A Crooked Mile (Rust Book 1)

by Samantha Arthurs

  When she didn’t hear from him on the second she felt a little concerned, but knowing his family situation she didn’t sweat it too bad just yet. His father could very well have taken his phone privileges, so she just decided to wait it out. Once or twice she thought about making her way down to his house, but sometime on the morning of the first it had begun to snow again, and wading through it felt like a task she was not prepared to undertake.

  On the third, however, things took an unexpected turn. It was early in the afternoon and the Sanders family had just sat down to have lunch. They were cutting the crusts off of tuna sandwiches and pouring glasses of milk when there was a knock on the front door. Her mother left to answer it, and when she returned her face was ashen and she looked scared.

  “Ramona,” she said softly, beckoning to her daughter. “Come with me.”

  Two uniformed police officers, both local boys, were standing in the living room. Snow dripped from their boots and they wore heavy coats, one of them peeling off a pair of leather gloves. He pulled a small notebook from his back pocket along with a pen, clearing his throat a little.

  “I’m Officer Danbury, and this is Officer Rollins. We want to ask you a few questions about the last time you saw or spoke to Alec Davis,” he told her, pen poised to paper. He was clearly expecting her to just start talking, but she didn’t. Instead she faltered, looking alarmed as she glanced between the two men.

  “Why? What’s going on? Did something happen? Is he in trouble?” Ramona asked, reaching to take her mother’s hand. She felt like a child suddenly, and she needed someone to lean on.

  Officer Rollins, the one who was sans notebook, shook his head a little and let out a slow breath. “No, he’s not in trouble. He’s missing. His parents called this morning to say that they hadn’t seen him since he left for the party on the night of the 31st. His brother was the last to see him; they were together in the early morning hours on the 1st. They waited over twenty-four hours before reporting it, thinking he’d turn up and was just in one of his moods. When he didn’t come home though his mother finally called us, and we’re reaching out to everyone who knew him to try and sort out where he might have gone.”

  “Gone?” That question came from Ramona’s mother, who looked a bit skeptical. “What do you mean by that? You think he took off somewhere?”

  “It’s the most likely scenario, ma'am. It happens more often than you think in towns like this. Kids get bored; they feel trapped, so they take off. We just want to ask your daughter a few questions and then we’ll be on our way,” Officer Danbury told them, pen still pressed to paper in an almost impatient sort of way. “Ready?”

  Ramona told them what she knew. She described their night at the party, and how they’d said goodbye after. She showed them the text and response, and how she had assumed that his father might have taken his phone away. The officers glanced at one another then, but neither mentioned it. They just took notes, asked a few more questions, and then left.

  The whole thing had felt insanely surreal, and Ramona headed upstairs to hide her in room instead of finishing her sandwich. Would Alec really have run away like that? Just taken off without a word to anyone? It didn’t seem possible or right, but she supposed she couldn’t really rule out the possibility. Maybe things at home had finally come to a head, some situation had gone on that she wasn’t aware of, and it had prompted him to go. But hadn’t he just told her about his scholarship offer to Oregon? They had just talked about college, about the future, and it had been so full of opportunities and possibilities. Did people really throw those things away because they couldn’t cope anymore?

  Early that evening she begged her father for a ride, and he maneuvered the truck through the snow down to the Davis house. She promised to call when she was ready to come home, tramping in her snow boots up to the porch. The driveway and walk had been shoveled earlier but the snow as falling fast, and she could see foot prints pressed into the little bits of it that had fallen onto the porch. Their house had no doubt been full of activity earlier that day, but for now it seemed relatively quiet.

  It was thankfully Bryson who answered her knocking, and after she removed her boots the two of them slipped wordlessly upstairs to his room. Her first thought was how different it was from Alec’s space, full of computer equipment and gadgets. He sat cross legged on his bed while she perched on his desk chair, both of them just staring at one another for a long time. Finally it was Bryson who broke the silence, picking at a thread on his comforter as he spoke.

  “Do you really think he’d up and leave like that? Because I don’t,” he told her, his voice thick like he was fighting back the urge to cry. “We came home that night and played video games. He said he wanted to hang out with me for a while more, that he wasn’t ready to sleep yet. It was like four o’clock when I finally begged off, told him I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. He told me he loved me and then he went to his own room. That’s the last time I saw him, the last thing he said to me. We didn’t say we loved each other much, you know, I don’t think most siblings do. It didn’t come off as weird though until the cops asked. Now it seems like an omen or something.”

  Ramona tried to imagine that, their last hours together, but it was hard. It was hard to imagine Alec manic and unable to sleep, while poor Bryson was struggling just to appease him. It also felt weird that he’d told his brother he loved him, if it wasn’t a sentiment they often shared. It all meant something, but what? She wasn’t a detective, and trying to puzzle it out hurt her brain a little bit.

  “Maybe he said it because he had it in his mind already to go and he didn’t want to leave without you knowing it,” she finally suggested, tucking her feet beneath her in the chair, trying to ward off a chill in the room. “Maybe he thought it would keep you from worrying so much.”

  They both let that sit between them in silence for a moment, Bryson still picking at the blankets and Ramona twirling slowly in his chair. When she rotated back around to face him she held a hand out to press against his bed, stopping her motion.

  “Did your dad have another go at him?” She asked him quietly, not wanting to be heard by anyone who might be in the hall. “Were things bad lately? He and I hadn’t talked much until Christmas Day, and you know him. He liked to put up a front, liked to make things seem okay even if they weren’t. Like that big bruise on his face that time, where your dad hit him, the one he lied about super adamantly. He finally told me the truth, but you could tell he didn’t want to.”

  Bryson shook his head, leaning back into the pillows with a little huff. He was struggling to piece things together, to make sense of it all, but he was no better off than she was really. “No, or at least not that I know of. Ever since we walked out of the basketball game my dad has been super weird, super distant. It’s like that was the final straw and he was so disgusted with Alec that he couldn’t even bring himself to keep yelling at him. I think their last big blow up was Thanksgiving, when we left and came to your house. I mean I guess they might have been talking in private, maybe about Alec’s scholarship stuff, but if they were I wasn’t privy to it.”

  The scholarship. That was another thing weighing heavily on Ramona’s mind. They talked it over, about how he had gotten the offer but was holding out accepting in case something better came along, about how the prospect of it being real, of going away finally and had seemed to lift his spirits a little. Hadn’t it been everything he’d ever wanted? Everything he’d dreamed about and worked towards since coming to Rust four years ago? Escaping had been his ultimate goal, but now it seemed as though five more months was too long to wait. He’d need to get out now, and so he had.

  “Do you think they’ll find him soon?” Ramona asked finally, lowering her feet back to the floor. “I mean they can track people now, so it probably won’t be long. They can trace his cell phone, credit cards, everything. I mean his wallet and phone were gone too, yeah? So he’s out there somewhere trying to make his way. People don’t stay lost
forever, not anymore.”

  Bryson nodded in response to her questions, turning onto his side and propping himself up with one arm. He didn’t seem hopeful despite the fact that his brother did have money and a phone, shrugging one shoulder before dropping back down flat onto the bed. “Yeah, he took that stuff, but it doesn’t mean much. If the phone is off it’s useless, and he could empty his debit card and just use cash for a while. We don’t know if he’s staying in one place or moving; we don’t know anything at all. It’s like he’s a ghost, here one minute and then just gone the next. How do you chase a ghost?”

  Ramona had no answer for that

  They returned to school on Friday, January fifth. Ramona had never understood why they did such idiotic things like having one day of school in a week, but she didn’t get to make the schedule and she merely had to comply. Her parents had urged her to go, sitting home and moping did nothing to help Alec, so she begrudgingly went.

  She caught the bus bright and early, shivering in her coat and gloves as she climbed on board. She sat alone by the window, staring out at the stark white world as they chugged their way toward the high school. When she arrived she was thankful to see that Bryson was waiting for her in front of the main doors, and they trooped inside together. People stared and whispered, but nobody was brave enough to speak outright to either of them. They put up a united front as best they could before departing for separate classes, running on two entirely different schedules.

  It was lunch time when the state police arrived from the nearest local outpost, beginning to question students who had known Alec or had recent contact with him. They pulled Cameron Eccoles and then Casey King, presumably to ask questions about their fight that had taken place around Christmas. They talked to members of the basketball team, to teachers, and even to the counseling staff. Rumors and theories began to spread like wildfire, and Ramona was not the least bit surprised when Bryson left early, his mother there to pick him up.

  She stuck it out somehow, thankful for the weekend that came immediately after. She tried several times to call Bryson but got no answer at the Davis home. It was likely they had taken their phone off the hook, and she couldn’t blame them. Who wanted to be constantly bothered when you were busy worrying about getting your son back? So she sat alone in her room and worried, trying to come up with possible scenarios. Each felt as unlikely as the last, and she finally gave up.

  The state police questioned her on Monday, and she gave them the same answers that she had given the guys from the local sheriff’s department. She had no clue about where Alec might have gone, only that she wanted him home. She had texted him several times since he had gone missing, but each message had gone unread. He had not only vanished into the void; he also seemed determine to sever all of his ties to his old life in his old town.

  At school the rumor mill escalated, everyone talking about where they thought Alec Davis might be. Some thought he had walked to the highway, where he had hitched a ride to California with a trucker. Could anyone blame him? It didn’t snow in California and there were bikinis all year long. Others thought he had likely made it only as far as somewhere like Fort Benton, where he could probably find enough work to support himself until he made his next move. Those people thought he’d either be found soon, or would wind up coming home on his own once his temper tantrum was over.

  The most disturbing rumor that Ramona heard was about Alec and Bryson’s father. Some people speculated that the man had killed his son in a fit of rage and had disposed of his body somewhere. While it didn’t seem likely it still shook her up and left her with a sour taste in the back of her throat. His father had been violent, sure, but not enough to kill his own son, right? Not to mention the fact that it had been snowing pretty bad late that night and burying a body would have been nearly impossible.

  Worst of all she hated to see the way that the situation was impacting Bryson. He tried to ignore the rumors, but he went home early from class more often than not most days. Eventually he stopped coming all together, his mother putting him on a home school program until things blew over. She missed seeing him at school, he was the one person she could seriously talk to about things, but she knew he had to do what was right for him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four: From Rust to Dust

  Days began to turn into weeks, and then weeks melted into a month. Ramona tried to put Alec out of her mind, but it was seemingly impossible. He was all that she could think of, and it was impacting her daily life. Her grades had slipped, and her dreams of a scholarship seemed inconsequential now. Her parents tried to encourage her, to push her, but a life of no answers was bogging her down.

  Once, in mid-February, her phone rang in the middle of the night. The number was unlisted, an unknown caller, but she woke up hopeful and immediately hit the answer button. There was nothing but static riddled silence on the other end of the line, but she listened diligently until the call finally disconnected.

  After that, hope began to wane. Wherever Alec was, it was clear that he had no intentions of coming back. The police still came and went, checking on leads and digging around, but they came up short. Eventually the state police stopped coming, and the local police went quiet on the matter. Even the rumor mill started to dry up, people giving up their interest in the missing boy and moving on to other things.

  It was hard to watch him becoming a memory, just a footnote in the lives of everyone else who had better things to be doing. The Valentine Dance came and went, and people began to talk about matters such as prom and graduation. Ramona buckled down and forced herself to refocus on her studies, needing to bring her grades back up for the mid-term reports. College acceptance letters started to pour in, and the future began to come into focus. She wanted to attend the University of Montana in Missoula, and their accepting her into their ranks officially sealed the deal. With a good performance on her finals she would even secure a large scholarship, enough to pay for almost everything she would need.

  She still felt haunted. She managed to see and speak to Bryson a few times, mostly visiting him at the Davis home. She never saw much of his parents, only catching glimpses of his mother whenever she was going in and out of their house. The woman always seemed to be curled up on the sofa, staring blankly at Hallmark movies on the television. Ramona knew that Alec had had a good relationship with her, despite her ignoring the things his father was doing, and she knew the woman had to be heartbroken. As for Alec’s father, nobody knew how he was faring. He stayed hidden away in his office, working from home and avoiding the general public.

  In early March someone claimed to have spotted him in Fort Benton, serving lattes at a small café there. The police looked into it, but came up short. It was likely just a wild goose chase and nothing more, done with either malicious intent or out of sheer stupidity. It was hard to tell, really, and Ramona only hoped that people wouldn’t call the anonymous tip line with anymore cruel bits of false hope.

  Things continued ebbing toward normal in Rust, with folks ordering in seed wheat and preparing for the spring thaw. Her own family was bustling, selling off some livestock in preparation, and her father working every day until dusk on the threshing machine in the barn. Snow came in fits now, sprinkling down a few dustings here and there, and the temperature staying just low enough to keep the fields nice and frozen solid. Soon spring would arrive though, it would bring warmer weather and rain, and then it would be planting time. Everything would turn from dust to gold, the way she preferred it, and she would finally graduate from high school. After that it was a summer of hard work to save up money, and then it was off to Missoula.

  Missoula was a place that, unknowingly, brought with it a lot of promises for Ramona Sanders. It would be a brand new start to her life, a chance to reinvent herself. She knew that she would always be ultimately the same person, the same girl she had been for eighteen years. She would still love to read, love to daydream, and would hold tight to the memory of a boy who had changed her. He had shown her
that she couldn’t judge a book by its cover, even if the cover was very attractive, and that not everyone was sewn from the same cloth. You could hang out with people and not be like them. You could even be friends with them and not truly adopt their ideals and beliefs. It was possible to be a good person, even if you are in the position to be absolutely terrible.

  Alec had changed her, as much as she had changed him. They had mutually brought out the good in one another, and that was something she would take with her no matter where she went. She just hoped he had taken it along with him too, wherever he was.

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Lost Boy Found

  It was the first week of May, three weeks before graduation and eighteen weeks since Alec Davis had gone missing. The temperature had been on the up, the days warm and the nights at least tolerable. The snow had turned into pure rain now, and it seemed to be coming down almost continuously. The ground had gone soft with the ice now melted away, and everyone was preparing for planting time to come. It was creeping up on them, whether they were ready or not, and once the rains began to subside Rust would once again be a flurry of activity.

  It was a Tuesday evening, right around dinner time, when the sirens came blaring down rural Route Four making a sharp turn down a dirt turn off that led to Tucker Monroe’s farm. At first they all assumed that Tucker or his wife had fallen ill, but the sight of several police cars and the state medical examiners van told a different story. Something big was going down, something bad, and nobody could even begin to imagine what it was.

  “Maybe Tucker went crazy,” Ramona’s father suggested as they stood on the back porch, the spot on their property that afforded the best wide open views of the Monroe place now that there was no wheat to obstruct anything. They stood observing the lights on top the many emergency vehicles, people now starting to mill around. Ramona knew that her father could be right, maybe Tucker had lost his marbles, but she didn’t think so. He had always been a nice man, and his wife equally as kind hearted, and it just seemed impossible that either of them had committed a crime; especially a crime that would be worthy of so much sudden attention.