The Grounding of Group 6

by Julian F. Thompson

  “Well,” she said, “this man was trying to kill me.” She moved her chin toward Cone, but didn’t look at him. Neither did Sully. “Is he dead?” Arn-the-Barn nodded solemnly. “My friend here saved my life,” she said. “He shot him with his bow. The man was just about to kill me. I don’t know why.” That wouldn’t even count as a lie, thought Sara. “I think he must be crazy. But I’d be dead if it wasn’t for my friend. He saved my life. This man was going to shoot me down in cold blood.” There, she thought.

  Arnold turned to Sully. “Is that the way it went?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sully said. “I didn’t actually try to kill him. I’m not that good a shot. But he had his gun up to shoot at Sara. I was down there.” He pointed over the side of the deck. “I just grabbed an arrow and shot. I hardly even aimed it. Really.” Sully was still in a daze. He felt as if his foot had gone to sleep, except all over. He could think, he could remember, but nothing had any meaning. He couldn’t plan at all; he could just be wherever he was, answer questions, do as he was told.

  Arnold was impressed. “Wow,” he said. And then, “Hold on.”

  He went inside and got a blanket from the bedroom. He put that over Cone. “There,” he said. He slipped the pistol back inside his jacket. Sara and Sully were just standing there looking at each other. She had thought about running—taking off—when Arn went in the house, but when she’d looked at Sully and seen how blank he looked, she knew that it was hopeless. She would never get him moving fast enough, and she wouldn’t think of leaving him. What she’d have to do was hope the man was a policeman; maybe he would help them somehow. The thing was this, though: there weren’t all that many ways that anyone could help them. Sara realized she was scared.

  “So,” said Arn to Sully, walking toward the railing to his right. “You were just down there….” He was trying to get a completely clear picture of how it all had happened.

  And then who should step out from behind a nearby tree but this guy Nat, with still another kid, another girl.

  “Hey, Arn,” Nat called to him. “What’s happening up there?”

  It was typical of Nat to think that Arn-the-Barn Emfatico, although an unexpected sight, would also be a friendly one. They’d always got along, and even if he owed the state and Arnold’s uncle money, that didn’t mean to Nat that they’d stop being friends.

  “Hey, Nat,” said Arnold, forgetting, for the moment, why he’d even come to Coldbrook. “How ya doing?” Nat, for sure, could clear things up, about this bigot teacher and the kids. Then, after that—oh, yeah, thought Arnold, to himself—they’d get to other matters.

  You couldn’t really call it a summit meeting. To begin with, the Robinsons’ was only partway up a hill, and neither Nat nor Arn-the-Barn was like a head of state or president of anything. But still, in terms of sheer agreement and accomplishments, no summit meeting ever worked as well for everyone concerned.

  It started with a shock for Nat and Ludi.

  “Guess what?” said Arnold, before they’d even climbed the steps. “Your kid here iced that bastard Homer Cone. Bow and arra. You know the guy I mean, right? Big-headed son-of-a-bitch from the school down there? He went to take a shot at the girl, and the kid twanged him a good one. Right inna heart.”

  Nat and Ludi hurried up the stairs when they heard that, and went to Sully and Sara, passing the blanketed pile of Cone without a second glance. Sara cried then, feeling much relief, but Sully stayed quite stiff and pale and shook his head a lot, and said, “I can’t believe it,” many times.

  It was Ludi who remembered Coke and Marigold and volunteered to go and get them, but Nat thought otherwise.

  “Suppose,” he said to Sully, “you and Sara go. Tell them just what happened and take them back to Spring Lake Lodge. Lu and I’ll join you when we get through here. And maybe Arnold if he wants to. Probably we’ll beat you back, in fact.” Nat smacked his forehead. “Arn!” He turned to the big man. “Here I am, babbling; I didn’t even introduce you.” Arnold beamed; he knew manners when he saw them. “You met Sully and Sara already, right? And this is Ludi.” He gestured toward Arnold. “This is Arn Emfatico. We were friends up in Burlington. Boy,” he said, “that seems a hundred years ago.”

  “Hi,” said Arnold, smiling all around. “Pleased to meet you. How ya doing?”

  The kids all managed smiles of sorts and said hello; Sully even took a few steps forward and shook hands, calling Arnold “sir” again.

  Arnold turned to Nat. “And these are the ones they wanted you to…?” He made a face and gave a shrug. “…you know?”

  “Yeah,” said Nat. “These and two others. It wasn’t ever possible, Arn. I never should have said I would. The whole thing’s completely crazy.”

  “I guess so,” said Arnold. “I see exactly what you mean. Before…like, I imagined…I don’t know exactly what I thought they’d be like. But these…my God.” He shook his head. And then, remembering, he made another face. “Hey, Nat. I just remembered. We got something serious to talk about.”

  “Just a second, Arn,” said Nat. He turned to Sully and Sara again and asked them how they felt about going for Coke and Marigold. He felt sure that they’d be better off away from Cone’s body and doing whatever had to be done with it. Especially Sully. And he wanted Ludi with him. Oh, boy, did he ever want Ludi with him! You want to talk about serious? That was serious.

  Sully and Sara seemed to like the idea and left, Sully saying, “I’m glad to have met you, sir,” to Arn.

  “Now…what?” said Nat to Arnold.

  “Hey, Nat,” said Arn. “We got a problem, a bad one. What I’m doing here—my uncle sent me down, you got it? He sent me after you. And if that ain’t enough, I’m also here on accounta my boss from the Bursar’s office, Mr. Darling. He’s looking for you, too; he wants that money that you owe us. But my uncle, he’s the really bad part—he just wants no more Nathaniels.”

  Nat said, “No. You can’t be serious. Because I didn’t pay him what he said I owed him from that Florida excursion? That wasn’t my fault, Arn. You know that wasn’t my fault.”

  Arnold pulled his lower lip and shook his head. “It’s more than that. He feels his reputation’s on the line. The Doctor from the school, he called him up and told him how you didn’t do your stuff down here. My uncle got that job for you, and so, when you don’t do it right, he thinks that’s making him look bad. It’s, like, he guarantees his help. Same with a Carvel’s or a McDonald’s—any franchise. They got this quality control, I think they call it. My uncle sends a guy to do a job for someone…the guy had better do the job. Right up to my uncle’s standards, or he’s out. Same with Carvel’s. He don’t take no excuses, Uncle.”

  “So you were meant to kill me, too?” Nat asked. “Is this another franchise deal?” He ran a hand along one cheek and shook his own head back at Arnold. “How can this be happening?” he said. “In twenty-two years, nobody even takes a punch at me. I’ve never been kicked or slapped, for God’s sake; my parents never even spanked me. And now, all of a sudden, people want to have me killed.” He looked at Ludi. “I hope this isn’t catching, Lu.”

  She made a little pouty face at him and smiled.

  “I was hoping I could tell my uncle you just skipped,” said Arn. “I was hoping you were long since gone—you and the kids from here. But here you are. And all these crazies from the school—and Mr. Darling, weekends—running through the woods with guns and legal papers. I just wish you were a thousand miles away from here, the bunch of you. Believe me, Nat—if my uncle ever knew I’d seen you, talked to you, and didn’t…you know. Well, then, I’d be on his list, and he wouldn’t send no guy like me to cancel me, I can tell you that much.”

  Nat sighed and scratched his head, but when he did his eyes went down and saw, again, the blanket-covered heap that once conducted classes at the Coldbrook Country School.

  “Hey, Arnold, wait a minute …,” Nat began. He was sure he’d had the idea of his life. And so the Robinson Accord
s began.

  Arnold checked it over every way that he could think of, but still the idea didn’t leak a drop. Homer Cone had got what he deserved. Alive, he’d been a bigot and a killer and a prick; why not let him be a good guy, dead? Why not let him be Nathaniel Palmer Rittenhouse?

  What Arn would do was follow his directions, do exactly what his uncle’d told him to: “Find this guy and finish him, and take what’s left to Dunphy’s.” Dunphy’s was a funeral home; the owner was a relative, by marriage, of Arnold’s uncle’s family, and Uncle tried to help him out and make sure business never got too slow. Dunphy would take care of all the paperwork, as well; it would be certified that one Nat Rittenhouse had died an accidental death (“a fall”) on such-and-such a date, at such-and-such a place. The family—Nat’s family—would get an urn of ashes, via UPS, collect, and in a little while, a bill for Dunphy’s services. Eventually the news of Nat’s demise would filter back to UVM and Mr. Darling; Arn could see to that. But for a while, for Mr. Darling’s sake, Arn would keep on walking through the woods around the school by day and staying at the Valivu Motel at night. Maybe Ginnie could come down for the weekend, he thought; motels kinda turned her on. As far as his uncle was concerned, he’d just be “off on holiday.”

  “But what’ll you be doing?” Arnold asked his friend. “What I mean, the real you, not this eight ball, here.” He flipped a thumb toward Cone.

  Nat explained the Plan to him, and Arn-the-Barn agreed it maybe had a chance to work, provided they got lucky.

  They stuffed the late, completely unlamented Mr. Cone into a garment bag they found inside the house, and all of that into the trunk of his sedan. What Nat would do was drive the body down, with Arnold, transfer it into Arnold’s Trans-Am’s trunk, and then drive back. Arn would go direct to Dunphy’s, call his uncle with the good news, and then get back to Valivu to spend the night. Ludi volunteered to try to deal with bloodstains on the deck: there were some bathroom cleaners in the house, she said, all of which were sure that they could pick up anything that a mortal man could spill. Then she and Nat could organize the stuff that Group 6 had at the Robinsons’ and start the evacuation drill. Nat thought of hiding Homer Cone’s sedan a ways away, but that would mean some extra time he didn’t want to spare, and anyway, the chances were that Cone told someone else just where he planned to go, and so there would be searchers in the space around the Robinsons’, regardless.

  They accomplished all of that without a hitch. Although it didn’t specifically say so on the label, one of the bathroom-cleaning products did a “fabulous job, my dear,” according to Ludi, with bloodstains on a polyurethaned surface, and Nat and Ludi got all of everybody’s gear moved up to Spring Lake Lodge in two fast trips. So, well before nightfall, they were all back at the Lodge again, trying to recover from the day’s events and figure how and where to go from there.

  At dinner there was a new seating arrangement. Marigold created it by sitting on the other side of Sara than she always did. That meant that she had taken Ludi’s place, and wasn’t sitting next to Coke. Sully then moved over next to Sara, in Marigold’s old place, and Ludi, getting there last, sat over on the other side of Nat from usual, where Sully used to be. There were no comments on the changes.

  “Nothing against the cooks,” said Coke, “but isn’t there any other sauce for things besides tomato? I know I probably shouldn’t talk, seeing as I never cook anything myself, but I swear to God, in another week I think I’ll start to speak Italian and be full of seeds. …”

  “Which might be quite a pair of pleasant changes,” said Marigold to Sara in a mutter.

  They were eating one of Nat’s concoctions: dried lima beans and rice, with basil, cheese, and canned tomatoes.

  “Well, let’s see,” said Nat. “There’s always hollandaise, but for that you need special stuff to put under it, like eggs Benedict, or asparagus, or broccoli. Or maybe Brussels sprouts. I don’t think I’d like Brussels sprouts even with maple syrup on them, though. Of course, there’s also white sauce, like you get with chipped beef…”

  “Ugh—chipped beef,” said Marigold. “Let’s stick with the tomatoes, O.K.?”

  “I like this,” Ludi said, holding up a forkful. “It tastes like something you’d make,” she said to Nat. Ludi was happy being back at Spring Lake Lodge; she hoped that maybe Nat would sleep outside with her.

  “Are you implying all the food I cook tastes just the same?” said Nat.

  “Not exactly,” Ludi said. “But similar. Related. You know what I mean? It has to do with spices, mostly. Flavors, anyway. Like onions, or garlic, or herbs.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Nat. “I never thought of it that way before. But I do tend to reach for the exact same seasonings all the time. If it isn’t basil it’s curry, and if it isn’t curry it’s garlic or onions, with black pepper.” He looked around the circle. Except for Ludi, everyone was sitting looking at her bowl, or his, eating sort of stolidly. Not what you’d call fascinated with the dinner-table conversation. The “parents-are-a-bore” look.

  Sara felt like they were losing ground, being back at Spring Lake Lodge, two hours farther from the school, thus that much farther from the Plan. Would they ever use the Robinsons’ again? She doubted it.

  Coke preferred it at the Robinsons’, by far, and so did Marigold. It was more comfortable, let’s face it, and you didn’t have to be with…people all the time. They both got that idea, quite suddenly, that night. They’d gotten used to spending time with each other, but until that day, there’d always been a bunch of others with them, too. Those others were the bumpers in the pinball game of life: you could use them, in a way, to keep yourself in play, and scoring. A target for “asides,” they were. A day with just the other one had gotten slightly irritating, like socks that wouldn’t stay pulled up. They both thought it would be pleasant to spend time alone more often—and that was hard at Spring Lake Lodge.

  Sully’s mood kept swinging back and forth, a lot more quickly and enormously than he could say, or anyone could tell from looking at him. He sat there rather calmly, looking sort of stoned. At times he seemed a hero to himself; face it, he had saved his girlfriend’s life. It was right out of dreamland. And he could tell she was grateful, because she kept asking him how he was doing, and giving him little touches on the leg or arm; she never had before. If she didn’t look at him adoringly a lot—well, that was just her way, and anyway, with all the other kids around …

  And then he’d think he was a killer. A person who had been alive this morning—gotten up and brushed his teeth and ate and maybe laughed and took a shit was dead, and he had caused it. Maybe he was a murderer. Maybe the guy never would have shot at Sara at all; maybe he was just trying to scare her, or make her mind. Before, Sully had thought that he wouldn’t mind killing McCorker. He’d even run through different scenes in his mind, where he’d saved his mother from the guy, or even protected his own virtue, as the saying went. But McCorker always made the first move and it was definite, quite unmistakable, and Sully’d had to shoot him with this little pistol he’d imagined. Right between the eyes. McCorker’d look surprised and fall right down, but never bleed. He didn’t look any worse than a parochial school kid on Ash Wednesday. And then the fantasy would end; there wasn’t any “later on.” No body to dispose of, no having somebody call him “Robin Hood.”

  Coke had done that when he’d first heard the story down near school. He’d first said “What?” like in amazement. And then he’d said, “Hey, neat,” and looked at Sully in an all-new way. “Robin Hood, himself,” he’d said. He’d gotten serious right after that, but Sully saw that he was acting, playing out the role of “sympathetic friend,” making like he understood the situation all too well. Sure, Coke. He didn’t understand a thing, as far as Sully was concerned. For Coke, it was more or less as if he’d been told about the latest episode on Hill Street Blues or a new Clint Eastwood movie: “Well, you see what happens is, there’s this guy out on a porch who’s gonna sh
oot this chick. An’ just when he’s getting ready to gun her down, this other kid, who’s behind this rock …” That’s what it was really like for Coke. He didn’t understand at all, it seemed to Sully.

  “What about today?” Sara’d had enough of talk about tomato sauce. She turned to Marigold. “D’you think you guys learned anything useful about the schedule down there?” She craned her neck and looked past Marigold to Nat. “And what about tomorrow? Shouldn’t we think about setting up our watching post again?” If questioned, Sara would have said she was thinking of Sully. It was best for him to keep busy, get his mind off himself.

  Marigold pulled folded papers from her pocket.

  “We got a lot of numbers written down,” she said. “It was pretty confusing, ‘cause when we were there was when all the classes were going on, and changing, and then there was lunch. And a certain individual kept fucking around and screwing up the count.”

  “Up yours,” said Coke. “It was already screwed up.” He spoke to Nat. “The thing was, there’re all these people milling around and going in and out, and back and forth, and forgetting stuff and going back for it. It got ridiculous. And I don’t see where it makes any difference if twenty-five people or thirty-seven people went into Moorhead Hall at twelve-oh-five. You can just say ‘a whole bunch of people,’ and leave it at that.”

  Nat nodded, noncommittally. Arguments were so unnecessary, mostly. He wasn’t going to get involved in this one.

  Sara said, “We got a lot of numbers, too. But I guess the only ones that really matter are the ones that have to do with Doctor Simms’s house, and Foote, where the offices are. Don’t you think?” She was speaking to Nat again.

  Nat said, “I imagine so. Like I said, Doctor has a study in both places, or an office, or whatever you want to call it. And the one in the house still seems like the most likely place to me.”

  “Is there a Mrs. Simms?” asked Ludi.