In spite of the less-than-ideal circumstances, though, the night had also been strangely grounding for Tean.As the edge wore off his terror, familiar sounds and smells started to register again: the dead leaves of the mahogany, and warm bodies and perspiration on a cold day, even the fresh-scraped earth beneath them.And as the violence of the gunfire faded, the gulley returned to something like its usual ecological rhythm: the rustle of something small—a lizard, a chipmunk—scampering through the grass; the sudden, startling crackle of dry brush; the nasal cry of a nighthawk.
How long had it been since he’d spent a night in nature?No exhaust from buses.No glaring security lights.None of that disorienting sense of suspension, as though they were all floating in an artificial haze that was neither day nor night but some third time where nothing moved but machines.
Not that Tean was going to tell Jem that, since Jem spent the first two hours imagining—and then trying to kill—spiders.
When gray finally lightened the sky, the sound of an engine broke the stillness.It was close, reverberating down the narrow span of the gully.Then it began to move away, fading until it was gone.
Jem’s breathing was still slow and deep, but his eyes were open to slits.
“Is he gone?”Tean whispered.
“One way to find out.”
“Does that way involve possibly getting yourself shot?”
With a grumpiness that probably had something to do with a distinct lack of McDonald’s coffee, Jem said, “Unless you have a better idea.”
“Maybe.Hold on.”
Tean wriggled free of the lean-to and moved down the length of the fallen mahogany.He’d spent enough time camping and hiking that he avoided the sticks that would snap underfoot, and he slowed when he had to pass through the growth of tall grass, trying to minimize the sound.His grandfather had wanted him to be a hunter.But the best way to hunt was to sit somewhere safe and warm and wait for something to be stupid enough to stick its neck out—a position Tean now had a new sympathy for.
On the far side of the gully, still hidden behind the fallen tree, he stripped off his jacket.Morning air coiled around him, pressing against his T-shirt.He found a good size stick, hung the jacket from the end, and then lifted it.Held at just the right angle, the jacket and stick might pass, from a distance, for a person who was crouched over and trying to climb the hill.
Tean inched forward.The ground felt frozen under his palm.The knees of his khakis immediately got wet.He bobbed the stick ahead of him, trying to simulate movement.
Nothing.
Maybe if he angled it a little higher.
He braced himself for the gunshot—a part of him imagined the bullet ripping through his jacket, tearing the stick from his hand.
The wind rose.Pine needles rustled, and the wind itself had a note to it, like the gully was an oversized recorder.The jacket swayed on the end of the stick.
Tean jiggled it.
Then, again.Harder.
And still nothing.
When he turned around, Jem was standing there, hands on hips.
“Jem, what are you— Get down!”
“It’s a good idea,” Jem said, considering the jacket.“But why did you make him dance?”
“What?”
“At the end.Like, was he nervous?What was going on inside his head?Did he have to pee?”
At that point, it became clear that no one—perhaps unfortunately—was going to shoot Jem.And, furthermore, that Tean was still on his knees, holding a stick.
Tean got to his feet, gave a single, dispirited attempt at brushing away the wet that had soaked his khakis around the knees, and yanked on his jacket.“How long have you been standing there?”
“Well—” Jem stopped.Scratched his beard.Gave one of his absolutely guiltiest smiles—the ones that, for everybody else, somehow still seemed so innocent and charming.“Thirty seconds?”
Tean huffed and pushed past him.
“In my defense, I was learning,” Jem said.“I didn’t know you could give a stick man personality!Dreams!Aspirations!”