The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(19)

“Let’s go to the Tree,” Rex said, standing up, then stepping off the island and steadying himself in the knee-deep water. He was feeling embarrassed and wanted a change of scenery.

Leif remained paralyzed. Why did Rex get to confess his crush first? He hadn’t even let him sit on the Big Rock at all! And Leif was the one who’d been grappling with his crush for at least a month. His feelings had actual substance—it wasn’t just about one time when he liked looking at Alicia’s lips. Geez!

Rex turned his head. “You comin’?”

Leif slowly stood up, almost involuntarily beginning to follow Rex to the giant tree they’d found two summers ago, a hardwood so enormous that Rex, Leif, and Alicia couldn’t hold hands around it. They checked every time the three of them visited to see how close they were getting. Just a week ago they were still one foot short.

Leif carefully worked his way through the river, which was never more than waist-deep at this spot during late summer. He caught up to Rex as they reached the silty bank, even in his stupor still keeping an eye out for the moccasins that loved to bask along the water’s edge.

As they began to walk into the woods lining the river, Rex noticed that Leif wasn’t okay.

“Look,” Rex said. “I know there are things about Alicia you find super annoying, so you probably could never imagine her this way, but—”

“No, I could,” Leif said, sensing an opening. “I really could.”

“Oh, you could?” Rex asked, surprised.

Leif’s heartbeat quickened. Here it was. For better or worse, they were both going to lay it all out there. “Yeah,” he said. “I could.” His whole body tensed as he waited for Rex’s response.

“Thanks, man,” Rex finally said, putting a hand on Leif’s shoulder. “Thanks for supporting me like that and not thinking it’s weird. Even if Alicia does really irritate you sometimes.”

Wait! No! For weeks, Leif had been imagining the joyful moment when Rex would give his blessing to the Leif and Alicia coupling, and now somehow it was Leif giving a blessing to him? Everything was spinning out of control. He had to undo this.

“Not that it even matters,” Rex said. “Since Alicia is off at Whitewood. Man, it sucks so much. We can stop talking about this, but thanks, dude. Telling you that felt, I don’t know…freeing or something.”

“Um,” Leif said. “Wait, we can…Uh, let’s talk about it a little more.”

“Really?” Rex said. “I didn’t thi—” He stopped midsentence, his head pivoting sharply to the right. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“I thought I heard a twig snap.” Rex scanned the area with laser focus.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Leif said, his sleepless body already exhausted from the waterlogged walk to the Tree, which was now only thirty or so feet away. He wondered if Rex’s sudden concern with a snapping twig was just another case of him employing his sophisticated subject-changing tactics. “Might have been a raccoon or something.”

“Raccoons are nocturnal,” Rex said.

As they emerged into the small clearing that surrounded the ancient hardwood, they immediately noticed something different since last visiting the Tree. There were branches leaning against the oversized trunk, covered in mud and leaves, making a crude shelter. In front of the lean-to, a ring of rocks surrounded a fire that had only recently died, red-hot coals still glinting. Beside the fire, on a flat rock, lay a freshly peeled squirrel skin.

Rex and Leif knew that deer hunters used these woods alongside the river, but this didn’t look like any deer blind they’d seen, and they were pretty sure hunting season was still at least a month away. This was someone’s…home.

They looked at each other, instinctively knowing not to speak.

Rex slowly walked toward the shelter, Leif wildly but silently expressing his disapproval of his friend’s decision to investigate. There appeared to be a collection of belongings under the leafy roof, and Rex figured they held clues as to the identity of this mysterious forest-dweller.

He knelt down at the mouth of the shelter.

“Halt!” a squeaky voice shouted from behind them. They turned their heads to see a boy, probably close to their age. His face was covered in dirt, and he was barefoot, though you may have first thought he was wearing brown shoes given the mud that caked his toes. The only thing unsoiled was his lightning-blond hair, giving him an almost angel-like appearance. He had some sort of animal pelt—maybe rabbit, maybe possum—over his shoulders. In one hand he held a homemade spear, and in the other, a stick skewering a half-eaten squirrel carcass. He took a step forward, his wooden spear not exactly pointed at them, but not exactly not pointed at them either.

“Step away from my stuff,” the wild boy commanded.

“Okay, no problem,” Rex said, trying to hide the fear in his voice with a forced smile.

Leif took in for the first time the dull brown jumpsuit the boy was wearing. Or maybe it was once white. He also noticed a ragged, bloody bandage on the boy’s hand, the one holding the squirrel kebab.

Rex didn’t recognize the boy, which was odd, as everybody in Bleak Creek knew everybody in Bleak Creek. Especially everybody their own age.

“Uh, what are you doing out here? Hunting?” Rex convinced himself to ask.