by Steven Gould
“Me and Johnny had been looking for butterflies for my science project when Kimble came out of the bush and kicked Johnny! You know its not the first time he’s picked on him.”
Mrs. Sodaberg and Marisol believed Kimble. “The blanket was stuffed behind a stand of cholla,” said Marisol. “And she didn’t get his fly buttoned straight.”
Both Luanne’s and Johnny’s parents sided with their children and, as both fathers were on the school board, the school board did also.
Martha Mendez’s husband, Carlos, was the village council member whose turn it was to be constable. He interviewed all three teens multiple times. At the end of it all, he refused to pursue charges of assault or rape.
“Your daughter’s told me three different stories, now,” he said when Mr. Tuscano protested. “Johnny doesn’t remember, he says, and with a concussion, that’s possible, but he also has given me different versions of what he was doing with Luanne. Every time I talked to Kimble, I got the same exact story. And isn’t this your blanket?”
The school board suspended Kimble for a month.
“Thank God,” Kimble said.
Mrs. Sodaberg brought several months’ worth of course work out to the dojo and let Ruth know in no uncertain terms, what most of the village really thought. “He may be the apple of his parents’ eye, but too many broken windows, black eyes, and stolen pies can be laid at Johnny’s door. And he and Luanne may have thought they were discreet but it wasn’t the first time they’d been caught making out.”
When Mrs. Sodaberg had left, Ruth finally commented on the whole mess. “Now I know you had less dangerous techniques you could’ve used. Kicking him in the head? He wasn’t Pritts, you know.”
Kimble sighed. “Yeah, I know. Now.” He kicked the base of the wall. “Luanne looks nothing like the Cruz girl, but it was Francesca’s face I was seeing. Her voice I was hearing.
“Luanne and Johnny were probably fooling around and he wanted to go farther than she did. She was yelling for him to stop. Not really yelling for help.”
“Did she say that?” Ruth asked mildly.
Kimble shrugged. “She was chasing butterflies, remember?”
Ruth said, “Could be she was yelling for help. She just didn’t want to admit to her parents what she’d been doing. Her father is very religious.”
“That’s not how you put it after the school board protest.”
There’d been an effort by a minority of the school board to introduce Bible studies into the school curriculum. At a well-attended public meeting, Ruth had spoken against the effort on a First Amendment basis. Kimble’s teacher, Mrs. Sodaberg, had agreed. She also expressed the opinion that changing their status to a “religious school” would result in the Territorial School System cutting support for their school. The TSS currently supplied all study materials and over half of the teachers’ salaries. In a narrow majority, the board had concluded, “Church matters for church. School matters for school.” It could be read as a victory for Separation of Church and State but behind-the-scene reports said that what really killed it were arguments over whose specific doctrine would be taught.
“Didn’t you call him a ‘narrow-minded, fundamentalist bigot’?”
Ruth glared and said to Kimble, “You have a good memory but that’s not always a virtue.”
Kimble sighed. “It’s not the month away from school that bothers me. It’s going back.”
* * *
OF the two-dozen chicks they’d gotten from Rooster Vigil back in August they had seventeen survivors. A roadrunner had taken two while they were still chicks and, more recently, a breeding pair of coyotes had carried off two fledglings one early morning. The last three casualties had been roosters and, while they got up early most mornings, Ruth liked to sleep in on Sunday. The roosters had been the centerpiece of a meal served during the dojo’s grand opening.
Kimble wasn’t sure whether the chickens thought of him as another chicken or even their mother but whenever he showed up, they all came running. They were nearly full-grown and a few had started clucking. Most, though, still peeped, but all knew that when Kimble showed up he often had feed or scraps or would turn over rocks in the garden to reveal bugs and grubs.
They liked melon rinds, cracked corn, and worms, but cockroaches were like crack cocaine to them.
For his part, Kimble loved sitting by the garden as the birds scratched and pecked. Every time he moved they would run over to see if he was reaching into a pocket for a treat or turning over rocks. Whenever he was upset, he would go sit with the chickens.
That’s where Captain Bentham found Kimble two weeks after the incident.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Did you catch Pritts?”
Bentham shook his head. He went to the short log they used as a bench and eyed the chicken poop decorating its surface. He rolled it ninety degrees and sat down.
Kimble told him about kicking Johnny in the head as well as what he’d learned the day before. He talked about Luanne’s story and being suspended from school.
“And what should you have done?”
Kimble licked his lips. “Well, for starters, I could’ve just told him to stop.”
Bentham nodded. “Yes, I suppose. You would’ve sacrificed the element of surprise, though.”
“Yes, but there were lots of other things I could’ve done, too, without giving him a concussion.”
Bentham pulled a scrap of bread from his belt pouch and began shredding it. The chickens flocked around him, pecking the bread from between his fingers. “Greedy beggars.” He dusted the last of the crumbs into the dirt causing a small riot of pushing and pecking. “Learn anything?”
Kimble nodded. “Ask first before rendering aid?”
“Don’t know about that. What if there’d been a weapon?”
“No, not in that circumstance.”
“What else?”
“Sometimes things aren’t black and white.”
Bentham nodded. “You said a mouthful there. Anytime there are humans involved, things can get tangled—no, make that always get tangled. Maybe Johnny learned something, too.”
“That might be reaching,” Kimble said.
Captain Bentham held out a piece of paper. “Here.”
“What is it?”
“Court order.”
Kimble’s stomach hurt and he pulled his hands back. “My dad?”
Bentham blinked. “Hell, no. Don’t worry about that. He gets wind of you I’ll give you plenty of warning.
“Young as you are, a court order is necessary for you to take the GED. Ruth wrote me. I’ve been talking to your Mrs. Sodaberg. She says you’d pass it now but if you prepped the next few months, you’d get top marks.” He pushed the paper forward again. “Take it, already.”
Kimble took the heavy paper.
“This’ll let you take the GED at the Territorial Complex. They give it once a month.”
“I don’t have to go back to school?”
“Well, not that school.”
“What do you mean?”
Captain Bentham, he decided, had a very unsavory laugh.
* * *
TWO months later Kimble borrowed the mare, Suze, from the Kenneys and, with an overnight at the Castillos’ ranch, rode into the capital to take the GED.
That was the least of it.
“I’ve made a deal with the captain,” Ruth told him. “He wants you to do his training things but you’ll stay with Thây Hahn.”
“Who or what is Thây Hahn when he is at home?”
“He is a priest of the Tiep Hien Order.” At Kimble’s blank look she added, “It’s a form of Zen Buddhism.”
“You want me to be a Buddhist?”
She shook her head. “No. I want you to sit. Meditate.”
“I already do that, with you,” Kimble said.
“Some,” she said. “But we don’t do much. I want you to sit with Thây Hahn in the morning before you go to Captain Bentham.”
<
br /> Kimble wondered if he’d have time to do the captain’s training, too, if he was sitting in the morning with Thây Hahn. “I thought you’d never been to the capital before the time we met.”
“Right. I knew Thây Hahn outside.”
“This is because I kicked Johnny in the head, isn’t it?”
Ruth nodded. “Among other things.”
“What good is it going to do?”
“Ah. That is the question. Let me know what you find out.”
* * *
KIMBLE took the GED the afternoon he arrived, going directly from the livery to the Territorial School System building where it was administered. He used less than half of the allowed seven hours. “The results will be mailed within two weeks,” the examiner said.
Kimble thanked him, took his bag, and left.
Thây Hahn lived in a small house surrounded by a large garden in the northwest quadrant, close to the city wall. When Kimble knocked, a small girl, about nine years old, with enormous brown eyes and jet black hair, opened the door. “Hello,” Kimble said.
She looked at him for a moment, taking in his bag and his height. “You’re too young to be a new novice. You must be Kimble.”
He nodded.
“Take off your shoes.” She indicated a shoe shelf just inside the door. “We don’t wear shoes in the house. Ba is at work. He’ll be back in time for supper. I hope you like lentils.”
“Ba?”
“Sorry—means Father.”
“Your father is Thây Hahn?”
“Yes. I’m Thayet.”
She led him to the back hallway and showed him the guest bed—a narrow bunk behind a sliding panel in the back hall—then the privy and the solar shower in back where the runoff helped water the garden.
Thây Hahn was short, Kimble’s height exactly, and Kimble found himself automatically following dojo etiquette in his presence: bowing, sitting in seiza, and being exquisitely polite. This politeness was tested when Thayet woke him well before dawn.
“Time to sit,” was all she said.
He used the privy and swallowed some water before joining them. They sat for four forty-five-minute sessions, stretching briefly between. They were finished by the time the city bells struck eight.
Great. Plenty of time for Captain Bentham’s training.
The question now was, would he be able to stay awake through it?
* * *
“BAD night?” Communications Technical Sergeant Chinn didn’t know who Kimble was. Captain Bentham had introduced him as “My Little Friend” with the capital letters clearly audible.
“The night was okay, just too short.” Kimble was yawning a lot but the communications office had a ceramic biofuel burner and Kimble was on his third cup of strong tea. He was leaning on the table, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. “Please continue.”
“Okay. Buried messages are best. They won’t even try to break a code if they don’t realize it’s there. We like simple alert phrases for urgent communications so if you use any of these phrases in a letter or heliogram, it’ll get noticed by our analysts. Just don’t use them accidentally.” He handed Kimble a thick slab of wood with a sheet of paper glued to it.
It was surprisingly heavy. “What’s with the board?”
“Keeps it from wandering off. By the end of the week you’ll know all those phrases by heart. You’ll even be able to write them all down once you’ve left here, but don’t.”
Kimble was looking at the list. “‘Sick Leave’?”
“Right. ‘Subject Lost.’ They’re all like that to aid memorization. Same initial letters, see? ‘Got to Go.’”
Kimble ran his finger down the list. “Ah. ‘Gone to Ground.’ What does that mean?”
“Basically, you’re in hiding. Probably because you’re blown and the opposition is actively searching for you. You know ‘blown’?”
“My cover is blown. Yeah, that I know.”
“And ‘cover’ is?”
“Jeeze. What do you think I am, twelve or something?”
The tech sergeant laughed. “How old are you? You look twelve to me.”
In a haughty tone, Kimble said, “That is on a need-to-know basis.” In his normal voice he added, “But I did take the GED yesterday. ‘Cover’ is a covert identity. You know, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent. If we get to pick, I want to be the millionaire playboy.”
“Okay. You need any of these other terms explained, just sing out. In a bit, we’ll cover fixed signals for ground to air communication. We’ll also be working on the heliograph. How’s your Morse code?”
Kimble buried his face in his arms and groaned.
* * *
KIMBLE went to bed almost immediately after supper. Thayet woke him again at four. “I hate you,” he said.
She giggled and then sat like a rock through the sessions. At breakfast he commented about how well she sat to Thây Hahn.
“She sleeps,” he said. “She’s like one of those soldiers who can sleep in formation. I’d leave her in bed but she insists. She’s very stubborn.”
“Can I sleep through the meditation?”
“Better to stay in bed.”
“I’m with you there.”
Thây Hahn leaned forward. “Then why are you sitting?”
“I don’t know why, yet. But I trust my sensei. I guess I’m sitting to find out why I’m sitting.”
Thây Hahn nodded. “That will do. To start.”
* * *
“OKAY, Little Friend,” said Lieutenant Durant. “The guy with the red shirt coming out of the courthouse. Got him?”
Kimble nodded, though he kept his eyes on the subject. They were standing by the Exodus monument and Kimble half-expected to see his own younger self atop it, challenging all comers.
“When the bell rings four, report to me at Café del Mundo and tell me where he went and who he talked to. Remember. Covert. From the Old French by way of Old English. Past participle of covrir, meaning to cover. Not ‘overt.’ Discreet.”
“Discreet. Yes, ma’am,” Kimble said, and wandered diagonally across the plaza, pacing the man with the red shirt. He would much rather be watching the lieutenant. He’d had a crush on her from the moment Captain Bentham introduced them.
He glanced back for one more glimpse of her and saw his own tail, a corporal he’d last seen behind a desk in Lieutenant Durant’s outer office. The man was now in mufti, a large straw hat shading his face.
Ha! Kimble spent five minutes losing the corporal and then watched both of them, for the corporal was keeping track of the man in the red shirt, probably in hopes of reacquiring Kimble.
“Any difficulty?” Lieutenant Durant asked later when he met her at the Café del Mundo.
Kimble shrugged.
Lieutenant Durant frowned. “Did you lose your subject?”
“Ha.” Her corporal must’ve reported in. “No, ma’am.” Kimble listed the places the man in red had gone and the people he’d talked to.
The lieutenant looked at a piece of paper as he spoke, ticking through a list. Her eyebrows rose as Kimble went along. When Kimble stopped talking she said, “Anything else to report?”
“Your corporal ate chicken souvlaki at Petra’s Greek Food. The bill was eight-fifty with a beer. Was he on duty? Should he be drinking? I always liked their dolmades. Looked like he fell asleep for a few minutes on the bench near the livestock end of the market. That could’ve been the beer. I really think that’s a bad idea, the beer, though I must admit I was having a hard time not falling asleep myself, but that was because I was up at four.”
“Stop,” she said, laughing. “I’m never going to let him live this down. How’d you do it? Disguise?”
“If I tell you, he’ll be harder to lose next time. Buy me a pastry?”
He really loved the way she laughed. “I promise not to tell him, but I have to evaluate your methods. Now, by results, you’re doing pretty darn good. How’d you do it?”
“Let’s just say your c
orporal should look up occasionally.”
She blinked. “Oh. Rooftops?”
“Yes, though I did stick my head in the back door of the restaurant while he was eating and talked to his waiter.”
“Nice.” She nodded thoughtfully. “What will you do when you can’t use the rooftops?”
“Try me.”
She laughed again. “Oh, we will. We will.”
* * *
CAPTAIN Bentham took him on horseback out to the Territorial Academy. “I’ve seen you in action in your dojo and that’s very impressive, but I’d like to see how you operate against non-aikidoists.”
“What, you think it’s just forms? That we’re cooperating with each other when we practice?”
“Well, to a small extent, you do. Otherwise you’d kill each other, yes?”
Kimble conceded the point with a shrug.
“We’ve got some practical exams today for our Unarmed Combat and Prisoner Control Tactics class. I’m going to slip you in as a perp on some of the arrest scenarios.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll hurt me?”
“Not worried about you. Just don’t kick anybody in the head, okay?”
Nine out of the ten arresting cadets ended up facedown on the mat. The tenth, more aggressive than the others, sprained his shoulder when Kimble used the energy of the man’s initial rush to project him along his way. They would have to fix the plaster on a wall, too.
On the ride back, Bentham kept chuckling.
“Not really fair, was it?” Kimble said. “I mean, slipping in a ringer.”
“Maybe not. But it taught them a valuable lesson about appearances, didn’t it?”
* * *
SITTING was getting easier. The first days had been struggles against sleep alternating with the cries of joints, random itches, and stiffness. Now Kimble struggled with vivid images and thoughts and occassional hallucinations.
The worst was Pritts standing beside Thayet’s cushion, looking down and licking his lips. He’d yelled and fallen out of half-lotus.
Thây Hahn said, “Of course it is impossible to empty your mind. Things drift across your consciousness inevitably. What’s important is that you don’t attach to any of these thoughts. Let them go their way.”
