Gemini Summer (14 page)

forty-three

Old Man River answered the knock. He opened the door to see two policemen standing on the porch. One was tall and one was short.

“Charlie River?” said the tall one.

“Yes,” said the Old Man.

“You’ve got a dog here, Mr. River?”

“We do,” he said.

The tall policeman was holding a sheet of paper. “We have an order here to remove your dog, Mr. River.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“We’re here to take your dog,” said the tall policeman. “It has to be destroyed.”

“The hell you say.”

“Your dog attacked a child, sir,” said the other policeman.

The Old Man turned his head. He shouted, “Danny boy!”

forty-four

Danny River sat on a kitchen chair. He sat in tears on the chair as the policemen and his parents stood around him. Rocket had already been taken away and was barking faintly from the police car.

“Danny, what’s your side of this?” said the Old Man. “Did Rocket bite the Colvig boy? I want the truth now, son.”

Danny nodded. “But it wasn’t his fault,” he said.

Mrs. River was standing behind him, with her hands on his shoulders. “That Colvig boy makes Danny’s life a misery,” she said. “He hit him once with a realtor’s sign. Did Mr. Colvig tell you that?”

“What about this morning?” asked the short policeman. “Did the boy do anything to you?”

“He scared us,” said Danny.

“How?”

“He was sitting by the creek, and we didn’t see him at first. Then Rocket got frightened.” Danny looked from one face to another. “It wasn’t his fault. You can’t take him away. He was just getting back.”

“Getting back for what?” asked the tall policeman. “Has the boy hurt your dog?”

“Well, kinda,” said Danny. He could see that he had nothing to lose. If he didn’t speak now, Rocket would be taken away forever. He blurted out, before anyone could stop him, “He’s not just a dog, he’s my brother.”

“Danny!” cried the Old Man. His mother gasped.

From there it only got worse. Danny tried to explain how Dopey had pushed Beau into the pit, and when he pointed to the window the policemen gaped at the flat, green lawn outside. His mother looked embarrassed, and his father looked angry, and they stopped him from talking. They sent him out of the room; they sent him right out of the house.

“Go and keep Rocket company,” said his mother.

So Danny went out in the August heat. The police car was parked in front of the house, and three people from the Hollow were standing beside it, staring at the lights and the decals as though the car was a UFO. Mrs. Elliot was among them. “What’s going on, Danny?” she asked.

“They’re taking Rocket away,” he said. “’Cause Rocket bit Dopey.”

“Poor thing,” said Mrs. Elliot. “He certainly doesn’t look like a vicious dog.”

Rocket had found some shade on the floor of the car. But the sound of Danny’s voice brought him bounding to the seat, and he pressed his paws to the window. Danny touched the glass. Rocket cried to Danny with all his strange sounds.

“Heavens, he’s talking to you,” said Mrs. Elliot.

“Please go away,” said Danny. “Please leave us alone.”

They all went away. They touched Danny’s shoulders and his blond hair, and then wandered slowly. Danny pushed his fingers through the tiny crack that had been left at the top of the window, and Rocket stood up to lick them.

“You gotta bust out,” said Danny. “You can’t let them take you where they’re going.”

Rocket looked back at him through the window. Their faces were inches apart, and one was as sad as the other.

forty-five

It sounded to Mrs. Elliot, who had stopped down the street, as though the boy and the dog were talking. It was the most heartbreaking thing she had ever seen, poor Danny River touching one side of the glass and the dog the other, and both of them talking and crying.

She wanted to hurry back and comfort the boy. But instead she went home and hugged her little Josephine to her breast.

Her curtains were half closed to keep out the sun, and she stood behind them, staring out.

She watched as the policemen came out from the Rivers’ house. She saw little Flo River drag her boy back from the car. She saw tall Charlie River stooped like an old geezer. Then the car drove off, and she saw Danny break free from his mother to go running behind it. “Stop!” he shouted. “Please stop.”

The car went faster and drew away from him. It passed her house, and she saw the dog in the back window, standing up on the seat to look out the back window. And she saw little Danny stop running. She heard him scream, “The fort! The fort!”—which made no sense to her. Then she saw him all alone in the street, and she thought that if a boy could ever really fall to pieces, it would happen to Danny right then.

forty-six

At five o’clock that day, barely an hour after they’d left, the policemen returned to the old gray house in the Hollow. They walked toward it from their car, with the tall one carrying a closed-in cage.

It was Old Man River who opened the door to them for a second time. Danny was lying on the living room sofa. Mrs. River kept dabbing the boy’s arms and forehead with a cloth she dipped in cool water.

The tall policeman spoke up. “Is the dog here, Mr. River?” he said.

The Old Man got angry. “You know damned well he isn’t here. For crying out loud, what have you done with him?”

“We lost him,” said the policeman. “He got away from us.”

On the living room sofa Danny opened his eyes. A smile came to his pale face, and he whispered, “He busted out. I knew he would.”

“Mr. River,” said the short policeman, “this whole business upsets us as much as it upsets you.”

“I doubt that very much,” said Old Man River.

“But if the dog comes back, you’ll have to call us,” the policeman said with a little redness in his face. “You’ll be breaking the law if you don’t.”

“Goddamn your laws,” said the Old Man.

Danny came into the hall, wet from his mother’s dabbings. The policeman said, “Look, son, I’m—” but Old Man River cut him off.

“Don’t call him ‘son,’ you hear?”

The policeman turned even redder. “Dogs always come home,” he said. “We’ll be watching the street.”

The policemen left with the empty cage. Old Man River closed the door.

“Danny,” he said, “don’t get your hopes up. If Rocket comes home, we have to turn him in. We don’t have a choice.”

“He won’t come back,” said Danny. “I told him not to.”

“Well, if worst comes to worst, you can get another dog.” The Old Man was kneeling on the floor now. “You can have one right away.”

“I don’t want another dog,” said Danny. “I want Rocket.”

“I know you do,” said the Old Man. “But listen to me.”

Danny put his hands over his ears. The Old Man pulled them down and said, “You can’t escape it, Danny. The only one who can save Rocket is Mr. Colvig, and he’s not going to do that, is he?”

“No,” said Danny.

“No,” repeated the Old Man. “We heard things today—your mother and me—that we didn’t know. Like a bucket of sewage in the Colvigs’ car. Like—”

“He bit Dopey ’cause Dopey pushed him in the pit,” said Danny. “He bit Dopey ’cause he’s Beau.”

Old Man River held Danny by the shoulders and shook him. “You get that nonsense out of your head. Do you hear me?” He kept shaking until he shook tears from Danny’s eyes. Then he stopped and stood up. “This isn’t the time to talk,” he said.

“Why don’t you believe me, Dad?” asked Danny.

“Because it’s just plain crazy,” said the Old Man.

“But he promised he’d always hang around with me. No matter what,” said Danny. “Then I dreamed he was back, and you said he was with me, and Mom said the dog came to find me, and…” He was rubbing his arms. The marks of the Old Man’s fingers were on his skin. “And Mr. Kantor said people can be animals.”

Danny saw his father swallow, the lump in his throat going up and down.

“Oh, Danny,” said the Old Man. “Mr. Kantor spent four years living in a place like a kennel—like a zoo—but worse. He was beaten and starved and worked nearly to death. What he meant was that people can be terrible.”

“I don’t think so,” said Danny. “And anyway, Creepy isn’t the only one who can save Rocket. So can I. ’Cause I know where to find him.”

“Where?” asked the Old Man.

“I can’t tell you,” said Danny. “I promised not to tell anyone. Not even under torture.”

forty-seven

Danny went up to the fort he’d built with Beau. He crossed Highland Creek behind the house and followed its banks downstream. At the end of the Hollow, where the woods weren’t as thick, he saw the police car driving slowly along the street.

He crouched behind a bush and waited until the car was far up the Hollow. Then he ran along the trails and down the ravine.

When he came to the fort, he found it in ruins. The walls were torn apart, the plywood panels broken. The things that he and Beau had stashed in there—the old bottles and moldy magazines—were scattered all around.

There was no sign of Rocket.

Danny sat and waited. All evening he waited as a thunder storm came rumbling toward him. The sky grew dark. The wind picked up, and the trees creaked and swayed, their leaves seeming to whisper. Then rain came down, and thunder rolled across the sky, and flashes of lightning glared through the Hollow.

Danny made a tent from the plywood pieces and sat inside it, waiting. Leaves came swirling down. Little runs of water trickled through the tent, and he heard Highland Creek growing fast and strong. He began to think of the stories he’d heard, about kids who’d been murdered in the ravine. He could hear the traffic on the big bridge, and soon the headlights of the cars and trucks were making eerie shadows all around him.

His little tent was very dark and lonely. He huddled in the middle of it, staring out at every sound. It seemed to him that hours passed, that the whole night slid by. It was long enough, at any rate, that he began to doubt that Rocket was coming. And if Rocket didn’t come…Well, he didn’t want to think about what that might mean.

He sang songs to himself, about marching ants and bottles of beer. He sang until he heard something moving outside, something breathing in the bushes.

Then out of the woods came Rocket. He came slowly, and then in a dash with his tail wagging and his tongue hanging out, chattering away like a bag of monkeys. He threw himself at Danny.

“I knew you’d come,” said Danny.

He held on to Rocket more tightly than he’d ever held on to anything. The thunder rumbled, and the traffic roared along the bridge, and Danny held on to the dog. “We can’t go home,” he said. “We can’t ever go home.” He could feel Rocket’s heart beating quickly.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

Danny wondered if Mr. Kantor might help him, or if the vet might help. But he could picture either of them picking up the phone and calling his mother or the Old Man. He could almost hear Mr. Kantor’s voice.
You let a boy and a dog run loose? What were you thinking?

There was no one in the Hollow, or anywhere in the city, who could help him. The thought made Danny very lonely. In the whole world there was no one.

“Hey!” said Danny suddenly.

Rocket barked.

“What about Gus Grissom?” Danny cried out the name, and Rocket cried back with a whimper. “Do you think Gus Grissom might help if we went down to the Cape? Do you? Do you think he would?”

It seemed Rocket had gone crazy. He was jumping up and down, barking and barking.

“Okay. Okay,” said Danny. “It’s a long way, but I think we can get there.”

The boy and the dog sat together until the thunderstorm had passed. Then, with the lightning flashing far away, they headed down the ravine, through the golf course in the darkness.

For half a mile, Danny walked in the creek. He made sure that Rocket did the same thing, and they splashed together through the water. “It’ll hide our tracks,” he said. He had seen cowboys do this on
The Rifleman
and
The Big Valley
.

Danny hadn’t known there was an end to Highland Creek before he found it that night. His friendly little stream ran into a dirty river that flowed through concrete banks, carrying fleets of paper cups, and plastic bags like jelly fish, and sticks and cans and bottles. He followed it with Rocket, toward the lights of the city, great towers of light, and the roar of traffic and people.

He didn’t know how to get to the Cape. “But one thing’s for sure,” he told Rocket. “It’s too far to walk.”

Where the river flowed into a huge cave of a culvert, the boy and the dog came up to the city. They looked as though they’d come from the jungles, or as though Danny really was the hillbilly of Hog’s Hollow, stumbling for the first time into civilization. He was pushed and shoved along the street, and Rocket went in turns and darts with his tail between his legs.

Danny tried to stop people and ask them for money. He was certain the Old Man would be furious if he knew, but there was no choice, he told Rocket. “We gotta get to the Cape.”

He touched people’s arms, and pulled at their sleeves, and if they didn’t stop he followed them along. But no one would listen when he tried to explain. He never got farther than “Excuse me, mister.”

The crowd pushed him along to a wide, busy street. A big green sign hanging above it said
SOUTHBOUND
, with an arrow pointing at a lane. Danny followed it along, with Rocket at his heels. He followed it for seven blocks, then up a spiral and onto a highway. Huge trucks hurtled by in blasts of hot air, spraying water from the rain-wetted road. Like a flat, broad river, the highway seemed to flow and ripple in the moving of the headlights, the red flashings of the brakes.

Danny had gone a mile, maybe two, when he found a transport truck parked on the shoulder, its rows of taillights flashing. The driver was walking beside it, stopping at each wheel. He gave each one a kick, then a whack with a tire iron, before bending down to tighten the wheel nuts.

Danny stopped him near the back of the trailer. “Excuse me,” he said.

The driver was wearing a very battered cowboy hat. He had a cowboy’s mustache that hung down on each side of his mouth.

“Does this road go all the way to Florida?” asked Danny.

“It better,” said the driver. “I’m lost if it doesn’t.”

“Is that where you’re going?” said Danny.

“Yeah. Through Choo-choo Town and the Big M.” He bashed at the tire with his iron. “I’ll be in the Bikini State day after tomorrow.”

“Can I go with you?” said Danny.

The driver touched his mustache. “You running away from home?”

“Sorta,” said Danny. “I have to get to the Cape. I gotta save my dog.”

“Well, I can’t help you there. I’m sorry,” said the driver. “There’s a rule: no passengers.”

He tightened the bolts on the wheel, shoving down on the iron until they groaned. “You shouldn’t even be on the highway,” he said. “If Smokey comes along, you’ll be spending the night in the bear cave.”

“Couldn’t you take us just a little way?” asked Danny.

“And hang my ass in a sling?” The driver shook his head. “Just turn around and go home, kid. That’s what you’ll end up doing anyway.”

On the other side of the trailer, cars and trucks were racing by. The noise was loud and endless. Danny followed the driver to the very last wheel, right at the end of the trailer. He tried to follow him back along the side that faced the highway, where the traffic went by only inches away. But the driver chased him off. “Go on. Get going,” he said.

Danny plodded again along the shoulder, down the length of the trailer. As he reached the cab he heard the big diesel engine running. Smoke rose from the two chrome stacks, where flat lids chattered on their tops. The door was high above Danny. But a small window was set into its bottom corner, and he tried to peer through it, into a cab that seemed as big as a house. “Gee, I wish we could ride in there,” said Danny to Rocket. “Bet it’s got a bed and everything.”

Rocket put his forefeet on the step.

“Hey, the guy said no,” said Danny.

But Rocket kept pawing at the step. Danny watched for a moment, then suddenly bent down and looked between the wheels. The driver was halfway along the trailer. “Okay, come on,” said Danny.

He held Rocket in one arm, climbed up the step, and opened the door. The light came on in the cab, and he was sure that the driver would notice. There were two gearshift levers, and more gauges and dials than he’d ever seen in one place. Behind the seats was a bed that stretched across the cab, with a tartan-colored sleeping bag spread untidily across it. Danny climbed in and closed the door.

A wall divided the cab from the bed. It was solid behind the seats, and open in the middle, and Danny pulled Rocket into the corner behind the driver’s seat. He bundled him among a pile of clothes. There were socks that reeked, and trousers stained with oil. But Danny didn’t mind. He only worried that his own wetness—and the dog’s—was soaking the driver’s clothes.

“Don’t make a sound, now,” he said.

There was a clatter outside as the driver stowed his tire iron. Then the door opened and he came in behind the wheel. He tossed his wet cowboy hat onto the passenger’s seat, shook his arms, and groaned. “Getting too old for this,” he said.

With a hiss of air from the brakes and a roar from the engine, the big truck started moving. It went forward in surges as the driver worked his gears, then swayed as he pulled into the traffic. He changed to a higher gear, to another, and Danny felt the truck moving faster.

He heard a click, and the crackle of a radio, and the driver said, “Beantown Bob, you gone?”

A little voice answered. “Ten-four, Buffalo. I’m backing off the hammer here.”

“Roger,” said the driver. “We got twelves.”

There was a crackling burst that Danny couldn’t understand.

“Yeah, ten-twelve,” said the driver. “Look for me in your mirror.”

Danny liked the sound of the driver’s voice and was sorry when he stopped talking. Other people babbled away, but he couldn’t understand many of the words. It was like listening to people gargle. He leaned back and held Rocket as the truck went thundering south.

He found that he could lean against the back wall of the bed and see out through the small window at the bottom of the passenger’s door. There was nothing to look at but blackness, until the truck pulled into the passing lane and the taillights of cars went flashing past the window. The hum of the tires and the shaking of the truck put Danny to sleep very quickly.