by Henry, Sue
“I didn’t see you.”
“But I saw you and heard that dog of yours howl.” He nodded at Tank, whose head still rested on Danny’s knee. “I was sitting at a table on the east side of the room, but it was pretty crowded.”
“Where were you, Danny? Why didn’t you go home?” Jessie asked the boy who was petting the dog. “You must have known that your folks would be worried about you.”
“Yeah, but I knew my dad would be home by then, and he’d be really steamed at me. I’d locked my bike to a tree in that little park across from the place where fair people camp out in tents.”
“Where I saw the guy against the tree.”
“Uh-huh, I guess so. After Glen and Tommy left, I went back for the bike, but I sat at the picnic table for a long time, listening to the music in the dark and not wanting to go home and be in trouble. But then…”
T he fair was bright with thousands of colored lights along the walkways and beckoning from the booths. The midway rides spun bright patterns in the air as they carried shrieking passengers up and around. Most of the younger children had been taken home, and the evening crowd that wandered the grounds was mostly teenagers and adults. Besides Hobo Jim at The Sluice Box, other performers were taking their turns on several outdoor stages, and the centrally located Orion Dome was full to capacity for a group of Chinese acrobats. In a ring at the grandstand, an equestrian show was going on.
Danny Tabor sat in the shadows at a picnic table behind The Sluice Box pub in a small stand of perhaps a dozen trees, feeling less than ten years old, contemplating a long ride home on his bicycle and wondering just how long he would be grounded for this escapade. The pirate makeup he had worn all afternoon was mostly gone or smeared, leaving what looked vaguely like a black eye and the remains of a painted scar on his left cheek. Slowly he pulled the skull and crossbones bandana from his head and untied the knot in it. His backpack lay beside him on the table, and he started to put the bandana inside but changed his mind and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans instead. Having his friends gone made him feel guilty and out of sorts, unable to forget that he had disobeyed his parents.
Finally he got up slowly and unlocked the chain that held his bicycle to the tree, reluctant but resigned to starting toward home. As he was about to put the chain in his backpack, the rear door of The Sluice Box opened with a crash and a man in a blue jacket came stumbling through it, ejected by someone inside.
“…have you arrested,” Danny heard an angry voice say before the door was slammed shut.
The man who had been pushed out almost fell, but instead caught his balance, swung clumsily around, and gave the door a one-fingered salute. “Asshole!” he yelled, but there was no one to hear or to see the furious look on his face, except for Danny.
For a minute, as the boy watched, he seemed about to go back in, but he apparently reconsidered. Turning away, he headed off along a gravel access road that ran close to the trees and table. Until he disappeared, the boy stood still, not wanting to call attention to himself. When the man was gone, he turned back to put the lock and chain in the backpack.
The bicycle had a carrier over its rear wheel in which he intended to secure his backpack. He had started to reach for it when the sound of approaching voices caused him to freeze again, then step farther back, silent and all but invisible in the dark beneath the trees.
Not far from the pub and across a narrow dirt road, within the semicircle of a small grandstand, was an arena used at regular intervals during daylight hours for a lumberjack show that was sponsored by a local building supply company. There, encouraged by cheering support from a crowd in the bleachers, three or four men experienced in working with logs would compete with each other in a variety of contests. Using their well-developed skills, they raced to be first to cut through logs with an ax or saw or to climb tall poles and chop a section off the top. Balancing in twos on a log that floated in a small pond, they rolled it with their feet in an attempt to make each other lose balance and fall into the water. One of the demonstrations was marksmanship in hurling the heavy, knife-sharp axes at targets painted on the end of a log. But after dark this area was quiet and unused, though people who worked at the fair passed around or through it periodically, heading for their vehicles in a lot next door or to the campground full of tents on the opposite side.
As Danny listened and watched, two men appeared in the arched entrance that divided the bleachers and led into the arena behind them. It was too dark to see either of them clearly under the arch. But as they stepped from it into the dim edges of the light from a fixture over the pub’s back door, Danny recognized the man who had been ejected from the pub a few minutes earlier. The other was taller, wore a baseball cap, and was carrying a red gym bag. The shorter, heavier man walked with his hands shoved into the pockets of the blue jacket. He was shaking his head and saying something with which his companion evidently disagreed, for they stopped just outside the arch and faced each other, silhouetted against a light in the nearby parking lot and closer to Danny than to the back door of The Sluice Box. Over the sound of Hobo Jim singing inside the pub, Danny could make out only a few words of what the two were saying, but from their tight, angry voices and posturing, it was evident that they were arguing.
“No, dammit…you crazy?…n’t quit now.”
The shorter man shook his head. “…on’t work…”
“…will, but you gotta…”
“I’m out…not gonna get…”
A clinched fist was shaken. “…even think about it, you…na bitch. He’s not gonna stand for…”
“No. I’m out.”
The shorter man wheeled to walk away, but before he could leave, the other man grabbed his jacket by the lapel and yanked him back.
“You…too much. He’s gonna be pis…”
Pushing and shoving, they struggled—one to free himself, one to prevent. Then the shorter man threw a punch that rocked his opponent, but not enough to make him let go. There was a break in the music, and Danny heard the sound of fabric ripping.
“Damn you!” The taller man suddenly heaved away the red bag he had been carrying, in order to free both hands, with which he assaulted the other man in a flurry of blows, driving him to his knees. The bag flew through the air, and something metal clinked inside as it landed against Danny’s backpack in the shadows.
The shorter man regained his feet and the battle resumed, but he was taking the brunt of the fight. With one extra-hard punch, the taller man knocked him all but senseless to the ground.
It was time to get out of there, Danny decided. Snatching his backpack from the ground, he gave his bicycle a shove, hopped on, and was already pedaling hard when he heard an angry yell from behind him.
“Hey, kid. Come back here with that.”
Glancing down, he discovered that he had grabbed not only his blue backpack but, by one handle, the red bag that had fallen next to it. Not about to go back into the middle of an angry brawl and unable to separate the twisted handles, he swung both bags over a handlebar and pedaled harder, aware of the sound of feet pounding the pavement behind him as the taller man followed at a run.
There weren’t many people on the walkway, but there were enough to make it difficult to maintain speed on his bicycle. Swerving between and around them, Danny managed to avoid directly colliding with anyone.
“Hey! Wadda ya think you’re doing?” someone shouted. “Watch it.”
Another lost equilibrium and sat down hard on the pavement as Danny zipped past a little too close. As the boy pedaled by The Sluice Box, the security guard at the door ran out into his path, spread out his arms in an attempted barrier, and yelled at him, “Stop! You can’t ride a bicycle on the grounds.” With an instinctive maneuver of the handlebars, Danny swung around him and continued his escape.
A space with no pedestrians opened up on the walkway and gave him an opportunity to glance behind him and see that his pursuer had stopped and, angrily waving an arm in the dir
ection the bicycle had gone, was talking to the security guard. Looking ahead again, he found that he had reached the central plaza, where there was plenty of room to speed up. But where should he go?
In a quick turn to the right, he headed for the nearest gate and had begun to pass the long side of the livestock barn when it occurred to him that the security guards had radios. This meant that the guard at the gate would probably have been notified to be looking for him. This was not appealing. Without his bicycle it might not have been too difficult to find someplace around the fenced perimeter of the fairground to sneak away, but having it made that impossible, and he was not about to leave it behind.
Slowing as he came to the end of the huge barn, he hopped off the bicycle and pushed it into the dark behind the building, hoping no one had seen. Propping the bicycle against the wall in the shadows, he crept back to the corner and peered cautiously around it in the direction he had come. Except for a couple holding hands as they walked away from him toward the southern gate, there was hardly anyone in sight—no security guards, no angry man in a baseball cap, no one threatening.
Taking a deep breath, Danny retreated into the dark and leaned against the wall, thinking hard about what he should do next. If they weren’t looking for him now, they very soon would be, and the bicycle was a dead giveaway.
Leaving his wheels where they were, he walked the length of the barn, looking along it for some kind of cover and finding nothing but a few weeds and the back door to the building. The far southeast corner came close to the grandstand where an equestrian show was taking place. He could hear commentary from a loudspeaker system and applause from the people watching the horses being put through their paces in an arena much larger than the one used by the lumberjacks. Near that corner, a wobbly wire and slat fence ran up and was attached to the wall of the barn. Looking closely, he discovered that there was a space between the two that was just large enough to crawl through. Beyond it was a stack of straw in bales. Some of the bales had been broken open and pitched into a pile, and one had fallen and broken open behind the stack.
Quickly Danny returned to his bicycle and wheeled it to the space in the fence where it connected to the barn. It took a few minutes to maneuver it through the narrow space and required tugging at the wire to widen it enough for the handlebars and pedals to fit. But when that was accomplished and the vehicle lay on its side, it was easy to cover it with the straw from the broken bale, concealing it from casual observation.
Without his bicycle, he might be able to escape the fairground undetected. But Danny was decidedly reluctant to leave his treasured mode of transportation behind, and it would be a long walk home. The idea of not having to face his parents held its own appeal, though he didn’t want to face the man whose bag he had accidentally snatched up with his backpack either.
Taking both the red bag and his own backpack, he crawled back through the space between the fence and the building and went along the wall to the back door of the barn. Tentatively he tried the knob. It turned. The door was open. With a sigh of relief, he opened it a crack and peeked into the lighted area inside the huge barn.
A few people still wandered among the animal pens where cows, pigs, sheep, and goats, as well as a few llamas and alpacas, were on display. They took up two-thirds of the space to Danny’s right, each with a layer of straw for the animal’s comfort. Beyond them was an enclosed show ring and beyond that a fenced petting area popular with children during the day to get up close and personal with a variety of animals that were rotated in and out. The floor in this section of the barn was dirt, and a wide walkway extended from the back door to the bays at the front. To the left, another door led into another large cement-floored room that housed poultry and rabbits in dozens of smaller raised cages.
Without further thought, Danny slipped in and looked quickly around to see if he had been observed. Almost immediately several of the ceiling lights high overhead suddenly went out, startling him into a step backward that brought him up against the door he had just closed behind him.
“The farm exhibits will be closing in five minutes,” a disembodied voice announced from a loudspeaker directly over his head, making him jump again. Then more lights in the rafters abruptly went out.
Someone would soon come to lock the door and make sure the building was empty, Danny thought, frowning. Should he go back out or stay? It would be better to stay, he decided, but how could he avoid being made to leave with the rest of the people who were now heading for the broad front doors? There must be someplace to hide. He looked nervously around the immediate area. There was nothing close to where he stood, but the smaller room might have possibilities.
Without further thought, he stepped to his left, through the door into the rabbit and poultry room, and discovered two tables that had been pushed together, each with a fabric skirt that covered it, top to floor. A glance assured him that the few people still inside were headed for the doors at the far end and no one was looking in his direction. Diving behind the nearest table, he crawled under it, banging one of the bags he carried on a metal leg with a clunk that he hoped no one heard. He sat cross-legged, listening intently to the sounds within the building, none of them close to his hiding place.
For perhaps five minutes there was nothing but the faraway murmur of voices from the other end of the long room. They soon ceased, but the footsteps of a single person passed the table. Danny heard the jingle of keys as the person walked away. Then, abruptly, all the overhead lights went out, leaving him in inky darkness. There was a rustle—some nearby rabbit moving around in its cage—then silence, complete and total.
For a few minutes Danny stayed where he was without moving, feeling very singular and a little frightened in the complete absence of light, and hearing nothing and nobody else. Then, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he noticed that dim light defined the lower edge of the table skirt. Enough of it leaked in faintly to let him see the underside of the table. Rocking forward onto his knees, intending to peek out in search of its source, he froze in astonishment and alarm as he heard something brush against the fabric skirt that hung between the two tables. Without warning, a hand fell on his shoulder, startling him into an involuntary jerk and yelp. He started to scramble away from the touch and out from under the table. Before he could accomplish it, the hand slid down his arm, tightened its grip, and a low voice whispered eerily close in his ear, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
CHAPTER 7
Y ou ’bout scared the pee out of me!” Danny said to Monroe with a grin.
“Danny,” his mother remonstrated from her place in a chair by the stove, frowning at his language.
“Sorry,” he told her and ducked his head, ears turning pink.
Phil Becker choked on his beer, unable to keep from a guffaw in the middle of a swallow. “It’s probably true, you know?” he commented, when he could speak.
“All the same.” But as Mrs. Tabor handed him a tissue from her sweater pocket, her lips twitched in amusement.
“I had no intention of alarming you,” Monroe assured Danny. “I thought you were about to crawl from under the table, and it was far too soon for safety. You made quite a racket getting under there. I took a quick peek beneath the table cover to see who you were, but I overlooked the fact that you had no idea I was concealing myself beneath the other table. Sorry I frightened you.”
“You?” Jessie sat up with a grin of disbelief. “Under a table? Frank! Really?”
“You may well find the image entertaining,” he told her with a lordly lift of his chin. “But my concealment was actually rather well planned. I had decided that I valued my freedom more than my dignity. What is dignity anyway but a facade for others? When you’re by yourself it matters very little. Think about the way you behave when you’re alone compared to your public persona. Besides, the more you enjoy living freely, the less you need dignity as a shield, because you stop making assumptions about what others may think of you.”
“Well, you scared me good, anyway,” Danny told him again. “But it’s okay. After I found out who you were and why you were hiding, too, I was glad you were there. But I was really glad—when we almost got caught…”
H old still, young man,” the whisperer instructed as Danny writhed in an attempt to dislodge the hand that gripped his arm. “I don’t intend to do you harm. It’s not safe out there.”
“Let go of me!”
“I will release you when you desist struggling.”
The boy quit trying to pull away, but Monroe, feeling that he was still tensed to flee given the opportunity, sustained his hold on the youngster’s arm and moved into the space under the boy’s table.
“There’s a barn manager wandering around out there somewhere,” he whispered in warning. “You may unexpectedly encounter him if you abandon this shelter. And if you aren’t quiet he will discover us both. Understand?”
He felt the tension leave the boy’s body as he nodded his acceptance of the idea. Slowly Monroe relaxed his grip and released the boy, who turned around and sat cross-legged to study his unanticipated companion.
“Who are you?” Danny demanded, matching his whisper to that of his captor.
“No one who will hurt you or reveal your secret,” Monroe returned. “My name is Frank Monroe, and I’m just a senior citizen playing hooky from an unpleasant situation at the moment, as, from the evidence, I suspect are you. Now, do you have a name?”
Eyes now fully adjusted to the dim light filtering under the table from the room outside, the boy was able to make out the elderly face of the man who had grabbed and then released him.
He’s a really old guy, Danny thought in surprise, and wondered why a senior citizen was hiding under a table. But the man smiled encouragingly at him, waiting for an answer to his question.
“Danny. My name’s Danny.”
