It was not a happy morning for Frenchy and his pals.

Although Matt’s quick thinking in getting Larry and Frenchy to the lake to wash some of the pepper spray off their faces had eased the pain to some degree, neither of them had been in very good shape, even after an hour or more of lake water. Neither of them was thinking clearly, and Matt was stumped about what to do. Finally, he just hauled them back to Frenchy’s; he knew Frenchy’s parents didn’t care much about what happened and rarely checked in on him. Larry often spent the night out with Frenchy, or someone else, so his not coming home would be less of a hassle than him coming home in the condition he was in, and Matt figured his parents wouldn’t ask questions if he didn’t show up.

Now Matt wasn’t too bad; his face still felt like he had a mild sunburn, and once again he was very thankful that he’d had his wraparound sunglasses on, or the three of them would be in a worse pile of shit than was already the case. Frenchy and Larry were at least coherent, although still in considerably more pain than Matt.

Needless to say, Frenchy was absolutely livid over what had happened. “My God, can you believe those fuckin’ fuckers pulling that fuckin’ shit on us like that? ” he said not once but at least a hundred times. “We gotta kick their fuckin’ asses for fuckin’ with us like that,” was repeated almost as often. After a while, there wasn’t much new that could be said in response.

But the phrase heard most often was “Fuck, I feel like fuckin’ shit,” and it was coming from both Frenchy and Larry.

Finally, almost in desperation, Matt had a suggestion: “Frenchy, why don’t you go get a twelve or two from that stash you hid last night? We could get some ice, throw some salt in it to cool the beer more quickly. A few nice cold beers might make all of us feel better.”

“No shit,” Frenchy said. “We ought to be out hunting those fucks down right now, but I’ll be damned if I want to with all of us hurting this bad.” He thought it over for a moment. He didn’t feel much like driving, but taking Matt or Larry would reveal the location of the new stash. Well, after last night, if he couldn’t trust them, just who could he trust? It wasn’t a difficult decision. “All right,” he said finally, “Matt, you drive my car, I fuckin’ hurt too much to do it myself. You coming Larry?”

“Might as well, it beats sitting around here hurting by myself.” Larry winced.

The Eagle still smelled of pepper spray, a smell that none of them wanted to be reminded of for the next decade or so. It wasn’t too bad with all the windows rolled down, and the three of them took off across town.

Frenchy told them that the hiding place was out at the old lumberyard, and that he got into the place by going up the railroad access road; Matt knew both reasonably well, and there was little conversation on the way except for Frenchy muttering about kicking some ass. As they got close, Matt broke in to ask where the stash was.

“In that little old shed,” Frenchy replied. “You turn here.”

Matt made the turn, and drove up the faint two-rut through the weeds.

“Fuck!” Frenchy swore. “I fuckin’ locked that fuckin’ door! Some fuckin’ motherfucker has fuckin’ stole my beer! ”

Oh, my God, Matt thought, his heart sinking along with his vision of a few cold, refreshing beers. This is not going to be pretty.

While Frenchy was swearing and ranting, Matt was at least thinking. He stopped the car, got out, and went up to look in the shed. “Fuckin’ empty,” he yelled at Frenchy. “There ain’t a fuckin’ can in here.”

“Aw, fuck!” Frenchy said. “Now just who the fuck would have done something like this? I mean until just now, nobody knew I had the beer here.”

“Somebody must have,” Matt said, examining the hasp of the door lock, which still had the padlock dangling from it. It was pretty clear that someone had taken a wrecking bar to the door; they could see the marks. “That ain’t no tire iron track,” he said. “It was a real crowbar, and most people don’t carry those around with them.

“I wouldn’t put it past that fuckin’ Frankovich,” Frenchy snorted, “but how the fuck would he have known it was here?

“I don’t know,” Matt said. “My guess is that either somebody saw this shed locked and figured if it was locked there must be something worthwhile in it, or someone saw you putting it here.”

“Well, fuck,” Larry said. “Shit, I was looking forward to some beer.”

“Yeah, no fuckin’ shit,” Frenchy agreed. “The fuck of it is that I don’t even have the money to make another beer run, now. Jesus, I would like to lay my hands on the fucker that did this. Shit, there ain’t no sense in standing out here in the hot fucking sun. Let’s fucking get out of here.”

They started back to the car when Matt noticed something. “Hey, wait,” he said. “Look at that,” he said, point at the ground.

“Look at what, you dumb fuck?” Frenchy said.

“That tire track you’re almost standing in,” Matt told him. “Ain’t that a knobby tire like you’d find on a Jeep or something? ”

“Shit,” Frenchy said. “That fucking Erikson and his fucking Jeep, I’ll just damn bet. That fucker is always farting around in the woods with his binoculars, he could have been a long ways away and I would have never seen him. Fuck! ”

“Might not have been him,” Matt pointed out. “There’s more than one fucking Jeep in this town.”

“Yeah,” Frenchy said, “but after hosing us down with that pepper spray shit last night, he’s number one on the list of people that need to have their ass really kicked good.”

“Frenchy, I can’t disagree with you,” Matt said, “and I didn’t get hosed the way you did. But let me just ask you this: do you really want to walk into that pepper spray again?”

“Oh, fuck,” Frenchy nodded. “Yeah, I don’t need any more of that shit. But that doesn’t mean that the fucker still doesn’t need his ass kicked.”

Once the Eriksons and the Hvalcheks were finished with Judge Dieball, they all went back to the Erikson house to make plans for the next few days.

“I still think you kids loading up your stuff and heading out to the hunting cabin for a couple of days is a good idea,” Jim Erikson said. “But maybe I’m just overly paranoid.”

“I’d be reluctant,” Marilyn Hvalchek said. “You’re talking about Jack and Vixen, right?”

“And Howie,” Jim said. “Apparently he’s on their hit list, too.”

“A bunch of kids together like that, far out in the woods, with no possible help at hand if they got discovered?” Marilyn protested. “It doesn’t sound very good to me.”

“Well, you need a Jeep to get out there,” Jim explained. “The road in is that bad. It’s why we have a Jeep, after all. I doubt very much if LeDroit and his friends have access to a Jeep, and if they did, they probably don’t know where the cabin is.”

“Dad, I think you’re overdoing it,” Jack said. “Vixen, Howie and I all have the pepper spray. It worked like a charm last night and it’ll work again. Besides, I don’t know how anxious Frenchy and his buddies will be to face it again. From what I saw and what I’ve heard, they were hurting pretty badly when we left them last night.”

“Yeah, you may be right,” Jim conceded. “All right, I’ll back off on the hunting cabin for now, but if anything else happens I may change my mind. I’d be just as happy if you kids got out of sight and stayed out of sight. That means you too, Howie.”

“Aw, nuts,” Howie said. “I was sort of planning on hanging out with Misty this afternoon.”

“No reason you can’t,” Jim said. “My day is already loused up, I’m planning on staying home anyway. You kids can play Nintendo all you want to.”

Howie seemed a little disappointed at the announcement, but promised to call Misty and have her ride her bike over.

“Well, Vixen,” Marilyn said, “I guess there’s no reason you can’t spend the afternoon here, too. That way maybe at least I can get some work in. At least for once I won’t have to worry about you.”

“Hey,” Larry said, “I got an idea.”

“Something brilliant, I hope,” Frenchy snorted.

“I don’t know how brilliant,” Larry replied, “but I do know a guy down in Albany River who might, and I say might, get a twelve of beer for us. That’d at least give us the chance to settle down and think a little.”

“You sure he can get us beer?” Frenchy asked.

“I don’t know,” Larry said. “I’m not even sure I can find him at this time of day, but all we can do is look and ask. The worst he can do is turn us down if I can find him.”

“It’s probably a waste of time,” Matt shook his head.

“So what else we got?” Larry argued. “Anybody got any better ideas? ”

“Well, shit,” Jack said as he and Vixen were sitting on the back porch after lunch – not a particularly good one, but at least it was filling. “I guess we can spend the afternoon checking out the bird feeders again. We might even see something new. We can hit the Point some other day.”

“Fine with me,” she told him. “After last night, I’m not sure how bad I want to be out and around anyway.”

“Yeah, me either,” Jack said, but nodded at the living room, where Howie and Misty were deeply involved in the beep-beep-beep-CRASH of the Nintendo. “On the other hand, I’m not sure how bad I want to put up with that all afternoon, either.”

They were interrupted by Jack’s father. “Hey, Jack,” he said, “you’ve got a phone call. It’s Alan.”

“OK, be right there,” he said, heading inside to the kitchen phone, with Vixen following along behind. The receiver of the phone had been left on the counter; Jack picked it up and spoke, “Hey, Alan, what’s happening this afternoon?”

“I should ask you that,” Alan said. “According to what’s going around, you and Vixen are the ones with the stories to tell.”

“Not much,” Jack replied, “except that we went down this morning and applied for a personal protection order like you have.”

“Shit, I hope that works,” he replied. “At least that bear spray you came up with seems to.”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Jack replied. “Except that it’s just like I said, I’m afraid we’ve probably just pissed them off a lot more. So what have you got on your mind?”

“Summer and I have been sitting here talking it over,” Alan replied. “We’re both getting a little sick of sitting inside and wasting some nice days. We’d like to get out somewhere, but under the circumstances we don’t want Frenchy finding us, either. Anyway, we got to talking about that little pond that you said you and Vixen had been out to the other day, and it seemed to me that it’s the kind of place that Frenchy and his buddies would never go.”

“I doubt if they could find it,” Jack said. “It’s really back in the woods, and the two-rut getting to it is bad enough that you really need a Jeep to get back there, anyway.”

“I kind of got that impression when the two of you were talking about it,” Alan said. “What I thought was that the four of us could head back there, go swimming, let the two of you show us a little about bird watching, hang around, maybe build a fire later and have hot dogs or something. It’s about the safest thing I can think of to do.”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “It does beat the hell out of the idea of sitting around the house listening to Howie and Misty bang away on the Nintendo all afternoon. The only problem I can see is that Frenchy and his buddies could find us while we’re heading out there.”

“Big deal,” Alan snorted. “There’s four of us, the two of you have bear spray and I have a can. What’s more, I have that personal protection order. If Frenchy wants to go to jail so bad that he’ll face that order and three cans of that stuff, maybe we should let him try something.”

“Yeah, you might have a point,” Jack said. “As far as that goes, I could probably borrow Howie’s can, so we’d each have one. We’d still have to get the hot dogs and stuff, though.”

“No big problem,” Alan replied. “As far as we know Frenchy and his buddies aren’t after Summer, not yet, anyway. We can make a list and have her go to the Super Market for what we need, pop and hot dogs and stuff.”

“You make it sound pretty appealing,” Jack said, “but Dad is home, and I really should bounce the idea off him. Off Vixen, too, for that matter.”

“So go do it,” Alan said. “I can wait.”

“You done good, Larry,” Frenchy beamed as they headed back to Spearfish Lake, with Matt still behind the wheel of the Eagle. “Fuckin’ Budweiser for once, even! None of that cheap Pabst or Blatz or Schlitz crap. And cold, too.”

“I was wondering if I was going to be able to pull it off,” Larry admitted. “Look, I don’t want to try to tell you what to do, but if the cops are still coming by your place every now and then it might not be the best idea to be out on your front porch drinking it. We need to find some place out in the boonies where we ain’t gonna be bothered.”

“Yeah, good idea,” Frenchy agreed. “You guys are thinking today, and I know just the place. Matt, you know the gravel road shortcut into town?”

“Yeah,” Matt replied. “I ain’t been using it much since it’s gotten pretty rough and I don’t know why the fucking county can’t get around to grading it.”

“Head up it,” Frenchy said. “After about a mile, slow down, and I’ll point a two-rut out to you. It comes out on the river, there’s a nice little sandy spot that ought to be shady and nice.”

“I think I know where you’re talking about,” Matt agreed. “You’re right, that should be a pretty decent place to have a few.”

Even though it was fun to be with Misty, Howie felt like there was something missing, and he knew what it was. After spending all afternoon at the pond yesterday making out with Misty, it seemed something of a comedown in life to be playing Nintendo with her again in the living room. Not that he minded playing Nintendo or being with Misty, but there was just no way that this afternoon measured up to the previous one.

He knew his dad had gone out to the shop and was assessing the chances of being caught if he and Misty did a little mild making out when the phone rang. He paused the game and said to her, “I guess I better get that.”

It proved to be Mike again. “Hey, dude,” he said, “the story around town is that your brother kicked Frenchy’s ass last night.”

“Not quite,” Howie said. “Frenchy was coming after Jack, so Vixen zapped him with some pepper spray. I guess he didn’t like it much.”

“Guess not,” Mike laughed. “God, I’ve been lucky to not get into it with him or his buddies, but it’s good to see someone give it to him. Anyway, the reason I called is that it’s a little dull around here and I don’t know what Jeff is up to. Would you like to hang out, maybe play some Nintendo?”

“Afraid I can’t,” Howie told him. “Dad’s here, and I’m sort of laying low right now. Uh, Frenchy’s got it in for me a little, too, so he doesn’t want me going outside.”

“What, that deal the other day with Misty Frankovich?” Mike laughed. “I sorta heard you got your butt kicked.”

“Well, a little,” Howie told him. “Not real bad. I got lucky.”

“The word is that you’re hanging out with Misty quite a bit,” Mike laughed. “She is a cute little shit, isn’t she? You getting any of that? ”

Well, here it was, Howie thought. He hadn’t expected that secret to keep this long. Now, he had to admit something to Mike, but he remembered Misty’s warning to not be blabbing it to his friends or it was the end of the making out. That was something that he didn’t want to lose. The best recourse he could think of was simple: lie. “We’ve just been hanging out,” Howie said. “Playing some games and like that. We went swimming yesterday. No hot and heavy stuff.”

“Fuck, if I was you I’d be trying to get to the hot and heavy stuff,” Mike laughed. “In fact, I’ll bet you were making out with her when I called, so I’ll let you go back to what you were doing. Do her once for me. Maybe we can all hang out sometime.”

Howie carefully hung up the phone before he snorted, “Asshole.”

“Who was that?” Misty asked.

“Mike Untermeyer,” Howie told her. “We’ve been hanging out a lot this summer. I don’t really like him all that much, but if it weren’t for him and a couple other guys it would have been awful lonely before you came along.”

“Well, I’ve come along now,” she said with a pout on her face. “You don’t need to be hanging out with assholes like that.”

“Yeah, but Misty,” he said, “they are my friends. I just can’t cut them off like that. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Well, you’ve got me for a friend, now,” she said, still pouting, hands on her hips. “If you just keep hanging out with bums like Mike, you might not have me much longer.”

“But Misty . . . ” he protested

“But nothing,” she smiled, and took him in her arms. “I love it when you have your arms around me, when you kiss me, when you play with my boobs. Wouldn’t you rather do that than hang around with a bunch of stupid boys?”

“God damn, that tastes good,” Larry said, sitting back on the edge of the bank with a can of Budweiser in his hand. “Man, I’ve needed the hair of the dog for days now.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Frenchy agreed. “God, now that I’ve got a beer in my hand I feel almost human again. I’d feel a hell of a lot better if we could figure out some way to take on those pukes without having to deal with that pepper spray shit again. Matt, those fucking wraparound shades of yours that you think make you look cool as shit may have gotten us out of even bigger trouble last night.”

“Yeah, after the way you were badmouthing them, too,” Matt snorted. “I don’t know if you knew it, but there were a bunch of people standing around laughing their asses off at us as I managed to stuff you guys in the car.”

“No shit?” Frenchy frowned. “That really is the shits. That just gives us even more reason to kick the fuck out of that fucking Erikson and that Hvalchek bitch. That’ll fuckin’ teach ’em to laugh at us.”

“That leads us right back to the pepper spray,” Matt nodded. “Granted, I had the shades on but it still hurt like fuck. Not as bad as you guys, but still. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to walk into that shit again without having something better than my shades.”

“Well,” Matt said thoughtfully, “there are goggles. My dad wears them out at the plant. That would at least keep that shit out of our eyes.”

“True,” Larry said, “but I didn’t get much in my eyes and I still was hardly able to do anything. We need to keep it off our skin, too.”

“Put a plastic bag over our heads?” Larry said. “That might work.”

“How the fuck are you going to breathe with a bag over your head, asshole?” Frenchy snorted. “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“It doesn’t have to be tight,” Larry protested. “Just enough to keep the spray out of our faces. Maybe we could cut a breathing hole or something.”

“Sounds good,” Matt nodded. “Hell, it’s not like we have to wear them all the time. All we have to do is wear them long enough to get our hands on that can of spray the Hvalchek bitch has, then we can give ’em both a dose of their own medicine, then we can beat the living fuck out of them.”

“God damn,” Frenchy smiled. “I like the way you think. That might work. I still ain’t too crazy about going into a fight with a plastic bag over my head. I still think we’d have problems breathing.”

“So,” Larry shrugged, “wear a dust mask, too. We can breathe through that and the mask probably wouldn’t let a lot of that pepper spray shit through. We could cut a hole in the plastic and duct tape it to the mask, and the goggles, too.”

Frenchy sat back and thought about it for a moment. “Yeah,” he said finally. “We can get all that shit at the hardware store, too. It’s got to work at least some, and once we get our hands on that can we can take our time beating the fuck out of them. I think it’ll work. Let’s polish off this beer and get our asses in gear.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “It’s gonna be our turn to kick some ass for once. We ain’t been doing too well at it recently.”

“Yeah,” Frenchy agreed. “Then we’ve got to figure some way to get some cash so I can make another beer run. I wish I knew where that fucking Erikson stashed the shit he stole from me.”

The mind boggles to think what Frenchy would have said if he’d known that he was less than fifteen feet from his missing twenty-four 12-packs of Schadler’s.

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