“Patrick?”
I looked around the bedroom and master bath and noticed that there were little kid knee prints left in the fabric of the seat inside the bay window. I checked Rusty’s office and the guest bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, and den. Pat knew not to go outside because he wouldn’t want to scare the deer away. Outside remained my only option unless he was hiding, but there was no reason for him to hide since he wanted to watch for deer. I looked at the time. Four fifteen. He knew the deer could show up anytime. Glancing out the back window, the yard appeared to be still and peaceful. I turned off the oven and went outside, quietly circling the house, watching for little kid footprints. It wasn’t hard to find Patrick’s trail. He knew exactly where he was going. He’d slipped out the front door and snuck around back. He stood for a while at the corner of the house. Why was he stopping? I examined the footprints. They didn’t show up well in the grass. Only the fact that they were fresh gave me any clues. Most of his weight was on his toes, indicating he was leaning forward. He quickly ran to the corner of the barn and stopped again. This was little kid sneaking, like he’d seen on TV. Run to a hiding place and freeze there. Look for the bad guy, or the deer? What was he hiding from? He’d snuck around the backside of the barn and crouched in a hidden corner for some time. He leaned forward on his toes, watching. It looked like he was hoping to see the deer, but I had been looking for them as well and hadn’t seen any. I was glad my yard was mostly dirt as the whole barn and corral area made for easy tracking. I was glad I could track, too. I imagined most aunts with a missing child would panic and have no clue of where to begin looking. At least I had clues.
I followed Pat’s footprints, trying to figure out what was going on in this kid’s head. It had to be something important. He had been told in no uncertain terms not to go tracking outside the yard or stalking without me. Whatever made him leave the yard must have been more important than a punishment. I knew from his steps that he wasn’t tracking. If he were tracking, his footprints would have followed another set of tracks closely. He was in a sort of stealth mode, at least as much as a six-year-old could be. He was keeping an object between himself and his target while watching it very carefully. His walk was not always straight. He faced whatever he was watching and some of his steps went sideways. It all depended on the nature of the object he was hiding behind and the angle he had to look to keep tabs on whatever had interested him. I had to give the kid credit; he was going to make a great scout some day.
I didn’t have to track him far. If I hadn’t been so focused on his tracks and looked around more I would have known and thought, “Oh duh me!” When I finally found him he was crouched behind a bush, cell phone in hand, talking quietly to someone.
“Yeah, I’m hiding, they don’t know I’m here… yeah, that’s right… okay, I’ll stay here.”
“Patrick!” I said a little too sharply. He jumped.
“Aunt Cassidy! Just go home! I got it taken care of.”
“You have what taken care of? What are you doing way out here? I’ve been worried about you! You just disappeared!”
“Yes, I’m okay,” he said into the phone.
I could hear sirens in the distance.
“It’s my aunt. She’s a tracker, so she found me. The bad guy is still in the house. I haven’t seen anybody come out. Okay, here she is.” He handed me the phone.
“Hello?”
“Are you Patrick’s aunt?”
“Yes, who am I speaking to?”
“This is Marlee Davis. Are you aware your nephew called 911 to report a prowler?”
“He what?”
“He said there was a suspicious man sneaking around your house. He kept an eye on the man and called 911 to get the police out there.”
“How do the police know where to go? He doesn’t even know an address!”
“He is a very smart little boy. He read your address off the sign on your house.”
“But we haven’t had a prowler!”
“Yes we did, Aunt Cassidy! He was sneaking around the barn and he was wearing camouflage so he could hide and everything! When he saw that people were home he left and you get into so much trouble with bad guys I wanted the police to get him before he could hurt you! He’s in that house! He won’t get away! They’ll catch him. I know they will!”
I looked at the house. Hazel and Wally’s house. I should have known. ARGH! I should have guessed.
“Okay, the guy my nephew saw was supposed to be sneaking around my house. He comes to my house to practice sneaking up on the deer. He wasn’t doing anything wrong…”
The sirens screamed to a halt and an officer bounded from the vehicle. How Big John was able to bound, I’d never know. He must have a soft spot for little kids and thought Patrick was in danger.
“The police are here,” I told the woman, “and I have a lot of explaining to do. I’ve got to go.”
Bam, bam, bam. Big John pounded on Hazel and Wally’s door.
More sirens in the background.
I headed for the house.
“Who is it?” Hazel asked uncertainly.
“Police, open up!” Big John bellowed. Why did it have to be Big John? Hazel was going to faint.
“John!” I called. “This whole mess is just a misunderstanding.”
“I have a report of a prowler…”
“Yes, at my house. But he wasn’t a prowler. He’s a friend. Don’t take him in. He is welcome to prowl around my backyard. He is learning to stalk deer and the deer visit my house. My nephew hadn’t met Mark and he mistook him for a prowler. John, you know how much trouble I get into. Patrick thought he was saving me from a bad guy. He followed Mark here hoping you would arrest him before he could hurt me. But Mark wouldn’t hurt me. He’s a friend.”
Another police car drove up. Jayce took one look at me and rolled his eyes.
“I should have known,” Jayce said as he got out of his patrol car. “Cassidy, what have you gotten into this time?”
“Nothing! It wasn’t me this time, I swear!”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Tracking down a missing nephew. Patrick? Where are you?”
Patrick stepped sheepishly forward. “I’m sorry, Aunt Cassidy, he looked like a prowler to me.”
“Patrick, this is officer Jankowski and Thompson. They want to take my friend to jail. Tell them what you think happened.”
Hazel was cowering behind a barely opened door.
Patrick explained to the officers what had happened while I went and told Hazel that everything was fine. I asked if Mark wouldn’t mind stepping outside for a minute.
“Patrick, is this the man you saw at my house?”
His eyes got real big. “It’s the man eating cow!” he exclaimed.
Hoo, boy! Now I had even more to explain.
“How did you know he had dark hair and brown eyes?” Patrick glared at Mark. “Do you have a camera?” he asked Mark seriously.
Hazel invited everyone into the house and for the next hour we sorted it all out. I think it took an hour for Big John to get enough divinity. He took a piece as a favor to the hostess, but within minutes he began mindlessly taking one candy after another.
Hazel’s Christmas tree was decorated in neon ornaments. There were pink flamingos and beer commercial ornaments, glowing palm trees, surfboards and woody cars. Where she found all the neon ornaments and why she would collect them was beyond me, but it was kind of cute in a Hazely sort of way.
The officers finally wrote off the call as a misunderstanding and left on a sugar high, waddling back to their cars. I stood outside and waved as they drove away.
“Now, Patrick, this is Mr. and Mrs. Mireau and their son Mark. They’re my neighbors and are welcome at our house anytime. Mark sneaks around the backyard a lot and I forgot to tell you. He’s studying stalking, too. The deer don’t come to his house, so he comes to our place. I think you owe them an apology. People don’t like having their homes invaded by the police.”
“I’m sorry Mr. and Mrs. Mireau, and Mark, too. You don’t look as scary when you’re at home.”
“Cassidy, did I get this right, that kid followed me all the way home talking to the police the whole way because he thought I was a prowler?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Wow, buddy, you’re good! I didn’t even know you were there! Cassidy ought to teach you how to track and you could work for the police too!”
Patrick stood taller after hearing Mark’s praise. “She already is a little bit,” he said. “That’s how I know you were the man eating cow!”
Mark gave me one of those looks that said, “Help, he lost me somewhere!”
“When you walked to my house yesterday did you startle a doe and try to take its picture?”
“Yeah! How did you know?”
“We were tracking the doe and I gave Patrick a puzzle. He had to figure out what had startled the doe and we determined it was a man eating beef jerky, hence, the man eating cow, and that you tried to take its picture. We figured out that much from the tracks. Then I added that the man had dark curly hair and brown eyes just because I figured it was you and I could surprise Patrick when he found out I was right.”
As we rode home in Hazel’s old Buick Patrick eyed the house with concern. “You aren’t going to tell Uncle Rusty about this, are you?”
“No,” I answered truthfully, “I won’t have to. Those two officers called him before they got to the end of the street and told him all about it. Things like that get around the station real quick. But don’t worry; it won’t be as bad as you think.”
“Ha!” said Hazel.
“It’s really hard to punish a kid for doing what he thinks is right,” I added, attempting to get my point across to Hazel. I wondered if I was the only understanding grownup around, or maybe Patrick was enough like me that I simply understood his thinking too well.
Hazel pulled up into the driveway. “Good luck, Patrick,” she said grimly.
“We have to use the back door,” I said to Patrick as we waved to Hazel. “I took off thinking I was just looking around the yard so the back door is unlocked.”
Hazel backed the Buick out of the driveway, across the road, and over a small sagebrush before pulling forward again to head for home.
I opened the oven and took out the little bricks trying to pass for cookies. I threw them away and preheated the oven again.
“You missed the deer for today,” I said.
“No, I didn’t,” Patrick replied.
“You didn’t? How did you stalk the deer if you were stalking Mark?”
“There were lots of deer between your house and Mr. Mireau’s house. They hid from us but I could see some of them. They blend in with the bushes really good, but I could see them moving around trying to stay out of our way. They didn’t even run away very much. They just kept moving like they had somewhere to go.”
“You could see them? Did Mr. Mireau see them?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t stop and try to stalk them.”
“Tell me how you look when you want to see deer.”
This was getting eerie. If he gave me a good explanation of scatter vision I was going to throw in the towel right now.
“How I look? You mean, how I see or what do I look like?”
“How you see. Right now you see me. Is looking for deer different than looking at me?”
“Yeah, I have to look, like, at a whole, big picture. I see big. But blurry. Well, not really blurry, it’s like I only see what I mean to see. I watch for animals moving and when I watch for animals moving everything else is less noticeable. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me. Did you know most people don’t use that kind of vision at all? They don’t know how to do it, so they don’t see animals. They can be standing right next to an animal and not see it because they are not looking at it right.”
“But it makes sense to you. You do that, right?”
“Yeah, I do that. You stalked Mr. Mireau, watched the deer and talked to the police all at the same time?”
“Yeah, I didn’t tell the police about the deer, though.”
I was shocked. What was I going to do with this kid? He was like a tracking sponge. He understood tracking in a way I hadn’t learned until much later. It made sense to him. Now it felt as though we were wasting time by only stalking deer in the yard. Patrick could be out learning even more advanced tracking techniques. I reminded myself that Patrick was only six years old. He wanted to stalk deer. Even that was advanced for a kid his age. When we went to San Diego maybe Chase could give me some advice.
I baked two more sheets of cookies before Rusty walked through the door. He was holding back a grin, but only half succeeding.
“I heard Patrick got here okay.”
“Yeah, he arrived around lunchtime. By four thirty he was at Hazel and Wally’s, then about half an hour ago he made it back here again. I spent my time tracking him down and explaining what really happened to Big John and Jayce. It’s taken me all day to bake these cookies.”
“Did you stalk any deer?”
“We need to talk about that later.”
“Oh.”
“Chase doesn’t happen to want to work on a quarter horse ranch, does he?”
“No, I don’t think so. You sound… distressed. Have you had a talk with Patrick yet?”
“No, he knows what he did right and what he did wrong and I believe he really did very little wrong. He showed wisdom beyond his years. It definitely needs some fine-tuning, but I was impressed. If he’d just talked to me before calling the police everything would have been fine.”
“Do you mind if I talk to him?”
“No, he’s expecting it. I think it’s a ranch thing. Back home he’d hear about it from his mom and dad, then Steve, then Old Frank, then Grandpa. So he’s not exactly looking forward to it. Sorry, but I’m having trouble finding fault with what he did. He thought he was helping me and I hate to punish a kid who was just trying to help. I know he broke the rules. He left the yard, went out without me, and should have talked to me before jumping to his own conclusions, but he still did remarkably well at everything else.”
“Okay, I just want to talk.”
“I recommend not talking in the office. Going to the office is a bad thing. If you really just want to talk take a walk or build a fire or something. Doing something while talking is easier for a ranch kid. I had a lot of talks while training horses and painting fences. Waiting for a filly to be born is a good time to talk, too.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Rusty walked down the hall, looking for Patrick. Later, I heard the sound of the front door opening and closing. Once I had finished baking the rest of the cookies I started looking around for dinner ingredients. I’d bought them specifically for Patrick’s visit. For some reason at that moment though, Zeke’s Pizzeria was calling me all the way from in town. Should I answer the call of Zeke’s pizza or actually cook something?
Rusty came back looking rather… distressed.
“We better see about Chase taking that job on the ranch,” he said. “Someone needs to spend a lot of time with that kid and his parents aren’t going to do it. Jesse will educate the talent right out of him.”
“Rusty! What an odd thing to say! Jesse might be a little overprotective…” His look silenced me. “Okay, you’re right. But it’s not like he has to be a tracker just because he has the talent and understanding. Pat can be whatever he wants.”
“They’ll try to make a horse trainer out of him.”
“And if he takes after me and his dad he’ll be a good one. And training horses would leave him free for searches if he stays interested in tracking…Why, what did he say?”
“He kept getting distracted and when I asked him what he saw, he started profiling Mark’s tracks. He didn’t know that’s what he was doing. He just started talking about Mark like he knew him. He said something like, ‘Mr. Mireau wants to stalk deer but he learned too much. I think he must have gone to one of those big, fancy schools for rich kids. You can’t act all snooty with deer. You have to act like you belong with them. He needs to sit in the yard and listen to the deer, then he could stalk them better. If he would listen to the deer instead of trying to get them to do what he wants, he would do better. And he needs shoes that don’t feel clumpy….’”
“We don’t know if he’s right, it’s just his subconscious putting little things that he reads together.”
“Why would a set of tracks make him think about Mark’s schooling? How does he know Mark’s boots make his feet feel clumpy?”
“He doesn’t, but there’s one way to find out. And it is possible to see that a person’s shoes are uncomfortable. There is a certain way people normally walk and if their shoes feel clumpy they will walk awkwardly. He might have noticed an odd pattern in Mark’s tracks.”
“You want to ask Mark?”
“You know Mark is somewhat at home in the outdoors but he isn’t real seasoned to it. A lot of his travels involve people carrying everything for him and he follows guides. In places where he is well known Mark doesn’t have to tell them his name at the hotel desk or even need to wait for a taxi. He has a secretary that keeps track of all his comings and goings. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that Patrick saw that as a rich kid mentality.”
Patrick came into the kitchen carrying an armload of pinecones.
“Do you have any peanut butter?” he asked.
“Yeah, why, are you hungry? I think I hear Zeke’s calling. You said you liked pizza.”
“Yeah! But I didn’t want the peanut butter for me. I put peanut butter on pinecones and then birdseed sticks on them. I hang them by my bedroom window and the birds come eat. I watch them and find them in my book. I have a list of birds. See? I checked off House Finch and House Sparrow and White Crowned Sparrow and Oregon Junko and Dark Eyed Junko. I thought maybe you might have different birds at your house.”
“I’m sure we can find some peanut butter and bird seed around here somewhere. How about some pizza?”
Zeke’s was quiet when we arrived, probably since everybody was out Christmas shopping and not thinking about pizza. Zelda was our waitress this time and I watched as a Ziggy and a Zeus passed by our table. I could have sworn Zelda used to be Brenda.
“What’s with the Z names?” I asked Zelda.
“Zeke thought it would be cute if we all had Z names, kind of like the fifties diner downtown has waitresses like Bubbles and Barbie and BobbyJo. Zeke went with Z names, but it’s a little confusing because we just pick up a name tag when we come in and then we have to remember who we are all day and sometimes there are only guys names left and I hate being Zack or Zed or Zechariah all day!”
“Can I play Area 51?” Patrick asked.
“Does your mom let you?” I asked.
“No, but if I go with my dad we play it. He beats me all the time.”
“Well, that’s to be expected. He practices with real guns. Rusty and I have to keep in practice too. Why don’t you guys play? I’ll let you know when the pizza gets here.”
They went to the game room and pretty soon I heard the sounds of fake gunshots and fake screams followed by a voice calling out, “Don’t shoot the civilians.”
“What’s a civilian?”
“Only shoot bad guys. You lose points if you shoot good guys.”
It didn’t take long for Patrick to lose. I think Rusty quit with some shots left over.
“So what’s a civilian?” Patrick persisted.
“If you were on the police force it would be anybody not in law enforcement. If you were a soldier it would anybody not in the military. It’s the normal, everyday people of a country. The moms, the kids, the pizza waitresses, the teachers and delivery boys and lion tamers and… just people outside the organization.”
“Is Aunt Cassidy a civilian?”
“Technically, no, she was in the military and she could still be called back if they needed her. And as a reserve deputy she could be called into service at any time. So, even though she looks like a civilian, she isn’t.”
“Then how can you tell, on the game, who to shoot and who not to?”
“The game is a little more straightforward than real life.”
“Do bad guys try to shoot Aunt Cassidy because she’s not a civilian?”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“Mr. Mireau looked like a bad guy. He acted like a bad guy. How do you tell a bad guy from a good guy?”
“Ask a grownup. Don’t trust anybody unless you ask a grownup you know and trust. If you would have asked Aunt Cassidy about the man in the backyard she would have told you who he was and why he was there.”
“Is Mr. Mireau a civilian?”
“Yes, he’s a photographer,” I replied.
“He looked like an Army guy.”
“That’s because I told him he could stalk deer easier in camouflage clothes.”
“This is confusing. You look like a civilian but you’re not and Mr. Mireau looks like an Army guy but he’s a civilian.”
“Are you this curious about everything?” I asked.
“Yeah, my mom gets tired of it and tells me to be quiet. She hardly ever knows the answers to my questions anyway. Like how do you tell a coyote track from a dog track and how come Zack’s footprints always leave sand scattered? And do snakes leave tracks?”
“Yes, snakes leave tracks in sand and Zack’s tracks leave sand scattered because he can’t keep still. He rushes a lot. Have you ever noticed how he rushes and then tries to force himself to slow down? When he’s in slow mode his tracks look more normal and when he’s back to normal, nervous Zack, his tracks will scatter sand because he’s always in a rush. Coyote tracks are a different shape than a dog’s tracks and they almost always trot. When we get home I’ll show you in a book the difference between a coyote track and a dog track.”
The questions from Pat never stopped all the way back home. If he tagged a deer what could he stalk next? What if a person switched shoes? Did the person’s tracks look the same in different shoes? Did I ever see tracks that I didn’t recognize and what did I do? How do you stalk birds and squirrels that could climb up into trees?
By the time we reached home it was bedtime. After Pat had changed into pajamas I sent him to bed with one of the easy books. Although he needed a little help with a few words, it pleased me to see him sounding out words, even words with a silent e in them. When he’d read the address off of Hazel and Wally’s house he’d known how to read the word road as well as lost and hills.
Later I sat down on the couch next to Rusty with a relieved sigh. Rusty smiled. “Not ready to be a mom yet, are you?”
“Not if they call 911 just because a neighbor is stalking deer in the backyard. Not if they stalk people away from the house and try and have friends arrested.”
He laughed. “Jankowski and Thompson had fun with that one. They called me before they got back to town.”
“I thought they might. Patrick was real worried that I’d tell you about it, but I warned him that you’d know whether I told you or not. He thought he’d really get punished for this. I guess he would have back home.”
“You understand him because he thinks like you did. When I heard about today it was just like hearing Old Frank tell stories about when you were a kid.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“It shows he’s a thinker. He knew, if he didn’t do something, that bad guy was going to eventually hurt you. He didn’t care that he was only six and that, if the bad guy discovered him, he could be in a world of hurt. Patrick saw what needed to be done and he did it. The fact that Mark is a friend had very little to do with it. You should have heard the comments at work. I heard, ‘You’re starting your nephew out early, Michaels. Starting him off on prowlers so he’ll be ready for felons by the time he hits academy?’ and ‘Your wife nabs the tough ones, you send your nephew after the easy ones?’ They were just kidding, but it would help if I could bring in just one guy without your help.”
“I don’t mean to!” I said.
Crossing paths with the men Rusty had been looking for was totally by chance. It was out of my hands. I blamed the trouble magnet. Only the trouble magnet could cause something like that to happen twice in the past few months.
“Are you ready for bed?” Rusty asked.
“No, it’s still early and Patrick isn’t asleep. He only promised to stay in bed.”
“Will he?”
“He knows that only means to give himself a chance to get to sleep. If he gets scared or lonely he’s still allowed to get up. I expect another question or two before he knows I’m really serious.”
The house felt quiet and still. It seemed like it was just the two of us curled up on the couch together, waiting for that small voice to call out from the bedroom down the hall.
“Did you ever lie under the Christmas tree when you were little and look up into all the layers of lights and shiny ornaments? I used to think it was magic,” I said.
“What was magic?”
“I don’t know, just the Christmasy feeling I got from watching the lights twinkle. It was a warm, fuzzy and comfortable feeling and it just felt like magic.”
“Do you want to go lie under the Christmas tree and watch the lights again?”
“I don’t think it’s magic anymore. Magic comes in other forms now.”
“Aunt Cassidy?” a hesitant voice called from down the hall.
“I think he can hear us. What do you think?” Rusty asked quietly.
“What is it Patrick?” I called back.
“Does Santa leave footprints?”
Hmm, I didn’t know. If Santa were magic he might not.
“I don’t know, Patrick, I’ve never tried to track Santa before.”
“I’ll try to track him this year. Then we’ll know,” Patrick replied.
“You do that Patrick.”
“Can you stalk Santa? If he knows if you’re bad or good he might know he was being stalked.”
“Plus he has all those reindeer keeping watch over things too. He might be a little hard to stalk.”
“Good night, Patrick,” Rusty called out.
A few minutes later, “What about owls? Can you sneak up on owls? They can see behind them.”
“You’ll be lucky if you ever find an owl to stalk. They hide during the day and only hunt at night. Stalk them like you would a person who can turn around at any time. Now go to sleep.”
“I can’t, I’m not sleepy and then I think of questions and I can’t sleep with unanswered questions.”
“This sounds all too familiar,” Rusty observed.
“I’ll be back in a minute, I hope.”
I went into the guestroom. “Pat, we can’t answer questions all night. If I start that, one question will just lead to another and you’ll never get to sleep. The deer show up really early and if they come you’ll have to be ready. That means waking up while it is still dark out.”
“But I can’t sleep,” he complained.
“Yes, you can, it just feels like you’ve been in here forever but it’s only been fifteen minutes. When you think of a question, start trying to think of an answer. Think of all the facts you know surrounding the question. Ask yourself more questions and what those answers might be. Eventually you will get to sleep.”
“How do I do that?”
“Well, give me a question.”
“Mice are so little do they have tracks too?”
“Okay, now reason it out. Where would you find mouse tracks, if they did leave tracks? How big are mice? They are really, really little so they have really little tracks. How would you go about finding a mouse? Just ask yourself more and more questions. When you answer the questions you know the answer to, you sometimes will answer your original question just by thinking instead of asking. So, answering those few questions, you think, mice like the barn. They like oats. If you look in the barn near the oats, you will see if mice leave tracks. See, you can answer your own questions if you just think. If a question pops into your head, just think of more questions on the same topic, and answer the ones you can and I bet you get to sleep and wake up smarter, too.”
As I plopped down onto the couch again I asked Rusty, “What am I going to do with that kid?”
“Just ask yourself more questions on the same topic and maybe you’ll answer your own question.”
“Very funny.”
“No, you were right. And you were right to tell him that. You’re good at getting him to think for himself.”
“I hope he doesn’t think for himself too much. It can be dangerous.”