See How They Run

by Bethany Campbell

  Laura put her hand on the top of the front seat and leaned close to Jefferson. “My grandparents lived close to this little town in Vermont, East Jamaica. I used to visit them in the summers.”

  “And they sent you to Bible camp? Oof. Ouch.”

  “Don’t try to turn around,” she said, putting her hand on his good shoulder. “The camp was outside of town. My grandfather hauled wood there once a week. I’d ride with him. Sometimes we’d get invited to lunch. Sometimes he let me stay and play. I got to know it pretty well.”

  “Wood? Why was he hauling wood in the summer?” Jefferson asked.

  “For cookstoves,” Laura said. “It was all very back-to-nature. I mean, the camp was in the woods; still, they didn’t want to cut down their own trees. But they had to have a constant supply of wood.”

  “Oof,” said Jefferson.

  “You should take another pain pill,” said Montana.

  Rickie told Trace some impossibly high number, and they both began to laugh giddily. Trace shrieked.

  “Shhh,” Laura said firmly. “Not so loud. It’s all right to laugh, but not so loud.”

  “Jeez,” said Jefferson. “They’re giving me a headache.”

  “They’re just being kids,” said Montana. “Take a pill.”

  “I want to hear about this camp first,” Jefferson said, then grimaced with pain.

  The twins subsided into giggles. “That’s better,” Laura said. “That’s good.” She turned to Jefferson again.

  “I stopped going to my grandparents’ after my grandpa died, years ago. Then my grandma got Alzheimer’s disease. She didn’t know us anymore. She had to be put in a home.”

  Rickie pointed to something on the map, and he and Trace began to giggle harder.

  “My grandmother died last summer,” Laura said. “I was in charge of the funeral. I stayed afterward to put her affairs in order. But I’d take these sentimental journeys, you know? Like to the farm where they’d lived. And one day I went to the Bible camp.”

  “I hope it got turned into a Holiday Inn,” said Jefferson.

  “Would you take a pill?” Montana asked, irritation in his voice. “Or am I going to have to shove it down you?”

  “I’ll tell you what to shove and where,” Jefferson groaned. “Let me hear about this camp, okay, dammit?”

  “Don’t swear in front of the kids,” Montana said. “Laura, tell him fast, okay?”

  “The camp’s still there. But it’s out of business and for sale. I met a real estate agent. He said he didn’t think it’d ever sell. For one thing, it’s a white elephant. For another, there’s a dispute about a property line. A dispute that’s going to be messy to solve.”

  “So maybe some idiot who likes messy white elephants bought it,” Jefferson said from between his teeth.

  “No,” Laura said. “I got a Christmas card from this same person. Less than a month ago. He wrote, ‘I’ve still got your camp for you, bargain price.’ ”

  “What’s he sending you Christmas cards for?” Jefferson asked. “He got the hots for you, or what?”

  “Yes,” Laura said matter-of-factly. “But he’s married. So I don’t have the hots for him. Anyway, this camp is isolated, and it’s empty. We can go there until we figure out someplace better.”

  “Quebec sounds good to me,” Montana said. “Does anybody speak French?”

  “A little,” Laura said, certain that her little was far from enough.

  “French?” demanded Jefferson. “I’m shot full of holes, you’re taking me to camp, and now you want I should speak French? Ouch!”

  Jefferson nearly doubled up, and he ground his teeth.

  Laura winced at his suffering, but the twins, still playing map games, laughed together.

  “Take your goddam pill,” Montana said.

  “Take your goddam pill,” Trace echoed. “Take your goddam pill.”

  He and Rickie laughed hysterically.

  Jefferson groaned.

  Laura held her breath when they crossed the border into New Hampshire. Montana took the straightest path to the nearest city of any size, Nashua.

  She tried to keep the twins amused when he stopped at one of Nashua’s outlet malls. He had to buy clothing that would fit Jefferson. He also had to provision them with camping supplies. The deserted Bible camp had neither electricity nor gas.

  He must have spent a small fortune, Laura thought when he returned. He and she had to repack the van, and the boys were as curious as monkeys.

  Montana had anticipated the boys would be restless and had brought them a Chinese checkerboard with its set of colored marbles. Laura could have kissed him. The boys didn’t care about the game, but they loved the marbles and arranging them in patterns on the board.

  She and Montana worked out a circuitous route of back roads to reach the camp, and they set out again. The board and marbles kept the twins absorbed, for which she offered up a prayer of thanks. Jefferson slept, snoring lightly.

  They reached the camp in late afternoon, and the sky was already growing dark. They had passed through the village of East Jamaica and were in the foothills of the Green Mountains.

  The camp was located far off a back road that saw little traffic. The lane to the camp was almost four miles long, full of twists and turns and precipitously steep in places.

  Snow had not fallen as deeply here as in New York. The day must have been sunny, for the road was nearly bare, though badly rutted from neglect.

  Their progress was slow and jolting, and it woke Jefferson, who grimaced when he looked out the window. “I never saw so many trees,” he said, not sounding happy.

  But the trees were good, thought Laura. The looming pines, the bare maples, and the silvery birches formed a fortresslike wall between the camp and the outer world.

  Never before had she seen the Vermont woods in winter. The ground was bare except for dead vines and the remains of old snow, and the needles of the tall pines were so dark that the trees looked black against the graying sky. The place felt so empty that it almost felt safe.

  “A guy could die of loneliness out here,” Jefferson said.

  “There are worse ways to die,” said Montana.

  The camp, or what remained of it, was more rundown than Laura remembered. It was, in fact, in ruins. She thought it was no wonder no one had bought it. No one ever would.

  Ramshackle, its roof sagging, the main lodge still stood. So did the old barn made of logs, although its roof had caved in. A totem pole, its paint weathered, stood at a drunken angle.

  They all got out of the car. Jefferson looked about in obvious dismay. “Lordy,” he said softly to himself, shaking his head.

  The twins, full of restless energy from the long day, stood a moment, then exploded into action. Rickie ran in large circles around the tilting totem pole. Trace stuck his arms straight out and whirled like a dervish. “Blue rhubarb!” he yelled.

  “Cows fly!” Rickie shouted back. He kept running, Trace kept twirling, and both of them cried out phrases that had meaning only to them.

  Laura didn’t try to stop them. Like Jefferson, she could only stand and stare in dismay. She remembered when the camp was smart and trim and had been full of children’s laughter. Now only the boys’ wild cries echoed through the darkening air.

  Permanent tents had once stood, a dozen of them, ranged with military precision between the lodge and the stable. Now the canvases were gone, and only a few wooden platforms still stood, in various states of disrepair.

  “I didn’t remember it being this bad,” Laura said, putting her hand on Jefferson’s arm. “I guess it looks different in summer.…”

  Jefferson only nodded. She thought, That’s it. When I saw it last, it was summer and the sun was shining. The trees were in leaf, and there were wildflowers in bloom; it didn’t seem so desolate.

  “It’ll do,” Montana said shortly. “Let’s unpack.”

  Snow had began to float down in thick white flakes.

  Laura to
ok a box of boys’ clothing from the van, but she couldn’t restrain a sigh. Everywhere they went, evil weather seemed to follow, like a cold, malicious ghost.

  The inside of the main lodge was in better shape than Montana expected. Teenagers had partied there, leaving behind beer cans, wine bottles, and graffiti.

  The windows had been boarded against further vandalism, the doors bolted, but he’d had little trouble getting in.

  The interior was dark, dusty, and cloaked with cobwebs. The litter flowed from room to room like a dirty, silent river. But the building was dry and tight. No wind blew through any crack, no snow fell through the roof.

  Best, there was a main fireplace with dry wood stacked beside it, three rooms with battered bunk beds, and a kitchen with an old-fashioned cookstove, a pump, and an antique wooden icebox. There were even a few battered cooking and eating utensils left.

  In Nashua, Montana had bought battery-operated lanterns, a small chemical toilet, a propane stove and heaters, and sleeping bags. He’d also bought a couple of gray sweatsuits for Jefferson, a winter jacket, and a pair of size fourteen basketball shoes.

  He put the chemical toilet in an old pantry, and in doing so, scared out a mouse. “I feel like I’m back in the projects,” Jefferson said without enthusiasm.

  Laura played outside with the twins as long as possible. Then she made them soup and sandwiches and cocoa. While they ate with Jefferson, she and Montana worked once more to recreate the bedroom the boys had at school.

  She swept with a cast-off broom, and he moved the old beds to the right positions. He found a crate to serve as a night table, and put the Bugs Bunny lamp on it, facing the wall. There was no electricity to plug it in, and Bugs was starting to look the worse for wear. Montana hoped that it was the thought that counted.

  Together they made up the beds with the Looney Tunes sheets, putting the zipped-open sleeping bags on for extra cover. They hung the Looney Tunes curtains.

  Montana found a kitchen drawer that held a cache of rusty nails. Using the tire iron from the van, he hammered them into the walls so they could hang the cartoon animal plaques and bulletin board in place.

  There was no dresser, so they piled the boxes of the boys’ clothes where the dresser should have been. There were no desks, but Montana found two more crates, and Laura used them as a substitute for desks, and set out the boys’ books.

  “Home sweet home,” she said, looking at the makeshift room by lantern light.

  “We’re getting good at this,” said Montana, adjusting the plaque of the Tasmanian Devil.

  Laura shook her head. “It doesn’t look so good to me. Where will we do it next? A cave?”

  “That’s what we figure out.”

  She looked up at him. Her face seemed younger and more vulnerable by lantern light. “Did you mean what you said about Quebec? Canada?”

  “Yeah. But when we make a move, it’s got to be right.”

  Her expression grew rueful. “I’m sorry about this place. I really didn’t remember it being this run-down.”

  “Hey. You don’t take care of places this far north, they go to hell fast. Excuse me. I shouldn’t swear. It’s a bad habit.”

  “Just so it’s not in front of the boys,” she said. “I don’t mind. Don’t apologize.”

  He put his bad hand in the pocket of the jeans he’d gotten from Marco. They were tight and faded, but they’d do.

  The lodge was still chilly, and he’d kept on the old leather jacket. His sweater, an old blue one of Marco’s, was too small, but it was warm.

  He said, “I’m surprised. About the kids, I mean. This much change. I thought they’d be more upset. You’re really good with them.”

  She shook her head. “No. They’ve been to camp before. A special camp in New Jersey. They liked it. They caught lizards and turtles. I had to explain that the lizards and turtles are asleep now.”

  “Like I said,” he said, “you’re good with them.”

  “Thanks.” It was a simple compliment and an honest one, but she seemed embarrassed.

  Maybe she was looking at him differently since last night. He realized he was doing the same thing to her; he couldn’t stop thinking of sex. It might not be the wisest way to act, or maybe it was. Whatever gets you through the night, he thought fatalistically.

  “I should get them in bed, give poor Jefferson a break,” she said, turning to go.

  “Wait,” he said. She stopped in the doorway, but kept her back to him, and didn’t turn to look back at him.

  “You haven’t eaten. You and I, we could eat together.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “And then,” he said, “maybe we could sit by the fireplace, have a glass of wine. I bought a bottle of wine in Nashua. What do you think?”

  She stared out into the main room where flames crackled in the ancient fireplace. “I think I’d like that.”

  “Good,” he said. “Fine.”

  Jefferson was more than ready for Laura to rescue him from the twins. He took another pain pill and unrolled his sleeping bag on a sagging bunk in the front bedroom. The walls were covered with graffiti, and he grumbled that he didn’t even want to think of the things that had happened on that mattress. He was asleep before the twins had on their pajamas.

  The twins were put off and irritated by their bedroom. They were angry that the Bugs Bunny lamp didn’t light, but Laura put a lantern on the crate in front of it, and that mollified them somewhat.

  She read to them from the lizard book. Rickie, worn out, was asleep after five pages. He had his jar of pennies and his map on the crate between the bunks.

  Trace, drumming his fingers lightly against his face, lasted for eleven pages. Then his fingers went still, his breathing grew regular, and his closed eyelids fluttered as he sank into sleep. He cradled his jar of pennies in the crook of one arm.

  Laura closed the book, and put it in its place among the others. She took the penny jar from Trace and placed it beside the other one, so he could see it when he woke.

  Montana was waiting for her in the kitchen. He’d made cheese sandwiches and instant coffee, and heated a can of minestrone soup.

  The electric lantern gave the kitchen a warm glow, even though it left the corners in shadows. She sat on a rickety bench across from Montana. In Nashua he’d bought plastic dishes and cups, plastic knives and forks and spoons. He seemed to have anticipated every need, which impressed her.

  The table was old and trestle-style. Its top was scarred with carvings: initials, declarations of love, silly phrases, obscenities.

  Montana looked at her over his sandwich. “So tell me. What’s ‘blue rhubarb’ mean? And why do they say that cows fly in outer space?”

  She cocked her head slightly, bemused. “I don’t know what ‘blue rhubarb’ means. He just seems to like the sound. Rickie does that a lot, too. It’s like they make up their own poetry.”

  Montana shrugged. “I’ve heard worse. I’ve got an aunt that writes poetry. Worse. Much worse.”

  She smiled, even though smiling made her feel shy and self-conscious. “Sometimes he says it when he’s upset. It’s like a magic word to shut out what bothers him. Sometimes he uses it to tease. Once he followed a little girl around for two days, saying, ‘Sneak snake puddle, sneak snake puddle.’ She punched him so hard he got a nosebleed.”

  Montana shook his head. “Sounds like love.”

  “I think it was. Only her parents moved and took her to San Francisco. He missed her. He got up every morning looking for her.”

  “I thought these kids didn’t form attachments. That’s what people say.”

  “But they do,” she said with feeling. “In their way. But they don’t know how to express it. Trace went through a phase of touching people’s hair if he liked them. It was hard to teach him not to.”

  “So why’s Rickie talk about the cow?”

  “These kids are very literal,” said Laura. “If you say, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs,’ they think puppies
and kittens really fall from the sky. If you say somebody has money to burn, they think that person really sets fire to money.”

  “And the cow?” asked Montana.

  “ ‘Hey-diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.’ One of their books shows a picture of the cow jumping over the moon. It’s real to them. They don’t seem to understand imagination. That’s fairly typical.”

  Montana nodded and crossed his arms on the scarred tabletop. “So in their world, cows fly. And the dish really runs away with the spoon.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “If they see a cartoon of a dancing frog in a high hat, they’ll say frogs dance and wear hats.”

  She paused for a moment. “There are other things, too. They have trouble with pronouns, especially ‘you’ and ‘me’ and ‘I.’ That’s why I use names instead.”

  “How do you understand all this?” Montana asked. “How do you know what goes on in their heads?”

  “I read everything I can. I watch. And listen. It’s like being a detective. That’s what you did before, right? You were a detective.”

  He frowned, shook his head. “That was different.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I never helped anybody. I just busted people. Punks and pushers and hookers and junkies.”

  He sounded cynical, and she didn’t understand. “Well, that helped, didn’t it? It stopped some crime.”

  “It didn’t make a dent,” he said. “It didn’t change a thing. It didn’t matter at all.”

  He meant it. His years as a vice cop hadn’t mattered in the big scheme of things. The people he’d busted got right back on the streets, plying the same crimes. If they didn’t, somebody else took their place. Nothing had got any better. It only got worse.

  She, in contrast, actually did good. This intrigued him. It also bothered him, because he had helped drag her into danger, and it was wrong she’d been pulled into this morass. But she didn’t bitch and moan, she didn’t complain. She was a good soldier, better than many men might have been.

  He’d propped an old mattress against the wall so they could lean against it, watching the fire. He realized this was not merely a romantic move, but a corny one. He’d done it anyway.