Free In The Forest Of Harm by Sallie Bissell Page B

squeezing his balls. He blew a piece of fuzz off the photograph, then buttoned it carefully inside his shirt pocket. He would take it out later, when he had the time to devote to more serious fun.
    He pushed the witch hazel away from his face and crept out from under the thick green leaves. He’d have to settle the issue of the photograph with that Indian when he came back to get his money, but he would think of something. Maybe he could lure him into the forest with it and make him reveal where all that Cherokee gold was hidden. Brank chuckled. That would be wonderful, but it would never happen. Cherokees might be stupid and lazy, but they weren’t fools.
    He squinted through the lacy trees, checking the angle of the sun. Maybe he’d travel west for a little while and see if he could pick up Trudy’s trail. It would be nice to relax down in Florida without her scaring him shitless every time the sun set. He glanced once, thoughtfully, at the store, then he shouldered his sack and walked out of the shadows. The Little Jump Off folks could rest easy. Today he was hunting his sister.
    With his load lightened by thirty pounds, he slipped through the forest like a shadow, barely ruffling the leaves as he passed. The smell of damp earth rose from the ground as he traversed the crenelated ridges that led away from Little Jump Off. He searched for the chewed-up groundhog or mangled fox that would indicate Trudy’s presence, but he saw only an occasional squirrel and several bright mountain grosbeaks that darted like fierce blue arrows through the golden trees.
    By midafternoon hunger began to crimp the edges of his stomach. In an upland meadow he found a small clearing that had once held some farmer’s cabin, and he flopped down in the cool shadows beneath an ancient charred rock chimney.
    It felt good to be still, to stretch out his legs for a while. He scratched his back against the chimney rocks and looked at the trees that surrounded him. Though the sun shone bright and the breeze blew warm, the woods seemed quieter than usual, as if his presence had stilled the birds and hushed the sleepy hum of the crickets.
    He untied his sack and pulled out his Moon Pies. He hadn’t had chocolate in months. He freed one of the flat cookies from its cellophane wrapper and bit into it. A pleasant dark sweetness flooded his mouth, reminding him of a Christmas cake his mother had made. His mother. He wondered about her sometimes. What had she done that afternoon when his father had run back to their kitchen, Trudy in his arms, Henry nowhere to be found? She had always seemed to love him a little. Cried, he decided. She’d cried for both her children, then gone ahead and put up pickles and kraut and done all the things she’d always done while his father had waged his private war against him.
    He took another bite of Moon Pie. Suddenly two rangy shadows darkened the sky. He looked up. A pair of large black birds swooped low over his head, their wingspans casting long shadows on the ground. They glided over the clearing once, then turned sharply to land in the top of a rotted-out elm. Brank stopped eating and smiled.
    â€œCathartes aura,”
he proudly recalled one of the Latin names Fate Lyons had taught him. Turkey buzzards. Ugly as sin. Most people despised them, but he found them to be presagers of great events. He’d often followed kettles of them to locate the dead and dying, and he regarded the birds as just another battalion in the vast army of Death.
    â€œHello, boys.” Brank gave a polite nod to the pair. “Something around here about to die?”
    They cocked their dull red heads to one side and stared at him beady-eyed. Wings still spread, they perched in the tree as if waiting for some internal signal to swoop over and sink their talons into his flesh.
    Brank frowned as he chewed the sticky chocolate. It did seem a little odd. Buzzards did not usually fly in pairs or roost so close