Shadowmaker

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “That’s all? Just try to get a look inside the fence?”

  “It’s a start,” Mom said. “Even if they see us, we have a right to look.”

  “What do you expect to see?”

  “Fifty-gallon metal drums,” she answered. “Lots of them.”

  The next day it was hard for me to keep my mind on what was taking place in class. At lunchtime Tammy cornered me and said in a low voice, “You’re a million miles away. You didn’t even hear Billy Don when he said hello to you.”

  “Billy Don? Why would he say hello to me?”

  With a shrug of exasperation she said, “Who knows? Just stop worrying so much about Lana Jean. Face facts. She ran away, and she’ll probably come back before too long, the way she did last time.”

  I felt a little guilty, because my mind hadn’t been on Lana Jean. I’d been thinking about the warning note and the Hawkins brothers and what Mom and I planned to do as soon as school let out.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I guess I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Well, lighten up.” She nudged me.

  “Hi, Katie … Tammy.” Travis walked over to our lunch table and climbed over the bench to sit beside me. I was surprised at how glad I was to see him and flattered when Travis paid much more attention to me than to anyone else.

  As the warning bell rang we scrambled to our feet, still laughing over a joke Travis had told. He stopped long enough to quietly ask me, “Want a ride home after school?”

  I certainly did. I would have loved it, so the regret in my voice was real as I answered, “I’m sorry, Travis. Mom’s coming to pick me up.”

  “I thought you rode the school bus.”

  “I do, but today Mom’s going to be out running errands and said she’d stop by to get me.”

  “Will you be going right home? Can I come over?”

  “Not today,” I said. “I’ve got … uh … stuff to do … homework.”

  “How about tomorrow? Can I give you a ride home then?”

  I smiled. “Tomorrow will be perfect.” But something puzzled me. I’d asked Tammy on the bus that morning who Cindy Jones was, and found out she was the blond, blue-eyed, well-filled-out head cheerleader of the pep squad. With girls like that to choose from, why was Travis interested in me?

  Forget the comparisons, I told myself. Who cares about the answer? Maybe the rest of my stay in Kluney wouldn’t be so bad.

  Mom was waiting for me as classes let out. I hurried to climb into the car, a little nervous now about what we were going to do.

  “What if someone sees us?” I asked Mom as she drove away from the curb and through the double lines of pickup trucks.

  “It doesn’t make any difference if anyone sees us or not. Actually, in a place like this everyone sees everything—or everything they want to see,” she said. “But we’ll be on a public road. We won’t be trespassing.”

  “You’re not going inside the gates? Are you sure you don’t want to talk to one of the Hawkins brothers?”

  “Not yet,” Mom said. “Just getting a look at what’s stored on that huge lot will be enough for now.”

  “If there’s something they don’t want you to see, they may hide it.”

  “There’s no way to hide a large quantity of fifty-gallon drums.”

  I told her, “You could be wrong, you know. You haven’t any proof Anita Boggs is right.”

  Mom didn’t answer, and she didn’t take the route that led past Anita Boggs’s house. She drove a roundabout way, following the bayou for a short distance, then heading away from it as the road made an abrupt turn. On our left, leading from the heavy stand of scrub and trees that bordered the bayou, was a high, wooden fence; and on the other side of that fence was the Hawkins Brothers Waste Disposal plant.

  “That fence is at least eight feet high and solid,” I said. “How are we going to see anything?”

  Mom pulled the car to a stop. “I was hoping the wood would have weathered in places, or that a knothole or two had fallen out,” she said. “Let’s go back to where the fence begins at the bayou.”

  Within a few minutes she parked the car at the side of the road, under a tree with wide-spread branches, and opened the door. “Want to try climbing from the car to the tree?” she asked.

  “Why not?” I smiled. “Are you coming up too?”

  “Sure,” she said, and pulled off her shoes.

  My sneakers made it easy. The bark of the tree was rough and full of bugs, so Mom didn’t try to climb it. I glanced down at her, where she balanced on top of the car, holding on to a nearby tree limb, and asked, “Can you see over the fence?”

  “Just a little,” she said. “I was right about the metal drums. How much land can you see?”

  “It looks like acres of metal drums,” I said, and wrinkled my nose. “And they smell awful.”

  “Are any of them corroded?”

  “Yes. There’s stuff oozing out around the bottom on the ones over here. The ground near the bayou is a black, sticky mess.”

  “Okay,” Mom said. “Come on down. That’s what I needed to know.”

  When we were both inside the car and Mom had driven back onto the road I asked, “What if the stuff in those drums is just gluck? What if it’s not toxic?”

  “That’s a possibility,” Mom said. “Tests will have to be taken. That’s where the inspectors will come in.”

  “You said it would take time.”

  Mom sighed. “Yes, and it may take even more time to go through legal channels to get soil samples from Anita Boggs’s property, if she and her husband are unwilling to cooperate.”

  “How deep would you have to dig to get the kind of samples you’d need?”

  “Not deep at all,” Mom answered. “If toxic waste is infecting the soil, it will seep right up to the surface.” She took her eyes off the road just long enough to give me a penetrating glance. “Why did you ask, Katie? What do you have in mind?”

  “Just the beginning of an idea,” I said. “I haven’t thought it all out, and it might not come to anything.”

  “Remember,” Mom said firmly, “you can’t help yourself to soil samples on the Boggses’ property without their permission.”

  “I know,” I answered, but that didn’t discourage me for a minute. All I wanted was for Mom to forget the Hawkins brothers and get back to her novel and finish it, so we could head back to Houston. I wanted to prove Mom wrong.

  The next afternoon I rode home with Travis but didn’t invite him in. “There’s something I promised to do,” I told him.

  “Can’t it wait? It’s a nice day, and I thought we could walk along the beach again.”

  I almost gave in, but I had to find out if my idea would work. “Thanks for the ride,” I said as I climbed out of Travis’s pickup. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I tucked away in the trunk of Mom’s car a paper bag that contained a couple of screw-top glass jars and a trowel. Then I drove to a small nursery I’d seen on the outskirts of town and bought a thick pair of gardening gloves and a flat of Scarletti begonias.

  My next stop was Anita Boggs’s house. Holding the flat of begonias in front of me with both hands, I managed to reach the doorbell with my left elbow.

  Anita opened the door cautiously, examining both the begonias and me with suspicion.

  “I brought you a present,” I said. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

  Her face softened, and I quickly said, “I’ll be glad to plant them wherever you like.”

  “They’re pretty. That’s nice of you,” she said.

  I fought back the guilt. “Tell me where,” I said, and added, “Maybe your little boy would like to help me.”

  She looked away. “Johnnie isn’t feeling too good today.”

  Still not meeting my eyes, Anita seemed to hesitate, but then she walked off the porch and pointed to each side of the steps. “Maybe you could put some along here, on each side,” she said. “Do you need something to dig with?”

&nbs
p; “No,” I answered as I laid the flat on the walkway. “I brought my gloves and things with me. I’ll get them out of the car.”

  “Thanks,” she said, then glanced toward the house. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go back inside. I don’t want to leave Johnnie alone too long.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said, relieved to have her out of the way. I collected my things, took the little plastic pots from the flat, and arranged them the way they’d look best. Then I got down on my knees and began planting.

  I saw Anita watch me from the window, but she suddenly moved away. No one else was on the street, so I slipped out the first jar, filled it with soil, and fastened the top. By the time Anita had reappeared in the window, a thin little boy in her arms, I was busy planting begonias again.

  The boy waved, and I smiled and waved back. Reassured, Anita walked away from the window, but I sat back on my heels, a strange, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. No little boy should look so weak and ill. Johnnie should be out running and playing and having fun with other children. What if Anita was right about the toxic waste and Mom was right about the need to help? One way or another, I felt justified in taking the soil samples.

  It didn’t take long to plant the begonias, and in less than a minute I had filled the second jar and deposited it with the first in my paper bag.

  I was still on my knees, tidying up after myself, when a harsh voice startled me, and I jumped to my feet. Facing me was a short, muscular man. I could see he had a real attitude problem.

  “What’s all this? What are you doing?” he shouted.

  “Harvey,” Anita spoke from the open doorway. “She brought the begonias as a present. She even planted them to apologize.”

  I peeled off my dirty gardening gloves and stretched out my right hand. “Hi, Mr. Boggs,” I said. “I’m Katherine Gillian.”

  His gaze didn’t waver. “I know who you are.” He touched the end of the paper bag with one toe. “What have you got in here?”

  “My gardening stuff,” I said. I was sure my hands were trembling as I picked up my trowel and stuffed it and the gloves into the bag, leaving it on the ground as though I didn’t care what happened to it.

  I held my breath, wondering what Harvey Boggs would do, but he didn’t move toward the bag. “What did you come here for?” he demanded.

  Anita took a few quick steps across the porch, toward us. “I told you, Harvey,” she said. “The girl brought me the flowers. She said she was sorry about … about …”

  Harvey finished the sentence his own way. “About her mother buttin’ in where she doesn’t belong.”

  I didn’t say anything. My heart was pounding, and it was hard to breathe.

  Harvey scowled at me, then stomped up onto the porch and said to his wife, “Get her out of here.”

  Just before he reached the door I got up enough nerve to call out, “Don’t forget, the begonias have to be watered, and if it doesn’t rain tomorrow, they’ll have to be watered again.”

  He grunted and slammed the door.

  Anita whispered, “Thank you for the flowers,” and hurried into the house after her husband.

  I picked up my paper bag, with the weird feeling that eyes were crawling up and down my backbone, and deliberately sauntered toward the car, afraid that Harvey might have second thoughts or decide to take a look in my paper bag. If he knew what I had in this bag, what might he do to me? I hoped he wouldn’t hit his wife again because I’d come with begonias.

  Suddenly, I heard the front door open, and Harvey Boggs yelled, “You … girl … hold on a minute!”

  I stopped and slowly turned to face him. I was shaking inside, and I hoped it didn’t show.

  Glaring at me, he growled, “My wife and me don’t want you here, so don’t ever come back.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As soon as I arrived home, I handed the bag to Mom and confessed what I’d done.

  “Thanks for wanting to help, Katie,” Mom said, “but you put yourself in danger. These samples can’t be accepted in court, because there’s nothing to verify them, and what you did wasn’t strictly legal.”

  “The legal part can come along with the official inspectors,” I told her. “At least this way you can find out if the soil is toxic, and if it isn’t …” I put a hand on her shoulder and practically begged, “Mom, if it is toxic, I know you’ll do everything you can to help Anita Boggs and her little boy, and that’s what I want too. But if it’s not toxic, will you please, please, please drop this investigation and stick to writing your novel? I think that’s a fair deal.”

  “Fair enough,” Mom said. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll send the samples to Houston to be tested.” Then it occurred to her what I’d done and she held me at arm’s length. “Take a bath and shampoo,” she ordered. “Really scrub.”

  “Mom,” I asked, “have you talked any more with Mrs. Willis? About Lana Jean, I mean?”

  “No,” Mom said. “The poor woman. We should call her and ask if she’s heard from Lana Jean. These runaway kids—they don’t realize the suffering they cause their parents, who have no idea where they are, how they’re faring, or even if they’re alive or dead.”

  I broke in. “I still don’t think Lana Jean’s a runaway.”

  “Honey,” Mom said, “it’s a pattern. She ran away from home before. It’s very likely that she did it again.”

  “I know what you learned about runaways when you wrote that article,” I answered, “but I still don’t think Lana Jean would run away. She had no reason to run. When she telephoned me, she was so excited about going out with Travis, she was coming unglued.”

  “According to what Travis told you, that date with him was all in Lana Jean’s mind.”

  “I know, but I’m really feeling torn.”

  “Don’t you believe Travis?”

  I thought about his easy, friendly smile and the way his eyes sort of lit up when he looked at me, and I answered, “I believe him, but I believe Lana Jean too. I mean, she was so crazy about Travis that she could have made up all that stuff about him saying she was interesting and asking for a date whether it happened or not, but the point is that she thought it had really happened.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “She couldn’t have faked all that excitement. Besides, she’d been honest in everything she told me about Travis. Why would she suddenly make up a story?”

  Mom shrugged. “I honestly don’t know, Katie.”

  “I feel like I should try to find her. The way you feel you should investigate the Hawkins brothers.”

  “Where? How? What have you got to go on?”

  I shook my head and sighed. “Nothing. It’s just a feeling.”

  Mom put her hands on my shoulders and looked deeply into my eyes. “I’m sure that Lana Jean will make contact with her mother or show up within the next couple of weeks, but if by some rare chance she doesn’t, I’ll see what I can do to help you find her.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled as I went off to take a bath. I was glad for Mom’s help, but I wasn’t satisfied. If we waited another couple of weeks, we might be too late.

  Too late for what? I asked myself, anxious about the unknown.

  The next morning I had just settled into my desk in English lit when Billy Don suddenly towered over me. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” I answered, looking up, up, up. He had to be the biggest guy on the football team.

  “I thought maybe you were mad at me,” he said.

  “I’m not mad at you. Why would I be mad at you?”

  “Yesterday I said hi to you, but you didn’t say anything.”

  B.J. was already in his seat, his head cocked and a grin on his face as he shamelessly listened to my conversation.

  “I’m sorry,” I told Billy Don. “I had a lot on my mind. Tammy told me you’d said hello and scolded me for daydreaming.”

  Billy Don’s smile filled his broad face. “I’m glad you’re not mad, because the Future Farmers dance is in three weeks,
and I want to ask you to go with me.”

  I must have looked as astonished as I felt, because Billy Don’s smile vanished, and all two hundred and sixty pounds of him seemed to sag. “Somebody else probably asked you already,” he mumbled.

  B.J. actually snickered, and I wished I could poke my pencil through his mean little pointed head. I hadn’t given a single thought about going to the FFA dance, and I certainly hadn’t imagined going with Billy Don, but B.J.’s unkindness made me so mad I heard myself saying, “No one’s asked me, Billy Don. I’d like to go with you.”

  After I’d said the words, I wanted to crawl under my desk, but Billy Don was so happy he nearly shouted. “You would? Great! Give me your phone number! I’ll call you!”

  The bell rang, and Mrs. Walgren ordered Billy Don to his seat. B.J. turned to grin maliciously at me and said, “You’ll be sorry. Maybe Travis was going to ask you.”

  I called B.J. the nastiest name I could think of and told him to mind his own business. I wondered how much Travis had told B.J. Then I realized in misery that if Travis invited me to the dance, it would be too late. I’d already promised to go with Billy Don.

  Trying to think rationally, I reminded myself that the dance would be in three weeks. By that time, according to Mom, Lana Jean would have come home, and there was no way I could go out with Travis, knowing it would break Lana Jean’s heart. But Billy Don as a date? What had I done? I sighed and settled back to listen to what Mrs. Walgren was saying.

  “I don’t assign book reports,” she said. “It’s too easy—and boring—to simply write a short repetition of the plot. We have talked about the depth of meaning in the stories we’ve studied, so you know where I place emphasis. Emphasis means importance, and the most important part of any story, in my opinion, is the meaning the author imparts to his readers. So in your interpretations I want you to emphasize the actual meanings in the classic novels you’ve read.”