Sketch

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

It’s a hot and sweaty day. Steven’s been back for a couple of weeks now. Just like every other summer, the four spend little time outside of their jobs away from one another. They’re kicked back on Steven’s porch eating ice cream. The Hounds brothers have been out of bed since before the sun came up, digging ditches and fixing fences.

The small cushioned seat of the rickety porch swing and the cold ice cream in their mouths is a welcomed treat. Ice cream is rare. Steven’s father found an old barrel hidden in the back of the freezer in the store. It had too much frost on the top to sell to any passersby, so he was allowed to take it home and share with his family. Now, here they sit, enjoying the day. They’re waiting for Mr. Smith to leave for work so they can get into the basement.

Chloe figured out how to pick a lock with the pins from her hair years ago, so that she could get into her father’s office while he was gone, which sadly, is still more often than not. Her father’s oversized office is his favorite hiding place for any trinkets having been taken away from Chloe. By the time she gets into the room and steals them back, he never remembers what he had hidden anyway in the first place.

The first time Chloe broke into his office, it was to steal a few boxes of shotgun shells and .22 bullets for Michael. Her father had purchased them in bulk to save a few bucks. She was twelve at the time. While Chloe was in the room, she also found all the pocket knives, critter traps, and blow dart guns that had also been taken away from her… this sparked an inferno of breaking and entering.

Chloe decided that very day, that she wanted to pick every lock they come across, just to see what was behind it. The boys all loved her new talent. They were able to acquire lots of f*******n treasures, and no one ever knew what they were missing. They’d all been taught from birth not to steal. But to the Hounds brothers and their two closest friends, rules are just not something they’re interested in.

They have a shed built deep into the woods that no one would possibly be crazy enough to enter. This is where they’ve stashed their treasure for years. They have guns, fleshing knives, saws, spray paint, rope of all lengths, and even small pieces of furniture. Practically anything that could be carried and that they knew would not be missed. Most of all from Chloe’s place. They all just figure that’s the beauty of living in a gigantic house full of crap that you don’t need, and most likely would ever notice has gone missing.

As soon as Steven’s dad, Robert Smith, pulls down the road, they look mischievously at one another and then take off in a sprint down the steps into his basement. Steven has always wanted to know what’s locked away down here. His father told him years ago that it was just a room full of old newspapers. But Steven’s always known there has to be more to this dingy-looking door all locked away. It doesn’t take Chloe long to pick the lock. She’s getting better and faster at it with every lock she opens. The door creaks, and there it is.

“Holy s**t,” gasps John.

“This is the best day of my life,” says Michael.

“Look at the dust on all this stuff. I’ll bet this door hasn’t been open in years! No one will even notice if we take it!” adds Chloe.

Steven whispers in fear, “I don’t know guys, my dad will kill me if he finds out.”

“No, he won’t, Red, I can take him,” jokes Michael.

Staring back at them from the wall to wall metal storage shelves are two small crossbows and an open chest of arrows. Along with old war paint, hatchets, a couple machetes and rope. There is one box of newspapers setting on the floor.

“What the hell was my dad doing with this stuff?” Steven asks, more to himself than the others.

Steven’s dad isn’t an adventurous man, and aside from the yearly deer and occasional bear he shoots, he doesn’t even like to get out and do much.

“The bears are getting out of control around here,” and, “we gotta’ have meat to survive,” is his logic for hunting.

He doesn’t enjoy hunting as a sport like the majority of other men and even women in town. It’s more of a chore for him, which is only one step away from insanity from Steven’s point of view. Hunting is Steven’s favorite thing to do with his dad, aside from throwing a football.

“Who cares why he has this stuff!?” John says, always the planner of the group. “Let’s just take it now and hurry, in case he forgot something and has to come back home. We don’t want to get caught carrying it all out of your house.”

They grab as much as they can lift and head straight for the woods. Distracted by all the cool things, they don’t even bother to glance at the newspapers in the box on the floor.

“This is awesome! I get to shoot one first,” shouts Chloe, grabbing the black one.

“And I get the other one first,” follows Michael, staking his claim on the green one.

“Oh hell no! They’re my dads, I get to shoot one first.”

Steven can’t help but to fight for this one. He hasn't been this excited and scared, all at the same time in all of his sixteen years.

Michael has nothing else to say, and he refuses let Steven take ahold of his new weapon. Michael holds the crossbow to his side and throws a powerful swing at Steven with his free hand. Being friends with Michael means you’re bound to get into a fight or two, so you have to be able to take a punch.

Steven is no pansy and he isn’t a little guy by any means. His shaggy red hair goes flying to the side as his jaw takes the blow of the hit. Steven doesn’t much care if this is a fight he can win or lose, he jumps in with fists swinging. Quicker than the crossbow can hit the ground, John swoops in to grab it. He and Chloe stand to the side, waiting for one of them to knock the other out or wrestle one another into submission.

“My money’s on Steven this time. I think he’s had a growth spurt since the last time they got into it. Even his fists are bigger.” Chimes in Chloe, watching intently with her own fists balled.

“You’re on, Blondie. My brother never has lost a fight to Steven,” replies John matter of factly. “If he loses, you have to skin the next ten rabbits I shoot.”

“And, if Steven wins?”

“I won’t tell Michael that I catch you staring at him all the time.”

Chloe’s heart skips a beat, and she lowers her eyes at him.

“Deal,” she agrees, reaching her hand out to give John’s a firm shake.

The fight doesn’t last long. A little bobbing and weaving, and the next thing they know Steven is knocked out on the ground. Chloe splashes a little water on his face and helps him up with a struggled pull.

“You’re lucky he didn’t break your nose this time,” she tells him.

Chloe giggles, helps guide Steven back up to his wobbling feet, and then over to a nearby boulder. She steadies his shoulders while he sits down with a huff. Chloe enjoys seeing Steven get a beating once in a while, she thinks he has it coming. She especially enjoys seeing Michael do the beating. She could watch him fight every day of the week, it never gets old. Chloe has secretly had a thing for Michael since they were little, but she always figured he never saw her that way. She accepted how close they are as friends, and has never told or shown him that she’s felt any different. She doesn’t want anyone to think she’s some sort of sissy lala for having those type feelings anyway.

After the few minutes it takes Steven to regain his strength and thought process, Michael hands him the weapon.

“You sure do have some giant red kahunas, Steven Smith,” he teases as he gives the crossbow up.

Anyone willing to take a punch like that over a dumb ol’ bow probably deserves to shoot it first anyway, Michael thinks. Plus, he knows that if he really wanted to shoot one first all he’d have to do is wink at Chloe and she’d hand hers over in a heartbeat.

For being the loudest and toughest girl he knows, she sure isn’t very good at hiding the way she blushes when he gives her certain looks or says certain things. Michael loves that she has no clue how much he notices her. To him, she’s like having a steaming mug of hot cocoa hidden away for no one else but himself to enjoy on rainy days. Once her teeth were no longer too big for her smile and the rest of her body grew into the size of her feet and hands, she became quite an attractive young woman. Any guy their age would be a fool not to notice.

Michael has always known she’d be his one day, but he does want to ‘get to know’ other girls before he’s ready to settle down with Chloe. So he’s decided not to let her in on his not so little plans for their big future together, just yet. In the meantime, he assumes that they’ll stay the same as they always have, until he’s ready for the rest of his life.

Their day, full of shooting the new-found toys, turns into weeks of much anticipated target practice before and after working on the farms. Soon, they have plenty of experience under their belts, and are each getting to be an awesome shot. It has become a part of their regular routine. It has only taken about three weeks and any squirrel, pigeon, rabbit, or badger within sight stands no chance. The larger game like deer and elk are a bit tougher to get close enough to for a good shot, but each of them is determined. It has grown to be a standing bet on who will nail the first one.

It’s a day like any other, Michael and Chloe are crouched down behind a fallen tree. They have mud caked on their flesh an inch thick. Mud is hands down the best camouflage. Not only does it hide them from sight, but from smell too. Fresh coyote tracks have been in this spot almost every day for the last week. The two sit in perfect silence, just waiting, as they have several times before, stalking an animal. That’s when they see it.

The biggest bear either of them have ever come across slowly makes its way to a pond, just a few yards away from them. The hair on the animal is thick and dark brown. Its paws leave tracks the size of dinner plates. They set their sights.

It’s Chloe who pulls the trigger first, and Michael nearly in unison.

“Got him!” She yells.

Chloe jumps up as soon as the arrows strike fur. But rather than the bear dropping like the small game they’ve killed in the past, or running off to die within minutes like it would have if it were shot with a g*n, the bear stands its ground. It is pissed… roaring ferociously and swiping its huge paws around in the dirt.

“No!” Michael yells as the bear storms toward them. “s**t, run Chloe run!”

They take off in the opposite direction. The bear’s gaining ground, and quick.

“Hurry, in the tree!” Chloe shouts as she starts up the base of a huge oak tree. Michael is right behind her.

“What are we doing Chloe? Bears can climb trees too, you i***t!” He yells at her while he’s scaling the branches like an ape.

As fast as humanly possible they scurry up the tree, branch for branch. Luckily, the bear is hit and wounded. It’s unable to lift itself up the trunk. Putting its front paws at the base of the tree, it bawls and bawls. It’s three-inch-long claws r****h the bark violently. It’s close enough to the two that they can smell the horrendous breath and see the steam pouring from out of its mouth.

“Oh my God, look at the size of its teeth,” Michael points out.

“I wonder how long it’s gunna’ take him to die?”

“I don’t know, we could be up here all night,” he says, peeking at her slyly out of the corner of his eye.

“Crap.” Chloe blushes, trying not to look back at him.

By the time the sun goes down, the bear is laying in a heap a few yards away. The smell of it is so strong, that both Michael and Chloe have been breathing into their muddy clothes for hours. They’ve eaten all the jerky out of their pockets and have drunk every last drop of water from their canteens.

They sit at the top of the tree, watching the beast pace back and forth while it waits for them to come down. It stares up at them occasionally, eyes glowing with anger. It chatters and clicks its teeth in warning every time they move around, and swats the ground with its enormous paws. Eventually its footsteps slow down and its breath grows shallow. Until finally, it collapses. They wait a while, just in case he isn’t completely dead before they climb down from the tree.

“We better get outta’ here before it gets any darker. Who knows what the smell of its dead body is gunna’ attract in the dark.” Michael says.

“We can’t just leave it here, maybe we should at least skin it.” She says.

“Are you crazy, or just stupid? We’re an hour from home and it’s already gettin’ dark.”

“Fine then. But if anything happens to it between now and the mornin’ I’m gunna’ shoot you with this stupid bow too.” Chloe threatens.

As a part of their compromise, Michael convinces Chloe to sleep the night on his couch so they can all go back to the pond early and get what they can of the bear in the daylight. They’d need to quarter the meat, hitch a ride to the county over and trade it all at the market for medical supplies, milk, wheat and rice. Its bound to be a full day’s project, so they’d need to get to it as early as possible. They should be able to get more than a month’s worth of supplies from the bear’s hide alone. That’s not to mention the meat, and claws.

Chloe offers to steal money from her father to support the Hounds family on a regular basis, but they refuse take the dishonest handout. So instead, she’s usually forced to shut up and help them earn a keep. They’d need to get the bear completely taken care of and sold at market before late afternoon when they’d be needed to feed and water the cows and chickens at a few surrounding farms.

After stashing the bows in their nearby secret spot, they haul butt in the dark to the Hounds' home. With a vicious blend of excitement and exhaustion from the day, Michael falls asleep as soon as they’re back and his head hits his pillow. Chloe is in and out all night. She can’t seem to rest easily, with her mind drifting from thoughts of the bear to those of Michael, sitting next to her on a branch of the tree.

She can’t stop thinking of the way their arms and legs touched, having to squish together so closely. She replays his comment of staying there all night over and over in her head. She imagines how it would be if he would just kiss her randomly during one of their adventures, and she wonders if he ever would. For a while, Chloe contemplates climbing in bed with him just to feel him breathe. She wonders what it would be like to hold his hand on their hikes, and to feel his arm around the small of her back while they sit outside in the dark, finding constellations in the stars.

Although she’s well aware of how sappy she is, thinking all of these girly romantic thoughts, Chloe just can’t help herself. She thinks about what their kids might look like, and even recites the name over and over in her head ‘Chloe Hounds, Chloe Hounds, Chloe Hounds. She loves the way it sounds.

After a while lying there, unable to sleep, Chloe starts to get angry at herself, knowing she’s going to have to wake up in just a couple hours. All that she really wants to do is go home, take a bath, and sleep in her nice clean bed. Though, even at home she’d probably wear one of Michael’s tee-shirts to sleep in, she usually does. Chloe has a collection of Michael's clothes that’s been stolen from him over the years. He’ll never know it was me, she convinces herself every time.