Stoneskin's Revenge (14 page)

“Robyn,” the girl replied flatly. “With a ‘y'. That's all I'm sayin'.”

“It's all I need,” Calvin told her civilly. “I, uh…well, I kinda gather it wouldn't be too cool to ask questions, so I won't. I'd appreciate the same—not that there's anything you guys need to worry about—beyond the cops.”

Robyn froze in the process of trying to scrape her pants clean.
“Cops?”

“'Fraid so,” Calvin admitted. “County Mounties, anyway.”

“Lookin' for you?”

“I imagine.”

“Gonna find you?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Any reason we should worry?”

“Not unless they find you guys too. That happens, the less you know, the better. Besides—from what Brock here tells me, they'll have plenty to ask you about without draggin' me into the deal.”

Robyn glared daggers at her brother, who simply shrugged.

“I trust him, sis. I don't know why, 'cause I
know
he's got a
lot
of secrets, but I trust him.”

“I don't,” Robyn replied. “Not yet.”

“Well,” Calvin said, squatting down to inspect the baking veggies, “I'm mostly Cherokee, if you haven't figured it out yet; and one of the things we say is that if you've shared food and fire with a person, he's under an obligation to you not to harm you.”

“Yeah, and Eskimo men are supposed to offer you their wives, too,” Robyn shot back. But there was a trace of softening in her voice.

“I'm your
brother
!” Brock grunted in exasperation.

“You're a damned nuisance, is what you are,” Robyn told him. “And if I was you—both of you—I'd stay right where you are, and keep on looking exactly where you're looking, 'cause I've gotta get outta these friggin' britches.”

Calvin and Brock exchanged an appropriate combination of winks, eye-rolls, and grins—but dutifully did as instructed, though Calvin did risk a glance across the clearing (which was
away
from the scrape of fabric and buzz of zippers) and noted for the first time what looked suspiciously like a holster amid the piles of gear. Empty, but he had an idea where the occupant was.

“These ready?” Robyn asked, joining them by the fire a moment later, then reaching behind her to excavate a fork from her pack, with which she prodded the nearest foil-wrapped tidbit.

“Oughta be,” Brock told her. “They've been cookin' since three!”

“Watch it!” Robyn shot back, but Calvin noted that she was finally taking time to give him a once-over, and apparently liking what she saw.

“Wanta stay the night?”

“Huh?”
That
had come so unexpectedly it shocked Calvin speechless.

“Not afraid, are you?”

Calvin finally found his voice. “Of course not. But it's probably not the smartest thing I could do. Besides—well, there's some things I've gotta do some hard thinkin' about, and I just can't do that with folks around.”

“She likes you,” Brock confided under his breath, as Robyn captured a potato and began unrolling it with delicate tugs and stabs of lacquered (but functionally short) nails.

“Coulda fooled me,” Calvin muttered back, as he claimed his own spud.

“So…you stayin'?” From Brock this time, and Calvin imagined the kid was desperately glad to have another male around. Robyn, for all her looks, had an attitude that could doubtless wear thin pretty quickly.

“I really shouldn't,” Calvin reasserted. “I—”

But before he could finish, he heard the muffled thump of powerful wings flapping, followed almost immediately by the swish of air across his face as something flew right above his head. He glanced that way, and saw—to little surprise this time—that a single peregrine was perched on a limb not fifteen feet from the fire. It had something in its claws too, but just as Calvin noticed that, whatever it was won free and flew away. No, Calvin amended, had been released. The falcon had deliberately freed its prey.

But before he could investigate further, the peregrine likewise spread its wings and wafted away through the woods.

“Cool,” Brock shouted. “Hey, did you see that, sis?”

Robyn looked puzzled. “What?”

“That bird!” Brock continued excitedly. “A falcon, I think. Wasn't it, Calvin?”

“Yeah,” Calvin acknowledged softly. “It was.”

“What kinda bird was that it had, though?” Brock went on. “Man, that was
weird,
I swear it
let
it go.”

“It…did,” Calvin replied slowly. “And that
is
strange.”

“But what kinda bird was it?”

“A robin,” Calvin whispered. “Maybe I
will
stay the night.” It was not a nonsequitur, though Brock stared at him askance when he said it. No, it was a response to yet another omen.

Chapter X: Frettin' and
Worryin'

(east of Whidden, Georgia—supperish)

“I don't know
how
long she's been gone,” Liza-Bet Scott was sobbing into the phone when Don came tumbling in the door, engaged in a tickle battle with Michael Chadwick. Don silenced his best friend with a glare and an elbow punch in the ribs, then gently deposited the bags of junkfood they'd snatched off Mike's dad onto the counter, his attention fully focused on his mother. Beside him, Michael nodded and simply slunk back out of the way between a counter and the refrigerator, as if he too could sense the tension that permeated Liza-Bet's every word and gesture.

“No, she knows better'n that,” Liza-Bet went on and Don could tell from the way her gaze suddenly hooked his way and locked with his that something really bad was going on. Probably something to do with Allison, to judge by the way Mom's face was: all wild-eyed and scary, and with a few dark smudges on her cheeks and around her eyes to show she'd been crying. She was picking at her clothes too: the sweatshirt and gym shorts she'd put on when Robert had left to give his 'coon hounds a final run before he went on call again in the morning. And
that
was a real bad sign, 'cause it usually meant that the bottle'd come prancing out from below the sink real soon. Then…who knew what could happen.

More noise on the line that Don could not make out, then from Mom: “No, that's what I said: five hours!” She turned then, looked his way: “You haven't seen your sister, have you? She say anything 'bout goin' off?”

Don shook his head, a score of emotions at war within him, from concern for his mother, through irritation at his sister (whom he divined to have gotten lost sometime while they were taking their own sweet time returning from Mike's), to that horrible sick thunk of dread that something awful
had
happened and that he was at fault. And finally to guilt, which he didn't even need to feel yet. “Last I saw of her she was headin' for her room.”

“She didn't say nothin' 'bout goin' out to play?”

“No,” Don replied, trading apprehensive shrugs with Michael. “But she's started sneakin' off a lot lately,” he added, in part through genuine concern, and in part because it might make him look better if Allison did turn up. Another exchange of glances with Mike, who was starting to look
really
troubled and was probably wondering—as Don was—if this would put paid to their camping trip. “Want us to go hunt for her?”

Mom's brow wrinkled and she started to reply, then held up a finger to put him on hold while the voice on the other end of the line—Don bet it was the ever-conscientious Robert checking by the department just in case—rattled on again. Her frown deepened, but then she nodded a little resentfully. “Yeah, I'll hang on till you get here. But hurry, Rob, I just can't stand this waitin', I—Just a minute.”

For there had been a noise in the front of the house. “What was that?” But Don had not even had time to figure out what
that
was when footsteps pattered across the living room floor and Allison popped into view at the other end of the hall—dirty and bedraggled, to be sure, but as far as Don could tell, relatively intact. She had something with her, too: a bunch of pebbles wrapped in a scrap of rag.

“Mom!” Don cried, pointing.

And with that Allison thudded into the kitchen and screeched to a halt in the exact center of the floor, her muddy sneakers making twin red streaks on the pale linoleum. Don's nose wrinkled automatically. He'd been right, she wasn't only filthy, she was smelly as well.

A startled “Oh!” escaped from Mom, and then her eyes grew very large indeed, and tears of relief flooded into them, even as Don felt a vast relief of his own course through him like a hot drink on a cold day as he realized that his camping trip was not going to be shot to hell after all.

The phone crackled inquisitively.

Mom stared at it as if dumbfounded for a moment, then resumed her conversation. “No, Rob, just forget it. She's come back.”

More crackles.

“No, she looks fine. Tell you what, I'll call you again when I know something.”

Noise.

“Yeah, I love you too.”

And with that, Liza-Bet hung up the receiver and knelt before her daughter. A long moment passed as they stared solemnly at each other, but then Liza-Bet threw her arms around her wayward offspring and hugged her tight. “Oh baby, baby, where've you
been
?
Don't you know I've been worried sick about you? Why, I just called Robert. I…”

She blubbered on, heaping endearments atop exhortations not to do that again,
ever,
and mixing the whole thing with paens of relief.

For his part, Don simply rolled his eyes at Michael, who rolled his back and emerged from his patented impression of a piece of wallpaper to snag a bag of goodies and start toward the hall. “Just a minute,” Don called him back, uncertain if he should just go on with business, which was what he
wanted
to do, or show some concern for his evil sister, which he supposed was what he
ought
to be at, or at least making lip-service to. Trouble was, it was hard to be worried about somebody being lost when you didn't know they
were
lost until they'd been found again. As for hanging around to find out the what and where, he supposed he'd hear all about that soon enough. Finally, he laid a hand on Mom's shoulder. “You need me, holler, okay?”

She nodded, and Don felt vastly relieved. He snagged his own bag of snacks and started down the hall, already tugging off his sweat-soaked T-shirt.

“Got any Cokes?” Mike called from ahead of him.

Don spun around and returned to the kitchen. Mom was still kneeling by her daughter, her back to him. But from the door Don could see Allison quite plainly.

And then she saw him too; and for no reason he could think of, a chill raced over his body. There was something about Allison's expression, something to do with a complete lack of the fear or guilt or contrition he knew should be there. Maybe it was shock, but then he got a closer look at her eyes and realized that sometime since lunch they had grown harder and much more calculating. Though awash with what Don suddenly had an uncanny feeling were crocodile tears, they stared at him hard and unfeeling, and Don had the eerie sensation he was being evaluated—rather like a piece of meat in the grocery store.

“You bringin' them Cokes?”

Don broke eye contact with his sister and shook his head, then trotted over to the fridge and snagged a pair of colas. But as he dashed back to his room, he could feel Allison's eyes on him every step of the way. He was suddenly glad he'd be sleeping in the woods that night.

Chapter XI: Moonstruck

(east of Whidden, Georgia—dusk)

Calvin took a final lick of apple-flavored fingers and then nothing remained of the supper he'd shared with Brock and Robyn except full tummies and the satisfaction they brought. Brock was already burying the aluminum foil veggie wrappers; Calvin had made him.

Robyn poked up the fire a little—mostly for light and comfort, Lord only knew they didn't need the heat—then settled back atop the sleeping bag she had stretched at full length on the ground. “Maybe I
ought
to tell you about it, just so you'll know,” she conceded finally.

“You don't
have
to,” Calvin replied. “I mean, I'm curious, and all; but I'm not sure it'd be best…”

Robyn took a deep breath but wouldn't meet his eyes. “No, I
want
to—haven't told a soul except my friends, and most of them don't really understand—either that, or they want me to go too far.”

“They wanted her to
kill
the old fag,” Brock confided from where he was shaking out his own bedroll. Calvin quickly found himself in the middle, lying on the grass-padded ground.