It really wasn’t all that cold out there that evening – it was early August, after all, and the temperature dropped down into the high sixties just before dawn. But as hot as it had been Darrell and Courtney were dressed for warmer temperatures, so they got chilled before it began to get light. They managed to find a place back under a pine tree that had low hanging limbs, and that helped them keep some of the dew off; huddling together tightly also helped them keep from getting colder than they already were.

By the time it started to get light in the east they were ready to give up, even if the cops found them. The thin tinge of the rising moon and the beginning of morning twilight gave them a little bit of light to help them find their way back out to the gravel road. “At least if the cops catch us,” Courtney said, “we’ll get a ride back to town.”

“I’d hate to have gone through what we did and still get caught,” Darrell commented, “but at least it might be warmer. Let’s go left when we get back to the road.”

“Left?” she frowned. “That just gets us farther from town.”

“If the cops are still looking, they’ll probably be looking that direction,” Darrell told her. “Besides, by going left it’s something less than a mile out to the state road with more traffic. Maybe we can hitch a ride.”

“Well, OK,” she sighed. “It’s just a little longer walk if we don’t. I’m just cold, and I want to get this over with.”

“Me too, Courtney. Me, too.”

They got out on the gravel road and started trudging toward the state road and the oncoming sunrise. Courtney was really dragging – if they’d gotten any sleep over the course of the night, it hadn’t been much – and Darrell kept trying to hurry her up, telling her that she’d feel warmer if she was more active.

It seemed like it took them forever to reach the state road, which was almost empty at that hour of the morning. There was nothing to do but to turn right and start walking toward Central Avenue. Fortunately, they didn’t have to go very far before an old pickup came sputtering by, and they were relieved to see the glow of the brake lights. It turned out that the truck was driven by a guy who worked in the woods over by Hoselton, and had some equipment that needed to be serviced before getting back to work on Monday. He was a talker, and never quite got around to asking what the two kids were doing hitching along the highway at that hour. He was even nice enough to take them to Courtney’s house, which was off Central Avenue not too far off the state road.

They both thanked the guy profusely, and Darrell decided to get out there, too. “It looks like we made it, Darrell,” Courtney said. “I couldn’t have done it without you. If I’m lucky I can sneak in before the folks wake up, and they won’t have to know I was out all night.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Same here. I know it was tough on you, but you hung in there. If you hadn’t it could have been worse.”

“Thanks, Darrell,” she replied. “Right now I just want to go get in bed, pull the covers over me so I can warm up and sleep till afternoon. But maybe later, let’s get together and hang out at the Frostee Freeze or something.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” he said. Until now he’d mostly thought of Courtney as a good-time girl who liked to party, but over the course of the night she’d proved she had some stronger stuff in her. “I want to sleep until this afternoon too, but I’ll give you a call later on.”

“Good,” she smiled, then turned and gave him a quick kiss. “See you then.”

Though the days are getting shorter in early August, sunrise still comes pretty early in Spearfish Lake, and often there are not a lot of people awake to see it. Though Jack Erikson often liked to get up even before that hour to check out bird activity, and Vixen was getting to feel the same way, both were sound asleep when the sun rose. It turned out that the racing program had taken longer than they anticipated, and they stayed at the Camden Raceway with Vixen’s folks until the last lap had been run, and then stopped at an all-night restaurant on the way back to complete their fill of junk food.

Thus, it was after midnight when they got back, and both of them headed straight to bed, silently wishing that it didn’t have to be alone. Considering everything, Jack decided that this was no night to set the alarm clock. It was getting close to nine in the morning before his internal clock decided that he’d waited long enough to get up and running. Deep in denial for a while, he finally sat up and discovered that he’d better hit the bathroom before deciding if he wanted to sleep some more.

Not really with it, he stumbled down the hall, to find the bathroom door closed. He mumbled a silent curse – the bathroom was starting to be necessary – and was just turning to head downstairs when the door opened and Howie came out. “Hi,” he said. “So how was the racing?”

“Pretty good, better than I expected,” Jack yawned. “So did anything happen up here while we were gone?”

“Yeah, a little,” Howie grinned. “You know the football team’s pre-practice beer bust? The cops raided it.”

That woke Jack up better than a thermos of strong coffee. “You’re kidding!”

“No way!” Howie smiled. “Misty and I saw Lenny Mundhenk getting hauled into the jail along with some of the other players. I had to take her home then, but I went back over, and it was a regular line of cop cars hauling them in, with a bunch of people standing around watching and giving them hell. I got the impression that they got most of the team and a bunch of cheerleaders.”

“Oh, boy,” Jack shook his head. “I’ll bet that’ll piss some people right off.”

“Yeah, for once I’m glad that I’m not on varsity. I don’t even want to think about what the folks would have said if I’d got caught up in that. If they decide to try to have another party like that next year, I think I’ll give it a pass.”

“That strikes me as pretty damn good thinking,” Jack smiled. “Hey, I’ve got to use the head. Catch you in a minute.”

A minute or two later, feeling much relieved, Jack gave some thought to going back to bed but decided he was too awake for that now. Might as well get dressed and give Vixen a call, he thought. I’ll bet she hasn’t heard about it and would like to know, at least if she’s up.

It took him a few minutes to get his clothes on and get down to the kitchen to see what was in the refrigerator. He found Howie working on a bowl of cereal and wearing his running clothes. “Going out for a run?” he asked.

“Yeah, I thought I’d eat something first. I need to get ready for practice, but I might just take a run past the cop shop and maybe a few of the varsity players’ houses to see if there are any bodies lying around.”

“There might be a few,” Jack observed, finding some freezer waffles. Those might go well, he thought, and tossed a couple in the toaster. “I’ll bet there are a few parents who would go off the handle about as bad as Mom and Dad.”

“It might shake things up a little,” Howie agreed as the phone rang. Since Jack was closer to the phone, he picked it up to discover it was Vixen. “Jack!” she said happily. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

“The football team’s beer bust got busted,” Jack smiled. “Howie was just telling me.”

“Yeah, I just got off the phone with Ashley, and she’s just about as happy as a vulture on a road kill. I’m sure glad we weren’t there, but it would have been fun to have seen it.”

“I doubt if the party is over yet,” Jack told her. “I’m just wondering what’s going to happen when Mrs. Wine finds out.”

“Oh, she has to know by now,” Vixen replied. “This is Spearfish Lake after all, and these things get around real fast. You want to get together and do something?”

Ashley was indeed busy. Even though she knew that most kids liked to sleep in on Sunday mornings – at least those who didn’t go to church – she also knew that some of her phone friends would be up, with news as hot as this was. The night before while she had still been feeling the effects of Lyle’s kiss and wishing things had gone further – possibly even much further – she’d thought ahead enough to set her alarm clock.

After only the bare minimum of getting organized, she headed out into the cool morning on the back porch, cell phone in hand. Her first call was to Heather Callahan, who it proved had heard about the party and the aftermath the night before. In fact, now that Ashley thought about it, she remembered Heather at the Frostee Freeze, so she must have known about it. Still, Heather had already made a few calls around to various class members, and she’d heard a few things. “From what I heard, there were some parents who were really pissed,” Heather told her. “It wouldn’t surprise me very much if Lanny Mundhenk’s folks don’t even allow him to play football.”

“Can I say my heart bleeds for him?” Ashley smirked. “I mean, he’s not as bad as Frenchy was, but he ran with him a lot. It’ll serve him right.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Heather agreed. “He’s always been a jerk, clear back into grade school. I haven’t talked with any of the kids who actually went to the party yet. I guess they must still be asleep, or at least their phones are off. There’s a lot of kids in trouble.”

“And most of them deserve it,” Ashley said. “God, you can’t believe how happy I was to see Alison DuQuoin led into the jail in cuffs, especially after Friday night when she was so busy rubbing my nose into the fact that I wouldn’t be going to the party.”

“Yeah, she’s snotty like that. Maybe that will teach her a lesson. Hey, I have to say that you were sticking pretty close to Lyle last night. I hadn’t heard about that before.”

“We’ve been hanging out a little,” Ashley admitted shyly, trying to cover up the fact that she really wanted the word out that she had a boyfriend. Maybe he wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but Lyle was a pretty nice guy, and it was a lot better than she’d had before, which had been a lot of nothing. “We went down to Camden and caught a movie yesterday afternoon before I had to go to work. I think we’re going to get together a little later and hang out some more.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see you at the Frostee Freeze,” Heather said.

“Probably not,” Ashley said. “I spend enough time there as it is.” Even as she said it, she wasn’t real sure about how bad she meant it. It would be nice to have a few more people see the two of them hanging out – it would help spread the word that she wasn’t an oversized loser who couldn’t get a date. Once again, Lyle wasn’t exactly Scotty Parsons, but then, she and Lyle had been watching when Scotty went to jail, so maybe Scotty wasn’t quite as appealing as he had seemed only a few days before. “But then again, we might drop by,” she added. “We haven’t worked out anything yet.”

The two of them talked on the phone a while longer, mostly exchanging information; Heather was as bad a gossip as Ashley, and she’d heard a few more tidbits. Finally, Ashley said, “Hey, I guess I’d better call Laurel.”

“Her phone was off a few minutes ago,” Heather said, proving that she’d already been busy talking that morning. “I know she put in the day at the Fiesta station and then delivered pizzas last night, so she’s probably asleep and missing all the news.”

“Well, I’ll hold off for a while, then,” Ashley said. After the call ended, she wondered who she ought to call next, but her heart really wasn’t in it. She set the phone in her lap and thought about Lyle – about the kiss the night before, the feel of his hand on her breast, and about the promise to get together one day next week when their folks were working and continue on. There seemed to be the hope of getting a little more physical in that, maybe a lot more physical – who knew? It was something she’d dreamed about for years, and now seemed like it was almost in reach.

Once again she re-lived the scene in the car the night before, glorying in the excitement that she’d felt. All of a sudden, a whole new world seemed open to her, and it was going to involve some thinking about where she was going with him and how fast she wanted to get there. If – and it was still an if – something long term could be worked out, it was going to involve some decisions about what she wanted to do, and not just the physical things, either.

All of a sudden, calling Laurel didn’t seem quite as important. She picked up the phone again and punched Lyle’s number instead.

Spearfish Lake is a fairly small town, but since it’s a county seat there are some lawyers around town – four of them not counting Judge Dieball, to be precise, although one was semi-retired. All of them were getting phone calls by that time; any hope of a quiet Sunday morning was shot in the butt for them. Pat Roberts was the one who drew the call from George Battle, or at least was the first one George called whose phone wasn’t busy.

It wasn’t the first Sunday morning phone call that Roberts had received in his years as an attorney in Spearfish Lake. He waited a while for Battle’s raging and fuming about his daughter’s arrest the night before to die down a little, then told him, “Look, it’s like this. There probably isn’t much I can do to help her, especially if the police have a positive breathalyzer test on her. That’s considered prima facie evidence, like getting caught by a radar gun in a speed trap. There might be a technicality along in there somewhere, but if the police were at all careful there might not be, so most likely you’d be throwing money down a rat hole. Look, this is a first offense, right?”

Battle admitted that it was, and Roberts went on, “Really, then, she’d be best off to just plead guilty at the hearing tomorrow and get it over with. She’s not going to be doing time on a first offense, especially as a minor. She’ll get a fine, probably not real large, some community service, maybe some loosely supervised probation. Since she’s under eighteen, none of it will go on an adult record. You just have to consider it a lesson learned for her, and maybe she’ll be a little more careful in the future.”

That wasn’t cutting it, not with Battle anyway. “It’s an outrage that the sheriff should be hauling in kids wholesale like that,” he fumed. “I mean, kids are kids and fun is fun. Didn’t you do something like that when you were a kid?”

“Well, yeah, but it was a little different back then, and I was lucky enough to not get caught. But I’ll tell you what, there’s a saying that goes around the prison system: ‘You do the crime, you do the time.’ It could be a whole lot worse.”

“It’s ridiculous that the cops could get away with something like this,” Battle replied. “They shouldn’t be allowed to do those kinds of things. I mean, why weren’t they out doing something important? They had to go crazy with overtime to have as many officers on duty as I saw last night.”

“Probably because they thought they needed them to handle that many kids,” Roberts told him, getting tired of the conversation. Battle wasn’t exactly listening to reason, not that he had much of a reputation for doing that anyway.

“It’s just a waste of good tax dollars!” Battle replied angrily. “This kind of overbearing police presence can’t be allowed to stand. If you won’t help me fight this I’ll just have to find someone who will.”

“Good luck,” Roberts said just before the phone slammed in his ear. He just shook his head. It was most likely that any of the other attorneys in Spearfish Lake would tell him pretty much the same thing; in fact, any good attorney would. There might be some shyster down in Camden who would talk a good fight and write a big bill, but given the evidence and the circumstances the outcome would be just the same – and probably worse. Most judges, Dieball included, would go lightly on a quick guilty plea on a case like this, but if it came to trial and the whole thing dragged on for weeks, the kid was going to be found just as guilty – and draw a stiffer sentence.

Some people just have to learn the hard way if they learn at all, he shook his head as the phone rang again. It’s going to be a long morning, he thought as he reached for it. So much for my golf date.

Amazingly enough – especially for Spearfish Lake – Brandy didn’t know about the arrests yet. She and Phil had spent the evening with Jennifer and Blake, and Danny and Debbie, along with their kids. Blake and Jennifer’s kids Jeremy and Cheyenne were just a little older than Danny and Debbie’s Sky and Hunter, and it was fun to watch them all even though the evening was full of second thoughts as such evenings usually were.

Brandy and Phil had thought about having kids from time to time, but they’d never quite gotten around to it. She was forty-six now, and unless they got crazy and adopted or something it was too late to do anything about it. Most of the time Brandy felt it was just as well; her nieces and nephews did a fair job of filling that hole, and when it came time to go home they didn’t have to take the kids with them. It wouldn’t be long before those same kids were teenagers, and Brandy had enough hassles with teenagers to keep her happy, thank you.

When she and Phil made it home, and alone, they pretty much went to bed, but not with the intention of getting much sleep, and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly in the process. They slept in a little in the morning, knowing that busier days were coming and that this would be the last chance she would have to relax for a while. Very often they went out to breakfast, especially on weekend mornings, but neither of them were in the mood for that, so they settled for cereal and toast, which strained the limits of their cooking ability.

Phil’s dogs needed training, Sunday or not. Since Phil was going to be headed out to the dog barn she figured she’d spend a little time making notes about some of the things she was going to have to do in the morning of her first official day as the high school principal. Hopefully their chores wouldn’t eat up too much time, she thought; maybe they could plan on spending a relaxing afternoon together, although given Phil’s involvement with the dogs that was seldom anything to be depended on.

Just as Phil was getting set to head out the door, the phone rang. After Brandy answered, it proved to be John Archer, who had been a long-time friend going back to high school days; now that he was president of the school board he was at least something of a superior, although for anything official he was supposed to work through the superintendent, Coach Hekkinan. She was hoping that the new relationship wouldn’t cause any problems with their friendship. “Good morning, John,” she said brightly. “What’s happening with you today?”

John brushed off the friendly greeting. “In case you’re interested, I have the full list of kids who were arrested in that incident last night, and the list of charges. I thought you might find it useful.”

“Huh? What incident?”

“It seems the football team decided to hold a beer bust last night, and the sheriff raided it,” he reported. “They hauled forty-three kids, football players and some girls, mostly cheerleaders, to jail. Cody said that most of them have been released to their parents, but there are still some who are being held for one reason or another.”

“No shit?” she said. “That’s the first I heard of it.”

“Hell, it’s all over town. I figured someone must have told you about it by now.”

“No, we went to bed early and just got up,” she told him. “I’ll have to find out more about it.”

“Well, Cody was one of the officers involved, and he could probably tell you more than I can. I figured this was something you ought to know about.”

“Yeah, it is,” she replied. “John, after the deal with Cody a couple years ago you ought to know that there’s not much I can do about it as principal.”

“I know that,” the school board president replied, “but I also remember reading over the Athletic Code of Conduct when we approved amendments a few months ago, so there might be some things you should do as Athletic Director.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m not awake enough yet to have remembered that,” she said, awareness of the point he was getting at coming to her. “And I can think of a number of ways it might be useful. Phil is about to go out and work with the dogs a little, and I really ought to get a few errands run. Maybe I could stop by your place and talk with you and Cody.”

“We’re not planning on going anywhere, at least this morning,” he replied. “We’ll see you in a while.”

“Right, sometime in the next hour or so,” she replied.

After she hung up the phone, Phil asked, “That sounded interesting.”

“Yeah, it was,” she replied, and gave him the gist of what John had said. “It’s not exactly bad news. Sometimes you go to the bear, and sometimes the bear comes to you.”

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.