Chapter 22

While Autumn hadn’t made any plans for the day, it was clear that she had to get out of the house. Well, maybe she could go hang out with Bree or with Howie. In fact, hanging out with Howie seemed like a pretty good idea, even though she knew he had things to do, mostly a workout. Well, it was worth a try, even though it was pretty early. After all, she had a car now; it wasn’t like she was stuck at home.

With that thought in mind, she pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, stepped into her running shoes, and grabbed a spare set of clothes just in case Howie was up and around and she wound up going for a run with him. She still wasn’t the greatest enthusiast about getting out and running, but it would be better than sitting around home with her mother looking for an opening.

It was still pretty early, and she suspected Howie was still in bed – he was a late sleeper – but it served as an adequate excuse to get her out of the house. In only a few minutes it proved she was right; she found Jack and Vixen sitting on the back porch of the Erikson house, sipping coffee and keeping binoculars handy to check out the nearby bird feeders.

“Well, good morning to you, Autumn,” Jack said from his chair. “What’s on your mind today?”

“I thought I might come over and see if Howie wanted to go out running or something.”

“Not impossible,” Jack smiled. “The last I knew he was still in bed. Do you want me to go kick him out?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Autumn replied. “At least this way I know I’ve caught him before he gets out and goes running. So what are you guys doing today?”

“Probably not much of anything, except looking for birds,” Jack told her. “You like a cup of coffee or an iced tea or something?”

“Tea would be fine,” she replied. “I’m not much on coffee.”

“I’ll run in and get some for you,” Jack offered, getting out of his chair. “We’re not seeing much of anything so far today anyway.”

“Come on up, grab a seat,” Vixen added. “I hear you had a pretty big day yesterday.”

“It was Bree who had a big day,” Autumn replied, climbing up the steps to the porch and finding herself a chair. “She sure enjoys her flying.”

“That was what Howie was saying,” Vixen agreed. “I think it’s neat that she’s into something like that.”

“She’s into flying the way the two of you are into birds. You know, it bothers me a little. You and Jack and Bree have got things pretty well worked out about what you want to do with your lives, and I haven’t got a clue.”

“Don’t feel too lost. A year ago I was in the same boat. Then I got going with Jack and he got me hooked on birds. I’m still not the expert about them he is, but it’s been fun, I’ve learned a lot and maybe I’m catching up with him some. Actually making a living as a birdwatcher or a naturalist or something still seems a little unreal, but it’s something to pursue.”

“At least you found something. I sure wish I could.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Vixen said. “Yes, Bree has a big idea and I wouldn’t want to bet she isn’t going to bring it off. But what happens if she doesn’t?”

“She’ll probably wind up doing some kind of flying,” Autumn shrugged.

“Yeah, if she’s not too disappointed. That’s one thing, you have to learn to be a little flexible in case things change on you. Yeah, Jack and I want to get into doing something with birds, or some kind of wildlife biology. If it doesn’t work out, I think we’re flexible enough to find something else. You never can tell what’s going to happen, Autumn. Never. Life will surprise you. Hell, I’m a little surprised at what’s happened to me in the last year. Like, a year ago I never dreamed I’d be heading off to college and living in an apartment with my three best friends. It’s just been a pleasant surprise. A year ago, I figured I’d be lucky to get a job in a drive-up fast-food place down in Camden and have to drive down there to work. Just stay loose. Something will come along.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Autumn sighed as Jack came back out onto the porch, carrying a big glass of tea.

“This ought to hold you for a while,” he said as he handed it to her. “I wouldn’t be too surprised if Howie is down before long. I heard the toilet flush upstairs, so the odds are about fifty-fifty he’s either getting up or is going to go back to bed for another couple hours.”

“Well, if you’ll let me sit here with you for a while, I guess I can wait and see. If he’s not getting up, I suppose I could head out to Bree’s, or something. She’s an early riser, at least. She’s probably been up for hours.”

“Yeah, cripe,” Vixen shook her head. “Jack has me getting up at hours when I wouldn’t have gone to bed yet, at least last summer. Once you get used to it, it’s not so bad.”

“You just have to go to bed early and not stay up till all hours.”

“Yeah, Bree says that. She says the house is so much quieter in the early morning she can get more reading done than when everyone’s up.”

“She’s probably right,” Jack grinned. “I mean, if you want to go looking for birds you have to get up with the birds.”

The three sat around talking on the porch for perhaps half an hour before Howie made an appearance, coming out onto the porch scratching and yawning. “Jeez, Autumn,” he said. “What are you doing here? The sun is barely up.”

“It’s been up for hours. I was about to come up and wake you up. I was just trying to make up my mind whether to just rip the covers off you, or lay down on the bed and blow in your ear.”

“Boy, you’re ready to go this morning, aren’t you? Do you have something in mind?”

“Not really,” she said. “I thought if you were going for a run I might run with you for a while.”

“Fine with me,” he said. “Just let me get my eyes open and have something to eat.”

It was perhaps twenty minutes before Howie was ready to go. He and Autumn went out to the driveway to do some stretching exercises, in hopes they wouldn’t scare off any of the bird activity for Jack and Vixen, then started off across town, keeping the pace fairly easy. Autumn still didn’t have speed or endurance to match Howie’s, but they weren’t racing this morning.

The two of them out running together wasn’t uncommon. Howie tried to make it out every day, unless the weather was really bad, and Autumn often accompanied him. They varied the route and the distance a little just for the sake of going somewhere different and seeing what there was to be seen. When they’d first started running together back in the fall, they’d avoided Misty’s neighborhood like the plague. Now they didn’t mind if they happened to go by her house, figuring that it was good for her to see the two of them doing something together – and something that Misty wouldn’t do on a bet. It helped underline just how out of reach he’d become for her. They didn’t often see Misty, although Howie hoped she was seeing them.

This morning they went past her house, just because it happened to be on the way. They were loping along, minding their own business, when all of a sudden a car pulled alongside of them. They heard Mrs. Frankovich yell, “Howie!”

“Yes?” Howie said politely, not wanting to waste a lot of energy in talking.

“Have you seen Rusty?”

“No,” he said. “Not since school let out.”

“You’re sure you haven’t seen him?” she replied as she drove slowly alongside the two of them.

“No, he may have been on the football team but he isn’t someone I hang out with. Did something happen?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t seen him since Monday. The last person I talked to who saw him said he was leaving town. You haven’t heard anything about it?”

“News to me,” Howie shook his head.

“If you hear something will you let me know?”

“Yeah, sure,” Howie replied, taking the actual truth of his statement under advisement. “But like I said, I probably won’t hear anything. We don’t run with the same people.”

“It’s worth asking,” she said. “Howie, Misty would like to talk to you sometime.”

“Well, maybe,” Howie said. “Autumn is keeping me pretty busy, though, and I wouldn’t want Walt to get upset with me if I called her up.”

“Thank you, Howie. See you around.” She stepped on the brake, and turned into her driveway.

“What do you suppose that was all about?” Autumn asked after they’d gotten half a block up the street. “It sounds like Misty would like to take another run on you.”

“I’m not sure if it’s Misty or her mother,” Howie sighed. “But I’ll tell you what, it sure sounds like Rusty made a break for it. I saw Matt Wadsworth driving Rusty’s truck around Monday, so that probably has something to do with it.”

“I sure got the impression that Misty’s mom isn’t real happy with Rusty.”

“Yeah, I get that feeling, too. I mean, I’m half tempted to call up Misty just to find out what’s going on, but I don’t really want to do it. It might lead a couple of different places I don’t think I want to go.”

Most of an hour later the two of them were back at Howie’s house. Jack and Vixen were still sitting on the back porch, with coffee and binoculars; from what Autumn could tell they hadn’t moved any in the interim. “Wow, is that all you’re going to do all day?” she asked.

“Could be, unless we come up with something better,” Jack replied. “We saw a prairie warbler, that’s a life-list bird for Vixen, so it’s not like we’re doing nothing.”

“Yeah, but it’s starting to get dull,” Vixen complained. “I keep thinking we ought to go out and go swimming.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Autumn commented. “That lake is still pretty cold.”

“We don’t usually go to the lake when we go swimming, at least we didn’t last summer,” Vixen told them. “Jack knows this little pond out in the woods. It’s got a sand bottom, and it’s usually a lot warmer than the lake.”

“Is that the place Summer said you guys went to a few times?” Autumn asked.

“Probably,” Jack said. “We were out there a lot for, oh, a month or six weeks or so. I’m sure it’s not as warm as it gets in August, but it’d be a lot better than the lake.”

“Sounds like an idea,” Howie said. “I really need a shower, but if we were to go swimming I’d put it off until then.”

“It’s not the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” Autumn said. “And I could stand a shower, too.”

“If we’re going to go out there, we probably ought to call Alan and Summer,” Vixen said. “They’re probably up to their butts in the game or something.” She emphasized the last word just enough to indicate that “something” might have a special meaning; Autumn caught the idea immediately.

“Well, we could call Jared and Bree,” Howie suggested. “They might not like to get left out of something like that.”

“If we’re going to go to all the trouble, we probably ought to go the whole nine yards,” Vixen said. “I mean, a cooler with drinks, a picnic lunch, and stuff.”

Autumn headed in to call Bree to ask if she’d like to join the swimming party. “Sure,” Bree told her. “You’re going to have to come and pick me up, though.”

“OK, sometime soon,” Autumn told her. “Maybe half an hour, could be more. We’re still working out the details.”

It took close to an hour and a stop at the Spearfish Lake Super Market to get picnic supplies and a stop by Autumn’s house to get a swimsuit, along with picking up Jared, before the eight of them were headed out to the pond. The older four kids were in Jack’s Jeep Cherokee, while the younger ones were in the open-top CJ-5. Several of the roads and trails they had to follow were soft sand, and they needed the four-wheel drive on both vehicles.

The two vehicles just about filled the limited parking space at the pond, although there was a nice patch of sand right by the shore. It didn’t take any of them long to get out of their shorts and T-shirts, down to their swimsuits. While the water wasn’t real warm and they didn’t feel like staying in it for a long time, it was certainly better than the big lake. There was splashing and yelling and getting wet, but only a limited amount of it. Before too long, they were all spread out on blankets and towels on the little sandy patch along the shore.

“This is a neat place,” Bree said. “I’m glad you invited us.”

“I’m sure other people must know about it,” Jack said. “I occasionally see tracks of other vehicles out here, but we’ve never seen anyone else here during the week. We’ve tried to keep it a secret, and it’d probably be best if you didn’t spread it around.”

“It’s pretty cool,” Summer giggled. “I might as well be honest and say there’s been a time or two we’ve wound up skinny dipping here.”

“I don’t think I’d be quite up for that,” Bree opined. “I mean, not quite yet. Now if I was Becca, it wouldn’t be any problem.”

“Why do you say that?” Autumn asked.

“I probably shouldn’t say this, and I hope you won’t spread it around, but as far as I know Becca is planning on spending about half her summer out at the nudist place playing sand-court volleyball. She says it’s the best competition she can get around here,” Bree replied.

“She sure likes her volleyball, doesn’t she?” Jared asked.

“She likes it a little too much for my taste, at least in going that far about it,” Bree said with a frown. “But I suppose everyone has to be nuts about something. She’s as nuts about volleyball as I am about flying.”

“You know,” Autumn said, voicing a concern that had been bothering her for over a day now, “I’m kind of wondering if I’m not the odd one out for not being that nuts about something. I mean, Bree, you’re way nuts about flying of course, and you’re good at it. Jack and Vixen, birds. Howie, and maybe to a lesser extent Jared, football. And Alan and Summer, your game and other stuff,” hoping she could make her point with the last two words without getting into detail. “I’m just waiting for whatever is going to happen for me.”

“Actually, I don’t know that you’re not the smart one,” Jared said. “Football, well for me, it’s just a passing thing. I mean, two more years and I’m probably done playing football unless I get a real good athletic scholarship somewhere. Howie, well, you’re about the same, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Howie agreed. “Except that if I have two more good years I might come up with an athletic scholarship that might pay for part of my college, so it’s a good reason to stay with it. Well, that, and maybe doing some more winning. But I can see the time when I’m not going to be bothering with football anymore, either. What comes then, I don’t know, but I do know I have to be doing at least a little thinking about it.”

“Pretty much the same here,” Jared agreed. “I mean, I can see getting into construction management or something, but I don’t know that my heart is in it. When you get right down to it, Autumn, I’m not sure what I want to do any more than you are. I’ve heard it said that indecision is the key to flexibility, and about all I can say is that I need to stay flexible for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s cool that Bree wants to go to the Air Force Academy and I hope she makes it, but I’m sure I don’t have all the answers yet for me. What’s more, I may not have them for a few years. Something unexpected can always come up.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jack agreed. “The odds are that at least some of us will wind up doing something considerably different than anything we can dream of.”

After a while they broke out the lunch and sat around eating on the shore. “You know,” Howie said, “this time last year, well, not quite that long ago, I was running around with Misty and I thought I had the world by the tail every time I saw her in that bikini of hers. But you know what, Autumn? You look better in yours than she did in hers, and I know you don’t have the axe to grind she has. I really think I’m a lot better off. I sure am glad to have her out of my life.”

“For now,” Autumn pointed out. “I don’t think she’s done with trying to get back with you.”

“She may think she’s not done with it, but I know she is,” Howie said flatly. “Autumn, I’ve had a whole lot more fun with you the last few months than I had with her the whole time I was going with her. What’s more, it’s been better fun, not all giving and no taking, and I’m just glad as hell you don’t have a hidden agenda like she has. I’m just glad you offered to help me get out of that trap.”

“Hey, Howie,” she grinned, “it’s been fun for me, too. You know, when we started out, we were just going to be pretend boyfriend and girlfriend. But I think it’s getting past that. I don’t know if we’ll wind up together or what, but whatever happens, I want you to always be my friend.”

“Same here,” Bree said, leaning up against Jared. “I mean, I know this isn’t going to be permanent, but it’s made life a whole lot more fun this last year. Jared, you make a really nice boyfriend, and I’m trying to not let it get too serious since I know it’s going to have to end. But I hope we can always be friends.”

To say that things were a bit tense around the Frankovich house would be an understatement.

Linda was furious – partly because of the fact that Rusty had slipped out from her grasp without so much of a word of what he was up to, but mostly because Bob didn’t seem to be taking it very seriously. “How could you let him sell his truck to that young punk?” she screamed over and over.

After about the tenth time of telling her that Rusty had told him he wanted to buy a better truck from a friend but had to sell the old one first, he didn’t bother replying any more. He’d told her multiple times he had no more idea of what had happened to Rusty than she had – and mostly gave up trying. Finally, he told her he’d go out and ask around some of his friends to see if they’d heard anything, and left. Linda figured he was actually going to go out to the Pike Bar to see if the owner, Rick Kulwicki, had heard anything. Rick was the football coach, of course, and Rusty had become friends with him a little. The fact that Bob probably would have a few beers while there was obvious.

Linda was still steaming about that when Misty came home in tears. “Honey,” she said, instantly changing her attitude, “what’s the matter?”

“It’s Walt again,” she cried. “He seems to think he owns me. He saw me talking to Mike Kovacs about if he knew anything about Rusty and he about yanked my arm off dragging me away from him, as if I’d touch Kovacs with a ten foot pole. He doesn’t want me talking to other guys.”

“That’s not how it’s supposed to work,” Linda frowned. “He’s the one who’s not supposed to be talking to other girls. Did you learn anything from Kovacs?”

“Not really,” Misty replied, still crying. “About all I could get out of him was that Rusty spent some time looking at some stuff about joining the Marines a while back. Mom, we’ve got to do something about Walt. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt me. I mean, really hurt me.”

“I told you trying to do anything with him wasn’t going to work,” Linda shook her head. “He’s too obnoxious and he’s too dumb. You have to find a guy who cares about you at least a little bit, and not about himself all the time.”

“Well, yeah, but you said it might make Howie jealous,” Misty protested, still in tears. “I can’t even get near Howie since Autumn always seems to be there, and if I said anything to him I’m sure Walt would pound the shit out of me.”

“You seemed to think you could handle Walt,” Linda sighed. “I guess that proves you can’t always handle a man. I mean, let’s face it, we thought we had Rusty pretty well under control, but I guess not. If he’s willing to do something as dumb as joining the Marines to get out of the house, I guess he’s dumber than we thought.”

“Well, yeah,” Misty agreed, tears still rolling but not quite as wrought up, at least at the moment. “But if he’s gone to the Marines, it really doesn’t matter, does it? We’ve got to do something about Walt, even if Howie isn’t part of the deal. He doesn’t ever listen to me, and all the tricks you’ve taught me don’t count for much of anything. There’s no carrot and stick with him. He just grabs the carrot and ignores the stick. God, I don’t want to have to put up with him, but if I tell him to go fly a kite he’s just going to beat the crap out of me.”

Linda thought about it for a moment. Misty was right. If Rusty was gone, he was gone. He’d proved to be a good way for the girls to practice how to handle a man so long as he’d been kept on a short leash. It had been hard to keep him on one the past couple years, especially since he’d gotten that damn truck she had been utterly opposed to. Keeping him without wheels had helped to keep him on the leash, and the threat of him losing it had been about the only thing that had worked on him for over a year. She’d never expected he’d give it away at that ridiculously low price he’d let the Wadsworth kid have it for just to get out from under it! The Marines probably wouldn’t allow him to have a vehicle anyway, so that sort of supported what Misty had learned from the Kovacs kid.

Realistically, she probably wouldn’t have been able to keep him under control much longer anyway. The last she knew he’d been talking about going to the same Bible college as the Kovacs kid, and while she’d rather have had him at home for a while yet it had been pretty clear he was going to be more or less gone pretty soon anyway. If he’d wound up going to the Bible college she wouldn’t have had much control over him, but she’d still had some hope she could direct him to a woman who would treat him right, which was to say keep him under the control he’d been used to. Well, at least the Marines would keep him under some control, and maybe when he showed back up she could get a handle on him again.

In any case, it wasn’t something she could do much about right now, and Misty really did have a problem. The Wadsworth kid hadn’t exactly been a winner in the first place, and the Lethbridge kid was about seventeen times worse. Howie had at least been pliable, and she really couldn’t understand why Misty couldn’t get him back. About all she could think was that the Trevetheck kid he was hanging around with these days must have been pulling the same sort of things she’d taught Misty – except that she was obviously doing it more successfully.

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “We’re going to have to do something about Walt. He’s not the kind of person you need for a practice boyfriend unless you want to hang around with thugs like him. If you’re going to get the kind of man you want, he’d better not be the kind of person who’ll hit you if he doesn’t get his way. I suppose I could just put my foot down and tell you not to see him.”

“It might give me something of an excuse, but that means I wouldn’t dare to go out of the house all summer, either. He’d want me to be with him whether you say so or not. I wouldn’t dare do anything about trying to hook up with Howie again.”

“That is a problem,” Linda agreed. “Let’s face it, things haven’t gone well recently. I mean, you let Howie slip through your fingers . . .”

“After you told me to put my foot down,” Misty reminded her.

“Yes, but a little too firmly,” Linda said. “But that’s what practice is all about. It’s just a shame that the Trevetheck girl had to be there to pick him up when he was down. You should have been in a position to do it yourself. But what I was saying, that happened, then the thing blew up with Bethany and Derrick, and I still don’t know what went wrong with that, except that I really doubt Bethany is going to find another prospect as good as he was anytime soon. Now Rusty gets away. We’ve got to get things back on track, whether it involves Howie or not, and you’re not going to be able to do it with Walt breathing down your neck.”

“We’re really going to have to get rid of Walt,” she said. “I mean, not just kiss him off. I mean, even if he was in jail, he’d be right back after me as soon as he got out. God, was I dumb in even thinking I could use him to get back at Howie.”

“You have to take your opportunities when you can get them,” Linda said, “but you should have been able to think a little faster on your feet than that. Now, we’re going to have to come up with something and it may take some time, but let’s get our thinking caps on.”

“Mom, what do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know yet,” Linda sighed. “All I know is that if we do it right, we ought to be able to get you really free of Walt. And maybe, just maybe, we can get you back together with Howie again.”

“I sure would like to do it,” she said. “I’d really like to get both of them way out on a limb before I saw it off, like Bethany did with Shay.”

“I would too. It would serve both of them right. But it’s not going to be anywhere near as easy as it was with Bethany.” She frowned for a moment as a thought went through her mind. “Misty,” she said. “Just supposing you were gone for a while, maybe staying with Bethany. Would Walt take up with another girl?”

“Hard to say,” she shook her head. “He wants what he wants. If I’m not around he might wind up with someone else, or he might not. He might just go over to the reservation and buy enough beer to stay fried until I got back. Hell, he’s half fried all the time as it is, anyway.”

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