Blunt Darts

TWENTY-THIRD

– ¦ About an hour later, I knew why the clerk had advised me to take the front road up to the ranger station. The grade on this side of the mountain was steep, the brambles sharp, and the bugs fierce. From the topo map, the ranger station was just over the crest. From the climb, I was still a good hour away.

When I reached and crossed the crest, I spotted the station. It was nearly sundown, but even in the fading light the box on stilts looked derelict. I waited and watched for half an hour. I then moved slowly to the base of the ladder of steps that connected the ground to the box sixty feet above. It was made of wood, and a couple of crossbars were missing. It would have been a hairy climb for a fourteen-year-old. I wasn't too enthusiastic myself.

I climbed the ladder, pulling myself by the arms rather than pushing myself by the legs. My hands I kept at the intersection points of the rungs with the vertical posts. A few groaned, but none gave way. The ladder topped at a hatchway with a clasp long ago broken off. I raised the hatch and gingerly pulled myself up into the station.

It was a box perhaps thirty feet square, windows all around, but all broken. Bugs buzzed the hot air. An old desk, some debris from its official use, and some condoms and beer cans from its unofficial use. Otherwise, nothing.

Except for the floor. No broken window glass. And no dust. At least there should have been dust, and there should have been marks and scuffs in the dust from any recent users. No dust meant somebody had cleaned up. Cleaned up so the dust wouldn't show fourteen-year-old footprints. Just in case somebody came looking for him.

I walked to the front windows and looked down at the logging road. Then I walked to the back window and could see only the edge of the crest. The back side of the mountain must have been the responsibility of another station in the network. If I couldn't see Blakey, then he couldn't see the station. Fine. The only other question was whether Stephen would return before Blakey ran out of patience. I settled down to wait.

An hour. An hour and fifteen. An hour and twenty-five. I got up and looked out back. Nothing but deepening darkness. I walked to the front windows and, after crouching, eased my face to eye level and then slowly higher. I was about halfway up, when I heard a creak behind me and a voice that froze me.

"Don't move or I'll shoot you."

"Stephen, I'm-"

"Don't move! I have a twenty-two-caliber pistol pointed at you. I might not be able to kill you with it, but you'd never catch me or get down the ladder to a hospital in time. Now keep your hands on the sill and kneel down."

"Stephen-"

"Now!" His voice cracked.

I knelt.

He began to move in behind me. "Cross your one ankle over the other," he said.

"Your grandmother sent me."

He stopped. "Sure she did. Now cross your ankles and don't move while I search you. Okay?"

"Okay," I said. I crossed my ankles. It's almost impossible to pivot quickly on your knees that way. No problem, though. I figured I'd wait until I felt his hand on me, then disarm him.

He stepped slowly toward me. Then he must have broad-jumped and swung the pistol butt at my head as he landed. The room abruptly darkened to a midnight-blue fog.

I could taste the wool hairs in my mouth. I suppose wool technically isn't hair, but when I was little, every night in the winter my brother and I slept in a rusty iron bed with a coarse woolen blanket over us. The cheaply made blanket would shed every night, and I'd awaken every morning with wool hairs in my mouth. I'd then feel waves of nausea coming over me and run to the bathroom with the dry heaves. One morning my half-opened eyes caught my brother putting the hairs in my half-opened mouth. I half-split his upper lip open with my fist.

I blinked my eyes, and I wasn't in my parents' house anymore. I was lying on my right side in the dark. Based on the ache from my right kidney, I'd been in that position for a while. I coughed and gagged. There was cloth in my mouth. I was also tied, hands (behind me) and feet. Taken and immobilized by a fourteen-year-old. I lifted my head, and John Philip Sousa struck up the band at the back of my skull. I involuntarily bit into my gag, which I suspected was one or more wool socks. I coughed some more and flopped over onto my left side.

"Be quiet or I'll have to hit you again," came a low voice across the shadowy room.

"Ugglub caaam," I said.

"I mean it. We're not talking until morning when I can see your eyes."

I tried to recall if I'd mentioned Blakey. I couldn't remember, but I didn't think I would have risked it with a gun being held at my back by a boy who was terrified of him.

"Ercrue Baaka," I said. "Baaka, Baaka."

"Last warning," he said, his voice rising a little.

My head continued throbbing. I relaxed as best I could, and tried to forget about wool hairs and giant court officers. My left pant leg had been yanked out of my boot, and I could feel the empty holster on my calf.

The throb in my head eased a bit, and I drifted off.