millard’s heart reverberated like a gong after being struck with a heavy mallet. He blinked in confusion
and sat up, fumbling for the switch on his bedside lamp. Eleven-thirty. Nobody he knew would call him that late. Not unless
it was an emergency. He stumbled down the hall, still shaking, to the phone by his easy chair. Oh, God. Not Rita. Not the
kids. “Hello?”

“Millard. It’s Sidney. I’m so sorry to wake you; I saw that your lights were out. It’s just—well, Tyson is gone. I thought
for some reason he might have gone over there.”

“No.” He turned on a lamp and looked around his living room even though his doors were locked. The boy couldn’t possibly have
gotten in. “Did you call the sheriff?”

“No. That wouldn’t be a very good idea under the circumstances.”

He felt stupid for suggesting it. “No. I guess not. I suppose he’s off in the woods somewhere.”

“That’s what I was hoping.” Her voice sounded deflated. “I thought maybe he was taking a little break from being stuck indoors.
But then I found this note. It doesn’t sound like he’s planning to sneak back in his window tonight. It says: ‘Mom, please
don’t worry about me.’” She started to cry.

“Is that all it says?”

She sniffed and seemed to be gathering herself. “‘I love you. Ty.’”

She broke down again. He stared helplessly at his white knobby knees. He had turned down the electric heat before crawling
into bed and was beginning to get goose bumps standing there in just his Fruit of the Looms and sleeveless undershirt. “Now,
don’t get all in a dither,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine why not. The kid was certainly destined for jail this time—if
he could be found. “What did he take with him?”

“I’m pretty sure one of our sleeping bags is missing. Then again, it could have been left at someone’s house after a sleepover
for all I know. I don’t do a regular inventory.” She hesitated. “I’m also missing some jewelry.”

Millard pondered this. What good was stolen jewelry to a fifteen-year-old kid in Ham Bone? Could he fence it anywhere around
there? “What about cash?”

“Well, I don’t think he had any saved up.”

“Did you check your purse?”

“I didn’t even think of that.” She put the phone down while she rummaged through her purse. “I still have the $20 bill I came
home with. There is one other place I should check, I suppose. My secret box. Can you hang on a minute?” She was gone for
at least two. “Millard?” Her voice was weak. “My emergency fund is gone—$225.”

He frowned. Stupid, selfish kid. “Doesn’t sound like your secret box was a secret.”

“I’ve had it since Ty was a baby. It’s an oriental puzzle box. I thought only a genius could figure out how to open it without
the directions.”

“Well, I don’t think he’ll get far. He’d have to thumb it all the way to Dunbar to catch a bus to anywhere and I think he’s
smarter than that. He’d be a sitting duck for law enforcement out on the highway at night.”

She let out a long sigh. “Millard, I’m sorry to have disturbed you.” She sniffed and then laughed dolefully. “I’ll bet you
rue the day you ever met me.”

They said their good-byes and Millard made his way back to his bedroom, shivering as he crawled beneath the cold sheets. He
lay flat on his back, eyes closed. This was really not his problem. Not a thing he could do about it. The kid could be anywhere.
A guy wouldn’t know whether to go north or south, east or west looking for him. The boy would surely keep under the cover
of the trees, and there were woodlands spread around them in all directions. East was unlikely. The mountains were too cold
this time of year; there had already been some dustings of snow on the foothills. Let it go, he told himself. Let the kid
run. He’d survive. If anyone could make it through a cold October night in the Cascade foothills, Tyson could. He might just
crawl inside that old stump with the skunk family since they all seemed to get along so well.

Counting sheep had never worked for Millard. He tried conjuring up comforting images of his dear departed Molly, but for some
reason tonight her apparition appeared frowning, arms folded across her chest and foot tapping as if he had forgotten to clean
his whiskers out of the sink again. He finally huffed in frustration and threw the covers off his body. What he needed was
a big slice of Sidney Walker’s zucchini bread, that and a glass of milk. Give his mind a chance to settle down so that sleep
would come. He slid his feet into his brown slippers and grabbed the green flannel robe from the back of a chair. As he fumbled
for the armholes, he paused by the bedroom window. The lights were still on in the Walker house. Then he noticed a small,
single light bouncing off the trees at the edge of their yard. A flashlight. He opened his window a crack. Sidney was calling
her son’s name into the wind.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” he muttered. Suddenly he yanked his arms from the bathrobe, turning it inside out and dumping it
in a wad on the chair. He pulled on the khaki pants he had worn for the past three or four days and donned a shirt and the
faded gray cardigan that Rita tried to replace every Christmas with gaudy plaid V-necks and the like. “That little woman is
going to drive me to drink.” He threw on a jacket and grabbed his keys from a peg on the kitchen wall before storming out
the front door.

The Lincoln had not been out of the garage for a while. He sat inside trembling, waiting for the heat to kick in, waiting
for a plan. A plan didn’t come. He backed the car out slowly, looking cautiously both ways before backing across the road
into Sidney’s driveway. The car still running, he trudged around to the back of the house. There was no sound other than a
faint murmuring in the trees, no flashlight beam in sight. He rapped on the back door.

“Oh, Millard!” Sidney was still dressed, wearing a pair of logger boots and a heavy jacket, her dark blond hair piled up on
her head like she was going to the prom. She looked pretty like that. Her cheeks were red, and when she hugged him he could
feel that they were still cold from being outdoors.

“Thought I might be able to help somehow,” he said.

She sighed, letting her head drop back and her shoulders relax. “Thank you, Jesus.”

Millard thought he was the one she should be thanking, standing out there in the cold at half past midnight when he ought
to be getting his beauty sleep.

“Please come in.”

“I saw you out there by the woods.”

She shook her head. “It was useless. I know he’s headed somewhere. I just can’t figure out where. I don’t know my own son
anymore.” She led him through the laundry room to the kitchen. “I was thinking of driving along the highway—just in case.
I know it’s a long shot, but he’s got to get out of town somehow. He’s too recognizable in Ham Bone. But I don’t want to leave
the girls here alone.”

Millard pondered that while eyeing a plate of muffins covered with plastic wrap on the counter. She shoved it toward him.

“Have one if you like.”

“Oh, well, all right.” The muffin was quite moist, filled with raisins and shreds of carrot. She poured him a glass of milk
before he had to ask for it. “You stay home,” he said after washing down a mouthful. “I’ll take the old Lincoln out for a
spin and look around. He’d recognize the sound of your car a mile away.”

“I didn’t think of that. You’re absolutely right.” Her eyes followed the muffin from the plate to his mouth as if willing
it to dissolve in his hand.

He reluctantly set the other half down, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I guess I’d better hit the road, then.”

She agreed enthusiastically, almost pushing him out the door.

The car was warm as he drove down Boulder Road toward town. He reached beneath the seat for his long-handled flashlight, clicking
it on. Good. Still put out a strong white light. He turned it off and set it on the seat beside him, keeping his high beams
on all the way down the hill. The only sign that he was not alone out there at that ridiculous hour was the set of red eyeballs,
probably a possum or a coon, reflecting his lights from the grassy ditch at the edge of the road. The clock on his dash read
12:55 A.M. as he crossed the bridge over the creek, dropping into downtown.

Streetlights illuminated the doorways of the buildings he passed: Cascade Savings and Loan, Red’s Barber Shop, Clara’s Café,
Art’s Hardware (God rest his soul). The whole town looked as if its occupants had passed on; it had a ghost-town feel to it
with not a soul in sight. Where would
he
go if he were a kid on the run? Certainly not Center Street. He shone his light down alleys between the old brick buildings
that lined the street, then turned onto Spruce and drove around behind the Ham Bone Market. On a windy night like this, the
kid would be looking for a way to stay warm. Millard himself had scrounged cardboard and crates from behind the grocery in
his younger days. When he and the Umquist brothers hopped the freight train up to Stevens Ridge to fish the alpine lakes,
flattened cardboard boxes had made good insulation beneath their sleeping bags. Of course, logs were brought down the mountain
by truck now. That spur of railroad had been shut down for years.

Millard cruised by the Dumpsters, panning the area with the beam of his flashlight. A skinny cat crouched and froze. Bundles
of broken-down cartons protruded from a Dumpster labeled Cardboard Only. He stepped out of the car, leaving the door open
as he looked behind and inside the metal containers. The cat, probably a feral, streaked into the darkness. But there was
no sign of the boy.

He decided to head for the open highway, though uncomfortable with the thought of traveling so far from home on that desolate
night. The kid was long gone by now whichever direction he had headed, whether he was bold enough to hitchhike or had taken
the slow, safe mode of hiking through evergreen forests. But at least Millard could honestly report to Sidney that he had
tried. It was not until he turned on his right-turn signal and began to crawl onto the main highway that another thought occurred
to him. The railroad spur that led up the mountain pass had been shut down, but both the sawmill and Lipman’s Fertilizer Plant
still shipped their wares by rail. He recalled hearing the warning whistles of the freight trains in the wee hours of many
mornings, usually around the time he needed to make a trip to the bathroom. He wondered for the first time if it was the biological
urge that woke him regularly somewhere between 1 and 2 A.M. or the haunting peals of the train as it screeched into the yard
at the bottom of Sparrow Hill. He glanced at the clock on the dash: 1:20. Did the kid know the railroad dispatch schedule?
He had been on the run, sleeping outdoors all those nights before his arrest. He had surely heard the train whistles loud
and clear. Yes, he knew. And being as smart as he was, he had probably assessed that riding the rails was the stealthiest
option for getting out of town unseen.