The Grounding of Group 6 Read online

  “No, I don’t,” said Levi instantly. “And that’s because there ain’t none. Ask me what I think, I’d say that hippie just bamboozled you, but good.” In times of stress and failure, Levi Welch fell back on us-and-them: them dang-fool city people.

  “Well, I, for one, have better things to do than stand around this godforsaken mountain all day long,” said Homer Cone. “Levy, you just zip on back to school like Doctor said, and get that Rover. Meanwhile, Mrs. Ripple and myself will start on down that road we spoke about, and you can come around and pick us up.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Levi, snapping hand to hat brim, regulation. “I’ll do that right away, sir. Unless that dang transmission’s acting up again …” He quickly disappeared from view as he said that, so no one up the hill could see his wily smile. Homer Cone could use a little exercise, that big-mouthed, round-headed lard-ass. Oh, he’d teach him a lesson, sure as Bob’s your uncle.

  Nat didn’t move a muscle. Slowly, Homer Cone and Mrs. Ripple clambered down the slope and disappeared upstream. He figured that the road that Cone had mentioned was certainly the one that went across the stream where that old bridge had been, and then continued through a sugar bush. That’s the way that he’d have gone, if he were going back to school by road. Levi Welch—Nat didn’t know his name or Cone’s or care—would cut back through the woods, the way they must have come. Nat figured he would wait till ten o’clock before he moved—another forty minutes. By then, he figured, he could loop around the school and scoot on back to Spring Lake Lodge, and never be in range of any of those rifles. The execution of the muskrat, more than anything, had made him see (once and for all) that this…this “happening” was not a joke, some play, but deadly serious. People who were not Viet Cong or Nazis or Iranians—or even Arnold’s uncle—were not just out to kill him, they were anxious to. And the same thing with Group 6. He’d talked to Mrs. Ripple at the school. He could see she was a lady, a woman who had standards. Sure. A woman who would never shoot a person without reason. A woman who, if she were just to wound her prey, would track it for as long as need be, so she could make the kill. So as to end its suffering, of course.

  Coldbrook was some kind of little school, Nat thought. But Am had said that there’d been lots of Coldbrook-sorts-of-schools, for years and years and years. “Whatever happened to so-and-so?” How many times had someone said that to a friend? And gotten back the answer, “Oh, she or he just went away to school and I lost track of her or him.” Oh, yeah. Mmm-hmmm. You bet.

  The world was getting scarier by leaps and bounds. At ten A.M., he leaped and bounded off toward Spring Lake Lodge. He’d get there easily by two; he hoped the kids had kept their cool.

  At more or less eleven-thirty in the morning, Coke got out his bottle of white rum. Group 6 had finished breakfast long before, and talked about what was or was not happening to them till everyone was fed up with the subject. What they’d come to, in the end, was that they’d wait for Nat till noon, and if he wasn’t back by then, they’d get together and decide on something. As noon approached, and Nat had not appeared, Coke decided it was party time.

  He hadn’t had a lot to do all morning. Sara and Sully spent the time by getting wood: smaller pieces that they sawed to stove length and stacked back in the corner of the Lodge. Marigold was putting up her hair in lots of skinny braids, sitting by the pond in just a halter, with her shorts rolled up for maximum exposure. Ludi, leaning on a tree nearby, was playing music on a penny-whistle: clear notes and liquid melodies that seemed to match the morning. Every other tune or so, Marigold would sing along, not words, just singing; she had a light and childlike high soprano, a surprise.

  Coke lit up a Camel in the Lodge and came out with the bottle swinging in one hand: Cruzan Light, the Virgin Islands’ best. He brought some tropi-fruit drink mix, as well, to take the curse off the rum; he had no cubes, but there was lots of ice-cold water.

  Marigold twitched her nose and turned. “Well, well,” she said, “what have we here? Vice time in the Rockies? Adirondack high?” She switched into a city accent. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll have to ask you for some proof.”

  Coke grinned and lifted up the bottle, peered down at the label. “Eighty?” he replied. “That proof enough? P’raps mam-selle will join me? An aperitif?” He ogled her legs. “Heh-heh. I think I’ll have a panter’s punch.”

  “What have you got to mix it with?” she asked. “Oh—tropi-fruit. Of course. That’ll cover anything. O.K., big boy. But not too strong now, heah?”

  “Ludi?” Coke inquired, holding up the bottle. “Name your poison. Just so long as it’s rum punch.”

  She smiled. “No, thanks. Liquor puts me to sleep, and I’m not ready yet.” Coke rolled his eyes; she laughed. “Or maybe you’re just trying to shut me up. Is it time for me to stop?” She raised her eyebrows, holding up the little flute.

  “Hell, no,” said Marigold. “It’s really neat. You’re the entertainment, Lu.” She took the tin cup Coke held out to her. “What a blast.” She lighted up a Camel, made a face. “God, these are strong,” she said.

  Sully and Sara joined them.

  “Be my guest,” said Coke, with a wave toward his little bar. He thought he sounded like his father. Sara poured some punch into a cup. Sully did the same, then poured a little rum on top of it; he was relieved to see he wasn’t being watched by anyone.

  “Now this,” said Coke, “is camping. Prosit.” He held his cup toward each one of the others and smiled his foxy smile. Having a drink—having people for a drink—was making him feel powerful, in charge of life again. Ludi’d stopped the music and sat listening.

  “Hoo-wee,” said Marigold, through purple lips. “I’m getting bombed already.” She put her cup up to her ear and crossed her eyes.

  “Well, what say you?” Coke began. It was a joke, a mock, to use his father’s lines, but also they were easy, had a certain ring to them. “It’s almost noon and still no Nat. Tennis, anyone? Who would like the floor, or should I say the dirt, the ground, the surface of the earth?”

  “I vote we should stay,” said Ludi right away. “I think it’s beautiful up here, and we have food for two more days at least. And besides, I’m sure that Nat is coming back. Did I say that before?”

  “Well,” said Sully. “Nothing against Nat, but I think we ought to go back.” Drinking a drink was making him feel very responsible. “The way I look at it is—we have to be at school sooner or later anyway. And if it is part of our orientation, we’ll certainly look good for being so totally self-sufficient and all. That’s thanks to Sara, of course, who can find the way back, she says. She thinks.” He made a little smile in her direction; everyone was listening. “And if it isn’t what we’re meant to do, we can always come back here. Either way, we’re in good shape. That way.” He gave a small, self-conscious laugh.

  “O.K.,” said Coke. He took a stick and made two scratches on the ground—one on either side of the bottle. “That’s one for staying, one for going.” He looked at Marigold. “What do you say, legs?”

  “Moi?” said Marigold. She put a finger to her breastbone. “I guess that je don’t give a truffle either way. I like it fine up here, but just like Sully says, we can’t stay here forever.” Sully smiled. It was the first time he’d ever heard anyone say “just like Sully says” in his entire life. But Marigold then shook her head and scowled and waved a hand at all decisions. “Anything the rest of you decide is…okey-doke with me.” She giggled. “What do you think, Sare?”

  “Oh, gosh,” said Sara. “I can see what Ludi’s saying. I hate the thought of going down before we have to—just when we’re getting used to it up here. And we’ve got the Lodge…I don’t know, so nice and everything. I’m pretty sure that Nat is coming back, all right, but I also have the feeling that he’s been…I don’t know, held up somehow. His not leaving a note kind of makes me positive he meant to come straight back, you know? From wherever he went to. Before we’d get upset, or anything. I guess I’m pretty mu
ch for going back and seeing what the story is, at least.”

  “And I say make them come and get us,” snickered Coke. “To hell with them. And that”—he made two other scratch marks on the ground, then raised and drained his cup—“means that we’re deadlocked still: two to two, and one ‘don’t care.’ I guess it’s up to you, Godzilla,” he said to Marigold.

  “Poo,” she said. “To hell with that. I told you I don’t give a shit. I don’t. I won’t play Miz Almighty Mothuh, Coke.”

  “Well, in that case,” Sara said, “I guess I’m going to go. It doesn’t mean that other people have to, though I’d love it if we stuck together. It seems to me it’s worth it to find out.”

  “Hmmm,” said Coke. “But if any of us stayed here, we’d be…let’s face it, lost. I don’t know where the fuck we are.” He turned to Ludi. “Do you?”

  “No,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure I could find my way to somewhere.” She laughed. “I mean, someplace with a name—like a road or someone’s house or something. But if Sara and Sully are going for sure, then I will, too. I think Sara’s right—we ought to stick together. The other thing I think we ought to do is leave a note for Nat.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Marigold. She made adjustments in her shorts. “I’m going, too. ‘Naughty Nora nibbed a note to Nat on nutty Nina’s natty napery.’ Say that three times fast and you can stay here by yourself,” she said to Coke.

  “Fuck that,” said Coke. “You think I’d leave you three girls in the hands of a sex maniac like Sully?” Sully grinned delightedly. “One for all and all for one, and won’t a ten-mile hike be fun?” He turned his tin cup upside down, meaning he had finished drinking. What he felt was just a little buzzed and very fond of all the people in his group. Especially Marigold. “Wherever she goest-eth, I goeth, too.” He said that to himself.

  Ludi wrote the note they left, and nailed it on the cabin door:

  Monday, 1 P.M.

  Dear Nat,

  We couldn’t figure why you left or where you went to, so we’ve headed back to school to try to solve the mystery. Sara knows the way all right; we promise not to get lost.

  Hope to see you soon. Wish you were here.

  Love,

  Group 6

  When Nat huffed up to the Lodge and saw the note, and read it, his watch said 2:19.

  “Oh, Jeezum,” he said loudly. He closed his eyes and straightened up, his fists clenched by his sides. He opened his eyes and blinked, and swallowed hard. He read the note a second time.

  “Oh, Jeezum,” he repeated, and turned and trotted through the spruces, heading back toward Coldbrook Country School.

  4

  The hike from Spring Lake Lodge to Coldbrook Country School should take about four hours. That’s if you know the way, and if you don’t stop now and then for this and that, and if you aren’t acting slightly looped, and if you really want to get there in the first place. Or if, in other words, you aren’t going with Group 6.

  Sara saw, before they’d gone a quarter of a mile, that even though she was presumed to know the way to Coldbrook Country School, and meant to lead them to it, she was not in any other way to be the “leader.” Marigold took charge of rests, for instance.

  She’d learned somewhere—perhaps from calling cabs in New York City—to whistle with two fingers in her mouth: a piercing, sharp, authoritative sound. “O.K.,” she’d say, having gotten their attention, “this is a mandatory rest stop. Everybody just relax, and nobody gets hurt; comfort stations left and right; smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.” Rests would last from five to fifteen minutes, depending on the type and urgency of nature’s calls, and whether anyone had taken off her boots (perchance) to paddle in a nearby stream.

  Sully liked to play the mountain goat, galumphing down a slope full-tilt, grabbing little trees to slow himself sometimes, but mostly giving in to gravity. That meant he’d get ahead of them, and maybe angle off the line that Sara knew—or thought she knew—was best for them to take. If that happened, then the rest of them would have to stop and call for him and wait while he toiled back to where they were. After three such episodes, he read their eyes and cut it out.

  Once, when they were halfway there, they came upon a house. It was the sort of posh, remote vacation home that’s headed by the words “Executive Retreat” in real estate advertisements. The place was locked and vacant, the one house on a private road they later followed for a mile before it curved off in a way they didn’t want to go. All of them looked in the windows. It was a huge, chalet-type building, with three different sundecks and a lot of sliding doors by Thermopane. It was the sort of place their parents would have felt at home in right away, and also their parents’ children. Except for the fact that it didn’t have connections to the outside world. Ludi noticed that: no wires running out of it; and Sara pointed out the row of gas tanks in the back.

  “They probably use gas for cooking and hot water and the fridge,” she said. “There’s probably a gasoline generator in that little addition there. They can be real noisy, if they aren’t soundproofed right; we used to have one up in Maine. And, wow, look at that woodshed. They must heat the whole place with those Jotuls we saw.”

  “Yodels?” said Sully. “What do you mean?” And Sara smiled and gave him more or less what every boy should know, foreign-airtight-woodstove-wise.

  By the time they reached the school, then, it was after six o’clock. They’d come in from the back, instead of from the road side, and when they saw that they were really there, at last, some of them discovered they felt…strange. A funny kind of shy.

  “You think we ought to march right in?” asked Marigold. She’d taken off her pack and then unzipped it on the side. She was looking for her hairbrush, but not in any great big tearing hurry.

  “Yeah, I can just see it,” said Coke sourly. “I go, ‘Hi! I’m Coke DeCoursey. Hope you’re glad to see me back.’ And they go, ‘Coke DeCoursey? From Group Six? Oh, man, you’re meant to still be in the hills the next two days. What’s the matter with you anyway? Leader leave you by your lonesome, Cokie-Wokie? Oh, brother, where do they get you kids from anyway?’ I can just see it. They always ask you what’s the matter with you, but just try to tell them and see what happens: you’re a wise guy. That’d be strike one on us. And another school sinks slowly in the west.” The rum he’d drunk had left Coke feeling slightly headachy, and now, on top of that, he felt the rumble-worms of nervousness go curling through his stomach.

  Sara laughed. “Oh, Coke!” she said, and took a huge, slow-motion, roundhouse swing at him, which ended with a gentle fist-pat on his upper arm. “You’re such a pessimist. I swear. Look. If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll go in first and just sort of check it out. They’ve got enough new kids floating around so that no one’ll know who’s who or what’s what, yet. I’ll find out where we’re supposed to be, and then come back and tell the rest of you, O.K.? If the worse comes to the absolute worst, and we’re not supposed to be here, we can just go partway back tonight, and camp.”

  Sully nodded. That seemed good to him. Sara looked completely loose. And smart, and strong, and real good-looking. He still remembered how she’d looked that morning, with her fingers raking back her hair, and her smooth brown arms, and her nipples showing up against her T-shirt. She was just one of those people, it seemed to him, who always knew both what to do and how to do it. In some ways, that was more like a guy than a girl, he thought. His mother, for instance, had a lot of opinions on everything and a lot of dumb ideas, but she didn’t know how to do that much. Sara didn’t act like a dumb, bossy woman. But she sure had a girl’s body, and a girl’s eyes, the way she looked at you. It was different than any way a guy ever looked at you. Her look kind of hit you in a different place, so that you felt a little neat…“connection” with her. Not anything exactly physical, like touching or feeling would be, but just a sort of nice awareness, you might say. It was nice to look back and forth with a girl like Sara.

  Ludi di
dn’t nod. She was feeling really funny, and had no idea just what the feeling meant, except that it was rotten. “I’ll walk with you a little ways,” she said to Sara, when she saw that everyone agreed with Sara’s plan. They left the other three, and both their packs, inside the woods, and started out across the Coldbrook fields.

  “I know that this is going to sound ridiculous,” said Ludi, “but I want you to promise me you’ll be real careful, Sare. Like, if anybody asks you who you are, make up a name, all right? Tell them you’re Mary Mason, or something. And if anything seems the least bit strange—just not the way it should be—you get out of there toot sweet, O.K.? You promise?”

  Sara stopped and turned toward Ludi, and she saw that Ludi’s huge dark eyes were full of tears. “Hey, what’s the matter, Lu?” she said. “I’m just going into our school.”

  Ludi shook her head, and put a hand on Sara’s arm, and twitched her lips into a smile. “I know,” she said. “I’m being silly. I get these feelings sometimes, I don’t know. Just promise me, O.K.? Then I’ll feel better, anyway. And it never hurts to be careful.”

  “Sure,” said Sara, and she put her hand on Ludi’s hand, but she didn’t pat it, the way she would a kid’s. Ludi was short and slender and looked young, but she seemed mature to Sara. Like a woman friend might be. “Sure,” she said again. “And I’ll be back inside half an hour, I imagine. I’ll be O.K., Lu.”

  And she smiled and turned away and walked off quickly toward the school. She thought she’d managed to conceal the fears she felt, just the way her father always wanted her to do.

  A bunch of things that Sara did were what her father wanted her to do. And certain of her tendencies and talents seemed, to other people, lots like his. “You get that from your father,” was her mother’s line, delivered with a smile, as if it was a compliment. Sara’d thought it was a compliment, the ultimate, for years. She was, at least, her father’s girl—if not her father’s boy that he’d expected her to be.