Trapped! (13 page)

It was slow going. The farther they got from the road, the thicker the undergrowth was. There were decaying trees that had fallen in past storms, and large stumps left by long-ago loggers.

Every few minutes, they paused and looked back toward the car. The lantern was a faint glow in the distance now, and much smaller than it had been the first time they looked, but they could still see it.

“Pete! Here, Pete!” The dense woods seemed to swallow Alex’s words. Even if Pete responded, Alex wasn’t sure he’d hear the meowing of a cat unless he was right on top of him. He kept calling, though.

“I think we’d better turn back,” Mr. Kendrill said. “The lantern’s almost out of sight.”

Fear clutched at Alex’s throat. “We can’t quit,” he said. “After we get back to the car, let’s try searching in a different direction.”

“We can’t stay out here all night,” Mr. Kendrill said.

“No, but we could look on the other side of the road. We could go that way for as long as we can see the lantern.”

“Let’s move to our right a few feet, and then turn around,” Mr. Kendrill suggested. “That way we aren’t retracing the same path.”

Alex headed to his right. He’d gone only a few feet when he heard the sound of branches breaking, followed by, “Oh!”

Alex spun around, shining his light toward the noise. At first he didn’t see anything. “Dad?” he said.

“Over here.”

Alex saw a faint light coming from the ground; he headed toward his dad’s voice. His dad lay on his side, his eyes closed. The flashlight had fallen from his hand and now rested at the base of a tree, its light pointed downward.

Alex dropped to his knees beside his father. “Dad?” he said.

Mr. Kendrill moaned and opened his eyes. He started to sit up, then moaned again and put his head back down.

“What happened?” Alex said. “Are you okay?” He retrieved his dad’s flashlight and handed it over.

“My leg,” Mr. Kendrill said. “I think I may have broken my leg.” He held the light at his waist and aimed it toward his shoes.

Alex gasped when he saw his dad’s left pant leg bent at an odd angle.

“You’ll have to go for help, son,” Mr. Kendrill said. “I won’t be able to walk out of here.”

“Not even if I support you? You could put your arm around my shoulder and lean on me.”

“That might work on a smooth surface,” Mr. Kendrill said, “but not out here. You’ll have to walk down the hill by yourself. If you can find a phone in Hilltop, call nine-one-one, and then call Mom. Otherwise, you’ll have to walk all the way home.”

“But I can’t leave you here when you aren’t able to walk,” Alex said. “What if a bear comes along or a cougar?”

“Then you’ll probably hear me yelling all the way into Valley View Estates.” His voice got higher as he talked; the last word sounded as if it had been squeezed out, along with all Mr. Kendrill’s breath. Although his dad was trying to joke, Alex could tell he was in serious pain.

“Should I try to put a splint on the leg before I leave? I learned how when I earned my Boy Scout first-aid badge.”

“Good idea.”

Alex found a tree branch, an inch in diameter and about six feet long, on the ground. He stripped it of all the leaves and small side branches, then put the middle of the branch on his knee and snapped the branch in half.

Kneeling beside his dad, he placed one piece of branch on each side of the leg. He hesitated. “This will hurt,” he said. “Maybe I should wait until the medics come.”

“No. Don’t wait.”

Alex put his hands gently on the broken leg. Gritting his teeth and hoping he was doing the right thing, he pushed the bottom of the leg until it lay straight.

Mr. Kendrill grunted a few times, and Alex could see his hands clenched into tight fists.

When the leg and the two pieces of branch were lined up parallel, like the stakes of a picket fence, Alex took off his jacket, removed his long-sleeved shirt, and sank his teeth into the top of one sleeve.

Keeping his teeth clamped shut, he yanked on the shirt until the sleeve tore off. Then he did the same thing with the other sleeve. Using the sleeves, he tied the two sticks tight against the pant leg, one directly below the knee and the other midway down his dad’s calf.

“You okay?” he asked, when he had finished.

“Yes. It’s better now that it’s straightened out,” Mr. Kendrill said. He was breathing hard and Alex saw him wipe the perspiration from his upper lip. He eased over
onto his back, shifting his hips slightly but not moving the broken leg.

Alex put his sleeveless shirt back on, followed by his jacket.

“Go back toward the lantern light,” Mr. Kendrill said.

“I could try to drive the car,” Alex said. “I’ve watched you; I think I could do it, and I’d get down the hill a lot faster.”

Mr. Kendrill shook his head. “Too risky,” he said. “You’ll have to walk. Go as fast as you can, but don’t take any chances.”

Alex nodded. He didn’t want to leave his dad, but he knew he had to.

“I’m going to turn my flashlight off as soon as you’re out of my sight,” Mr. Kendrill said. “I’ll save the battery until you come back with help. It’ll be easier to find me if I have the light.”

“I’ll honk the horn when I get to the car,” Alex said, “so you’ll know I found the road.”

Mr. Kendrill took the car keys from his pocket and handed them to Alex. “Be careful, son,” he said. Then he closed his eyes, and Alex set off toward the car, walking as fast as he could through the dense, dark forest.

He continued to call, “Pete! Come here, Pete!” but he didn’t stop to listen for a reply and he didn’t take time to shine his light up into the trees. While he still feared for
Pete and wanted to look for him, he knew his first priority now was to get help for his dad.

What else can go wrong? Alex wondered.

Walking through underbrush was hard work. Alex had to lift his feet high with each step, as if he were a drum major. He kept the light pointed a few feet in front of him, looking before he took each step. Dad had proven how easy it was to trip and fall. Every few feet he glanced up long enough to be certain he was still headed for the lantern. Its light gradually grew brighter as he got closer.

By the time Alex reached the car, his legs were so tired that all he wanted to do was flop down on the backseat and take a nap.

Instead, he unlocked the car, reached in the door, and honked the horn: dum-da-da-dum-dum. It was the way his dad always knocked on Alex’s bedroom door or on the bathroom door if Alex was taking too long in the shower.

He turned off the lantern, saving the kerosene for when he returned with help. For a moment he considered trying to drive the car, even though Dad had told him not to. He could sit behind the wheel, turn the key, put the engine in
DRIVE
and steer down the hill. He’d be home in ten minutes, rather than the thirty or forty it would take him to walk.

Alex knew that an automobile could be dangerous. People die in auto accidents every day. What if he took a
curve too fast and ran off the road? What if he hit another car? What if a deer jumped out in front of him, and he couldn’t stop? “Too risky,” Dad had said, and Alex knew his dad was right.

He closed the car door, locked it, and started down the road.

Now that he was on gravel, he picked up the pace, alternating between jogging and a fast walk. He wondered how long it would take him to get home. He didn’t have his watch on; he didn’t know how long it had taken him to reach the car.

He thought back to the day they’d seen Piccolo fall off the truck. He and Rocky had run all the way home that day and had made it in only half an hour. But tonight Alex had already struggled through the woods until his legs were ready to collapse, and he had not yet even come to the place where they’d found the pig.

Don’t think about how far it is, he told himself. Just put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

Dad’s counting on me, he thought, and pushed himself to jog faster.

He had passed the second wide spot, where his family had pulled off to look for Pete, when he saw two round spots of light ahead. A car! A car was coming! Alex started to run. Maybe Mom had heard from the police. Maybe they’d found Pete and she was coming to tell him and Dad.

The lights grew bigger—and then Alex heard the engine noise. Dread took his breath away. It wasn’t Mom; it was Hogman. By now, Alex knew that engine sound all too well. He turned and went into the woods beside the road, hoping that Hogman had not already seen him.

As soon as he reached a big tree, he crouched behind it and waited. The truck chugged closer. Was it slowing because the man had seen him or did it go slower because the hill got steeper here?

Alex stayed hidden. He could see the headlights and hear the rattling truck. He held his breath when the vehicle was directly opposite his hiding place, then slowly exhaled as Hogman continued on up the road. Then another thought froze him with fear. What would Hogman do when he saw the Kendrills’ car parked on the side of the road?

What if he stopped? What if he could see the broken branches where Alex and his dad had walked? What if he followed their trail and found Dad, lying on the ground with a broken leg? Would he help Dad? More likely, he’d rob him, or ditch his old truck and steal the car. People like Hogman don’t follow society’s rules; they do what they want.

Alex hurried back to the road and raced downhill. As he ran he tried to convince himself that Hogman wouldn’t bother to investigate the parked car. Hogman won’t recognize
our car, he thought. He won’t know that the car has anything to do with his pig, or with the cat he kidnapped. He’ll probably think the car was stolen and abandoned, and he won’t even stop.

Alex’s legs ached, and he could feel a blister starting on his left heel, but he kept running. He ran past where they’d gone into the woods and found the trap, and he ran past the first wide spot in the road. When he reached the edge of Hilltop, he paused to catch his breath.

He saw lights in a couple of windows down the street, and he wondered if he should knock on a door and ask for help. But he didn’t know who lived there and he was uneasy about approaching a strange house at night. People get jittery. It would take him only another ten minutes to run the rest of the way home.

He took a deep breath, and kicked himself into high gear.

P
ete held onto
the branch and thought about all the good things he would miss if he never found his way back home. Kitty num-num topped the list, followed closely by Alex’s kitty massages. There was the sunny spot under the dining room table, and the c-a-t words in the dictionary, and the joy of catapulting to the top of the entertainment center. He had not yet had a chance to caterwaul and catapult for his family at the same time, and he had looked forward to performing that new trick
.

He would miss sitting on a lap while his family watched a movie, and he would miss eating some of their popcorn, even if they were a bit stingy about the amount they shared with him. He would miss his morning crunchies, and washing Lizzy’s ears, and having a cat fit when the house got too quiet. He would even miss Benjie’s spy games.

I should have stayed inside, Pete thought. I have a happy life with the Kendrills; I have food and a warm bed and people
who love me—why am I working so hard and taking such chances to prove that Hogman is trapping animals illegally? It’s none of my business.

But even as he had that thought, Pete knew it wasn’t true. The illegal trapping WAS his business. It was the business of everyone who cared about animals. I’m the one who saw the pelts, Pete thought. I’m the one who has the invoice hidden under a fern. If I don’t stop him, who will?

He kidnapped me and tried to shoot me in the head. If he isn’t stopped, he might do other terrible, unexpected things.

Pete wondered how someone like Hogman got to be the way he was. Hogman looked to be about the same age as Mr. Kendrill, but the two men were as different as sunshine and snow. Mr. Kendrill joked with his family, and was always kind to Pete and Lizzy. Even when he got cross with Pete for sneaking out the door, he only scolded; he never punished Pete.

“Oh, Pete,” he would say when Pete had a cat fit or urped up a hair ball. “Stop acting like a cat!” He always smiled as he said it.

Hogman wore a perpetual scowl and sought revenge when Pete acted like a cat.

I need to get down out of this tree, Pete decided. I have to find my way home so I can show that invoice and the rabbit’s foot to Alex. Slowly, Pete looked over his shoulder, gauging whether he could turn around on the branch or if he would
have to back up until he reached the tree’s trunk. There wasn’t room to turn around; he would need to back up.

His stomach growled. He wished he’d eaten before he started out. How could he climb out of this tree when he was weak from hunger? He didn’t like the idea of trying to get out of the tree in the dark, but if he waited until morning there would be nothing but a cat skeleton lying on this branch.

Pete raised himself slightly, until there was an inch of space between his tummy and the branch. Then, one paw at a time, he moved backward down the trunk of the tree. It was too dark to see the ground, which he knew was just as well. If he couldn’t see how far down it was, he wouldn’t be quite so nervous.

•  •  •

Rosemary had watched the patient limp down the hospital hall and enter the elevator. He had refused her offer of a wheelchair, which the hospital provided to all discharged patients to get them safely out the front door. He had refused a prescription for antibiotics, too, saying he couldn’t afford them.

As the elevator doors closed behind him, she turned to Officer Dingam, who was still talking to Dr. Fleming.

“Can he get away with that?” she asked. “Can he admit to taking the cat and trying to kill it, and then walk away as if it never happened?”

“No,” the officer said. “I don’t normally follow up on a
missing animal, but I’ll pursue this case. I might not be able to prove that he tried to shoot the cat, but I should be able to prove that he stole it. I don’t have enough facts to charge him yet, though. I need to get statements from the cat’s owners.”