Wayward

CHAPTER FIVE

If Pete had any idea just how far he was headed, he would be furious. For months, Jim had tested his limits, venturing further and further out into the great, empty lands beyond the auction. For the most part, the land was as dead as everywhere else. But there was one place, across an expansive field of dry, yellowing grass that he longed to see. You could just make out the twin bluffs as you reached the crest of the yellow hills - two crude, rectangular cliffs that cut into the sky. Between them, a rock formation he dubbed "the spire" rose high into in the neverending smog. Today was the day he would climb the spire to its peak, break through the smog and see true sunlight.

He spied his uncle talking to some buyers who had arrived early for the sale. Men in cheap button down shirts, boots and jeans. Businessmen of some kind. His father gestured into the distance and they started off towards the cattle pens. He unzipped his red backpack and stuffed it with water bottles from the fridge. He had packed a turkey sandwich, an apple, and a bag of potato chips. He shut the fridge and looked around to make sure no one had seen him. He opened the door and almost knocked over a chrome BMX bicycle that someone had found and repaired one slow weekend.

Most days, Jim would take Fritz off on a morning walk, looking for snakes and old bike parts and things to climb on. One weekend they even found a junk pile with archaic television sets, computers and refrigerators. He had taken a healthy dose of guilty pleasure that day, dropping cinder blocks and watching the screens shatter. Fritz broke into fits of wild barking after each miniature explosion, showing support for the endeavor. He remembered imagining his mother's voice saying "boys will be boys" as she did when he and his father set fire to a small box of fireworks mistakenly shipped to their door.

This was the first time in years that he would have to walk alone. When he shoved open the squeaky door to the auction house he saw that some of the other hands had already arrived. A black Toyota jolted to a stop before him.

The truck looked like a figurine parked next to his father's truck. From the passenger side door emerged a leg clad in grizzled, oily denim. On either foot was a raggedy skate shoe, held together with frayed, stringy shoelaces. Rex was an awful name for a person, Jim thought, before Rex walked up to him, muddy eyes gleaming, a brand new BB gun clutched in his hands. He was four years older than Jim with narrow eyes that crowded his nose and gave him a permanent stink face.

"Birthday present," he grinned, before he ducked inside the building.

Pete had hired Rex's father when business picked up. The two of them got along fine, though Pete once let it slip that that Rex's dad cut corners.

Jim walked along the same path he always took. One of Fritz's pawprints was pressed into the mud, preserved despite the elements. Jim was amazed at how something so simple could feel like a self-destruct button for his heart. He scraped the pawprint from the dirt with his shoe.

He took a shortcut, climbing the rungs of the tall, rusty fence. There was a yellow cooler attached to an old telephone pole outside the fence, and he filled a paper cone cup with the icy water. He swallowed the shot of water and made his way through the lanes and rows of penned cattle until he emerged onto the open reservation. This time, he didn't walk through the gate. He turned and unlatched one of the pens behind him.

"Tarzan," he called. The doe-eyed chestnut gelding trotted over to him, and nudged him with a massive, soft nose. He pressed his hand to Tarzan's muzzle. He was already saddled and that wasn't a coincidence. Jim had told Elliot, one of his Pete's workers, that Pete would want him saddled and ready to go early in the morning. He was counting on the busy sale distracting Pete and the others, but if it was discovered that he had taken Tarzan, he would say he just wanted to give him a quick ride.