“Shoot,” he said, getting up. He went back to his bedroom and, still in his pajamas, pulled on his sneakers and started out of the room.
“Where you goin’?”
Jake looked back to see Taylor rubbing his eyes.
“It’s nothing,” Jake told him. “I gotta go find Cody. Go back to sleep.”
Just then they heard a distant yelp.
“That’s Cody,” Taylor said, bolting up. “I’m comin’ with you!”
“Well, hurry.”
Taylor hopped out of bed and shoved his feet into his shoes. The brothers crept outside.
“Where’d the sound come from?” Taylor asked.
“I think down by the jungle. C’mon, let’s run.”
By the light of a waning moon, the two cut to the alley behind their house and followed it to the next cross street. On the other side of the street, the neighborhood ended, but a single-lane dirt path led through some trees to a small clearing where a lot of people dumped their trash. Neighborhood kids called the area “the jungle.” Creeping silently along the track, the boys spotted Bull’s truck sitting in the clearing, and next to it, a shiny black four-door sedan they didn’t recognize. Suddenly they heard Bull’s voice up ahead.
Jake held his finger to his lips. “Quiet.”
They kept moving forward until they could make out the dim shapes of two men in the predawn light.
Jake and Taylor crouched down behind a bush. “That’s Bull,” Jake whispered. He didn’t recognize the other man.
“Look, there’s Cody!” Taylor hissed.
Jake squinted and saw the shape of their terrier a few feet behind Bull, staring up at both men.
From this position, Jake and Taylor could clearly hear their conversation.
“Bottom line, Bull, you messed up,” said the stranger.
“I told you. It wasn’t my fault,” Bull said.
“What is this? Kindergarten?” said the other man. “It don’t matter whose fault it is, you moron. We hired you for the job, and you made a mess of it.”
“How was I supposed to know the guy had company? What’d you want me to do: whack all five of ’em?”
“Ain’t my problem,” said the stranger. “We paid you cash up front to do the job, and you didn’t do it. Now my boss wants his money back.”
“I—I don’t have it.” For the first time ever, Jake thought he could hear a note of worry in Bull’s voice. “I’ll do the job!” Bull said. “Tomorrow. I promise.”
“You’d better. Or else.”
Something in the stranger’s tone made Bull’s voice switch again, back to the menacing sneer that Jake knew—any trace of worry was gone. He puffed out his chest and drew himself up to his full height. “Is that a threat?” he snarled.
The assailant stuttered, suddenly on the back foot.
Bull looked crazed, like something had snapped inside him. In a single fluid movement, he whipped out a gun and pointed it at the man. Jake was pretty sure it was the gun they’d found just a few hours earlier. The stranger froze. The brothers looked on in fear.
“You should know better than to threaten me,” Bull growled menacingly. “I know how to take care of business.”
But before Bull could pull the trigger, a brown-and-white flash darted from the undergrowth, and Cody leaped out between the two men, barking furiously.
“What the—” Bull cried, startled.
He kicked out at the terrier and spun around in confusion. Even though bushes stood between them, Jake could feel Bull’s eyes burning into their hiding place.
“Quick, Taylor, get down!” Jake dragged his brother farther behind the bush. “We gotta get out of here. . . .”
“No, wait. Cody’s out there!” Taylor said, gasping.
With Bull distracted, the stranger spotted his chance. He leaped at Bull and tried to grab the gun. The two men spun around in a violent dance. The stranger gripped Bull’s wrist, trying to twist the weapon out of his hands—but Bull held on firmly. Then he tried to knee Bull in the groin but missed and hit him in the thigh.
Jake gripped Taylor’s arm.
Bull grunted but managed to trip the other man so that both of them crashed to the ground. The bushes blocked the boys’ view so all they could hear were the heavy thuds of the men wrestling back and forth, and the terrier barking frantically.
Then, with a sound like a firecracker, Jake and Taylor heard a gunshot. They stared at each other, eyes wide. An eerie stillness descended upon the area, and all the boys could hear was the sound of each other’s stifled breathing. The air was thick with silence until a scuffling in the undergrowth brought them back to their senses. Taylor almost let out a yelp, but then he saw Cody emerge from the bushes and leap into his arms.
“Quick, Jake.” Taylor gasped. “Let’s get out of here!”
Back in their room, the boys piled into Jake’s bed with Cody in between them.
“Did Bull shoot that man?” Taylor hissed. Jake could feel his brother’s body shaking beside him.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Well, what are we going to do? We’re witnesses, Jake. If Bull is still alive, he’s going to come after us.”
“We didn’t actually witness anything, Taylor. Don’t say a word about what we just heard. Not to Officer Grasso. Not to Mom. Not to anyone. We can’t risk it!”
Jake wished he felt as sure as he sounded, but he saw no point in getting Taylor more worried than he already was.
The two boys lay there for a while, listening for the sound of Bull’s return, or maybe the police. All they heard was the distant roar of traffic from the highway, as well as the bellows of a train from the rail yards down near the river.
“Jake,” Taylor asked after a minute. “What did that guy mean about Bull ‘doin’ the job’? It was something illegal, wasn’t it?”
“I told you, we just have to forget it ever happened.”
“I can’t. Bull’s mixed up in something really bad, isn’t he? Shouldn’t we tell the police?”
“Look,” Jake said, “I don’t know exactly who Bull is mixed up with, but I do know that they’re people we need to stay away from.”
“So why shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Because we don’t have proof of anything. Even if we told them what we saw tonight, they might not even believe us. And if they did, we might have to testify—then those people would definitely be after us. They could put us in foster care or something and split us up. We just have to keep our heads down and try to protect Mom as best we can.”
“But if we don’t do anything, doesn’t that make us bad too?”
Jake sighed again. “It’s not like it is in movies, Taylor. Real life is a lot more complicated. We have to decide what’s the most important thing here.”
“You mean Mom.”
“Yeah, Mom. We can’t do anything about Bull and those guys he’s mixed up with, but we can try to stay out of their way and protect her. We have to! There’s only one thing Bull cares about, and that’s Bull. We have to look out for the three of us.”
“And Cody.”
“Right. And Cody.” Jake smiled, but inside, his mind was in turmoil. He knew that protecting them all would be much easier said than done.
5 The boys rode home together after a restless last day of school. As always, they bantered with Mr. Polanachek, the driver, and he wished them a good summer—but the events of the previous night were never far from their minds. Even Cody seemed quieter as he met the boys when they climbed down the school bus steps.
As they started walking toward their house, Taylor couldn’t help but mention what had happened. “Jake, I keep thinking about last night.”
“Keep your voice down. I told you to forget about last night.”
“But Bull . . .,” said Taylor, kicking a rock in front of him. “What’s he going to say when he comes back? What if he’s waiting for us right now?”
Jake spun toward his brother and grasped him by the shoulders.
“Taylor, I mean it. You’ve got to forget about last night. We’re not even sure that other guy is dead. Bull’s stupid, but he’s not that stupid. If we haven’t said anything by now, he knows we’re not going to.”
Taylor nodded, reassured. “Okay. It’s just I’m . . .”
Jake watched his brother’s face crumple, and he loosened his grip. “I know. You’re scared. I am too, but it’s going to be all right.” Jake slung his arm affectionately around Taylor’s neck as they continued walking. He hoped he looked more confident than he felt.
As the two approached their street, however, they halted. In his usual spot next to the church, Officer Grasso waited, thumbs curled into his weapons belt. Jake’s heart thundered in his chest, and he could feel Taylor’s body tighten next to him.
“What’s he doing here?” Taylor whispered.
“Just act normal,” Jake whispered back, but he knew as well as Taylor did that the policeman rarely showed up two days in a row without a reason.
This has something to do with last night! Jake thought to himself as he and Taylor approached the officer.
“Hello, boys,” Officer Grasso said, moving toward them. “I was hoping I might catch you on your way home.”
The policeman’s voice lacked his usual cheeriness, and Jake knew something was up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Taylor glanced at his brother and then fixed his eyes on Officer Grasso.
The policeman removed the toothpick from his mouth. “Ah, boys,” he said, with a sigh. “There’s something . . . Something happened.”
Jake waited for the officer to bring up Bull, but instead the policeman said, “It’s your mother.” The world seemed to slow as the policeman’s words filtered through Jake’s mind.
Without waiting, Taylor shouted “Mom!” and sprinted toward home.
“Taylor, stop!” the policemen yelled after him, but Jake and Cody were already in pursuit.
As he turned onto their block, Jake spotted two police cars and an ambulance parked outside their house, surrounded by a crowd of neighbors, policemen, and medical personnel. The red and blue lights of one cruiser circled silently, flashing an eerie strobe across the scene.
Still in the lead, Taylor headed straight for their front door. At the last moment a large woman in maroon slacks intercepted him.
“Let me go!” Taylor cried, struggling frantically to escape.
Panting, Jake and Cody skidded to a halt next to them.
“Tell us what’s going on!” Jake demanded, his mind already zeroing in on the thugs Bull was mixed up with.
What if they came here to get back at Bull and hurt Mom instead?
But just then, the house door swung open. Two men wearing blue EMT uniforms came down the front steps. Between them, they carried a gurney.
Their mother lay on the gurney, her head strapped into a fixed position. Blood-soaked bandages covered her head—so many that Jake could see only one eye and her left cheek. Even those small parts of her face, though, were marbled with ugly purple bruising.
“Mom!” Taylor broke free of the woman who was holding on to him, and he rushed to the gurney, Jake right next to him.
“Mom, are you all right?” Taylor pleaded.
“She can’t hear you,” one of the medics said.
“What happened?” Jake asked. “Is she going to be okay?”
Just then Bull appeared in the front doorway. “Taylor, Jake, stop it!” he ordered. “Your mom fell down some steps. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
Jake stepped forward. So he’s back, he thought.
“Why didn’t anyone get us from school?”
“Wasn’t time,” Bull barked. “I just found her when I got home. These guys will take care of things. Now, get out of the way.”
Tears streamed down Taylor’s face. He and Jake watched, stunned, as the men loaded their mother into the back of the ambulance. The woman who had intercepted Taylor spoke gently to the boys.
“I am so sorry.”
Fighting back his own tears, Jake turned to her. “Who are you?”
“My name is Mrs. Madeleine Jones. I work for Child Protective Services. I’m here to make sure you have everything you need. We’ve already talked to your stepfather—”
“Our stepfather?”
“Yes, Mr. Duvitski. And we have let him know that we’ll support him in any way that we can.”
“What do you mean support him?” Jake asked.
“Well, with your mother’s accident, he’ll be looking after you. . . .”
“But—”
Before Jake could protest, Bull walked up behind him. He laid his hand on Jake’s shoulder and squeezed until Jake winced in pain. “That’s right,” Bull told Madeleine. “Me and the boys are gonna be just fine, aren’t we?”
Jake took a deep breath and stared back at him—he felt like his stomach had dropped through the ground. Surely, we can’t be left alone with Bull?
Before he could say anything, Bull butted in, “I’m going to the hospital with Jennifer, but I need a word with the boys first.”
Uncertainty flicked through the social worker’s eyes, but then she smiled tightly and stepped away.
Bull leaned over and looked at Jake and then Taylor. “So, boys,” he growled, cocking a thumb back toward the ambulance. “Now you know.”
“Know what?” Taylor demanded.
“Know what happens to people who cause trouble and don’t do what they’re told. I know you was there last night, you little punks. You and your worthless mutt. And I know you saw more than you should’ve.”
“We didn’t see anything,” Jake said.
“Yeah, we don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Taylor added unconvincingly.
Bull gave them a grim smile. “You say what you want. I’m goin’ to the hospital, but I’ll be back in a little while, and then we’re going to have a talk. . . .”
With that, Bull walked to the ambulance and climbed in, fixing the boys with a cruel stare. Jake and Taylor silently looked on as one of the paramedics closed the rear doors and walked around to the front seat. The engine roared to life, and the vehicle quickly pulled away.
As soon as the ambulance drove out of sight, a small crowd of police and neighbors swirled around Jake and Taylor. Some, like Mrs. Sanchez, offered their condolences. Tears welled in Jake’s eyes, and his throat felt like a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around it. He croaked to the crowd, “We need to be alone.” Grabbing Taylor by the hand, Jake tugged him into the house, Cody on their heels.
Once inside, Taylor sobbed. “Jake, what’s going on? Why is Bull saying he’s our stepfather?”
“So they won’t take us away. This way he can keep an eye on us.”
“Jake, what are we gonna do?”
Taylor’s voice bordered on hysterical. Jake wrapped his arms around his brother, but his mind worked furiously. If they stayed with Bull, their lives would be full of misery–and maybe worse. If they told the authorities, they could be split up, they might even have to testify, and that would be the fastest way to get into trouble with Bull and whoever he was working for. Jake couldn’t let that happen—he had to think of a way out, and fast.
Suddenly it came to him—the answer was obvious. He gently pried Taylor loose and brushed the hair from his brother’s eyes. “I know what we’re going to do, but we’ve got to move fast.”
Jake hurried into their bedroom and unslung his backpack. Taylor followed.
“What are you—?”
“Empty your backpack,” Jake said, already dumping his school notebooks onto the floor.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Taylor began unzipping his pack. “What’s happening, Jake?”
Jake met his eyes. “We’re getting out of here, that’s what. We’re going to find Dad.”
Taylor’s mouth hung open for a moment. “You mean in Wyoming?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“But you s
aid we couldn’t because of Mom.”
Jake hesitated. He’d never seen anyone who’d been beaten before, but his mother had looked bad. Real bad. I don’t know if she’ll survive, he thought with a pang. “There’s nothing we can do for her,” he said to Taylor. “But one thing I know is she wouldn’t want Bull—or social services—to be in charge of us.”
Taylor just nodded, too shocked and bewildered to argue.
“If we can get away from Bull, we’ll just end up being separated. We have to go now,” Jake continued.
“What do you want me to do?” Taylor murmured.
In a pile in the corner of their room, the two boys had already collected some of things they would need for this year’s summer camp, but Jake quickly made an additional survival list.
“Pack up what we already pulled out for camp—especially the warm clothes and socks.”
Taylor did as he was told. “What else?”
“Get the flashlight.”
Taylor retrieved the light from the kitchen, and Jake stuffed it into his pack. Just then they heard someone knock on their front door.
“Boys, are you all right?” came the muffled voice of Mrs. Jones, the woman from Child Protective Services.
Jake and Taylor hurried to the closed front door. “We’re . . . We’re fine,” Jake said. “We just need some time alone right now.”
“I understand.” Her voice welled with sympathy. “I’m going to wait outside here. Come out when you’re ready to talk.”
“All right. Thanks,” Jake said, fighting panic.
After a pause the brothers heard footsteps clack down the front steps, and then murmuring voices as the social worker began talking with some of the neighbors.
Jake took a deep breath. “That was close.”
“What else do we need?” Taylor asked.
They hurried back to their room, and Jake pulled open the top drawer of the desk they shared. It contained some of his most prized possessions. He pulled out his Swiss Army knife and shoved it into his pocket. Next he handed his compass to Taylor. “Here, you keep this. And go get some string from the kitchen drawer.”
While Taylor went off to the kitchen, Jake also pulled a cell phone from the desk. The phone was a disposable one with a fixed number of minutes on it. Jake had seen Bull toss it in a drawer a couple of weeks ago, and Jake had retrieved it when he wasn’t looking.
Wilder Boys Page 3
