The Nix(55)

Samuel stopped walking. His immediate fear was that the police were looking for him. And in some way this was a relief. And a comfort. Because it meant that his disappearance mattered. He played the scene out in his head, the phone call from the school to his father, his father frantic with worry, calling the police, who would ask where Samuel might go, and his father telling them Bishop’s house! because his father knew about Bishop, had dropped him off here, and would remember this because he was a good and caring father who would not one day just leave.

Samuel felt devastated by this. What had he done to his father? The agony he must have caused. His father waiting at home, alone now, both his wife and son disappearing on the same day. And Samuel walked toward Bishop’s house, walked with haste: He would turn himself in, be driven home, be reunited with his father, who must have been sick with worry by now. It was, he knew, the right thing to do.

And he got as far as the headmaster’s house before noticing something that stopped him again. Around the small post that once contained the block of poisoned salt was a line of thin, bright yellow ribbon. It was wrapped around four small stakes in the ground, making a square containing the empty post. The ribbon had words on it, and even though it had been twisted and so some of the words were upside down and backward, the message was easy to comprehend: POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.

Samuel glanced at the headmaster’s hot tub and saw more of the ribbon there too, surrounding the entire pool and deck area. And the scene in his head changed: The police were looking for him, but not because he’d ditched school.

So he ran. Into the forest. Down to the stream. Splashed along its banks and breathed in the damp leafy rot and ran in the wet sand, water bubbling up and squishing out of the ground wherever his shoes landed. The sun was blocked by the trees above him, the woods taking on that misty bluish color of midday shade. And he saw Bishop exactly where he expected him to be: in the large oak tree by the pond, up on the sturdy first branch, hiding, mostly obscured except for his feet, which Samuel saw only because he was looking for them. Bishop climbed down out of the tree, landing on the ground with a flutter of the surrounding leaves just as Samuel arrived.

“Hey, Bish,” he said.

“Hey.”

They eyed each other a moment, not knowing what to say.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Bishop said.

“I left.”

Bishop nodded.

“I just came from your house,” Samuel said. “The police were there.”

“I know.”

“What do they want?”

“No idea.”

“Is it about the headmaster?”

“Maybe.”

“The hot tub?”

“Could be.”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

Bishop smiled. “So many questions,” he said. “Let’s swim.”

He yanked off his shoes without untying them, pulled off his tube socks and threw them, inside out, on the ground. His belt buckle jingled as he undid it, then he pulled off his jeans and shirt and jumped toward the water trying as best he could to avoid sharp rocks and twigs, all flailing skinny legs and arms and underpants, which were gray-green camouflage briefs, about two sizes too big. When he made it to the pond he jumped off a tree stump and cannonballed in, broke the surface with a loud Whoop, then came back up and said “Let’s go, soldier!”

Samuel followed him, but carefully: Untying his shoes and putting them where they wouldn’t get wet. Pulling off his socks and stuffing them inside the shoes. Taking off and folding his jeans and shirt and placing them gently on top of the shoes. He was deliberate about this. He always was. When he reached the pond he didn’t jump in but rather waded, wincing as the cold grasped first his ankles, then knees, then waist, then the water reached his underwear and the chill spread.

“It’s easier if you jump in all at once,” Bishop said.

“I know,” Samuel said, “but I can’t.”

When finally the water reached his neck and the pain subsided, Bishop said, “Good. Okay. Here’s the scenario.” And he outlined the premise of the game they were to play. The year would be 1836. The place would be the Mexican borderlands. The epoch was the Texas Revolution. They were to be scouts in Davy Crockett’s army, spying on the enemy, caught behind Mexican lines. They had important information concerning the size of Santa Anna’s army, and now they needed to get it back to Crockett. The fate of the Alamo hung in the balance.

“But enemies are everywhere,” Bishop said, “and rations are low.”

His knowledge of American wars was thorough, impressive, and frightening. When he played war, he played it immersively. How many times had they killed each other around this pond? Hundreds of deaths, thousands of bullets, bullets sprayed along with the white spittle ejected from their mouths as they made the bullet sounds, the machine gun’s tch-tch-tch-tch. Ducking behind trees, yelling, “I got you!” The pond had become sacred to them, the grounds hallowed, the water holy. They felt a kind of formality here, like the feeling one has entering a cemetery, this being the site of their own many imaginary deaths.

“Someone’s coming,” Bishop said, pointing. “Mexican troops. If they catch us, they will torture us for information.”

“But we won’t tell,” Samuel said.