Stranger in the Woods

by Geof Johnson

  “I’m not supposed to, remember? My friends still think it’s a secret. Besides, you have to hike pretty far to get there, and it would be hard for Grandpa with his bad knee.”

  She wondered if it was because there was something there that he didn’t want her to see. Her father cut her thoughts short when he said, “I’m not much for hikin’. I’ll leave the trail blazin’ to the younger folks.”

  Chapter 23

  Shelby wrinkled her nose and frowned deeply at the black bubbling pot on the cast iron stove in Bo’s cabin. “It stinks. There’s no way I can breathe that.”

  “If you wish to ease your asthma, you will have to,” Bo said.

  “Come on, Shelby,” Justin said. “It’s not that bad.”

  “You do it, then.”

  “I don’t have asthma.”

  “You should at least give it a try, Shelby,” Jason said. “It could make you better for the rest of your life. You could be cured.”

  Shelby’s face fell. “But why does it have to stink so much?”

  It does smell terrible. Zach eyed the black pot dubiously. Sure hope this works.

  It was hot in the cabin with a fire going in the cast iron stove, and his shirt felt sticky against his back, and the air reeked of the questionable concoction boiling nearby. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to stick his face up to it for fifteen minutes.

  Zach patted Shelby on the shoulder. “It’ll be okay. Just do it and get it over with.”

  Selby moaned and stared miserably at the pot. “Are you sure it’s going to work, Bo?”

  “I cannot be certain, but I believe it will be effective. The mountain witch and I worked at some length to develop this treatment, and I think it is the right one for you.”

  “But what makes the mountain witch so trustworthy? She’s not a doctor, is she?”

  “She has an uncanny knack for healing. I have never known her to fail, and I have used her remedies many times, or know of others who have. She and I pooled our knowledge to devise this remedy.”

  “But what do you know about it? You just read one book.”

  “I read twenty-two. And I have a knack, also. Not as considerable as the witch’s, but still effective.”

  “Did you have any of the books already?” Zach said.

  “I had to trade for them. They were all new and somewhat costly.”

  “Tradin’ is like buyin’,” Jason said, “but without money, right?”

  “Trading is how I conduct all of my transactions. The person who acquired the books for me had to go to three stores to find them all.”

  “So…you basically bought twenty-two books to help her.”

  “If you want to put it that way.”

  “Dang, Shelby. He spent a ton of money on this, and put lot of work into it, too. You gotta try it.”

  Shelby took another look at the boiling liquid and said, “Oh…all right. What do I do?”

  Bo lifted the heavy iron pot from the stove and set it on the rough wooden dining table nearby. “You will take the treatment here.” He moved the oversized chair next to it and Shelby sat down. She looked like a little child on the enormous seat, dwarfed by its Bo-scaled proportions.

  Bo took a brown blanket from a peg on the wall and offered it to her. “Put this over your head and the pot, then inhale deeply and hold every breath for as long as possible.”

  Shelby made one more pathetic face before covering herself and the still-steaming potion with the blanket, then she cried, “Eww! It’s awful.”

  “Be tough, little sister,” Justin said. “It’s only for fifteen minutes.”

  “Easy for you to say,” came her muffled reply.

  Zach checked his watch. “I’ll time you.”

  They stood for a few moments and watched Shelby’s back lift with each breath, and then Jason turned to the wall and pointed at the bow, which hung nearby on another wooden peg. “So you’re good with this thing?”

  “I am sufficient,” Bo said. “My father is far superior.”

  “Are all the men from your race good at archery?” Zach said.

  “Some of the women are, too, though many choose to lend their talents to other pursuits.”

  “Did you have to practice a lot?”

  “From a very early age. I got my first bow as soon as I learned to walk.”

  “And this is it?” Jason gestured at the long, slender piece of wood, caramel-colored and smooth, with strips of dark leather bound tightly to form the handle.

  “That is my adult bow. I could not draw one like that at three years of age. My childhood bow was much smaller.”

  Jason lifted his eyebrows. “So this is Bo’s bow?”

  “I suppose you could say that.”

  “Can I try it? Just to see if I can pull the string back.”

  Justin poked his brother in the chest. “You ain’t strong enough.”

  “I am, too! Let me try it, Bo.”

  Bo lifted the weapon from the peg and offered it to Jason. “It is already strung. I used it to hunt this morning.”

  “Did you have any luck?”

  “A fat rabbit, in the meadow. It was my breakfast.”

  Jason grasped the bow with his left hand and said, “Do I do it like this?”

  “If you favor your right hand, yes,” Bo said. “Now, lock your arm in a straight positon and hook the first three fingers of your right hand on the string.”

  He did that and looked at Bo again.

  “Raise your right elbow so that you are using more of your back muscles. You might strain your arm, otherwise.”

  Jason adjusted his technique and Bo nodded for him to proceed. Jason pulled hard on the string, grunting savagely as he did, but it barely budged. He lowered the bow and panted. “Dang, that’s hard.”

  Justin nudged his brother with the back of his hand. “Lemme try.”

  Jason gave it to him. “You ain’t gonna be able to do it. You ain’t stronger than me.”

  Justin raised the weapon and followed Bo’s previous instructions, but had no better success than Jason. Justin said, “Boy, that is hard. I don’t see how you do it.” He looked at Zach. “You wanna try?”

  “If you can’t do it, I can’t either. You’re stronger than I am. You’re older.”

  “Can I try?” Shelby said from under the blanket.

  Zach checked his watch. “Not yet.”

  Jason eyed the bow as his brother gave it back to the giant. “Sure looks like it would be fun, though.”

  “It is.” Bo returned it to its peg on the wall. “I enjoy shooting it, even when I am not hunting.”

  “Do you always hit what you’re aiming at?”

  “Usually, unless it moves at the moment when I shoot. Both deer and rabbits do that sometimes, if something frightens them. Then I might not hit the animal in the ideal spot and it will only wound them, and I have to make haste to end their suffering.”

  “Is it hard to find your arrows when you miss?”

  “I always find my arrows and I rarely miss.”

  Zach looked at the leather quiver, full of slender, feathered bolts, which hung on another peg near the bow. “But you told us once before that you have to get new arrows sometimes.”

  “They do not last indefinitely, even for one with my special skills. If a deer falls on one, it can shatter.”

  “But you can get wood to glue itself together, can’t you, with your knack or whatever.”

  “Not always. It depends on the degree of damage.”

  Justin dragged one finger along the length of the bow where it hung on the wall. “I wish we could shoot one. Looks like it would be more fun than BB guns. Maybe we can save our money and buy one, next time Zach’s mom hires us. Are they expensive?”

  “I can make a smaller one,” Bo said, “suited to your strength and size.”

  “You done too much for us already, what with saving Shelby and healing her asthma and all.”

  “I’m not healed, yet,” Shelby protested, still sit
ting at the table with her head covered.

  “How do you feel?” Zach asked.

  “Bored and stinky. Is it time, yet?”

  Zach checked his watch. “One more minute.”

  “I think that it has been long enough,” Bo said. “Take off the blanket and let us see how you are doing.”

  * * *

  “We gotta do something nice for Bo,” Jason said, walking across the new bridge with Zach and the others, on their way back to where they’d hidden their bicycles.

  “We need to pay him back for the asthma books,” Justin said. “Those probably cost at least two or three hundred dollars, don’t you think?”

  “We ain’t got three hundred dollars. Not even if we put all of our money together. Not since we went shopping last weekend.”

  “If we hadn’t wasted most of it on new clothes, we’d have almost enough.”

  They reached the far bank and began hiking up the trail. Ever since they’d left Bo’s cabin, Shelby had been quiet. Jason, walking at the front of their group, slowed and faced her. “How do you feel?”

  “Fine.”

  “That’s all? Just…fine?”

  “I’m fine. Stop asking.”

  “Do you feel any different?”

  She gazed farther down the trail and took her time answering. “My lungs are tingling.”

  Justin, who was closest to her, lowered his brow. “Do you need to use your inhaler? Did you bring it?”

  “It’s not that.” She took a deep breath and held it, then slowly released it. “They’re just tingly.” She pursed her lips. “The air smells really nice today.”

  Zach inhaled deeply, too, then shrugged. “It always smells like this.”

  “Really? Maybe my nose is working better, now.”

  “We don’t care about your nose,” Jason said. “We just wanna know how your lungs are doing.”

  “They’re fine. I’m not dying, so quit worrying.”

  They walked silently for a couple of minutes, each of them seemingly lost in their thoughts, before Justin said, “You reckon Bo misses his family?”

  “I never wondered about it before,” Zach said. “It’s hard to imagine him with his mom and dad and brothers and sisters, if he has any. But I bet he misses them.”

  “I still say we gotta do something nice for him,” Jason said. “I don’t know what, but…something.”

  Justin bent to pick up a rock and hurled it off into the trees, where it clacked off a branch with a sound that reverberated through the woods. “We can’t do it tomorrow, ’cause that’s Sunday and Mama’s off, and she said we gotta go shopping for our back-to-school supplies.”

  Zach squinted one eye at his friend. “You still haven’t gotten that stuff?”

  Jason said over his shoulder, “We never get things like that ’till the last minute.”

  “Not me,” Zach said. “My mom takes care of that way in advance. She’s got her lists and everything.”

  “Wish we could ask your mom what to do for Bo,” Justin said. “She’d know.”

  “Or his Grandpa,” Shelby said.

  “We can’t, though.” Zach shook his head firmly. “You heard Bo. He said to tell no one.”

  “I know. We’ll just have to think of something on our own.”

  Chapter 24

  On the first day of school, Zach’s friends made things easier for him by showing him where to go. The building was far bigger than he expected, and confusing at first, but he managed to find his homeroom with Justin’s help, and afterward, Shelby led him to his locker. Hers was nearby.

  “These are pretty big,” Zach said when she pointed his out to him. They were new, like everything else in the school, and arranged in parallel rows eight feet apart, painted royal blue, one of the school’s colors. Other students bustled around them, and Shelby waited while Zach dropped his backpack between his feet and tried the combination to his lock.

  “Hey, new kid,” someone said from behind him. Zach turned and found a large boy standing next to him, a full head taller and at least forty pounds heavier. His cheeks were pink, almost red, and his face was pudgy so that it constricted his eyes to slits.

  The boy jabbed Zach’s shoulder with a finger. “I’m talkin’ to you.”

  “What?” Zach said.

  “Gimme your lunch money.”

  “I don’t have any. My mom already paid online for the whole month.”

  Something exploded into his stomach. Sharp and violent. Searing agony like he’d never known before. He hadn’t seen the fist coming and had no chance to steel himself. Staggering pain overtook his entire body and he sank to the floor, unable to stand or breathe.

  The pudgy bully stood over him and stuck one fat finger in Zach’s face. “Tomorrow, you bring me your lunch money. You got that?”

  Zach couldn’t answer. His gut hurt so much he could barely think, and stars swirled at the edges of his vision. He feared he might pass out for lack of air. His diaphragm was paralyzed and he couldn’t inhale at all. He felt like dying, right there on the concrete floor.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shelby vanish into the hallway, only to return a few seconds later with both of her brothers, who stood at the end of the lockers, assessing the situation. The twins’ faces turned rock hard, and Jason leaned toward Justin and whispered something.

  The boys stepped closer and Jason shouted at his brother, “You’re pissin’ me off, Justin,” and he shoved him in the shoulders. Justin stumbled backward and crashed into the bully, knocking him chest-first into the lockers with a loud clunk.

  Justin grabbed Jason by the shoulders, spun him backward, and slammed him into the other boy, who still hadn’t recovered from the first collision. Jason swung one elbow as he fell, digging it into the bully’s ribs and pushing him into the locker again. The bully grunted and dropped to the floor. Jason landed hard against him, forcing him against the blue-painted metal so that his pudgy face contorted awkwardly.

  Jason cursed at Justin, who now stood over him, and Justin drove a fist toward Jason’s head. He dodged it and it smashed into the back of the other boy’s skull, who cried, “Ow!” He was unable to dislodge himself from the wiry twins, his chest and one cheek compressed against the lower locker.

  The boys continued to brawl on top of the bully until an adult’s voice demanded, “What is going on here?”

  Zach, still sitting on the concrete floor, looked toward the hall and saw a middle-aged woman with an ID badge clipped to her blouse, standing with her fists on her hips and a wearing a fierce frown. A crowd of students looked on from behind her. “Jason! Justin!” She crooked one angry finger. “Come with me this instant!”

  Before he got up, Jason put his face beside the pudgy boy’s ear and said just loud enough for Zach to hear, “Zach is one of us. You mess with him, you mess with us. Understand?”

  The boy grunted a yes, and Jason slowly stood and climbed off of him, managing one more sneaky elbow to the bully’s neck. Then the twins followed the teacher off into the hall.

  - - -

  Liz was finally able to relax a little once home room was over. By then, all of the late-arrivers had passed through her office and gotten tardy slips, and things had calmed down. The peace didn’t last long, though. Through the open doorway that connected her office to the next one, she saw one of the teachers lead Jason and Justin inside, and she commanded them to sit in two chairs that were set against the wall. “Stay there until Mr. Ward gets here,” she said.

  Liz waited until the teacher left, then went to see what the problem was. She stood before the boys, who stared sullenly at their knees. “What’s this all about?”

  Jason glanced up at her and said, “Trey Gunderson hit Zach, so we had to teach him a lesson.”

  She gasped and put one hand to her face. “He hit him? Why?”

  The boys explained what happened while she listened, angry at first, then almost relieved by the time they finished relating the blow-by-blow.

  “S
o they think you were fighting each other?” she said.

  The boys nodded and Jason said, “We’ve been in trouble for that before, anyway. Couple times, at least.”

  “But why did Trey hit him? Did Zach do something to make him mad?”

  “Trey’s a bully. If he finds a kid who’s an easy target, Trey will harass him until somebody puts a stop to it. He does it all the time.” Justin shrugged. “So we had to do something right off. Can’t let him get away with that. We had to let him know that Zach is one of us.”

  Jason grinned. “He won’t mess with Zach no more, I guarantee you that.”

  “But you might get suspended for fighting,” Liz said. “On the first day of school! Your mother is going to be furious.”

  Both boys shrugged together. “Couldn’t be helped,” Justin said.

  She pulled at one earlobe while she considered the two boys. Emotions swirled inside her. She was grateful for the loyalty they had showed to her son, but worried about what that loyalty would cost them.

  Liz turned when the door to the hall opened and Mr. Ward, the assistant principal, entered. His expression was stern. He faced the boys silently for a moment with his arms crossed over his barrel chest. “Back in my office already, on the first day of school?”

  Neither boy looked up. They’d resumed their sullen posture, eyes down at the floor and jaws tight and defiant.

  “Mr. Ward?” Liz said. “What are you going to do with them?”

  He took a deep breath through his nose and shook his head. “I’m going to have to suspend them, though I was hoping they’d make it through at least one day before that happened. Guess not, though. Looks like it’s the same old story with these trouble makers.”

  “But they need to be in class. How are they supposed to learn if they’re at home?”

  “I don’t know what else to do with them. It’s no use trying to talk to their mother because she never returns my phone calls.”

  “That’s because she works two jobs. She’s got her hands full right now.” He didn’t answer right away so she added, “I know their mother. Let me handle this, please? I can talk to her and she’ll deal with them, I promise. They won’t get away with fighting in school.”