Free Wild Life by Cynthia DeFelice

He wasn’t one hundred percent sure he believed that she had gotten badly burned while sunbathing one morning and frostbitten later the same afternoon, or that she used to watch the whitecaps in Oma’s birdbath, but he gathered up all his warmest clothes, including rain gear, and stuffed them into his backpack. He added his wallet but left his cell phone on the dresser. It was useless here, and there was no one he wanted to call. He and Quill were going to make it on their own. Kids in pioneer days didn’t have phones.
    He grabbed his toothbrush from the bathroom and headed back to Dan’s room. The shotgun shells went into the pack. Next he tied the old camping mess kit and the canteen onto the outside of the pack by their straps. From the box he took Elvis’s collar, which he placed around Quill’s neck, and the leash, which he used to lash the sleeping bag to the bottom of the pack.
    He was putting on the camouflage jacket when Dan’s hunting boots caught his eye. They looked sturdier than his own hiking boots, so he decided to try them on. They were a little roomy, but not bad at all when he put on two pairs of thick wool socks from Dan’s drawer.
    He picked up the gun, closed the closet door, and surveyed the room. There was no obvious sign that he’d been here. Oma or Big Darrell would have to come in and look in the closet to notice anything was missing, and somehow he doubted they would suspect right away that he’d been in Dan’s room. Carefully, he closed the door behind him and went downstairs, Quill at his heels.
    In the kitchen he gathered a big box of matches, which he put in a plastic baggie, and a couple of larger plastic bags for keeping his gear dry in case of rain. Opening cabinets and pulling out drawers, he looked for other things he might need and found a Swiss Army knife and another, longer knife.
    He and Quill would hunt for their food, of course. But just to be on the safe side, he raided the refrigerator for some cheese, a package of bologna, and two apples. From the pantry he took a pack of cookies, the remains of a loaf of bread, a nearly full jar of peanut butter, and a box of crackers. Then he filled the canteen with water.
    Looking around the kitchen, he couldn’t think of anything he was forgetting. His eyes fell on the notepad and pen sitting by the telephone. He imagined Oma coming home from church to find him gone. He remembered her saying to Dr. Bob, “I can’t have anything happening to Erik. He’s my daughter Darlene’s boy, you know.”
    On the note pad he wrote, “Dear Oma, Quill and I went for a walk, so I packed a lunch. Dr. Bob is coming by for her around 6.” He read it over. It implied—without actually saying—that he and Quill planned to be back in time to meet Dr. Bob. Nothing he’d written was an outright lie. He and Quill were going for a walk. He just hoped the note would buy them some extra time. He signed it, “Your grandson, Erik.”
    Hoisting his pack onto his back, he called to Quill. Together, they headed out into the wide and windy prairie.

12
    The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky, and Erik shaded his eyes against the glare. As he looked around at the miles of unpopulated countryside stretching as far as he could see, a feeling of exhilaration rose in him. From this moment on, he realized, every decision was his to make. Not only that, these were going to be real decisions, important ones, having to do with staying alive. He had one simple job, he told himself, to live off the land.
    The challenge quickened his blood.
    First decision: which way to go?
    He adjusted the pack on his back, shouldered the shotgun, and called to Quill, who seemed to have caught the scent of his excitement and was racing happily across the driveway toward the road. When she returned, he explained to her that they would be staying away from roads, crossing them only when necessary and when they