Chapter 16

I learned the fine art of running and hiding when I was still just a little kid on the reservation. It’s a skill I’ve held on to in the years since. Practice makes perfect and all that shit.

A few days after administering that legendary beating to two of Sacajawea Middle School’s most feared and hated students—the Scarecrow and his beta, the walking side of beef—that old skill came in handy once again. Scarecrow’s big brother and his pack of dedicated potheads, elder statesmen of Paradise Valley’s stoner community, caught up to me on my walk home from school.

I was stupid, I should have anticipated it. I should have at least changed my route home to make them work a little harder for it. It had been a few years since I’d had my ass thoroughly kicked for me and I was getting sloppy.

My bad, as they say.

Elizabeth Trout was taking a new route home now, I suppose my total absence made it even easier for her to ignore me, or maybe she did smell a little payback coming our way. I never asked her and she never volunteered the information. Either way she wasn’t there when the old Trans Am rolled up beside me. I was glad she wasn’t there. As much as she hated me, I don’t think she would have been able to walk away from it. In fact, I know she wouldn’t have.

It was the Smokey and the Bandit car, black with gold trim, so ‘70s you almost expected to see a disco ball hanging from the rearview mirror. I loved the car. I was not as pleased with the faces I found staring out of it at me. One of them was Scarecrow, eyes and nose swelled out of their usual shape, lips split and crusted with scabs. I recognized him immediately, and I could see he recognized me too.

He twisted clumsily in the front passenger seat and pointed me out with the index finger of his left hand. His right hand and the arm it was attached to were in a sling resting on his lap.

“Dat’s hib,” he shouted through his ruined lips. That’s him.

I turned and ran, vaulted over a short fence into the nearest yard, past a fake tombstone draped with fake cobwebs. RIP, it said.

“Get him!”

A quick peek over my shoulder confirmed my worst suspicions. The backseat passengers, greasy blonde hair with black denim and combat boots and a chubby guy in army khakis, leapt out to chase me on foot, and the Trans Am sped down the road and around the corner.

“Shit!” Chubby leapt the fence but caught a foot between the short plastic pickets, pinwheeling his arms before plunging headfirst into the fake tombstone. The gray Styrofoam split in half and Chubby ate grass. “Fuff!”

Combat boots passed him without a look back, and I faced forward again.

Looked like I was taking the long way home.

The side yard was narrow, I had to duck to pass beneath the low limbs of an apple tree. I reached up and plucked one as I ran.

“Hey!” A fat, middle-aged man wearing a purple polo shirt and the silliest pants I’ve ever seen, purple and gold diamond patterned, paused with his golf putter raised in mid-swing. “Get off my property you bastid!”

That was the plan.

The backyard fence was taller than the front but not too tall to get over. Just as I was about to hoist myself over it the familiar Trans Am came to a screeching sideways stop on the next street, waiting for me.

Shit!

I dropped back to the grass and dodged Combat boots just before he plowed into the fence.

“Hey! Hey!” The old guy was waddling toward us now, brandishing his putter like a club.

I started back the way I’d come and Chubby appeared in the side yard to catch me, swatting the low hanging limbs from his face. I pitched the apple in my hand like a baseball and it burst open on his forehead. He grunted in surprise, stumbled back a step, tripped and landed hard on his ass.

Movement in my periphery, colorful movement. I turned in time to see the old guy swing his putter at me.

I jumped back; the putter clipped my shoulder. It stung like hell, but I was still standing.

The old guy tottered on the edge of his lost balance, and good boy that I was, I lent a steadying hand as I rushed past him, toward the fence and the next yard over.

Combat Boots was after me again, and the old guy paid my kindness back by giving him a good whack in the gut.

“You bastids get outta here.” He took another clumsy swing, missed, shook his putter in the air. “Call’a cops Margie! Call’a cops!”

Good idea, I thought, but wasn’t waiting around for them. I hoisted myself over the fence and landed in a crouch on the other side.

No golfers in this yard, just a scattering of lawn tools and a pile of leaves. I spied a rake leaning against the fence and grabbed it, waited. A few seconds later a pair of hands grabbed hold of the fence top and Chubby’s face popped up between them. I brought the rake handle down on top of his head and he disappeared.

Pleased with myself, I took a step back and laid the rake down in the grass, the tines poking up where my own feet had landed. I scattered the leaf pile over the rake but didn’t pause to admire my handiwork. I showed them the back of my head, what dear, dead old mom called my good side, and ran like hell.

There’s no way it’ll work, I thought. Never.

But as I turned the corner around the house, back toward the street where they’d rolled up on me, I heard a whack and shout of pain. I couldn’t help myself, I stopped to have a peek back.

Combat Boots had come down square on target and stood dazed, the rake’s tines under the toes of his boots, the handle standing straight up against his stunned face. A narrow line of blood trickled from his forehead.

I resisted the urge to cheer and bolted around the side of the house.

The street was empty, but not for much longer I was sure. I sprinted through the yard, more Halloween shit, a straw man hanging by a noose from an elderly oak, another fake tombstone, a plastic hand reaching up from the ground.

I love Halloween. So festively morbid.

Home was in the other direction, but so was the Trans Am, so I ran on.

I cut through yards and kept off the streets as much as possible, I was threatened and chased off by homeowners, my legs grew rubbery with exhaustion. I wanted to go home. I hadn’t seen the Trans Am. I decided it was as safe as it was going to get, and got back onto the sidewalk, walking—I was all out of run by then—toward home.

Daylight retreated and I continued, marking every street sign I passed and adjusting my course from block to block. I also kept an eye on the cars that approached. No Trans Ams. My tension eased with every block, then every step when I was down to the last few. I was going to make it.

Now I just had the next day to worry about, and the next after that.

Never mind one day at a time.

Uncle Higheagle was going to be pissed, I was beyond late, but at least I knew he wasn’t going to beat the shit out of me.

And that was when they caught me.

I turned my last corner, Uncle Higheagle’s big house in sight, and saw the Trans Am parked just down the road. The cab was empty.

Run, I thought, but never got a chance.

The driver, Scarecrow’s brother it turned out, rose up from behind a row of trash cans, I turned and found Combat Boots coming at me from the other direction.

A hand clamped on my shoulder and yanked me within beating range.

I was big for my age, but they were at least five years older, bigger, and there were three of them. Then Scarecrow was with them and there were four.

I’ve taken worse beatings, and it would have been worse if Uncle Higheagle hadn’t come to see what the commotion was.

I’ve taken worse, but it was bad enough.

I spent the rest of the week at home pissing blood and eating aspirin, and word must have gotten out because Friday after school the doorbell rang, and when I answered it, I found a flower and a card on the doormat. Whoever had left it was gone.

It was from Elizabeth Trout, standard Wishing You a Speedy Recovery crap, and a short personal note scribbled below.

No, I’m not telling you what it said. I’m willing to share just about anything with you, but that is mine. You can’t have it.

By the time I returned to school she was gone, her parents had pulled her out of the hormone charged madhouse called Sacajawea and sent her to a private school. I didn’t get the chance to thank her for the card...or her message.

My point? Chivalry’s dead...remember that and act accordingly. And if you can’t take that advice, then at least learn how to hide better.