Читать книгу Billy and the Bearman - David A. Poulsen - Страница 8

Billy changed his mind at least three times on the drive into Palliser. First, he decided he’d stay. After all, Bearman hadn’t actually hit him. Then he made up his mind to go. He would strike out on his own when they got to the town. Although he hadn’t been hit, he could have been and that was enough. But finally he reached the decision to stay with Bearman. There were several reasons for coming to that conclusion but the two most important were, first of all, that he liked Bearman, bad temper and all, and secondly, he really didn’t have a lot of other options. On his own, he’d either be found by the police or his parents or get into some scrape he couldn’t get himself out of. Staying was the better choice, at least for now. Even so, Billy told himself he would only stay so long as Bearman never hit him.

Once he’d arrived at his decision, Billy had an idea he wanted to try on Bearman. “What do you think about a treehouse?” he said as they took a corner a little too fast and he was forced to hang on to the door handle.

“What?”

“I was wondering about a treehouse.” Billy turned in the seat to face Bearman. “I bet we could build one. I read a book once where they built one. And then we’d be off the ground and everything.”

“A treehouse,” Bearman repeated slowly.

“And nobody will even be able to see us up there. They could walk right underneath us and never know we were up there.”

“A treehouse,” Bearman said again.

Billy nodded. “Swiss Family Robinson. That’s the book I read it in. A whole family lived in there. Of course, ours wouldn’t have to be as fancy, but I bet we could do it.”

This time Bearman didn’t say anything.

“So, what do you think?” Billy asked again. “You said we needed a more permanent place to live.”

“A treehouse.”

“Yes, a treehouse, a treehouse!” Billy was becoming impatient. “Geez, a . . . treehouse. What do you think?”

“I think . . . it’s not a bad idea.” Bearman kept his eyes on the road ahead. It was a gravel road, a back road where they weren’t as likely to be seen. “Not bad at all. Of course, we’ll need lumber, but I’ve got an idea where we could get all we need and tools won’t be a problem either.” He reached across and punched Billy lightly on the shoulder. “Yeah, might not be a bad idea at all.”

They rode in silence then, until they reached the edge of town. It was just after noon. Bearman slowed the truck.

“This is a good time to be here,” he told Billy. “Everybody’ll be having lunch. Even if the Mounties are in town, they won’t be likely to notice us.”

Bearman guided the pick-up down a side street and parked it behind a bread delivery truck where it was well-hidden from the main street.

“No sense drawing attention to ourselves,” he said. “Let’s go. First stop, grocery store.”

It was the smallest supermarket Billy had ever seen, an IGA store, two buildings in from the corner. The lone clerk in the store was a teenaged girl with a ponytail and a fair sized wad of bubblegum in her mouth. Billy guessed she was a couple of years younger than Bearman. She looked bored and uninterested, not the type to pay a whole lot of attention to the two of them. She didn’t look up as they entered the store. A couple of women pushing grocery carts and an elderly couple arguing over what detergent to buy were the only other people in the store.

“Since we don’t have any way of keeping anything cold, we’ll have to buy stuff that won’t go bad,” Bearman said quietly as he led the way down the first aisle.

For the next quarter of an hour, they weaved their way up and down aisles, Bearman selecting the items and dropping them into the grocery cart, Billy keeping track of how much they had spent. Bearman had allotted thirty dollars for groceries. They took no meat; Bearman was sure they’d be able to trap or shoot that part of their diet. He filled the shopping cart with canned and packaged goods, bread, several boxes of macaroni and cheese and a large bag of potatoes.

“We don’t have any butter,” Billy said. “Don’t we need butter for macaroni?”

“Not the way I make it, Kid.”

“Yuk.”

Bearman added a small jar of peanut butter to the contents of the shopping cart.

“Twenty-seven dollars,” Billy announced.

“Right,” Bearman nodded. “And that about does it, so I figure we oughta splurge with the last three bucks.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Billy nodded. “How about we splurge on butter?”

“Nope, tonight we dine in style,” Bearman said, holding up a pound of hamburger. “Grab some buns and we’re outa here.”

The store clerk, intent on reshaping the wad of gum, barely looked at them as she checked their purchases through the till. On their way out of the store the boys passed a table near the door where a tiny, old lady with a wrinkled, grandmotherly smile was selling fresh-baked blueberry pies.

Bearman stopped to examine the pies. “How much?” he inquired.

“Two dollars,” the lady replied, “and they’re guaranteed good.”

“They look good,” Billy swallowed.

“I’ll give you a dollar fifty,” Bearman told the lady.

“Not if you want one of these pies, young man.” The sweet smile never left the lady’s face, but Billy sensed that she wasn’t about to let any of her pies go for less than the quoted price.

“Well,” Bearman started, rubbing his chin deliberately, “you see, ma’am, my little brother here is in need of an operation and if I pay more than a dollar fifty for your pie, not sayin’ it ain’t worth the full two dollars understand, but if I pay more than that dollar fifty, I’ll have to dig into little Billy’s operation fund.”

The pie lady seemed about to laugh, but she didn’t. Instead she turned in her chair and looked sternly at Billy. “And what sort of surgery is it that you’re requiring, Billy?”

Billy tried to think fast. “Brain!” he blurted. “Brain surgery. I . . . uh . . . fell off my bike.”

This time the old lady did laugh. Bearman smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead and rolled his eyes.

“Two dollars,” the lady said again.

Bearman nodded and reached into his pocket and took out a two dollar bill.

As they made their way toward the door with their grocery bags, he shook his head. “Brain surgery, I can’t believe you said that.”

Billy shrugged. “It was all I could come up with on short notice.”

Bearman grumbled all the way to the pick-up. “You need brain surgery, that part’s true.” He laughed then and Billy did too. He started to get in the truck, but Bearman stopped him.

“We’ll leave it where it is,” he told Billy. “It’s almost out of sight here. We can walk to the clothes place.” They set the groceries inside and started back toward main street.

As they walked, Billy kicked a couple of stones, then turned to look at Bearman. “Before . . . when we were talking about the treehouse, you said the wood and tools would be no problem.”

Bearman nodded and kicked a stone of his own.

“How are we going to get them?” Billy asked.

“We’re gonna steal ’em,” Bearman said.

Billy was silent for several minutes. “You’re kidding, right?” he said finally as they crossed main street in the direction of the Goodwill store.

“Nope, I’m not kidding. Although it’s not exactly stealing, seeing as I cut most of the wood and paid for at least half of the tools.”

“I don’t get it.”

“We’re going to pay a visit to my old man’s place.” Bearman lowered his voice. “After dark he’ll be drunk and we’ll be able to load up everything we need and be out of there before he knows what happened.”

Billy swallowed hard and recalled the ugly welt on Bearman’s back. “Uh . . . when were you thinking we should do this?”

“Tonight.”

The Goodwill store was a small, wooden building that had been brown a long time before, but now was in need of a coat of paint. A large woman in a multi-coloured dress and almost as many shades of makeup greeted them as they entered.

“Something I can help you with?” she asked, studying first one, then the other.

She seems friendly enough, Billy thought.

“Yeah, we . . . uh . . . need some clothes. Some good warm clothes for the outdoors,” Bearman explained to the woman.

Her expression didn’t change. “You two on the run from the law, is that it?”

Billy blinked and looked carefully at the woman. Maybe she hadn’t meant anything by the remark. Maybe she was just kidding around, just making conversation, or maybe . . .

Bearman appeared to be having the same thoughts. His cheeks coloured and he stammered out a response to the question.

“Uh . . . no . . . we . . . uh . . .”

Billy was afraid that in his anxiety, Bearman might say the wrong thing. He knew he should help. But what should he say? It didn’t matter. He had to say something.

“It’s for a play,” he lied quickly. “We’re doing a play about the outdoors and we’re looking for costumes.”

“Oh, what’s it called?” The woman started toward the racks of shirts.

“Uh . . .” Billy paused. “Uh . . . it’s called . . . Murder in the Forest . . . It’s about a murder.”

“In the forest,” Bearman added.

Billy stepped closer to the woman and lowered his voice confidentially. “We play the killers.”

“Awfully young for killers,” the woman said as she pulled a heavy, checked blue shirt off the rack. “Mighty young killers if you ask me.”

“Yeah, well they . . . uh . . . give us makeup to look older,” Billy said. “We murder our partner for the gold we found up in the mountains.”

“Sounds pretty good,” she said, “sort of like the Lost Lemon Mine legend.”

“The what?” Billy looked at the woman.

Bearman poked him in the ribs. “Yeah, something like that, except . . . uh . . . different.”

“It’s very interesting,” Billy assured the woman.

Several minutes later they had a bag filled with shirts, pants and a jacket for each of them. Bearman had winked at Billy as he pulled a jacket off a hanger that looked almost exactly like the one he already owned, minus the dirt. He seemed to be over Billy’s remark that had made him so angry before.

“Thanks a lot for the help,” Bearman told the woman as he led Billy toward the door.

“No problem.” The big lady’s mouth opened in a wide smile. “Always like to help out with drama. That’ll be eight dollars all together.”

“What?” Bearman gasped. “I thought these were free for people who need ’em.”

“They are . . . for the needy. But for groups there’s a small charge.”

“We . . . we haven’t got eight dollars,” Bearman told the woman.

“Doesn’t your drama group have a budget for costumes?” The woman was still smiling. “Eight dollars isn’t very much.”

Bearman didn’t say anything. He seemed to be out of ideas.

Billy tried to think of something to tell her. “There . . . isn’t any money for costumes. It’s . . . uh . . . a free show.”

“Oh . . .” The woman’s forehead creased as she thought for a minute. “Well, in that case, you better just take them. Funny, I never heard anything about any play going on.”

“Yeah . . . well . . .” Bearman sputtered, “we . . . just started practising and . . .”

“Rehearsing,” Billy corrected.

“Yeah,” Bearman nodded, “rehearsing and . . . uh . . .”

“They haven’t started advertising yet,” Billy finished up.

“Yeah,” Bearman nodded. “Anyway, thanks again.”

The two boys exchanged looks as they turned once more for the door.

“Oh, and one other thing.” The woman’s voice stopped them. “If you should see those two kids that did a number on that gang of punks at Long Valley, tell ’em there was a Mountie in here this morning askin’ if I’d seen anybody like that. The Mountie said he figured they’d probably run off to the city, but if they didn’t find them in a few days, they’d start searching the woods. If you happen to see them, you tell them that people are looking for them — they’d be about your ages — so, you know, if you run into them while you’re rehearsing, what was it? . . . Murder in the Forest?”

Neither of the boys turned back to look at the woman when she’d finished speaking. “Yes ma’am,” Bearman said as he reached for the handle of the door, “we’ll tell ’em.”

“Bye,” Billy added as they quickly left the store.

Back in the pick-up, Billy’s voice was shaking as he said, “What do we do? The police are after us.”

Bearman rolled a cigarette with one hand. “You were a lot better liar in there than you were with the pie lady.”

Billy shrugged. “I had more time to work on my story. Besides, I don’t think we fooled her a bit. That last thing she said proves she knows exactly who we are. And now we’ve got the police to worry about.”

“So? We knew they’d be lookin’ for us, didn’t we? All we do is stay hidden where we are. They look for us, they don’t find us, then they give up and leave us alone.”

“You think so?”

“And you know why they don’t find us?” Bearman lit the cigarette. “Because we’re tucked away like two little cozy bugs in our treehouse.”

Billy rummaged through the bag of clothes and pulled out a checkered shirt like the one Bearman wore. He unbuttoned the shirt he’d been wearing and replaced it with the new one. “By the way, what’s the Lost Lemon Mine?”

Bearman nodded his approval at the shirt. “Like the lady said,” he answered, “it’s a legend. A couple of guys supposedly found gold. Not far from here, up in the mountains. One guy — Lemon — killed the other one, a guy named Blackjack. But before he could make his claim, he went crazy, maybe guilt, who knows? Anyway there’s supposed to be an Indian curse on anyone who tries to find the mine.”

“Sounds like a good place to avoid.”

Bearman shrugged, then guided the pick-up slowly out onto the street.

“Speaking of places to avoid,” Billy said, turning to face Bearman, “do you really think it’s such a good idea to go to your dad’s . . .”

“I said we’re going.” Bearman gripped the steering wheel hard and there was an unpleasant edge to his voice. “End of story. We’re going . . . tonight.”

Billy sat back in the seat and looked out the window on his side of the truck but didn’t see much as they drove out of town.