Null Pointer

Just A Kid - One Lives

William Regan stared at his sister, utterly speechless. At last, he forced words out. “You can’t be serious.”

“Billy, of course I’m serious.”

“Shannon, I’m just a kid myself. I can’t be responsible for yours!” William frowned. He knew the stubborn expression his sister was wearing. Mountains would move before she did, when she got an idea in her head.

“Good Lord willing, you won’t ever have to be, but Timothy’s gone now,” Shannon said, tears she wouldn’t shed thick in her throat at the mention of the husband they’d buried just that morning. “Timothy’s gone, and Ma isn’t getting any younger. If something happens to me, I need to know someone will look after Danny.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you. You’re young and healthy.”

“So was Timothy,” Shannon pointed out.

“That’s different. He was military.”

“He didn’t die in action.”

No, he died in a car accident, of all things. But still, accident or action, young otherwise healthy men died in uniform day in and day out, all over the world. That wasn’t the same as his big sis orphaning his nephew before the kid could fend for himself.

“Please, Billy, just promise me you’ll take care of him, if the worst happens.”

“We’re family, Shannon; you, me, Danny, Ma. I could no more turn my back on him than on you. You know that. But I’m just a kid myself.”

“You’re eighteen now, an adult.”

“By three days.”

“I haven’t forgotten your birthday, little brother,” Shannon told him. She would have brought this up as soon as the officer brought the notification of her husband’s passing, but she couldn’t change her will to stipulate that guardianship of her son should go to her brother in the event of her untimely death until her brother had turned eighteen. “Billy, please,” she tried again. “This isn’t a rash grief-fueled plot. Timothy and I talked about it, when Danny was born. That he’d leave the military, if anything happened to me. That I was strong enough to raise our son alone, if the worst befell him, as it has. That we’d make sure family took him, if something took us both away from our boy. But now it’s just, as you said, you and Ma, and me and Danny.”

“Ma’s an adult. She raised both of us. She could raise Danny, if she had to.”

Shannon rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “She could spoil him rotten, if she had to, you mean. And, anyway, I have no plans toward dying young, so I’m operating under the assumption that she’ll be gone before I am. Plus, a boy needs a man in his life. Danny won’t have Timothy. He needs you. Please, Billy, sign the paperwork, and say you’ll take him, if you ever have to. That’s all you have to do; you can forget all about this conversation after this, because I’m not going to die and leave you to raise my boy.”

“I told you I couldn’t turn my back on him, or you,” William agreed, but he sounded and felt reluctant.

Matthew Wheeler steepled his hands in front of him. “Carl speaks highly of you. He says you are hardworking, know horses like someone who has been around them all your life, even though he knows you haven’t, and you are the best rider he’s ever seen. He begged me not to hire you, because he wants to try you at jockey this season.”

“Mr. Stinson’s been good to me. Better than good.”

“So why do you want to leave his employ?”

“I don’t, but I have to recognize where my responsibilities lie and prepare for the future.”

“How so?”

The young man shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t have much family left: just my Ma, my sister, and her boy. If anything happens to Shannon, Danny’s my responsibility. If that happens, he needs more of a bed than a couple of hay bales in the loft. If that happens, I’ll need more savings than a couple quarters in my sock.”

“I’m moving my family out of New York City, to the country, a little town called Sleepyside-on-Hudson. If family motivates you so strongly, why would you want to be an hour out from them, with a live-in job?”

“It’s closer than Saratoga, isn’t it?”

Mr. Wheeler chuckled. “You have me there. Alright, perhaps I can learn from your devotion to your family. You have yourself a job, Mr. Regan.”

“There’s no Mr. in me; ‘fraid I’m not old enough.”

“My father always said it had nothing to do with age and everything to do with recognizing one’s responsibilities to others.”

“I’ve been just Regan here for years; guess I’ve grown accustomed.”

“Regan it is; for now.”

Daniel came home to the small, rundown apartment he shared with his mother and grandmother. He had a big project to do this weekend. Honestly, he’d been putting it off, which was a problem. Ma would be disappointed with him for slacking, but what else was he supposed to do? Grandma was too old to work, and his Ma was getting weaker and weaker. Uncle Bill sent money when he could, but it wasn’t enough. Daniel only had two choices: take Luke up on the offer and join the Cowhands, getting the money by selling drugs, hooking other people the way he’d watched Luke get hooked and spiral downhill, or get a real job. For a teen who wasn’t even sixteen, real jobs were lacking, and they didn’t pay enough to keep a family of three afloat, but it was something, and it kept Daniel from feeling completely helpless. Ma hadn’t wanted him to get a job at all, and she had insisted that his schoolwork had to come first, but it didn’t. It couldn’t. His shifts were his shifts; if he wanted to keep the job he had to show up at work on time, whether his schoolwork was done or not.

“Ma, I’m home!” Daniel called out, but no one called back.

“Ma? Grandma?” Daniel called again, working toward Ma’s bedroom, figuring she must be napping. Instead, he found a completely empty apartment. The apartment was never empty. He turned back toward the kitchen, knowing his mother would have left him a note before his grandmother and mother both left the apartment and she’d have left it stuck to the fridge. That was where the notes always were, even the sweet little Irish proverbs and Celtic blessings wishing him a good day and good luck.

There was no note and Daniel felt his heart beat faster. The front door of the apartment banged open and Daniel jumped, his hand instinctively going to the small of his back, where he kept a knife. Luke told him it wouldn’t help him on the streets. Everyone knew what happened to the guy who brought a knife to a gun fight, and it was a gun fight among the gangs on New York City’s streets. Instead, he recognized the red hair coming through the door.

“Uncle Bill! I didn’t think you were coming until next weekend,” Daniel said, releasing the knife.

“Ma called and said I needed to get down here.”

“Your Ma or my Ma?”

“Mine,” Regan answered. “Daniel, she took your mother to the hospital.”

“What? Ma’s in the hospital? Which one?”

“Mercy. She asked me to come meet you and take you over.”

Daniel snickered. “The way you love driving, you aren’t going to drive in the city. And you don’t know the fastest way to get to Mercy from here, so really, she should have asked me to wait for you, since it’ll be me taking you over, not the other way around.”

Regan shrugged. “Better we go than debate it, I think.”

Daniel nodded somberly, grabbing his keys off the counter, where he’d dropped them, so that he could lock up. He had a fleeting thought that his history teacher was going to be disappointed in him when he failed the project, but…Ma’s in the hospital!

His feet moved faster without him realizing it, until Uncle Bill finally put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Daniel, slow down. We’ll get there.”

“Will we? The doctors…they were trying to hide it behind doctor faces, but the results of the last scan weren’t good. She’s dying, Uncle Bill.”

“I know,” he said grimly.

“So how do you know this isn’t it?”

“I don’t,” Regan admitted, “but I know Shannon, and I know she’s as stubborn as they come, and, even if this is her time, she will not leave you without saying goodbye. God himself can’t take her away until she’s ready.”

“If that were true, we’d still be a family; Dad would still be alive, Grandma’d be in some retirement community with friends her own age—instead of watching over me—and I wouldn’t have a job to try and fail to meet rent every month. Ma’s stubborn, but somethings are out of her hands, and God himself took his eye off the ball where our family’s concerned.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that. It’s disrespectful.”

“I didn’t think you were a believer.”

“Doesn’t mean I go around disrespecting those who are. Your life’s been hard, Danny, I get that. You’re railing against God and everyone else because of that, and because you’re a teenager, and it’s part of the package, but it’s no excuse.”

Daniel wrapped his hands around his mother’s cold hand. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I love you, Danny. Always and forever, in heaven and on earth. You are strong, Danny. You will survive and even thrive. God has a path prepared for you, and angels to guide you.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I know, my child. I don’t want to leave you, either. Still, the time is coming all too soon. I can feel it in my bones, Danny. This cancer has won the mortal battle. We just have to trust in God, who has won the immortal war.”

Dan leaned his head on his hands, still clasped around his mother’s, tears gathering in his eyes. He was only a teenager. He shouldn’t be facing down the loss of his mother this young. Hadn’t his father’s death been enough loss for one young life?

A few minutes later, his grandmother rested a hand on his shoulder. “God will walk with us through even this.”

Dan nodded tearfully. There was no sense arguing theology with Grandma Regan. It would only upset her, if she knew the doubts in his heart about a God that would rob him of both parents before he even graduated high school. Instead, he glanced around the room, his eyes settling on his Uncle Bill, pressed into a chair in the corner. It was clear his uncle wanted to be anywhere but here, but he refused to leave his sister’s side. Dan wondered sometimes what it would be like to have siblings, someone he was that close to that was mostly his age. He wasn’t that close to anyone, except his Ma. When she died, there’d be nobody.

A long night followed the long day, and Dan fell, eventually, into exhausted sleep, waking at the alarm pitch of the heartrate monitor. “No,” he cried. “Please, Ma, I didn’t mean to fall asleep!” Too late; she was already gone.

Grandma Regan gathered him up in her arms before he even realized she was near. He tried to pull away, not wanting to let his mother go, until a nurse came in and turned off the alarm. The finality of it, the way she ghosted in, silenced the noise, and ghosted back out, shattered him and he collapsed into his grandmother’s arms. Ma was gone; forever gone, just like his father.

Please, Billy, sign the paperwork, and say you’ll take him, if you ever have to. That’s all you have to do; you can forget all about this conversation after this, because I’m not going to die and leave you to raise my boy.

Regan stood at the grave where they would soon be burying his sister, remembering her words shortly after they’d buried his brother-in-law. He wanted to scream, “You promised! You promised I could forget all about that conversation.” Instead, he whispered, “Shannon, I’m just a kid myself. I can’t be responsible for yours!”

And yet he was. Shannon was dead, William himself was devastated, his mother was inconsolable, and Danny – oh, Danny – was orphaned as a teenager.

How was he supposed to raise his sister’s son? He wasn’t old enough to be a parent; let alone to a teen! He could barely manage his own life. Now he was responsible for his nephew by law, and his mother by obligation.

“One day at a time,” his mother said quietly.

“My job is in Sleepyside. I know Shannon could barely make rent as it was. You and Danny will have to move out there, with me.”

“Of course.”

“Danny’s lived in the city his whole life. He’s not going to want to leave his home, his friends. His parents.” Regan remembered how much he’d hated leaving the city where his father was buried. Moving Danny to Sleepyside would take him out of the city where both his father and mother were buried, but there was no choice.

The move was not without difficulty. As Regan had guessed, his nephew had no interest in moving away from the only home he’d known. They fought over it, but there was no choice. Within a week, Daniel and his grandmother were settled with Regan in the apartment above the Wheelers garage.

Mr. Wheeler tried to offer them rooms in the main house, but Regan declined. He knew there would be more fights before they settled into their new reality. He’d rather his boss’ family and staff weren’t privy to them. Regan knew his boss wouldn’t give up – the two bedroom apartment with a pullout sofa was hardly spacious enough for the three of them – but he didn’t want charity. He had known this day might come and had been preparing for it as best he could since his sister had convinced him to sign the papers naming him as Daniel’s legal guardian, if she died.

The raise he could not refuse, though he told himself that he had earned it with hard work, a good nature, and far too much patience with the shenanigans the Wheeler and Belden kids got up to. At least Dan would have people his own age close by in his new home. Good kids. Crazy, but good.

Settling all of his sister’s affairs took Regan into New York City every few weeks. He always invited Daniel to join him, and the teen never refused. Regan understood he had friends there; while the move was necessary, he saw no reason to force Daniel to cut all ties with his prior life.

Except that Daniel seemed to spend the bulk of his time in the city hanging around with Luke Santos. Shannon had expressed her concerns about the path Danny’s friend was taking in life on numerous occasions. She hadn’t wanted her sweet little boy to go down those paths and so had discouraged the friendship in recent years. Regan felt he owed it to his sister to continue discouraging Danny from considering drugs and gangs as options.

The thing was, he had no idea how to talk to Daniel about these sorts of things. Still, as they waited for the train back to White Plains, Regan tried, “Danny.”

“Stop calling me that!” The teen shouted at him, already in a mood, as he often was when Regan told him it was time to leave the city.

“That is the name your—” Regan trailed off, realizing what was wrong. He sighed, reaching out to his nephew. “That is the name your mother gave you,” he finished. “God, I miss her, and I know you do, too. But we still have to go on. She wouldn’t want anything less. So, what’ll it be? Daniel?”

The teen nodded sullenly.

“Okay, Daniel. Now, what were you doing with that Santos boy? Your mother told me he was bad news and she didn’t want you associating with him.”

Daniel nodded. “She was right. He’s… mixed up in some bad stuff.”

“What kind of bad stuff?” Shannon had told him what she knew – drugs, a youth gang, guns – but Regan was young enough to remember how much he and Shannon had kept from their mother in their teens, so he wanted to hear it from Danny. Daniel.

“He belongs to a gang. The Cowhands. He was trying to recruit me, right around the time Ma got sick. It was a tempting offer, with Ma worrying about rent every month and food every week in between, but I had to be around to help Ma, and Grandma, you know?”

“I do,” Regan agreed.

“So, yeah, not a good news sort of guy.”

“Yet you’re spending your one day in the City palling around with him.”

“No, working on him. Trying to convince him to go to rehab and get clean. To get out. Before he ends up in prison, or worse. Wish he could’ve come to Sleepyside with me and Grandma.”

“You’re a good kid, Daniel, but you’re still just a kid. So is Santos. If he gets arrested, they’ll send him to rehab, and send him home. Might be the best thing you could do for him, tipping off the police.”

“They’ll send him home,” Daniel agreed, but he didn’t sound optimistic.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything. Home’s why he started using.”

Regan frowned. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I wish there was something we could do, but there’s not really room for the three of us in the apartment, and I can’t impose on Mr. Wheeler more than I already have.”

“I know,” Daniel admitted. “I just wish I could do something for Luke. Or that he’d do something for himself. If he talked to social workers, about everything that I think is happening in his house, I think they could help him, but I can’t prove any of it. Luke has to admit it; he has to want to help himself.”

“You can lead a horse to water,” Regan admitted.

“But you can’t make it drink,” Daniel agreed, defeated. “I’ll try again next time.”

Regan tried to be understanding. Their conversation about Luke had reassured him that Shannon had already done the hardest work of raising the boy right, and Regan just had to keep him on course to adulthood. But life was not without its friction.

“I didn’t ask to move out to the middle of nowhere!” Dan snapped. “I wanted to stay in New York City.”

Regan took a deep breath. God, grant me patience, he thought grimly. “I know,” he soothed, “and I’m sorry you had to move away from the only home you’ve ever known, and from all your friends. I know you miss your Ma. I miss her, too.” Regan wished he could change the circumstances of Dan’s life and his own. He wished with all his heart that his nephew could grow to adulthood in a stable home with two loving parents there to cheer on his every success. Daniel deserved that much, at least. But Regan couldn’t change their circumstances, so he just had to keep doing the best he could with what he had, or so his own Ma kept advising him.

Daniel kicked a post in the stable. “I want her back.”

“Of course you do. So do I. So does Grandma Regan. Shannon was a very special person, and she left a mark on every life she touched. We’re supposed to miss her.”

Daniel kicked the post again, shame-faced. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Regan patted Daniel’s shoulder. “I did worse after your Grandfather Regan died, and I’d only lost one parent. You and me, Daniel, we’ve got Irish tempers.”

“Grandma says the Irish are passionate.”

Regan snorted. “Ma always was one to see the best of anyone.”

“You think she’s seeing the best of that old hermit she’s flirting with?” Daniel asked, a spark of mischief in his eyes.

“Come on, Daniel, that’s my Ma! I can’t be thinking about things like that.”

Daniel shrugged. “I just…is he a good guy, even? He looks like he could be an ax murderer.”

Regan put his hands on his hips. “Well, he probably could be. Ol’ Mr. Maypenny still splits all his own wood. That whole cabin runs off the woodstove: the heat, hot water, cooking, all of it’s wood-fueled. He’s not going to up and kill Ma, though, so put to rest any worries you have about that. On the other hand, she might be the death of him. He’s used to a quiet, solitary existence.”

“Which means the company will do us both a world of good,” Grandma Regan insisted, striding into the stables. “And I did not get to this ripe old age without being able to look after my ownself, thank you both very kindly.”

One day, when they were grooming the horses together on his uncle’s day off, Dan finally found the courage to ask Jim Frayne, “I guess it’s probably private and totally none of my business, but why did you stay as long as you did?”

“Stay where?” Jim asked, distractedly, making sure Jupiter was secured.

“With Jones,” Dan clarified. He just couldn’t understand why Luke stayed in the desperate situation he was in. All he had to do was tell the social workers at the school, who already guessed, that they were right. Or, hell, just run away. Luke could probably make it on his own at this point, if he got clean and quit the gang. But he stayed. It didn’t make any sense. But Jim had stayed, too. And that made even less sense. Jim was no addict, had no gang holding him back. Yet he’d stayed, through beating after beating, only to run over a trivial argument about whether he’d gotten a college scholarship or not. Maybe Dan was missing something, something that had kept Jim from running sooner, and something that kept Luke from listening to him about quitting the gang and the cocaine and his messed up home situation.

“Hopelessness,” Jim answered after a long pause. “Internalizing it all for way too long, to the point where I didn’t think I deserved anything better.”

“What made you leave, then?” Jim was honorable to a fault, hated lying and liars, but Dan still couldn’t see how his step-father not believing him was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Hopelessness,” Jim answered with a chuckle. “I knew he’d never let me go willingly. I knew it wouldn’t get better, and probably would get worse. If I didn’t believe in my future, no one else would. Why?”

Dan shrugged. “I have a friend, back in New York. Mixed up with drugs and gang life, I think mostly to avoid worse at home. I keep trying to get him to consider rehab, or talking to social workers about the home situation, and he won’t even consider either. There’s no future for him like this, just jail, overdose, or murder. I don’t understand how he can’t see that. But you’re no addict and you didn’t leave, either, so I figure I must be missing something that keeps you and Luke in these futureless scenarios for way too long.”

“I’m no expert,” Jim admitted. “But, yeah, if his parents are beating him down verbally and emotionally like Jones did to me—forget any physical abuse going on; you get numb to the pain before long—he might feel a lot like I did, like he’s not worth anything more than jail or overdose. I don’t know him, but he might see death as the only way out.”

“But it’s not the only way out!”

“It’s harder from inside the situation,” Jim insisted. “But keep with him; keep reminding him there are other ways out. Probably all you can do for him, especially at our age. I didn’t have any friends in Albany; but when I finally did run…well, you know the story: Trixie and Honey found me a way out that didn’t involve dying. Friends are important.”

Somehow, dinner at Mr. Maypenny’s, with his grandmother and uncle, had become a weekly ritual for Dan. Any thoughts Dan might have had about protesting died quickly upon his first taste of Mr. Maypenny’s hunter stew. It was the most delicious thing Dan ever remembered eating.

This week, he was distracted. He and Regan were going into the city again on Saturday, which would give him another opportunity to see Luke, an opportunity he felt increasingly conflicted about. Luke was falling deeper and deeper into what was now undoubtedly an addiction, despair and resignation about his parents’ treatment of him, and loyalty—that Dan felt was more unhealthy dependence—to the gang. With each visit, Dan felt the situation grew more hopeless. If it was hopeless, and Luke was destined to jail or overdose, and there was nothing to be done, why did Dan keep trying so hard, why did he care so much? Because Luke had been his best friend, before Ma got sick, before the gang, before the drugs.

Dan eventually found himself out on the porch of Mr. Maypenny’s cabin, leaning against the railing, looking up at the sky. He wasn’t sure how long he was outside before a soft voice interrupted his musings. “What troubles you, Daniel?”

Dan didn’t answer immediately, not sure how much he wanted to say to the old man. Too many of the adults in his life wanted him to write Luke off, his own family included.

“Your uncle tells me you are a teenager and they tell him moodiness is normal. I wouldn’t know, having never had children of my own. Perhaps because I live alone and am so often alone with my own thoughts, I think I can see when others are stuck within their own thoughts. I do not believe your preoccupation tonight is that of a normal teenager, if indeed such a creature exists.”

“I have a friend, back in New York City. He won’t tell social workers anything, because he doesn’t trust adults. He’s addicted to the cocaine the gang gives him. I don’t know how to reach him. Uncle Bill and Grandma would just as soon I gave up on him, but…he was my best friend, before everything went wrong in both our lives.” Dan sighed, turning to lean his back against the rail and face Mr. Maypenny. “We grew up together in inner-city New York, without much for money in our families. Adults like to tell kids like us that we have all these opportunities, that the future is all open possibilities, but as one of those kids, it doesn’t look like that’s true. It looks like there are just two possibilities. Get out, or get in. And getting out takes money; money we don’t have, so it requires someone, in some way, seeing those opportunities, those possibilities for you and in you. It seems that the only thing you can do by your own power is get in. So Luke did; he got in and now he’s a dedicated member of the Cowhands gang.”

“And you think you’re the one to see those possibilities and opportunities for and in him?”

“Maybe,” Dan admitted. It sounded arrogant. He was no Mr. Wheeler, to swoop in and save Luke. He got a little money for helping Mr. Maypenny patrol the game preserve, but it wasn’t enough to support another teen. “But I don’t have any money, any resources, really, to get him out. So it feels pretty hopeless, especially when he doesn’t seem to want out.”

“It’s hard to want what seems so far beyond your own experience as to be impossible,” Mr. Maypenny said wisely. “Like you, I spent my earliest years in New York City. That’s where the jobs were, after all, and my father had a family to support. His father had been a trapper, so he’d grown up in a cabin in the woods. He never stopped wanting to go back, so as soon as he could work out a way to finance it, he and my mother moved us out here, to live off this land, out away from the city. When they told my brother and me that we were moving to a cabin in the woods of Westchester, we were less than enthusiastic,” Mr. Maypenny recalled. “We had lived our whole lives in the depths of the city; more trees than people was not something we could fathom. We could not imagine life here, and so could not see what it would give us, what blessings there would be, that we would want. My brother eventually went back to city life, but I never left and now could not imagine wanting anything else, but I haven’t forgotten that I could not imagine wanting this when it was first offered.”

Dan nodded, looking up at the sky. “Ma loved the stars. She tried to teach me the constellations, but I never took to it like she did. It was hard, with the light pollution. ‘Oh, you mean that one star we can see? Or is it just the beacon over on 4th flickering again?’ It wasn’t until we moved out here and I really saw the stars…” Dan waved a hand to the starry sky. “This I could fall in love with, the way Ma talked about the stars.”

“And your friend, too, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“Have you considered inviting your friend to spend a weekend with you, here?”

“There isn’t space enough for the three of us in the apartment as it is, and Uncle Bill doesn’t want to impose on Mr. Wheeler more than we already do, and…I agree.”

“Ah, yes, the Regan pride. Just when I almost manage to forget it,” Mr. Maypenny said with a dry humor. “Have you ever explored the attic here? My brother and I shared it as boys. My father built the bunks into the walls, so there are still two beds.”

“Why would you do that for someone you’ve never met?”

“I have a soft spot for troubled young men. And you are a conscientious young man; I have faith in your judgment of character. But, this is not a no strings attached offer; let me be clear about that. I will not have drug use or smoking in my home. He and you will be sober throughout, if he wishes to take me up on the offer.”

Daniel was stunned. It was the first time anyone had offered him help in his quest to save Luke. It wasn’t much and yet, it was everything. He swallowed hard to find his voice. “Thank you. Even if he never agrees to the offer, thank you for it all the same.”

It took Dan a while to convince Luke that a weekend in the country would be fun and even longer to convince him it was worth giving up the cocaine for a weekend for it. Daniel wasn’t sure Luke could actually manage it, and he thought Mr. Maypenny probably knew that, but at least it was an attempt at something akin to helping.

“Where are you going?” Dan asked as Luke pulled on his leather jacket the second evening.

“Need a smoke.”

“Wish you’d quit,” Dan admitted, pulling on his own jacket. Part of him wanted to offer his coat to Luke, knowing it was warmer than the leather jacket, and his slender friend felt the cold more than he did. He knew how proud Luke was, though, and Dan wanted no part of the jacket marked with the Cowhands gang name. He was glad to have gotten free of New York before the gang seduced him. The more he watched his friend shrink and fall deeper into his addiction, the more grateful he was.

Dan went out with him, away from the cabin. As Luke lit his cigarette, Dan found a good spot and built a small fire. He wasn’t going to leave Luke to get lost in the Preserve after dark, but he also didn’t want to freeze and he knew Luke would be a while with his cigarette, wanting something more than the nicotine, but holding—so far—to his promise not to get high on the cocaine while he was staying with Dan at Mr. Maypenny’s.

“You know, there’d be good pickin’s at the Wheeler joint, if you’d show me the ropes, so we could go in an’ out again without any trouble. Split the pickin’s with ya, fifty-fifty,” Luke suggested over another long drag on the cigarette.

“But, Luke! They’re not like you think they are. Mr. Wheeler’s been real good to Uncle Bill, so’s old man Maypenny. He’s been good to all of us, including you.”

“You’re just yeller. You always were,” Luke insisted with a sneer, taking another drag on his cigarette. “You’ve got it soft here. You keep sayin’ we’re friends, but it clearly don’t mean a thing to you anymore. I oughta give you a beatin’ to teach you to be a better friend.”

Dan felt his blood boil. He was the only person in the world who was a good friend to Luke and he wanted to throw it all away on a robbery they couldn’t possibly pull off? After Mr. Maypenny’s generosity in hosting a drug-addicted gangster for a weekend? Dan got to his feet, kicking snow on the fire to put it out. “You’re talking crazy. Put your cigarette out. We’re going to back to the cabin. Come on! I oughta leave you here, but I’ll give you one last chance. Are you comin’ or are you hangin’ around in the backwoods some more? City kid like you’ll be lost in minutes.”

“Cause you’re no city kid anymore.”

“Ya coming?”

“Aw, don’t rush me,” Luke grumbled. “I need a coke ball.”

“You need rehab,” Dan retorted. “I don’t know why I bother trying anymore when you’re so set on throwing your whole life away.”

“I’d be set for life, we picked the Wheeler joint clean,” Luke insisted.

Dan snorted. “In Sing Sing maybe. Are you coming or not?”

“I’m thinkin’ it over,” Luke said. “Anyhow, why can’t we just get out of here and head back to the city? We can figure out plenty of ways to get more money there than we’d get breakin’ into Wheelers’, even. How about it, Dan-o?”

Dan shook his head. “Luke, we’re minors. It’d be running away. My family’d report us missing and call down the cops on us. Besides, your parents are in New York. Thought you were all hot to get away from them. Thought that was why you threw your life away with the gang and the coke.”

“Hitting below the belt, ain’t that?”

Dan shrugged. “If it’ll get you to quit your folks, the Cowhands, and the snow. No hard feelings, Luke?”

“Nah, kid! Only if I get nabbed by the cops, I’ll tell ‘em you’re in on it, too.”

“They won’t believe you! That’s what you get when you have people in your life that actually care about you. That’s what you could have, you quit the New York scene.”

An eerie howl split the night.

“What the hell was that?” Luke demanded, edgy.

“There’s been a catamount in the Preserve the past couple days. We gotta go back now. I don’t want to tangle with him.”

“Dan!” The frantic cry wasn’t from Luke. Trixie burst out from behind a rock. “You’ve got to help me! Bobby’s caught in a hole, and I can’t pull him out!” She stumbled and fell to her knees and burst out crying.

Dan stopped, staring in amazement, and then, he ran to her while Luke stood watching with a scowl.

“Trixie!” Dan helped her to her feet. “What’s the idea of being way out here after dark? Don’t you have any brains?” Dan flinched as he heard the words tumble out of his mouth. If he wasn’t so upset about Luke, and worried about the catamount, he might have said something a little less rude. Why did he always have to say ridiculous stuff around her? It was no way to win a girl.

“Trixie, hey?” Luke cut in before Trixie could start to explain. “So that’s how your loyalties go. Yer going to throw all our history in the can for a pretty face? Name like that, she’s probably just a cheap slut, anyway.”

“I’m not!” Trixie glared at him through her tears, and Dan was tempted to let her have a go at Luke. He had a feeling Trixie would show his friend just who the cheap slut was. In the distance the catamount howled again, and Trixie broke off her hard look at Luke, turning back to Dan. “Dan, you’ve got to believe me! Bobby’s stuck in a cave and, if you don’t come help him, that awful thing may get him!”

“The poor little guy!” Dan said. He’d always wanted siblings and he adored Bobby Belden. “Where is he? How far is it?”

“I’ll show you, but hurry!” Trixie pulled at his jacket sleeve. “Please, please hurry!”

“Do you have a flashlight?” Dan demanded.

Trixie fumbled and produced one, handing it to him. Dan waved it off. He produced his own and looked apologetically at Luke. “Won’t take long. I’ll be right back. He’s only a six-year-old kid! But if you want to go back, here,” Dan said pressing the flashlight into his hands. “Follow our tracks back,” Dan instructed, pointing.

“And you’re a fool, Dan Mangan, if you think I’m hangin’ around any longer. Stay here with your ‘friends’ but don’t forget, if anything happens where I’m going, you’re in it deep!”

With the last words, Luke turned and strode out of sight into the darkness of the woods, not following any tracks at all.

For a minute, Dan started after him uncertainly. Fool boy would get himself lost in the woods with a catamount, and no one but Dan would care. Trixie pulled at his sleeve. “Please, Dan! We are your friends, really. Don’t mind him! Come and help Bobby, please! You don’t need friends like him, anyway.”

“No, but he needs friends like me. Still, Bobby’s innocent, too. Which way? And we better hurry. That cat sounded nearer this time!”

Trixie cast around, sweeping with her flashlight until it fell on what looked to Dan like the remains of a white wool sweater. Only Trixie would use white to mark a trail in the snow after dark, Dan though wryly. She was really smart, but sometimes she seemed to completely forget to think. “There, that’s the way!” Trixie cried, proving the sweater was a trail.

“Wait a minute!” Dan called, and when she looked back impatiently, he shrugged out of his coat hastily, coming toward her with it. He’d just realized she didn’t have a coat on at all. She had to be freezing. “Here, get into this!” He insisted. “I won’t need it!”

“But you’ll be cold!” She protested verbally, but she didn’t resist as he helped her into it.

“Not if we move fast,” he assured her. “Besides, I can take it better than a girl.”

“So, help me, Daniel Mangan, if you think for a minute I’m just a cheap slut, like that friend of yours—” Trixie huffed, the world’s scorn in her emphasis of the word friend.

“I think nothing of the sort,” Dan assured her.

“Well, good,” Trixie said, mollified.

Dan couldn’t resist teasing, “I just might think you’re a delicate fragile flower fit only for dusting and dishes.”

Trixie turned in one smooth movement and tackled him into the snow, stuffing a snowball down his shirt. She jumped to her feet as the catamount took that moment to remind them of their urgency. “Hurry up, or I’ll tell Mart you are the delicate fragile one.”

Dan grinned and hurried after her. They were soon at the mouth of the cave, and Trixie called out softly as they went into it. “Bobby, honey, are you awake?” She played the flashlight around before centering it on the gaping hole in the floor.

Dan ran forward to kneel with her at the edge. “Bobby,” Trixie called, growing uncertain. “Are you asleep?”

There was no answer. But neither were there any catamount tracks visible in the soft dirt of the cave floor. Dan’s breathing slowed a little as he saw that.

“Better let me get down,” Dan told her. “He’s probably fast asleep, so don’t try to wake him up till I get a chance to see the lay of the land and find out what’s holding him.” Dan feared he’d find worse down there; that Bobby wasn’t just sleeping, but hypothermic. Trixie didn’t need to know that until they could do something about it.

“A rock, he said.”

“Might just be some earth,” Dan said quickly, hearing her voice tremble. “Quit getting hysterical!” He chided and then cursed himself for again being ridiculous with her. “Come on; you were just telling me about how you’re no delicate flower of a girl. You need to hold it together for Bobby. Hysteria won’t help him now,” Dan pointed out, letting himself down into the hole. “Let me see the flashlight.”

Trixie handed it to him, gulping back her tears. “I’m sorry. Tell me what to do to help, and I’ll do it.”

Dan didn’t answer, scoping out the situation with the flashlight. Bobby blinked sleepily when the light crossed his face. “Hello, mister. Did you falled down the hole, too?”

Dan was a little worried Bobby didn’t seem to recognize him, but he didn’t want to worry either Belden yet. Instead, he answered Bobby cheerfully. “Sure did, boy! But we’re going to climb out real quick, aren’t we?”

“Uh-huh,” Bobby agreed. “Where’s Trixie? She runned away.”

“I’m right here, Bobby!”

Dan turned his attention to the rock trapping Bobby’s foot, reciting a rhyme his mother had taught him about a fairy shoemaker. It took longer than Dan wanted and he was chilled to the bone before he got Bobby out.

Shortly after he lifted Bobby up to Trixie and hauled himself up out of the hole, Uncle Bill, Mr. Maypenny, Mr. Belden, Brian, and Mart showed up. They fussed over him, Bobby, and Trixie.

For a few minutes, Dan was numb, sipping from the warm thermos, and letting them wrap coats or blankets or whatever around him, but as Mr. Belden took his children home, the tense rescue fell away. “Uncle Bill! Luke’s bound to be lost in the preserve with the catamount! I gave him my flashlight and told him to follow our tracks back, but we’d argued and he stalked off in a different direction.”

“Alright; we will find him. First, let’s get you back to Mr. Maypenny’s and see if Luke made it back there on his own.”

Dan nodded. Even though Luke hadn’t started back to the cabin, Dan couldn’t know that he hadn’t found his way back, or thought better of stalking off through unfamiliar woods and had circled back. Plus, he really was cold; so cold that it was hard to think clearly, which suggested he’d be no use to Luke if he didn’t warm up sooner rather than later.

Luke had not returned to the cabin, though Mr. Maypenny was able to confirm that the catamount had been found and dealt with, so at least Luke didn’t have that to worry about.

Uncle Bill headed back out to search for the teen while Mr. Maypenny put a mug of warm, home-pressed cider in Dan’s hands. Dan sipped the cider, worrying about his friend. He wanted Luke to be okay, to be found quickly, but he also knew the fastest way Luke would be found was if Luke did try to rob the Manor House.

“They will find him,” Mr. Maypenny reminded the grim teen. “You do him no good succumbing to hypothermia yourself.”

“I know,” Dan admitted. That was why he hadn’t argued about coming back to the cabin. “It’s just...we were arguing. He wanted me to tell him how to get past the security at Manor House. He thinks his life would be perfect with the money he could get from that big of a robbery. He said I was a bad friend because I wouldn’t. I was mad and then Trixie showed up and he said some nasty stuff to her...and I didn’t defend her. I didn’t call him on it. I was raised better than that; Ma’d be ashamed if she thought I wasn’t respecting women, even a girl who can certainly defend herself, like Trixie. Bobby was the important thing, but I still feel guilty about it.”

“Then, perhaps, in the morning, you should talk to the young woman, and apologize, if necessary.”

Dan started to nod in agreement, but his attention went immediately to the cabin door as it opened. Regan entered, stuffing his hat and gloves into the pockets of his jacket and smiling appreciatively as Mr. Maypenny pushed a mug of the warmed cider into his hands. Dan could see his uncle was chilled through, so he tried to be patient as his uncle warmed up, but only lasted a few seconds. “Luke?”

Uncle Bill frowned, taking a sip of the cider and then setting it down as he sat beside Dan at the table. “I’m sorry, Daniel. Tom caught him picking the lock on the back door of the Manor House. Cops arrested him half an hour ago. I know it’s not what you wanted, Daniel. You tried harder than anyone could expect of a kid your age, but he’ll spend the night at Sleepyside PD. They’ll be in touch with his parents, if they haven’t called them already.”

Dan nodded grimly. “He thought he’d be set for life with the haul from Manor House. And he really wanted to get high,” he said sadly. “I hoped…” Dan trailed off. He hoped a lot of things, for himself, for Luke.

Mr. Maypenny nodded sagely, as if he had finished the sentence. “When many others would have long since stopped hoping.”

“What do you want?” Luke asked sullenly, as the younger cop of the pair that had arrested him returned to the interrogation room.

“We called your parents,” Spider Webster informed the youth.

Luke snorted. “They turned me out. They’ll tell you that?”

Spider nodded. The charge was attempted robbery and Mr. Wheeler wasn’t chomping at the bit to press charges. Under normal circumstances, they’d have sent a minor home with a stern warning, but Luke Santos had a criminal record and parents who didn’t want to come get him. He was going to get shipped off the juvenile detention for a crime he didn’t even manage to properly commit. Spider found it sad.

He wanted to find an alternate route for this youth, especially with Daniel Mangan speaking for the boy, at least before he started on cocaine. Spider had seen firsthand during his training at the police academy how quickly the drug could destroy lives. Sleepyside was a forerunner in the county’s alternative sentencing and restorative justice initiative. A non-violent attempted crime by a minor was a perfect case, but Spider’s boss and the prosecutor would need to see a support system that extended beyond a fellow teen, no matter how excellent Daniel’s character was.

“You’ve been visiting with Daniel Mangan, staying at Mr. Maypenny’s cabin,” Spider said, thinking out loud. Few people outside the police department knew it, but twenty years ago the town council had approached almost a dozen of the town’s most upstanding citizens about being emergency foster parents, after struggling with having to send minors to White Plains, or further, for even temporary placements. Among those who had agreed, five citizens had completed the necessary process and passed the background checks, giving Sleepyside Police Department three homes to call if parents were in a car accident and hospitalized overnight, or being held overnight for intoxication, or long term foster or family wasn’t able to reach Sleepyside in the same day. One of those emergency placements was Mr. Maypenny, which got Spider thinking.

“What about it? Mangan was a friend, ‘fore he got soft and yeller.”

“Being orphaned as a kid is tough,” Spider told the kid.

Luke snorted. “Rather that than mine,” he said flatly.

Spider nodded. “Look, out here we try not to dump juvies into prison until we have to. If I can work something out for you, with rehab, foster, and work as part of your sentence, does that interest you, or are you so far gone that you’re ready to throw your life away for the cocaine?”

“Guess even the backwoods middle of nowhere’s better than barbed wire and steel bars.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t make any promises, with your past criminal record, that the DA’s office will go for it, even if I can line something up.”

Spider knew Mr. Maypenny was an early riser, so he headed straight for the weathered cabin, even though his shift let out just as the sun was skimming the horizon. He knocked on the door. “Food’s on the stove, so you’ll just have to come on in,” the old man called.

Spider smiled. He’d never had much luck convincing Mrs. V to lock her doors, either. Or not to invite strangers in without so much as looking to see who they were. He stepped into the warm cabin.

“Officer Webster,” Mr. Maypenny said cheerfully, “good morning. Coffee?”

“Please.”

“Oatmeal will be finished in just a moment. Make yourself comfortable.” Spider did so. Soon enough, hot coffee and oatmeal were in front of him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Spider frowned. “I hate the idea of shipping a minor to juvenile detention over what he planned to do, not anything he actually did.”

“Daniel and William mentioned Luke Santos’ family will not take him back.”

Spider nodded. “Santos doesn’t seem very shaken by that, so I can only make certain assumptions about what life has been like for him in that home to date. He and Daniel were staying here during his visit, I understand. Before I say anything more, I want you to understand you are in no way obligated to even consider what I’m proposing. I don’t know if it’s even a good idea; Santos is a troubled young man and it may be too late to put him back on a better track.”

“But you believe you’ve found a way to keep him out of juvenile detention, and you want my blessing.”

“It would require more than your blessing. I can get him a spot in one of the rehab facilities upstate, but once he completes the rehabilitation component of his sentence, he needs to have somewhere to go. And he needs to do something to pay his debt to society, and, theoretically, to his ‘victim’, Matthew Wheeler. I know Mr. Wheeler has been employing Dan, Jim, and the Belden boys, from time to time to assist you with the patrol portion of your gamekeeper duties. Given the size of the preserve, I wondered if there might not be room for another assistant gamekeeper.”

“And I’m already cleared for an emergency foster placement, so an extended placement would not be out of the realm of possibility, if I were willing.”

“Exactly. I do not know what your motivation was in welcoming Santos—and Mangan—into your home this weekend. I do not know if you were aware of his history, his addiction, et cetera, when you made that offer, or whether it would change your willingness to have made the offer. I do not know how the weekend went, until it didn’t. I don’t know if you would feel the same about the long term commitment as you did about the weekend, but this is the only path I can see to keep Santos out of Juvenile Detention, since his family has no intention of supporting him through the legal system, recovery, and beyond.”

“From what I have gathered, Daniel is the only person in Luke Santos’ life who has consistently cared and believed in the boy’s future, the boy included,” Mr. Maypenny shared.

Spider nodded. “I’ve gotten that sense over the past eight hours. I hate that thought.”

Mr. Maypenny nodded.

They sat in silence, finishing their breakfast and coffee, before Spider finally said, “Are you even considering the proposal I sketched out, or should I not bother trying to line up the rest of the details?”

“You know, as well as anyone, my soft spot for troubled young men. Of course I’m considering.”

Spider nodded. “I’ll let you know if the other details come together. Let me know if you decide against it.”

“Of course. It was a pleasure to have your company for breakfast this morning, Officer Webster.”

Spider shook his head. “Are you ever going to call me anything less formal that Officer Webster or Mr. Webster?”

Mr. Maypenny raised one eyebrow. “What else would I call you? We have never been more properly introduced.” Spider started to say something, but Mr. Maypenny shook his head. “‘Spider’ is not a name, it’s an arachnid.”

“Well, if the options are Officer Webster or my legal first name, I’ll stick with Officer Webster.”

Mr. Maypenny chuckled. “You could always change it—your legal name, I mean.”

“And worry about whether or not my mother is rolling over in her grave? I’ll stick with Spider, thank you,” Spider answered firmly with a shake of his head as he got back to his feet, not wanting to overstay his welcome, and well aware that he had quite a bit of lining up to do before Santos made it in front of a judge for arraignment late that afternoon. Not late enough, given what had to be arranged to keep the boy out of juvenile detention, where Sleepyside PD would lose any control and most opportunity to influence the outcome for the Santos boy. Spider needed to move quickly this morning.

Still, if Mr. Maypenny was on board, or at least considering, the biggest obstacle was at least shrinking.