Caleb springs for the cave entrance, but Frankie is just climbing to his feet and he’s blocking Caleb’s way out. Without hesitating for a moment, Caleb swings that burlap sack and its awful contents right at him. Frankie ducks just in time, the sack sailing over his head through empty air. But now the way to the cave’s mouth is open, and I look up just in time to see Caleb Madliner leaping through. Before anybody can do or say anything, he’s gone into the night.
I’m babbling like a fool, and it’s a good while before Pete and Will and Frankie are able to make any sense of what I’m saying. When I finally do tell them all that happened, they’re stunned. Then furious.
Will grinds a fist into his palm. “I’ll whip him for this. I always wanted to have at him too.”
Pete don’t say a word, but the way his jaw is set and the look in his eyes, it would be downright dangerous for Caleb Madliner ever to come near him again.
“It’s my fault, Jack,” Pete says. “I’m the one who decided to follow him up here. I should have known.”
Pete builds up the fire best as he can with what’s left of the kindling, then, giving us stern orders to stay put, he goes out to gather what firewood he can find from the branches blown down by the twister. When he comes back, he works the fire, finally getting it up to a good, hot flame that gives plenty of light.
Frankie stands at the entrance, looking into the dark. “What if he comes back?”
“Then he’d make my night,” Will says.
Pete shakes his head. “He won’t. He will try to cross the creek and get back to his house on the hill.” Pete snaps a branch over his knee and thrusts the broken ends into the fire.
“Will he make it?”
Will huffs. “Who cares? After this, it’d be just what he deserves for him to drown in Apple Creek.”
Nobody has anything to say to that. Truth is, we’re out of gas. All of us. Pete knows it. For the second time that night he tells us to try to get some sleep. Tells us he’ll stay awake and keep watch.
I am so worn out that I think I really will sleep this time. As I lie down again, though, I can’t help but think of that snapping turtle in the sack. Despite the fact that it almost bit my fingers off, I can’t help feeling sorry for it.
I feel sorry for anything that has to be that close to Caleb Madliner.
Chapter 17
THE RAFT
A fine mist blows over the mountain when we wake the next morning, cool and soft and chilly. I wander out into it to do my business.
For the first time, I see what the twister’s done to the world. Trees are splintered bony white, their arms flung far and wide across the forest floor. Standing at the edge of that rock shelf, I see something else lying down there too: Caleb’s black felt hat. Must have blown off when he was running out of the cave last night.
I unzip and pee thirty feet straight down onto it before going back inside.
Pete crouches over the ashes of our fire and tries to breathe life back into the coals. He looks different in that gray light; older, like he’s aged a bunch of years in a single night. Guilt sticks me in the gut. My brother’s lost some of his strength because of me. I’ll be the death of him.
A tiny wisp of smoke curls through his fingers. Dead coals come back to life. Pete smiles and it’s his old smile, that grin he gets when he’s pleased with himself. He gives Butch a scratch behind the ears and looks up at me as I come in.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
“Fine,” I lie. I’ve never felt worse in my life. Forget the fever. Forget the snapper. Forget the stiffness from sleeping on cold rock. I have ruined our chance to save him.
We warm ourselves by the fire, but there’s no food, so after kicking it out we make our way slowly down the mountain to see what’s become of Apple Creek. It’s a torrent of gray, frothy water. Clumps of long grass rush by in the current.
“That’s one good thing the twister’s done for us,” Pete says, tilting his head at several fallen trees. “It’s given us a way home.”
“What’s that?” Frankie asks him.
“Floating.”
The raft comes together by noon. It isn’t much to look at. A mess of branches bound together by that rope of Frankie’s and some monkey vines that Will drags down out of a stand of pine trees. But it floats. That’s all we care about.
On Pete’s orders, I sit with Butch while they hack and bind it all together. I am miserable, shaking, and feeling fuzzy inside my head.
When it comes time to shove off, Frankie and me take up our places in the raft’s center. I hold Butch so he won’t get skittish and swamp us. The raft dips under some when Pete and Will climb on, pouring cold water into our laps. I am sure we’re about to sink, but then Pete and Will spread out and we come up out of the water again and suddenly we’re moving, riding the current. With a pair of long branches, my brothers steer us farther out into the creek.