Footprints (2 page)

Harper wishes he was alone. Then he could say something like, “Sure is pretty down here,” and Diamond Head would say, “What's your name, son?” and Harper would reply, “Harper Meating,” and Diamond Head would say gently, “It's a pleasure to talk to you, Harper, but I wish you wouldn't walk here,” and Harper would simply leave, saying he was sorry and he wouldn't do it again, and only later would the injustice hit him, too late for action. But he knows with Drumgold and Isora there, he can't take the easy, mild way.

Drumgold keeps walking, his head down, Isora close beside him, clutching the wriggling George.

Diamond Head, barring Harper's way, says, “This is a private beach.”

Harper stops. “We're just out for a walk. We're not doing any harm.”

Drumgold and Isora saunter on.

Droopy calls, “Ask the other one about taking pictures.”

Diamond Head says, “You with the camera. I want to know what you think you're doing photographing Mr. Anderson's house.”

Drumgold strolls on with Isora, his head still down.

Diamond Head moves quickly in front of Drumgold, who stops and looks up slowly. Isora takes the camera from Drumgold with one hand and with the other lowers George, on his leash, to the ground.

“Get out of my fucking way,” says Drumgold.

Diamond Head snarls, “Don't talk to me like that, you little shit.” He grabs Drumgold by the lapels of his jacket.

Drumgold stabs him in the eye with his forefinger. Diamond Head gasps and puts his hands over his face. Drumgold steps back and kicks him between the legs. As the security guard doubles up, grunting and gasping, Drumgold knees him in the face. Diamond Head collapses in the sand.

Harper hasn't moved.

Without speaking, Drumgold walks on. Isora and Harper follow. Hearing feet shuffling through the sand, Harper looks back. Droopy, who had started to trot as soon as Diamond Head grabbed Drumgold, is talking urgently into his radio as he pulls his colleague to his feet. Diamond Head's eye is red and his nose is bleeding. He lurches forward, Droopy still supporting him. At the same time two more dark-suited figures descend the steps and stride down the beach.

“Guess we'll run,” says Drumgold.

Harper looks around, at the newcomers in front, Diamond Head and Droopy behind, the sea on one side and the steep tumble of rocks leading up to the cottage on the other, and says, “Where?”

He sees Drumgold's eyes flicker briefly toward the rocks, and groans, “Not through the cottage, surely.”

Drumgold mutters, “Ready, Is?”

He suddenly wheels around and races up the beach, Isora beside him, George scampering behind. Harper, struggling to keep up, sees the newcomers head back toward the steps, while Droopy and Diamond Head start straight up the beach. Diamond Head seems to be recovering and they're moving faster. Harper stumbles after his friends. Drumgold is already halfway to the foot of the rocks, and Isora, running like a deer, light and darting, is ahead of him. Harper knows his friends can
easily outrun the security guards, but he isn't sure he can. Drumgold seems to read his mind. Reaching the cliff, he stops and throws rocks at their pursuers. One hits Diamond Head on the chest and another just misses Droopy's head. They swear and slow. Isora picks up George and holds him as she climbs the rocky bluff. As soon as Harper starts his ascent, Drumgold turns and leaps upward from rock to rock, like a mountain goat. He stops at the top, where Isora is waiting, and hurls more rocks, big ones this time, as Droopy starts up, Diamond Head close behind. One rock ricochets onto Droopy's leg, which he grabs, cursing. Harper glances up and sees a high wall, topped with jutting shards of glass. It extends the length of the bluff, except for where an iron gate at the top of the steps gives access to the grounds. The other security guards are scrambling up the steps towards it. Drumgold hoists himself to the top of the wall and sits carefully astride it, holding his hand down to Isora. She takes it and, with George under one arm, seems to fly over the wall. Harper, gasping for breath, holds up his hand. Drumgold hoists him up and almost throws him over. He crashes through a dense cedar hedge and lands on his back beside Isora, who is huddled in the narrow space between the wall and the shrubbery. Drumgold flings his final rock – Harper hears one of the security guards grunt and swear – and jumps down.

The gate clangs as it slams shut and footsteps approach at a run. At the same time Droopy calls from the other side of the wall, “Right here. They went over right here.”

Harper lies where he's landed, afraid his gasping breaths will reveal their hiding place. He sees a hand wave above them on the other side of the wall as Droopy shouts again, “Here! They went over here!” Drumgold and Isora are crouched, poised to move. Isora holds George in her arms, stroking him with one hand and muzzling him with the other. Harper rolls on to his stomach and peers under the dense, wide hedge. It stretches along the wall in both directions, with lawns and flower beds beyond it extending to and around the cottage, which lies to their left.

Two pairs of feet appear, running towards them.

Drumgold, one finger to his lips, points in the direction of the cottage, and they crawl through the foliage, keeping close to the wall. Behind them Harper hears Anderson's men poking at the hedge. One of them swears and says, “They've taken off.” Droopy calls, “They've got to be in there somewhere,” and Diamond Head, also on the other side of the wall, says, “I'm going round.” A few seconds later the iron gate slams and Harper hears him threaten, “I'll pound the shit out of them when I catch up with them.” They crawl on, Drumgold in the lead, Isora following, with George on a tight rein, his leash in her mouth. Harper, in the rear, hears the guards beating their way through the foliage where he'd hidden shortly before, while Droopy calls from behind the wall, “What's going on? Have you got them?”

When they are past the cottage, Drumgold turns away from the wall and worms through the dense tangle of branches and roots. Isora and Harper follow until the three of them lie side by side at the edge of their shelter. Harper peers nervously at the cottage. Its vertical grey clapboard is interspersed with big picture windows that give a view of the gardens – and of their hiding place. At the centre of the house a wide recessed area paved with coloured flagstones leads to French windows. The courtyard is filled with cushioned
chaises longues
and white wicker armchairs. Above, the gently sloping roof is dotted with dormer windows. Drumgold motions for them to run along the side of the house and then turn behind it. Harper looks at the span of lawn they have to cross before they'll be hidden from Anderson's men. He estimates they'll be in full view for two or three seconds.

With a glance at the security guards, who are moving away from the friends in their search of the hedge, Drumgold mouths, “Ready?”

The friends crouch like runners at the start of a race.

Drumgold whispers, “Now!”

They spring forward and race across the lawn, their feet silent on the thick, spongy grass. They stop when they reach the shelter of the cottage. As Drumgold peers back around the corner, Harper leans against the wall, his hands on his knees, breathing heavily.

Isora whispers, “Winded?”

Harper shakes his head. “Scared.”

Isora winks at him.

Drumgold mutters, “They didn't see us.”

They move along the side of the building, ducking beneath the windows. When they reach the corner, they huddle against the wall and peer behind the cottage. They are looking into a paved yard. Opposite them, a wide driveway – the Old Beach Road, Harper realizes – sweeps in from the woods through tall, wrought-iron gates. On each side of the entrance, high brick walls topped with spiked railings enclose the garden before giving way to the wire-mesh fence that circles the grounds. Across the yard, a barn backs on to the wall. The long black car with the tinted windows is parked in front of it. The car's licence plate reads AA2.

No-one seems to be around.

They run to the gates. Drumgold pulls and pushes at them but they don't budge.

“Can we climb over?” Isora suggests.

“There's nothing to get a grip on to haul ourselves up,” says Drumgold.

Harper, pointing beside the gates, says, “We could climb the wall and...” He looks doubtfully at the spikes, which are like spears, and point upwards and sideways.

Drumgold says, “Yeah...and puncture our stomachs.”

Somewhere in the house a telephone starts to ring. It stops abruptly.

“Someone's inside,” says Drumgold.

They retreat to the corner of the house as a woman's voice broadcasts across the grounds. “Where are you guys? Mr. Anderson's on his way. Says he'll be here in ten minutes.”

At the same time they hear,

“They're round the back!”

They whirl around. They are in full view of the iron gate, where Droopy has entered and is pointing as he shouts to his colleagues. He sets off toward them at a run.

Drumgold says, “Let's try the barn.”

Harper sees the padlock securing the doors as soon as they start across the yard. Drumgold mutters, “Shit,” and plunges into the narrow space between the back of the barn and the wall. Harper and Isora, with George scampering behind her, follow. They struggle through long brown grass, bare alder branches and wild raspberry canes until they hear footsteps in the yard.

They scrunch low in the undergrowth as Diamond Head calls, “I thought you said they were here.”

Droopy says, “They were.”

Diamond Head says, “Great. Mr. Anderson's going to be here in a minute and we've got kids running around the grounds.”

Droopy insists, “They can't be far away. Maybe the barn...

” One of the other guards says, “It's locked.”

Diamond Head orders, “Check on the other side.”

The woman's voice, no longer on the intercom, calls, “What's going on?”

Diamond Head snarls, “Kids. I'm going to rip them apart one by one when I get my hands on them.”

“I can think of better things to do with that young girl,” says Droopy.

Harper looks apologetically at Isora. She is close beside Drumgold, and puts her hand on his arm, shaking her head, as he half rises.

Harper thinks, If they try anything with Isora, Drumgold'll go berserk.

Feeling his legs cramping, Harper stretches them out. To his surprise, they go under the barn. He moves his feet around, pressing back the dead grass and undergrowth, and reveals a kind of burrow leading under the building. Isora holds George tightly as he strains towards it, his nose twitching.

Drumgold whispers, “It's the entrance to an old den – fox or porcupine.” He maneuvers himself head first, on his stomach, into it. A few seconds later he reappears, mouths, “Follow me,” and slithers back into it.

Isora looks at Harper.

He murmurs, “After you,” doubting whether he can fit his bulky frame through the narrow opening.

She grins. “We'll pull you through if you get stuck.”

She releases George, who bounds into the hole. Harper watches enviously as Isora slips into the burrow with one lithe, easy movement. He follows, worming his way warily into the opening. He's barely got his whole length inside when he comes up against chunks of broken cement. He hears one of Anderson's men call from the other side of the barn, “No sign of them round here,” and Diamond Head answer triumphantly, “Then they're behind it.”

From above him he hears Drumgold whisper urgently, “Get a move on, Harp. Roll over.”

Harper squirms on to his back and sees Drumgold and Isora above him, peering over the edge of the cement floor, which has crumbled and sunk where the old den has undermined it.

“Pull the grass and branches and stuff back around the opening behind you,” says Drumgold.

Harper reaches back and disguises the entrance. He hears footsteps crashing into the undergrowth from both sides. He eases himself upward until Drumgold puts a hand on his shoulder and mouths, “Freeze.”

The footsteps are alongside them. One of Anderson's men says, “They're not here. Maybe they climbed over the wall,” and Diamond Head says, “No way. They're in the grounds somewhere. You two stay by the shed. We'll check the other side of the house.” The footsteps move away.

Harper scrambles up beside Drumgold and Isora. George is straining to return to the burrow and she holds him tight on his leash. They look around. They are behind a rusting freezer, a stack of metal barrels, and two old tractors. They make their way carefully through them and find one side of the barn lined with garden machines – a ride-on mower, a cultivator, a snow blower, an ATV with a small trailer attached – and the other stacked with bales of straw. Cardboard packing cases are strewn around the floor.

Harper jokes, “Has anyone got a match?”

Drumgold reaches into his pocket and produces a lighter. He flips it open and holds the flame close to one of the bales.

Harper starts, “I didn't really mean–”

Drumgold says, “Let's teach Anderson and his men a lesson.”

They hear a car approaching and Drumgold says, “Talk of the devil. Quick, we can get out when they open the gates for him.”

He closes the lighter and returns it to his pocket. Harper discovers his pulse is racing. He tries to steady his breathing.

They squeeze back through the hole in the floor and make their way along the rear of the barn until they can see into the
yard. Diamond Head is opening a compartment in the far gate post. Droopy stands nearby. There's no sign of the other two security guards. A long black car, licence plate AA1, pulls up at the gate. Diamond Head taps at a console and the gates swing silently open. The car noses forward and stops.

Diamond Head says, “Good afternoon, Mr. Anderson.”

A man's voice says from the car, “Why are you standing around like this?”