Last Summer Boys(49)

“Jack, hush,” Will tries. But I won’t be hushed. It’s all over. The dream of finding the fighter jet, of saving Pete. It’s all over, and it’s all because of me and my stupid fever.

And then he speaks.

“It’s none of your business what I got,” Caleb says. And he smiles.

I want to leap upon him, knock that black felt hat off his head, but then I feel Frankie’s hand on my shoulder. His dark eyes look into mine.

“Nobody’s found anything,” Frankie tells me. “Now, you listen to Will and hush.”

Frankie’s back is to Caleb. Quickly he raises a finger to his lips and signals me to be quiet.

I blink. Slowly I realize: He and my brothers didn’t find the wreck yet. But they don’t want Caleb knowing.

Frankie’s hand stays on my shoulder until he sees I understand.

“How are we gonna get him back?” Frankie says then, looking to Pete. “He can’t walk.”

“We’ll have to carry him,” Pete answers. “But that’s not what’s got me worried.”

As if to prove Pete’s point, a low rumble comes from the west. Thunder.

“Think fast, Pete,” Caleb says. “Storm’s coming. A mighty storm. Can’t you feel it?”

I despise him, but even so, I know he’s right. The air under the trees has gotten cooler. The hairs on my arms are standing on end.

“Where will you take them?” Caleb asks Pete. “The creek will surely flood, and your little camp will wash away within the first hour.”

Pete’s got the corners of his mouth turned down. He’s thinking hard.

Will whips out Dad’s map, throws it on the leaves, and drops down over it. “We need to get to high ground,” he says quickly. “Maybe someplace west. There’s hills west of here.” He’s scared.

Pete stands very still, looking west. The thunder comes again.

“I know a place.” Caleb ain’t moved. He sits same as before. “North of here.”

Pete is silent.

“North? Don’t be foolish!” Will snaps. “We need to head south. Toward home. We ain’t taking Jack farther north with a fever and a flood coming!”

Caleb’s coal-black eyes never leave Pete.

“North. Not far. High ground. A cave.”

Will goes white as a sheet of paper. “There?”

Caleb smiles again. “Scared?”

Will’s face flushes scarlet red. He stands up. “Pete, he’s talking nonsense! That’s crazy.”

But Pete’s already decided. Will knows it too, and that color drains from his face once more.

There’s a fierce light to Pete’s eyes as he says, “We make for camp. Pack fast. Then we head north to the Rock.”

Frankie looks at me. “But Jack can barely walk!”

Pete drops down next to me and, in one smooth movement, lifts me into his arms.

“Let’s go.”





The sky is green around the edges when we come out of the trees. Bruised clouds of purple and black turn and turn above us. A warm wind blows, whipping the creek, now a silvery green, into little whitecaps of foam. Grendel is coming.

We abandon Camp Beowulf in a clatter of pans and cussing and kicked sand. The packs are loaded, Will and Frankie taking two each. Pete carries me.

Will tries one last time. “There’s got to be some other place!”

“There’s no time,” is all Pete tells him.

I know why Will’s scared. I’m scared too. I’ve only heard of the place we’re going. A place where one of earth’s stony ribs has torn through its skin. A jagged black rock, weather-worn, carved by time to look like the head of a man—but not just any man, an Indian warrior, proud, sad, and vengeful.

Lightning cracks the bruised sky. Through that fresh cut in the heavens comes a sound like the hissing of an enormous snake. Then sheets of rain.

It’s started.

“Follow me, Elliots, if you don’t feel like swimming!” Caleb shouts over the wind. Without waiting, he lurches into the storm.

Pete cradles me in his arms, close to his warm body as the wind hurls rain against us.

“Hold on tight, Jack.”

He begins to run.





Chapter 16


THE CAVE





Caleb leads us inland and uphill, weaving between the dripping trunks. Cradled in Pete’s arms, I see his white shirt bobbing like a ghost in the stormy dark. He never looks back.

Behind us Apple Creek boils under sheets of merciless machine-gun rain. Uprooted trees ride the current like crocodiles, rushing past on foamy water. The creek is rising.

Thunder tears the night in two and I twist in my brother’s arms, trying to find Butch, trying to see that he’s with us, not scared senseless and running blind toward rising water. But it’s too dark and I cannot see my dog.

Branches and leaves slap at us and fallen limbs lunge across our way. Pete dodges them, jumping, ducking, leaping. Soon his breaths are ragged gasps, but he don’t quit.

All at once we burst into open space and we’re running along a shelf of rock that rises into the night. There’s nothing above us now but the storm, and it hurls rain and each drop is like ice on my feverish skin. Through it, I see Will and Frankie behind us, coming out of the trees, and finally Butch, bounding alongside them, barking like mad.