“What’s that?” my brother asked. He took the paper from me and quickly solved its puzzle, putting the pages in their proper order. “Whoa. You see this?”
He held the paper up, but I didn’t see what was so special.
“This.” He pointed at the bottom right of the page, at a small article continued from 1A, which was missing.
“‘Stranger’ Still on the Loose.”
“Is that the prisoner?” I said. But before he could answer me, we heard the rumble of a familiar motor.
“Oh no,” my brother said. “Rick.”
We looked up the hill, but didn’t see him. All we saw were the holes in the ground, the destruction we’d done.
“Quick!” my brother said. “This way!” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me along, shouting more action language. “Run for your life!” he said, and we ran all the way to the end of the rough, where the course met the woods. We stopped. A barbed-wire fence stood in our way: on it a cracked sign read KE P OUT.
At our feet several golf balls stained yellow with rain and age sat forgotten, waiting for their owners, who would never come.
“C’mon,” my brother said. “We have to keep going.”
We ducked under the barbed wire and disappeared into the woods. The trees were thick, and we struggled to find a path. Half-leafed limbs scratched back as we swam in. The little trees held hands and fought back like their parents. The woods don’t want us here, I thought. This isn’t a place we should be.
After a few minutes of wandering, we came to a small clearing. I looked up at the trees that towered above us, at the sun, whose rays couldn’t find the ground. This was not a comforting spot. There weren’t any old tires to sit on, no stumps or sizable logs. So I stood there, waiting for my brother to pull out the paper and read what it said. To reveal the story of the Stranger.
Instead, he snapped off a dead branch and pretended to fence a bush.
“What do you think about what Chris said?” he said. “About secrets.”
I stared at the unarmed bush and felt sorry for it. “I don’t know. It’s kinda cool.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Kinda cool. Kinda dumb, but kinda cool.” He stepped back from the bush and tilted his head, considering the best way to kill it. “You didn’t tell Mom, did you? About Chris?”
“I already told you. You told me not to.”
“Good,” he said. “Because it would only hurt her. And you don’t want that.”
He plunged his stick sword into the bush and let out a loud moan, making the dying sounds for his victim. He wiped his hands on his shorts and admired his work. “I’ve taken care of this villain. Now let’s find someplace to read this in secret.”
We left the clearing. I followed my brother back the way we came. Some of the branches were still bent, others had returned to their old selves. We took a random right and came upon a creek, and my brother and I stood side by side on the little bank. I noticed a gang of tadpoles swimming above the clay-colored creek bed. I crouched to get a better view. The tadpoles chased one another in circles. They had games of their own. I put my hand in the water where the tadpoles played, and they shot away from my fingers like fireworks.
“… is also known as the Stranger,” my brother said. He had begun reading the article about the prisoner, which apparently continued mid-sentence.
Kern has been a Kansas prison inmate since 1985, when he was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Morgan Wells.
In December 1984, Leavenworth police responded to an eyewitness report of a woman being dragged into her home by a white male. Upon arriving at the scene and entering the house, police found Kern with a gun to his head, standing over the deceased Wells and a camcorder. Authorities alleged Kern had set up a camcorder to record the murder of Wells, and planned to kill himself immediately afterward. Authorities arrested Kern before he could shoot himself, however, and he was convicted in March 1985. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for first-degree murder.
Leavenworth Police and the Kansas Department of Public Safety are assisting the Department of Corrections with the search. Prison officials declined to comment on how Kern escaped, but say he is considered dangerous. Anyone with information on Kern should call the police immediately.
My brother tore out the article and put it in his pocket. Later it would sleep beneath his bunk bed, hidden with the rest. “The Stranger,” he said.
“The Stranger,” I said, to hear how it sounded from my mouth.
“The Stranger,” my brother said. “The Stranger … is coming to get you.”
He turned his hands into claws and jumped at me, like Rick grabbed my mom. I tried to fight him off but he was bigger and quicker.
“Don’t fight it,” he said, squeezing me into a suffocating bear hug. “You’ll only make it worse.”
Let me go, I told him, please let me go. But when I heard my words they weren’t my own. They were softer, more desperate, the words of Morgan Wells.
“Relax,” my brother said. “Honey, relax.” He put his finger to my head in the shape of a gun. “It’ll all be over soon.”
I closed my eyes. It would be easier to let him do what he wanted, to let him play out his plot. This I knew from suffering before. So I let my body sink into his—Don’t do it, baby, please don’t do it—and wondered what it felt like to die. I imagined my brain shutting off like a television, the picture of the world beaming large and colorful, then, in an instant, shrinking to a single dot of white. I closed my eyes and felt my brother drag his finger up and down the length of my cheek. I felt his breath in my ear. This is what you get, he said. For talking to strangers. For sharing our secrets. He cocked the gun with a click of his tongue. Now smile for the camera, brother.
“Stop!” I yelled, as much in my own voice as I knew how.
“Sorry,” the Stranger said. “I can’t.”
“I’m not playing!
“Good, because this isn’t a game.”
“I mean it! Stop!”
The woods echoed with the alarm of my voice, loud enough for the whole course to hear. I felt my brother’s grip tighten, then loosen. “What?” he said. “OK, fine.” He let me go, but with a hard shove that nearly sent me into the creek. “I was just playing.”
“That wasn’t funny,” I said. “Why’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Why’d you say that, about secrets? I didn’t tell Mom about Chris.”
“I know,” he said. “You told Dad.”
He pushed me aside and washed his hands in the creek.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You did and I know you did.”
“I didn’t mean to. How did you know?”
“Because you’re my brother. And I would have done the same thing if I was your age.”
“Stop acting like you’re that much older than me.”
“I am.”
“We’re only two grades apart.”
“Yeah, but I’m smarter.”
“I’ll be just as smart when I’m your age,” I said. “No, I’ll be smarter. So I told Dad. It was at night. He was asleep. He doesn’t remember.”
“Good.”
“So you should have already known that. If you’re so smart.”
My brother shrugged. “When a secret is shared, people get hurt. That’s what we said.” He kicked a rock into the creek. “And Dad wasn’t asleep. He was drunk.” He walked away, leaving me by the water. I saw my wet reflection and thought of my dad. How he looked that night. The crooked shape his mouth took when I said he smelled like strawberries.