The Winslow Incident (19 page)

By the time she reached the banks
of Three Fools Creek, Hazel was sticky, scraped up, and dead sure that they
were
both
village idiots for coming here. She glanced upstream to where
scant sunlight permeated the dense tree canopy and the creek ran cold and
black. Edging cautiously closer, she peered into the rushing water.

Sean bumbled up and nearly knocked
her in. “See three fools down there?”

She pointed at their wavering
reflections. “Only two.”

Nervously chewing her bottom lip,
she lifted her gaze to the ramshackle prospector’s cabin across the creek. Its
roughhewn log siding was grayed and peeling with rot, roof warped and moldy
beneath the monster blackberry bush consuming the structure.

“Do you really think he did it?”
she asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” Sean swiped at
the gnat buzzing his ear. “Way Ben Mathers tells it—”

“And tells it and tells it . . .”
She rolled her eyes.

He laughed before continuing.
“Mathers says, guilty or not, he’s a mean sonofabitch and everyone in Winslow
was glad to have a good reason to run him out of town.”

Studying the cabin, Hazel wondered
aloud, “Maybe it was an accident.”

Sean grabbed her by the elbow.
“Let’s go over and ask him.”

“Ssh! He’ll hear us.”

“Scaredy cat. You took my dare,
remember?”

“To jump in the creek, not go over
there.
”

“Look—he’s not home. He’s
gone hunting or something.”

“Hunting children.” In the shade
of the pines, Hazel got goosebumps beneath her sweat.

“C’mon.” Sean stepped down the
bank.

“Don’t.” She reached out to pull
him back.

Dodging her, he tore off one
tennis shoe and plunged his foot into the water. “Last one in has to be rodeo
queen.”

“Dang you, Sean Adair!” She kicked
off her sandals and knocked past him into the creek. Chill water reached above
her knees as she waded across with care. Unlike Ruby Creek where they usually swam,
this creek bed harbored jagged logs and slick rocks—bumpy and mean,
threatening broken ankles and concussed heads.

Splashing in beside her, Sean
whispered, “We’ll steal something to prove we were here.”

Hazel gaped at him. “Now we’re
stealing
from him?”

Huffing in agitation, she climbed
out of the creek up the opposite bank and crossed into a world silent, brambly,
and weirdly wet. She spun in a slow circle, taking in the dusky woods, the
tumbledown cabin, the smell of damp dirt—and her skin crawled with
paranoia. “Let’s get out of here,” she hissed.

But Sean was already on the
cabin’s slanting porch searching for a souvenir. A huge pair of buck antlers
hung above the door and he jumped up, grabbed onto one branch, and swung in
midair for a moment before crashing back down to the disintegrating
floorboards.

“Nice try, Tarzan.” Hazel joined
him on the porch and peeked through the cabin’s only window. Dark inside, she
made out the shape of a chair next to a potbellied stove, little else.

“How’s this?” Sean asked.

She turned to see him holding a
raccoon pelt by the tail. “Eww! Put that down.”

“His name’s Bandit.” He swung the
stiff hide in front of her face.

“Gross! Get away!” She smacked
Sean’s arm then whirled around to head off the porch. Mindful of being
barefoot, she stepped gingerly along the splintered boards, which protested at
even her slight weight. “I’m leaving.”

“Don’t go. Bandit likes
you—”

Hazel made it one step off the
porch and onto the dirt at the side of the cabin before Hawkin Rhone seized her
left wrist. Soiled and crumbly as a long-buried corpse, he yanked her close.

“I warned you children!” the old
man howled in her face with breath reeking of decay.

Suddenly blind to everything
except his black mouth, she tried to scream but could force no breath past the
cold slab of terror choking her—certain that he was about to bite off her
head with his remaining rotten teeth and roast it in his potbellied stove.

“Sean, help me!” Hazel gasped. She
recoiled and kicked at Hawkin Rhone’s towering, bony frame with her bare feet.
“Let me go!
Sean
!”

The man tightened his grip around
her small wrist. “Warned you!”

Her scream finally burst free and
she kicked at him again while her arm exploded in pain and her heart skittered
around in her chest like a trapped animal.

“You didn’t listen!” he shouted
and more rancid air escaped his lungs and poured into her screaming mouth.
“None of you listened!”

“Where are you, Sean?” Hazel
looked up to the sky through pine boughs that seemed to be spinning then back
at the man’s craggy face just inches from her own and feared she might pass out
and never come to again. She finally landed a kick with the heel of her foot
against his gnarled right knee but it wasn’t enough to make him let go.

Instead he wrenched her arm
harder. “No more apples till spring! Hear me?”

She sobbed, “Please—” Then
Hazel heard her wrist snap with a sharp sound that instantly coated her terror
in nausea. “Stop!” she cried. “Let go!”

But still he clutched her broken
wrist. The pain shot up her arm into her neck and her fingers tingled in a way
that made her feel weak and the stink of him made her gag. “Sean,” she wept,
“help me.”

“I told my children,” Hawkin Rhone
rasped softly now. “Told Missy and Zachary to stay out of the orchard.” His
eyes filled with tears; his sorrow spilled down his creviced cheeks. “She
didn’t listen.” He squeezed Hazel’s ruined wrist. “Why didn’t you listen to
your father?”

She cried too, at the pain that
came in ever-greater waves, fearing she’d soon drown in it. Strangled by sobs, she
could barely speak. “Sean—I need you. Where are you?”

At last he was there, sneaking up
behind Hawkin Rhone from the rear of the cabin with an expression of terrified
determination. Half the man’s size, Sean leapt up on a stump before swinging
the split pine log like a baseball bat against the back of Hawkin Rhone’s head.

The old man’s head snapped forward
and his upper teeth sank into his tongue. Raising his head, he attempted to
speak but the teeth were stuck clear through. As he tried to pull them out by
working his jaw up and down, blood streamed from both sides of his mouth, while
Hazel and Sean shrieked unintelligibly—primal shouts of triumph and
horror.

Slick with blood, Hawkin Rhone’s
teeth finally slid free of his nearly severed tongue. And his face was a swirl
of confusion as he put a hand to his cracked skull and sputtered in red, “Wha?”
Then he began to turn toward Sean.

“Again!” Hazel screamed.

Sean swung and connected squarely
with the bewildered man’s face, log meeting flesh with the revolting sound of
cartilage and bone collapsing beneath unyielding wood.

Sprung free of the man’s grip at
last, Hazel shrieked again, exultant now. With her good arm, she reached for
Sean where he stood—log raised and ready—and dragged him away from
Hawkin Rhone, who was now only a slack heap in the dirt.

They splashed recklessly across
the creek and retook the trail, crushing barefoot through sharp pine needles,
not stopping to look back or consider what had happened, just running and
shouting until they rounded a corner beneath a spray of hemlock and Hazel
smacked hard against Patience. Both girls cried out before falling onto a
painful bed of pinecones.

Sean skidded to a stop and shot a
look over his shoulder, as if wanting to make sure that the madman hadn’t given
chase.

Hazel struggled to get upright,
feeling battered and traumatized. The wind knocked clear out of her, she gulped
futilely before catching enough breath to half-say, half-sob, “Oww, crap.”

Patience didn’t look surprised to
see them. Instead, she looked about as guilty as a cat with feathers stuck to
its fur. She was chewing—taffy, Hazel had little doubt—her right
cheek ballooned out chipmunk style.

Sucking more air into her deflated
lungs, Hazel managed to gasp at her, “Were you following us?”

Nodding, Patience’s eyes went wide.

Hazel stood up on unsteady legs to
point down at her. “Did you see what happened?”

More chews, another nod, an
audible swallow.

“You can’t tell anybody what you
saw.”

“Ever,” Sean added, his breath
ragged.

When she didn’t respond Hazel
grabbed her by the hair with her good hand and Patience screeched like a bat.
“Promise, Patience Mathers! Cross your heart and hope to die.”

“Cross my heart!” Her voice was taffy
garbled. “Hope to die!” At that Hazel let go and Patience got to her feet,
rubbing her scalp where Hazel had pulled out a smattering of long dark hair.

Hazel noticed Sean’s eyes dancing
a panicked jig: looking from the path to the treetops and into the woods. He
glanced down the trail once more before pulling Hazel against the trunk of the
hemlock. “Do you think he’s dead?”

Holding her throbbing, shattered
wrist against her belly, Hazel whispered, “I hope so.” With the shock
subsiding, the shaking began, and suddenly she felt very cold.

“What if he’s not dead?” Sean’s
face was crumpled up just like after the time Kenny Clark kicked his ass up and
down the wood plank sidewalk in front of the Fish ’n Bait. “Can we just leave
him there, in the dirt, bleeding to death?”

“Yes,” she said, fighting the urge
to start crying again.

“I don’t know, Hazel . . .”

“Yes, we can.”

He passed a hand hard across his
mouth, then: “We have to go back later and bury him.”

“No, Sean.” She heard the creek
complain as the first fat, dirty drops of rain fell from the summer sky. “We’re
never going back.”

H
er Uncle Pard’s pounding and yelling had woken
Hazel up and sent her heart racing. Now she couldn’t get back to sleep. She’d
been restless and barely dozing anyway. It was still hot and she never slept
well with just a sheet on; it made her feel vulnerable. And through her
windows—opened in the vain hope a breeze might kick up—she heard a
lot of ruckus outside.

Her clock said 2:37.

She tried to throw off the sheet
but it was tangled with her feet and she kicked at it, annoyed, until finally
free of it. Then she went to her bedroom window facing Prospect Park and leaned
on the sill. To her surprise she saw not just a few drunks shuffling noisily
home from the Buckhorn Tavern, but dozens of people wandering the streets. She
leaned farther out the window to look down Park Street, and then up toward Ruby
Road. Some houses had lights on inside, including The Winslow.

Hazel glanced at the clock again.
2:38. Then, for the thousandth time that night, she wondered where Sean had
disappeared to.

Turning her attention back to the
street she saw Tiny Clemshaw and Ben Mathers deep in animated discussion, their
dander clearly up. Bits of their conversation wafted up to her: “Held
accountable for once,” and “Get away with it again.” But Hazel could make no
sense of their words.

The men shushed and huddled
together conspiratorially when Jay and Julie Marsh walked by. Oddly, Julie was
bundled up in a pouffy down jacket. Jay’s arm hung protectively across her
shoulders.

Then Hazel noticed Jinx sitting
next to the elm, looking up at her with hope in his eyes. He barked twice and
startled Tiny and Ben, who looked over but then quickly resumed their heated
conversation.

Fishing around her floor she came
up with cut-offs and her black tank top—the one with the big rainbow across
the front. A stupid shirt. When her dad gave it to her on her last birthday
she’d thought,
He thinks I’m still a little girl.
But now it was the
only thing sort of clean. She threw it on along with the shorts, stuffed her
bare feet into her tennis shoes, and headed downstairs.

In the foyer, she heard her dad
arguing in a sharp, hushed tone and figured her Uncle Pard hadn’t left after
all. But when she looked into the dark living room, she saw that he was alone.
“Dad?” she whispered.

Her voice must not have registered
because he continued talking bitterly to himself.

Unnerved, it took her a moment to
shift her attention to the scratching sound coming from the back of the house.
Imagining it to be Jinx, she made her way to the kitchen and flipped on the
light.

Then she hesitated, suddenly
afraid to go to the door and answer that scratch, because Jinx had never
behaved like this before.

The scratching took on greater
urgency and her heart sped up.

What else could it be?

Shaking off her fear, she forced
herself to the door.

After snapping open the shade, all
she could see was her own reflection—big eyes, big rainbow—so she
leaned close to the window and peered into the darkness.