“Yeah?” Maybe Amanda was right. Maybe it wasn’t as serious as it had sounded. “I don’t know. My mom never fought with him like that.”
Amanda shrugged. “So I’ve heard. But let me tell you—that wasn’t normal. Most married people fight a lot, even the ones that are crazy about each other. Your mother must have been some kind of saint, or something. My mom is Irish, and I’ll bet even the saints fight in Ireland.”
David laughed.
“What are you laughing about?”
“I don’t know. I just flashed on this bunch of saints bashing each other with their halos.”
They both laughed. When Amanda stopped laughing, she started frowning. “And what do you mean, I wouldn’t care if they got a divorce?”
“Well, like, you told me lots of times how you felt about it—about getting a stepdad and a bunch of brothers and sisters.”
She frowned harder. “When did I tell you that?”
“Well, a couple of years ago, I guess.”
“Right.” Amanda nodded. “A couple of years ago. A long time ago.” She was frowning so hard that it was really making him feel antsy. He started to scoot away from her, but she grabbed his jacket and jerked him back. “What do you think I punched Garvey for?” she asked suddenly.
David’s whole insides cringed. He looked up the aisle but no one was paying any attention. “Yeah,” he said. “Because you felt sorry for the poor little chicken.” He tried to say it coolly, but he could feel a very uncool rush in his face and neck.
Amanda glared at him. “You idiot. I didn’t feel sorry for you. What I felt—all of a sudden—was ‘You can’t treat my brother that way.’ ” She looked away then, and when she looked back she was smiling the way she did when she was making fun of somebody, only this time it seemed to be herself. “Can you believe it? My brother! It really jolted me. You know what I mean?”
David nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. It jolted him, too.
Chapter Fifteen
“DAVID THE DAYDREAMER,” MRS. BALDWIN CALLED him that morning after the second time he goofed up when she asked him a question. And a couple of guys on his team called him much worse things during P.E. He couldn’t help it. He really tried to keep his mind on what he was supposed to be doing, but it wasn’t easy. Questions kept popping up and refusing to go away. Questions about Nightmare and Blair—and Amanda, too. It wasn’t until school was over that he was free to relax and deal with the questions—and their possible answers.
The bus was late that afternoon, and it was very quiet at the bus stop. Pete had stayed after school for football practice, and Amanda had gone home with Eloise. So David finally had time to think about Nightmare—and poor old Blair—and what Amanda had said that morning—and about what was going to happen next. He had a very strong premonition that it was going to be something out of the ordinary. Even more out of the ordinary, that is, than what had been happening.
Later, on the bus, and particularly after it turned onto Westerly Road, the premonition became stronger, and sure enough, he’d just started down the driveway when Esther came running to meet him. “David,” she said and started to cry.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, but she only pointed toward the backyard and sobbed. A weird sort of chill that started somewhere in his throat began to crawl up David’s neck and across his scalp. He took Esther by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Stop it,” he said. “Stop it, Tesser. What is it?”
Esther choked, hiccupped, caught her breath, and started to talk. “Blair. It’s Blair. He went to look for Nightmare—all by himself. I told him not to. I told him those bad guys would get him. But he went anyway.”
“Ye gods,” David said. He started to run toward the creek and the hills beyond, but after two or three steps he turned around and ran back.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked Tesser.
“He’s not home yet. And Molly went to get Janie at the dentist. She said you’d be home in a minute, but you weren’t. And Blair wouldn’t stay in the house like she told us.”
“Okay,” David said. “I’m going after him. He can’t have gone very far. But if Molly gets back before we do, just tell her—just tell her you don’t know where we are. I’ll think up something when we get back. And stop crying. I’ll find Blair. I promise.”
“You promise?” Esther stopped crying. She smiled at David with big fat tears still running down her cheeks. “Okay. Okay. What am I supposed to tell Molly?”
“That you don’t know where we are. Now go in the house and stay there until somebody gets home. Okay?”
“Okay,” Esther said.
For the first five or ten minutes he ran hard. Somewhere along the way he noticed something thumping on his back and realized he was still wearing his backpack. As he ran he wondered how much of a head start Blair had. He hadn’t thought to ask Esther, not that it would have made any difference. Time didn’t mean anything to six-year-olds. But it couldn’t have been very long. Molly wouldn’t have gone off and left the twins alone unless it had been very close to the time for David to get home. He’d probably have made it in time to stop Blair if the bus hadn’t been late.
He’d hoped to catch up with Blair before he got to the trees, but there was no sign of him on the long grassy slope that led up to the woods. David ran fast, without stopping at all on the open hillside, and only slowed a little when he got to the rougher ground of the creek bed. As he entered the woods, he began to call. Near heavy overhanging branches and heavy clumps of underbrush, where Blair—or anybody—might be standing unnoticed only a few feet away, he stopped, caught his breath and shouted. “Blair! Blair! Answer me. It’s David.” He listened for several seconds and then ran on. A few minutes later he stopped to call again.
By the time he’d crossed the small plateau between the two crests and then scrambled to the top of the higher second range, his legs were cramping and his lungs were aching so much he could barely call. He stopped for a moment at the top of the path that led down to the big valley and tried to catch his breath. His face burned and his throat ached and deeper down his whole insides were churning with fear for Blair—and with anger at him, too, for running off and causing so much trouble.
It didn’t seem possible that Blair could have come so far. David wondered if he’d somehow passed him farther back—if there was any point in keeping on. He wondered if—and then he heard Blair calling. From somewhere down below on the heavily wooded slope a faint high-pitched voice called and stopped and called again. David plunged forward, running and sliding down the steep slope.
The calling went on, and in a few minutes David could make out the words. “Here, Nightmare,” Blair was calling. “Here, Nightmare. Come. Come.”
He caught up with Blair in a small clearing halfway down the hill. He was walking quickly toward the other side, but when he heard David coming he stopped and whirled around.
“David.” Blair ran back toward him, looking happy and excited. David waited. It was so good to see him that he almost forgot how mad he’d been only a few moments before. “David. I heard him. He barked. Listen.”
He turned around and, cupping his hands around his mouth, he called, “Nightmare,” and a moment later David heard it too, distant but clear—a gruff deep-throated bark.
“Come on,” Blair said and began to run. Forgetting all about the bawling out he was going to give Blair, David ran, too.
The clearing ended in a ravine with high, steep walls. David slid down to the bottom and then caught Blair as he half-jumped, half-fell down from the ledge above. Crossing the dry stream bed, David was looking for a way up the other side when Nightmare barked again. “That way,” Blair said, pointing up the deep cleft in the hillside. “Up there.”
The barking became steadily louder as they scrambled up the ravine, around boulders and over the trunks of fallen trees. They answered back, shouting, “Here we are, Nightmare. We’re coming.” At last the barking seemed to be all around them, echoing back from the steep
cliffs on each side—and suddenly there he was, a huge, bristly, lop-eared face looking down at them from a ledge above the ravine.
A steep narrow path led up the cliff toward the ledge like a rough natural staircase with giant-sized risers. David scrambled up each step and then reached down to pull Blair up behind him. The last rise was a high one, and as David crawled up over it on his hands and knees, his forehead and eyes and nose received a bunch of enormous sloppy kisses. Then he was so busy hugging Nightmare and wiping off kisses and saying things like “Hi there, boy,” and “Good dog,” and “Cut it out,” that he forgot all about Blair. But at last he remembered and pulled him up, and Nightmare went through the whole act again, kissing and nuzzling and just about knocking Blair off his feet with affection.
It was Blair who noticed the cut foot first. “Look,” he said. “He’s limping. He’s bleeding, David. He’s bleeding.” By then things had quieted down a little, and Nightmare was standing still—and holding his left front foot up off the ground. They made him lie down; and when they inspected the foot, they found a deep puffy-looking cut between the pads. When they turned his foot over to look at it, Nightmare looked too, sniffing and licking the cut, then looking up at them with a funny expression as if he were embarrassed, and apologizing for causing a fuss. Finally he put his chin down on the ground and lay still, only wagging his tail limply whenever they spoke to him or said his name. After a while he raised his head and sniffed at the pocket of Blair’s jacket.
“Oh,” Blair said, “I almost forgot.” He dug in his pockets and brought out a few handfuls of kibble. Nightmare wolfed it down as if he were starving.
“See,” Blair said. “I said he needed us. He’s hungry. He’s really hungry. And he’s sick, David. I think he’s sick.”
“I don’t think he’s really sick,” David said, “or he wouldn’t want to eat at all. He’s probably just weak from loss of blood. From the looks of things he really lost a lot of blood.” He pointed to the rocky ground of the ledge. In several places there were big dark blotches of dried blood, and here and there there were a few fresh smears of bright red where he’d probably broken the wound open again in the excitement of greeting them. It was then, when David was looking at all the blood and thinking it was no wonder that Nightmare didn’t feel very well, that he noticed something else.
Halfway hidden behind a jutting boulder, a long narrow crevice made a dark slash on the face of the cliff. It wasn’t until David was moving toward it curiously, that he realized what it was—a cave. Inside the narrow entrance, the cave widened into a deep rocky cavern. He moved forward slowly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.
“It’s his house,” Blair said. “It’s Nightmare’s house. It’s where he goes everyday.”
David turned around. Blair was standing in the entrance of the cave, and behind him was Nightmare. Limping badly, Nightmare moved ahead of them into the cave and then turned around and looked back and wagged his tail. David was thinking that he seemed to be welcoming them in, when Blair said, “He says come in. He wants us to come in.”
There was a shallow depression in the soft mossy soil against one wall and near it, half buried in the dust, a couple of large well-chewed bones. David picked one up and examined it, wondering if it might be the remains of Mr. Golanski’s ham. He was still inspecting the bone when Blair said, “Look David. Is it real?”
It was real, all right, a pistol, heavy and dark and deadly-looking. Blair was holding it in both hands with the barrel pointing right toward David’s legs. David took it away from him in a hurry. “Ye gods,” he said under his breath.
Blair showed him where he’d found it, right there on the ground, half-buried under a bunch of dead leaves. It was dusty and there was dirt in the barrel, but there was no rust, and it didn’t look all that old. David didn’t know much about pistols, not even enough to know how you went about checking to see if they were loaded. He was examining it gingerly, making sure to keep the muzzle pointed at the ground, when Nightmare began to growl.
“No, Nightmare,” Blair said. “It’s all right,” and the growling stopped; but the dog’s eyes were still on the gun and David could see that he was trembling. He kept watching, alert and tense, while David took off his backpack and put the gun in between his binder and his math book, and zipped it back up. It wasn’t until the gun was out of sight that Nightmare wagged his tail sheepishly and limped over and licked David’s hands, as if he were apologizing for distrusting him.
Even before Blair found the gun, David had been antsy to leave. The sun had disappeared over the western hills, and the sky was darkening. Under the trees it would soon be too dark to see the path. And—not too long ago someone had been to Nightmare’s cave. Someone who carried a pistol. David had to make a decision in a hurry, and he decided that they had to take Nightmare with them. It was risky and it might be very hard to do, but there just wasn’t any way they could go off and leave him—hungry and thirsty and with a wound that seemed to be festering.
“We’ll take you home with us,” Blair told Nightmare, which was exactly what David was thinking at the moment. “Won’t we?”
“I guess we’ll have to,” David said.
“Right now?”
“Right now. As soon as we bandage his foot.”
“What with?”
“My T-shirt,” David said, taking off his jacket.
Fortunately the T-shirt was an old one and tore easily. David ripped it up, and after he’d wrapped the foot snugly, he tied the bandage in place with lots of long thin strips of shirt. Nightmare watched the whole proceeding with polite interest, and afterward he didn’t seem to limp quite as much when he walked. When David and Blair climbed down the path into the ravine, he followed slowly and carefully.
Nightmare stayed close beside them as they made their way down the ravine, but David noticed that he was breathing very hard, and if they stopped for even a moment he immediately lay down. He seemed weak and tired; but when they moved on, he struggled to his feet and followed. He followed, that is, until they reached the place where the path led up out of the ravine and on up to the top of the ridge. At that point Nightmare refused to follow. Instead he began to move on down the hill, walking more rapidly than he had before. When they called him, he looked back and whined and then went on.
“He wants us to come with him,” Blair said and began to run. David followed, protesting, until he suddenly realized where they were going. The lake was only a few yards away, and Nightmare was probably very thirsty. David stopped arguing then and followed. He caught up with Blair and Nightmare just as they got to the lake.
At the edge of the lake David and Blair sat down and watched while Nightmare drank and drank for a long time, and then flopped down beside them panting, his long wet tongue lolling out one side of his mouth.
“He feels better now,” Blair said.
David nodded. He felt better too—even though the water of the lake was already changing from blue to black and the long shadows under the trees were blurring into darkness. He was just opening his mouth to say they had better get going when Nightmare’s head jerked up and he growled softly. Following the dog’s gaze, David turned in time to see two men emerging from the underbrush only a few yards away.
Chapter Sixteen
THE TWO MEN BURST OUT from behind a clump of bushes and staggered a few steps toward the lake before one of them stopped. Leaning against the trunk of a tree, he slowly sank down to the ground. The other one went on a few steps before he stopped and went back. The one on the ground had a dirty gray blanket draped over his head and shoulders, but the other was wearing light blue denim pants and shirt, and there were some big white numbers on his back. For a moment he bent over the man in the blanket, and then he hurried on down to the lake. Stooping, he lifted some water in his cupped hands and was starting back—when Nightmare growled loudly. The man jerked as if he’d been shot and whirled around. David gasped, and then almost choked in horror. The man in blue
denim had no face.
Until that moment David hadn’t really been frightened. Instead, when he realized what was happening, there was only a weird kind of sharpening of his senses, as if everything had suddenly gotten clearer and brighter. While the figures of the two men moving through the strange, colorless evening light seemed to be printing themselves on his brain, he was only feeling an excited curiosity—a kind of wonder about what was going to happen next. But then the man turned toward them.
Where the escaped prisoner’s face should have been, there was only a shapeless discolored mass, with tiny slits for eyes. David swallowed hard. His heart was suddenly beating so hard it seemed about to explode. He jumped to his feet and reached for Blair. Nightmare was on his feet, too, and the hair on his back had risen into a stiff, bristly ridge. David took hold of his collar.
“Oh my God!” The faceless man staggered backwards until he bumped into the trunk of a tree. “Don’t turn him loose,” he said in a high-pitched whine. “Please, don’t turn him loose.” The other convict, the one on the ground, turned then, and there was a momentary glimpse of a thin, dark face with large sunken eyes. The eyes stared wildly, and the mouth opened and let out a strange high-pitched moan. He pulled the blanket up over his head and fell forward into a blanket-covered heap. The other man slid around behind the tree and peered out, and it was suddenly apparent that he wasn’t actually faceless. It was just that his cheeks and forehead and even his nose were so blotched and bumpy and swollen that the whole hardly resembled a normal face.
“We give up,” he said. “We’re on our way to turn ourselves in. Hang on to that dog, kid. We give up. Honest.”
David swallowed hard. His heart had stopped exploding, but his tongue felt stiff and uncooperative. He thought he ought to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything that seemed appropriate. His first impulse was to say, “It’s all right. The dog won’t hurt you.” But he quickly realized that might not be a good idea. Finally all he said was, “Who-o-o are you?” in a quavery voice, which was pretty stupid, because, of course, he knew who they were.
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