Gone (Michael Bennett)

goes in there, stays in there.”
    “Did you say weed? ” Jane asked. “As in marijuana? You can’t grow weed. That’s illegal.”
    “Hello? Where the hell are you from? That’s all they grow around here,” Guillermo insisted, wiping tears from his eyes.
    “And that makes you what? Cool or something?” Brian said, shaking with anger. This place is America? he thought. He really felt like punching the kid right in his face.
    “Eddie, Jane, come on. We’re getting the hell out of here now,” Brian said.
    “But what about my bat?” the kid screeched. “My brother, man. He’s going to go crazy!”
    Brian turned to the kid and pointed a finger in his face.
    “To hell with your bat, and to hell with you, too, you evil little runt. I hope your brother does kill you. He’ll be doing the world a favor.”
    As they ran back to the food bank, Brian knew what he’d said wasn’t very Christian, but he was sick of this. These weird hippie families and messed-up poor people. All the drugs everywhere. I mean, they’d come here to help this morning, and Eddie had almost gotten beaten by some juvenile delinquent? How’d that make sense?
    Seamus was closing the back door of the station wagon when they got back to the food bank.
    “Did you win?” he asked as the kids quickly piled into the car.
    “Oh, we won, Gramps,” Eddie said with an innocent smile. “Could we go now?”
    “Is everything OK?” Seamus asked, staring at them.
    “Fine,” Brian said, nervously looking over his shoulder, back at the trailer park. “Could we get going, though, Gramps? I, uh, really need to use the bathroom.”
    “So do I,” said Eddie.
    “And me too,” Jane said. “Really bad.”
    “OK, then,” Seamus said, trying to turn the old car’s engine over. It wouldn’t catch.
    No , Brian thought. Please, God. Please help us.
    “Hold your horses, and, um, everything else,” Seamus said as he tried again.
    The engine churned and chugged, but again there was nothing.
    We’re going to be stranded , Brian thought. Stranded, and then the Lord of the Flies kids would come.
    Then it caught. The big old muscle-car engine finally fired up, rumbling happily.
    In the backseat, Brian crossed himself as Seamus got their rear in gear, and they finally pulled out.

CHAPTER 38
     
    IT WAS FIVE-THIRTY A.M. when Mary Catherine led the horse out of the barn behind Aaron Cody’s house. It was still dark, and cold enough to see the plumes of the horse’s breath. She turned as a cow mooed forlornly somewhere off in the darkness to her left.
    “And a fine good morning to you, too, madam,” she said over her shoulder. “Wonderful weather we’re having, don’tcha think?”
    She smiled. When she could squeeze it in, her early-morning ride was by far the best part of her day. It was a moment to be still, a moment to be sane and serene before the kids got up and the chaos began.
    “OK, now, Spike. Here we go,” she whispered soothingly as she gently mounted the gray quarter horse. As usual, the four-year-old gelding had been a little skittish about getting saddled, but once they got on the trail, she knew they’d get along fine.
    It took the better part of half an hour to get up the range to her favorite spot. Spike knew it by heart by now, slowing by the high ridge’s edge even before she pulled the reins.
    “You get me, Spike, don’t you?” she said, patting his scruffy head. “Now if only you were a man, all my dreams would come true.”
    She watched in silence as the sun came up over the distant Sierra Nevada. As it did every morning, it literally put a chill down her spine. All that land. All that sky. The holy whistling of the cold wind as light split shadow and spilled down the rutted slopes.
    It was the America right out of a children’s book, she thought. Any moment now, down from the mountain, she’d see some cowboys chasing Indians alongside a steam locomotive with a little red caboose.
    As she took out the thermos she’d brought, she wondered what the daft, ever-wisecracking boyos in her hometown back in Ireland would say if they could see their skinny Mary Catherine all grown up and drinking her tea high in the saddle out here in the Wild West.
    Nothing was the answer to that one, she thought, taking a sip, since every one of those ragamuffins would be struck speechless for once in their miserable lives.
    Who was she kidding? She could hardly believe it herself, the way her life was turning out.
    When she’d heard